A spirit of resentment? Where did such a spirit come from? Black Unusual was suddenly on edge. The young spirit before him posed no real threat, but whoever could summon spirits must surely be the Night-Wanderer. Has the leader of the Dark Night Rose found me? Does he intend to outsource a direct takeover? As Black Unusual stood in bewilderment, a hurried footstep approached, and then a figure appeared at the alley entrance, peering curiously into the alley. It was a young man with a striking appearance, full of hope and curiosity, gazing at him. When their eyes met, the young man's face stiffened instantly. Black Unusual saw in his gaze emotions far more complex than his own—surprise, astonishment, even fear. A Night-Wanderer? His aura wasn't strong, not one of the Dark Night Rose. From the Taiping Sect? No—given the current time, someone who would appear here must be an official, a direct affiliate of Fu Qingyang... And now, considering the manipulation of the cosmic justice... The name Yuan Shǐ Tian Zun flashed through Black Unusual's mind. Whoa! Black Unusual?! He wasn't fighting at school, right? How come he's here? Little comic relief, you've ruined everything! Zhang Yuanqing quickly pressed the wireless earbuds and called out, "Teng Yuan, Senior, Black Unseen is with me—come quickly, the location is…" Before he finished speaking, the Black Unseen surged like a large bird, leaping across the walls and charging forward. His pupils contracted into narrow slits, his brown eyes shifting to amber. Sharp bone spines erupted from his back, elbows, and knees, tearing through his clothes with a sharp "screech." Excuse me, I'm sorry to interrupt—goodbye… Zhang Yuanqing didn't have time to speak, swiftly retreating while activating his Night-Wanderer skill to vanish from sight. The Black Unseen's attack was too swift—he hadn't even time to summon the little comic relief, only sending the child the "flee" command. A 6th-level Evil-class character at the peak of the Saint Realm—no matter how strong a Night-Wanderer, even a 4th-level one, would likely fall to such a force. The Black Unseen is a trusted aide of the former Council of Spiritual Energy, a true regional Zhang Yuanqing’s plan was clear—he had to escape! Yet he couldn’t fully retreat. Though he didn’t understand why he had ended up here, the fact that he was here meant that Fu Qingyang and the senior monks of the Hundred Blossoms Sect must have been compromised. At this moment, his priority was to delay the enemy as much as possible, buying time for the senior figures. Teng Yuan had already received his message. Suddenly, Zhang Yuanqing felt a searing heat in his lungs, and his throat ached and itched. He began to cough violently, his head spinning, and his body soon materialized. He hadn’t realized it, but he had already been struck by a venomous illness. “Crack!” The black Unusual Spirit, whose body was covered in bone spines, snapped both knees and launched himself forward with a sharp crack on the cement pavement, leaving no room for the enemy to react. He was confident he could dispatch the current Night-Wanderer in just two or three attacks. It was always decisive when a higher-ranked warrior hunted a lower-ranked one. The fierce wind rushed against him, and Zhang Yuanqing gazed at the enemies suddenly materializing before his eyes. His spine bristled with cold, and despite his bodily discomfort, he steadied himself, then summoned his mind to open the inventory. Zhang Yuanqing's body collapsed, barely dodging that fatal punch. Without knowing when it happened, a pair of brand-new red ballet shoes now adorned his feet. After stepping into a straight line to avoid the straight punch, the red ballet shoes launched with a springing leg, first rotating and leaping to evade Black Wandering's sweeping leg attack. Then, with exceptional anticipation, he executed a lateral jump to sidestep the vertical slash from the bone spines. Throughout the entire sequence, Zhang Yuanqing—the host—felt dizzy, gasping for breath and coughing up blood, completely winning without a struggle. "Quite a few props," Black Wandering remarked, raising an eyebrow. As a transcendent-stage Night-Wanderer, possessing two props was quite affluent. This Yuan Shang Tian Zun, having cleared two S-tier spiritual realms, was indeed a valuable asset. "Move! Hurry!" Zhang Yuanqing weakly uttered, issuing a command to the red ballet shoes. At this moment, he had no intention of delaying any further. The Saint-level Wuguo master was simply too strong—upon meeting him, he was instantly defeated, with such a vast gap in strength and speed that close-range combat was entirely impossible. This is also why he had not yet drawn out the Blood-Drinking Blade. As for the Ghost Bride, her rank should have reached the level of a Saint as well—yet the difference between Saints is still significant. He wasn't entirely certain about the Ghost Bride's exact standing, but he knew that Black Unusual, being a malevolent profession, was a Sixth-Rank Saint, which meant that only a few could surpass him at the same level. Once he made a misjudgment, there would be no room for maneuver—his path would be sealed. Immediately, the Red Slippers carried the now-useless master, clicking steadily, and ascended the steep walls as if they were level ground. The Red Slippers' rules disregarded terrain. They served both as a weapon of pursuit and as a means of escape. "Do you intend to flee?" Black Unusual sneered, not pursuing immediately, but instead reaching out into the void and plucking a simple straw figure from the air—about the size of a palm, with purple seals affixed to its front and back, exuding an atmosphere of decay and decline. The figure's face twisted, quivered, and slowly took shape—eyes and a nose bloomed into being, revealing the form of Yuan Qing. Its two feet also glowed with a deep red light. Black Lü used his two fingers to grip the rice man's feet and pressed hard. Yuan Qing, rushing through the building, suddenly felt his momentum stall. He looked down—his fresh red ballet shoes now covered with a layer of faded, worn-out color, as though abandoned for decades. He fell uncontrollably, crashing to the ground, stirring a fine dust across the street. "Ah—ah—" Yuan Qing coughed violently, spitting out streaks of blood. His lungs were severely compromised; the toxins had spread throughout his body. If not for his strong vitality, he would have already succumbed to organ failure. "Good shoes! They're mine!" Black Lü clutched the rice man's head with his two fingers, pressing hard, ready to crush this little creature at will. At the same moment, Yuan Qing roared skyward, and a beam of bright moonlight pierced through the clouds, bathing him in its glow. Roar of the Moon! With this, he regained some strength, reaching for the Fumigating Staff from his inventory and plunging it firmly into his thigh. A resplendent golden light erupted, dispersing the gray pallor that had just begun to settle on Zhang Yuanqing's face. Unfortunately, the purifying power only affected the host itself; the Red Slippers remained eroded by the gray decay and temporarily lost their magical properties. Zhang Yuanqing drew a few deep breaths, and the purifying force eased some of the toxin, reducing his pain, though only to a certain extent. As a Saint-level Wuzhu (Wu-Gu) practitioner, the toxin proved too potent and overwhelming—right from the start, it had left him half-disabled. The steady one's jade beads shattered; the flame gauntlets were certainly useless, the red slippers were contaminated, the dream jade symbol had already been consumed, and the demon-warding mallet excels at purification but not at combat. Today, for the sake of discretion, the Cat King speaker wasn't brought along—though even if it had been, it wouldn't have made a difference. The ghost bride might hold off the foe for a while, but she would likely fail to truly threaten the peak of a saint-tier evil profession. Zhang Yuanqing mentally reviewed his array of tools, only to feel a growing despair—trapped, utterly at a loss. This was the most formidable and terrifying adversary he had ever encountered as a Spirit Realm traveler. "Any other tools? The power of the Sun God?" Black Unusual was startled. The jade beads he had broken were merely of transcendent quality, but the red slippers that could automatically evade attacks, and the yellow bronze mallet just retrieved—these were far beyond the standard of transcendent-tier items. Especially the yellow bronze mallet, which carried the power of the Sun God, indicating that this tool embodied a portion of the sovereign-level strength. "Good fortune! Good fortune!" Black Unusual laughed, joy sparkling in his long, slender eyes. "Good fortune, you horse-herd!" At that moment, the window on the second floor lit up. An elderly man with a bald head pushed open the window, stuck his head out, and began shouting angrily at the two below. One, two, three seconds… Zhang Yuanqing suddenly realized something was wrong. The terrifying, overwhelming negative qi had not arrived, and the sounds around him had abruptly vanished. The entire world was now utterly silent. Black Wucang did not seize the opportunity to attack him. What was going on? Without consciously intending to, Zhang Yuanqing reached for the red veil to lift it—only to be startled to find his hands uncooperative. He could only move his eyes, desperately trying to peer through the narrow field of vision beneath the veil. Upon doing so, Zhang Yuanqing finally understood what had happened. He saw his own body turning pale gray, and the hard manhole cover beneath him, as well as the cement pavement, also coated with a thin layer of grayish-white hue. The colors—had they been taken away by some force? Just as he was pondering this, he suddenly heard a faint, low, and indistinct voice, chuckling softly: "I'm not mistaken—it's exactly this time, this place… Long time no see, Black Wucang." Black Wucang's voice, filled with astonishment: "You?!" "How could it be you? How could it possibly be you... No, that's impossible. That's impossible..." The voice cut off suddenly. Then, Zhang Yuanqing heard a sound of someone falling to the ground—thud. Had someone arrived? A major figure from some faction, perhaps the leader of the Night Rose? No, the Black Immortal's reaction seemed a bit too intense. Zhang Yuanqing's heart raced with urgency. Yet he could not move, nor did he know what fate awaited him next. Time passed—how long, he could not tell—his peripheral vision constantly catching the narrow field of view beneath the veil, watching as the gray-white tones gradually receded. Color returned to the world. Immediately, Zhang Yuanqing eagerly lifted the red veil and looked closely. A figure lay quietly several meters away, still and motionless—none other than the Black Immortal, the witch-guisher, his eyes wide open, his face frozen in a mixture of shock and terror. He had lost his life. Beside the body lay a delicate crystal cup, intricately crafted but cracked and resting quietly. The little sun in the cup had vanished. The person had taken the items left behind by the magus king, yet hadn't moved the Holy Grail? Zhang Yuanqing felt puzzled, rose with difficulty, and wobbled over to the body of the Black Unusual, picking up the crystal cup, cracked and full of fissures. He held the rule-based item firmly in his hands.