The countless shadow spikes tore through the moonlit air, a tempest of obsidian death screaming toward Xiao in a convergent wave. From his perspective, however, they moved as if trapped in honey—languid, dreamlike, each wicked point tracing a lazy arc through the night. The Reiki he had forced into his eyes had sharpened his perception beyond mortal limits, painting the world in crystal clarity while slowing its savage violence to a crawl.
Xiao's head tilted downward, just slightly, bringing his golden, vein-threaded eyes to bear directly on the approaching storm. His expression was calm, almost serene—but beneath that stillness, a quiet intensity burned. The golden aura of his Sun God's Presence flickered around him, no longer a steady inferno but a wavering flame buffeted by an invisible wind. A silent reminder: his time was running out.
He could feel the technique beginning to fray at the edges.
Still, he did not flinch.
A low sound escaped his lips—not a sigh, not a grunt of effort. Something quieter. Something almost amused.
"Hmph."
Xiao surged forward, driving straight into the storm of spikes.
His body moved with effortless, side-to-side precision—each subtle shift of his weight carrying him through the impossibly tight gaps between the obsidian projectiles. To any ordinary eye, he would have appeared to be glitching, his form fragmenting into a blur of golden light and motion. But there was nothing chaotic about his advance. Every sway, every breath, every minute adjustment of his shoulders was deliberate—a dance performed at the edge of death.
He wove through the barrage as if the spikes were nothing more than scattered leaves on a forest floor, parting before his passage with silent obedience.
Meanwhile, Finn Bowing stood frozen at the edge of the clearing.
His eyes had grown wide, their usual sharpness dulled into stunned disbelief. He couldn't track the speed. Couldn't follow the movement. His master had become something beyond perception—a phantom wreathed in fading gold, slipping through certain death like water through fingers.
A single, breathless sound escaped his lips."Ah."
Finally, Xiao slipped past the last spike.
The moment it whistled harmless behind him, he exploded forward—no more weaving, no more grace. Just raw, blinding acceleration. His feet dug into the earth as he broke into a full sprint, both arms drawn backwards at his sides,.
He ran with the weight and momentum of a charging bull, his golden aura streaming behind him like a tattered banner in a hurricane. The ground trembled beneath each footfall. The air cracked in his wake.
As Xiao continued his sprint toward Kiba—still several paces away but closing fast—the demon's monstrous stomach-maw stretched into a devilish grin. Kiba's pure white eyes widened slightly, gleaming with something between anticipation and hunger.
Then, the mouth on his stomach gaped open.
A flash of purple light erupted from its depths, washing over the battlefield and plunging the world into stark silhouette. For a heartbeat, everything went black and white—the trees, the sand, Xiao's charging form frozen mid-stride in negative.
The light subsided, but what remained was worse.
A tiny orb of violet energy began to grow within the maw, pulsing like a malignant heart. The sound of the jungle died first—no wind, no insects, no rustling leaves. Then the silence swallowed everything else. The only thing left was a low, tearing rumble, as if the very fabric of the air was being ripped apart thread by thread.
The orb convulsed. It swelled. It roared.
And with a silent scream, it erupted into a supercharged beam of pure, violet destruction—hurling itself directly at Xiao.
Meanwhile, Xiao Yong Huo moved.
The blast had been unleashed at the speed of light—less than a heartbeat from Kiba's maw to impact. Any ordinary fighter would have been erased before their brain could register the flash.
But Xiao's gaze remained laser-focused, his Reiki-enhanced eyes pushing beyond their limits. The violet beam, which should have been instantaneous, seemed to crawl through the air before him—a creeping tide of annihilation he could trace inch by inch. The veins branching from his skin to his golden irises bulged sharply, a silent testament to the strain.
He didn't retreat. He didn't panic.
He slid.
His feet dug into the soil as he dropped his center of gravity, both legs carrying him forward in a low, controlled glide. His upper body leaned back, tilting away from the path of destruction as his momentum propelled him onward. The supercharged beam roared past just above his chest, so close that its purple hue painted his face in violent shadow and light.
He could feel its heat. Its weight. Its hunger.
But it did not touch him.
Xiao Yong Huo's feet continued to slide forward across the dirt, his momentum unbroken. Then his eyes snapped sideways—left—and with a minute adjustment of his hips and shoulders, he shifted his trajectory. He slipped out from underneath the roaring beam, gliding to the side as the violet destruction thundered past his shoulder.
The beam still raged at his flank, close enough to bleach the world in purple, but Xiao was already moving beyond it.
He dug his feet into the earth and exploded forward once more—resuming his sprinting charge toward Kiba with the beam tearing along beside him like a leashed storm. His golden aura flickered, strained, but held.
HE WAS CLOSING THE DISTANCE
Upon seeing this, Kiba's brow furrowed in terror.
He twisted his upper body sideways—angling toward Xiao, who was still charging forward—and the hellish beam erupting from his stomach-maw followed the motion, sweeping directly toward Xiao's face.
But Xiao's eyes never flinched.
With a swift, almost lazy pull, he drew his upper body backward, arching away from the beam's path. The violet destruction waved past his forehead by a fraction of an inch—close enough to make his golden aura flicker wildly, close enough to cast his features in sharp, violent light. Behind him, the beam tore through countless jungle cliffs and ancient trees, carving a path of annihilation across the landscape.
And in that moment, the world went piercingly silent.
Then came the explosion—a distant, thunderous collapse as the beam finally spent itself and detonated against something far beyond the treeline.
But Xiao was no longer listening.
Closer... he thought, the word a cold whisper in his mind.
He brought his upper body back to position, refocusing on where Kiba had stood—
And his eyes widened slightly.
Kiba was nowhere to be found.
Then came Kiba.
He dove toward the ground like a rocket, the shadow cloak at his waist surging upward to engulf both his arms in a thick, writhing darkness. The shadows swelled, coalescing into a fist three times the size of his own body—massive, dense, forged from pure malice.
He unleashed it toward Xiao.
Xiao's eyes flickered upward. His gaze intensified, sharpening to a razor's edge. His golden aura—the fading embers of Sun God's Presence—suddenly flared with a brilliance that rivaled the sun itself. Light erupted from him in a violent, expanding corona, swallowing the clearing in pure radiance.
"SHAA!"
The cry tore from his throat—not a word, but a release. A detonation of will.
The light was so blinding, so absolute, that Kiba's colossal shadow fist didn't just stop. It didn't shatter. It vanished—disintegrated into nothingness as if it had never existed. The golden flare pushed back the night, bleaching the jungle in day-bright illumination that stretched for hundreds of yards in every direction.
---
Meanwhile, Finn stood frozen at the edge of the clearing.
He threw the front of his palm across his eyes, the light stabbing through his fingers like needles. His teeth ground together, his jaw clenched so tight the muscles in his neck stood out like cords. He fought to keep his gaze forward, to see something through the blaze—but all he could manage was a strained, frustrated sound.
"T...tch!"
Back at the heart of the battle, Kiba's colossal shadow fist dissolved under the blaze of Xiao's golden light. The demon's arms were left bare—ungloved, exposed—as his body began to fall headfirst toward the ground.
But Xiao wasn't finished.
Before Kiba could even begin to right himself, Xiao moved. Smooth. Quick. His sidestep was a practice-honed thing—composed, economical, his golden aura trailing behind him like a loyal flame as he shifted out of the demon's trajectory. He made way.
Kiba fell past him, still upside down.
And Xiao raised one leg high above his head.
He brought it down like the back of an axe.
The blow connected cleanly underneath Kiba's chin with a thunderous CRACK that echoed through the jungle like a cannon shot. The demon's head snapped upward—driven into the hardened earth with a sickening smash. The ground buckled on impact, spiderwebs of cracks racing outward from the crater as dust exploded into the air.
"DHAA!"
Xiao's yell tore through the night as he completed the strike, his leg buried in the aftermath of devastation.
"AND NOW..."
Xiao leaped backward—just enough to create distance from Kiba's buried, crumpled form. He clasped both hands together, the sound of his palms meeting echoing through the clearing like a seal being locked. His gaze intensified, something resembling rage flickering beneath the calm.
His golden aura surged.
It rose higher, expanding in both size and ferocity, before shaping itself into a massive, luminous sphere that engulfed both him and Kiba within its burning core.
"TO END THIS... SOLAR SPHEREEE!"
Xiao Yong Huo's scream tore through the night as the sphere's brightness intensified. The yellow light deepened, shifted—becoming an eye-searing white that radiated heat capable of vaporizing almost anything it touched. The air itself began to shimmer and warp.
---
Finn Bowing snapped his eyes shut.
He threw both palms over his face, but the light pierced through his fingers, through his eyelids, searing itself into his vision. The flash was so intense that the contrast between night and day simply ceased to exist—the jungle was bathed in blinding, noon-bright radiance.
In the center of it all, Xiao burned like a living sun
And finally, the light settled.
Xiao's golden sphere dimmed and died, surrendering the night sky back to the stars. In the same instant, his legs buckled. He stumbled onto one knee, his breath coming low and labored—loud in the sudden stillness, soft in its exhaustion. His gaze dropped to the ground beneath him.
His white pants hung in tatters, torn across his thighs, ravaged by the toll of his ultimate technique. Core State: Sun God's Presence. The final gamble. Solar Sphere.
The environment around Xiao—where he now knelt—was unrecognizable. A giant's footprint carved into the earth: five to six metres deep, thirteen metres wide. Everything within that radius had been vaporized, reduced to ash and silence. A testament to his power.
And to its cost.
My time... up already, he thought, his breath pacing unevenly against his ribs.
I think I got... him.
"H... he won. Xiao-sensei..." Finn said, his face slowly shifting from silent panic to relief. The tension bled from his eyes as he let out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding.
Back in the crater, Xiao managed to rise onto both legs. His bare, muscular chest and back rose and fell with each paced breath—still recovering, still standing. Despite the exhaustion carved into every line of his body, a soft, warm smile returned to his lips beneath the cool night sky.
He turned to face Finn, who stood afar, and offered a silent nod of acknowledgment. A wordless exchange between master and student. A quiet warmth passed between them in the aftermath of battle.
But then—
As surprising as it was sudden, Xiao Yong Huo felt it.
A shadow tentacle pierced through his back, tore through his chest, and erupted from the other side. It struck the earth with a dull thud, embedding itself into the dirt beyond. A mouthful of crimson burst from Xiao's lips, splattering across his chin as his hands instinctively gripped at the bloodied wound. His teeth clenched against the pain.
"NO WAY! XIAO-SENSEI!"
The words escaped Finn's lips uncontrollably, his mind struggling to process what his eyes had just witnessed.
Xiao managed to peek slightly over his shoulder.
There, silhouetted against the moon, stood Kiba.
He was perched atop a deep pool of shadow—no larger than a pebble's worth of darkness. A simple pebble's shadow. That was how he had escaped the Solar Sphere. That was how he had survived. The demon now stood at the edge of the giant crater, looking down at his prey.
The shadow tentacles withdrew from Xiao's chest, slithering back serpent-like to the shadow cloak at Kiba's waist. The monstrous mouth on his stomach began to move, its tongue swaying left and right, thirstily tasting the air.
"Gwa... Gwhaa..."
As Kiba withdrew the shadow tentacles from his back, Xiao turned slowly to face him. He stood at the bottom of the crater, looking up at the demon perched atop its edge. His glare was defiant—mingled with pain, yes, but unbroken. He cupped the wound on his chest with one palm, blood seeping between his fingers, his legs clearly struggling to keep him upright.
"At this point, it's no surprise", he thought, the words heavy in his mind. As long as there is even a shade of darkness in sight, he will crawl through it to escape... That's why—
His right hand clenched into a tight fist at his side.
Ready for the worst.
---
"Gwaaa... Ghaa... Gha ha ha... Gha!"
Kiba's laugh echoed through the night—a crazed, psychopathic cackle that bounced off the crater walls and scattered into the trees. He was clearly amused, savoring the moment like a beast toying with its wounded prey.
Then, just as suddenly, he stopped.
The monstrous mouth on his stomach snapped shut. His pure white eyes intensified, sharpening into a glare of death.
And in that instant, he leaped.
His jump was like a jet blast—dust exploding beneath him as he rocketed into the night sky, leaving a swirling wake of debris. He climbed to roughly eighty-five feet, hanging there against the face of the moon, towering over everything below.
A judge suspended above the condemned.
About to deliver his verdict.
Then, his monstrous mouth gaped open again—mid-air, impossibly wide.
A roar erupted from the stomach-maw, loud and guttural, echoing across the jungle and into the night. It rolled through the trees like thunder, shaking leaves from branches and scattering wildlife into silence.
"GWHAAAA!"
Xiao and Finn both tilted their gazes skyward toward Kiba—their faces a study in contrast: defiance on the old master's bloodied features.
"Not... Good," Xiao said, his tone laced with defiance despite the blood still wet on his lips.
Kiba's roar continued to echo, relentless and building. As it swelled, something else began to move below.
Shadows
From every tree, every rock, every object that dared to cast a shade—darkness began to swirl. It rose from the jungle floor in slow, deliberate streams, curling upward like smoke pulled toward an unseen vacuum. All of it flowed into Kiba's waiting maw. His mouth became a black hole, drinking the shadows, consuming the night itself.
The shadow cloak at his waist pulsed and intensified.
And as he swallowed each shadow, whatever had produced it began to dissolve. Trees crumbled to black ash. Rocks fragmented into dust. The very landscape around him was being unmade—turned to nothingness with every gulp of darkness.
A purplish-black Flame of aura engulfed Kiba completely, expanding wider and wider, feeding on the annihilation below
After a few seconds, Kiba stopped.
His dark aura—a swirling mass of purple and black—flickered around him like a wide, hungry flame. His white eyes narrowed slightly, sharpening into something cold and serious. He stared daggers down at Xiao Yong Huo below.
On the jungle floor, the devastation was absolute.
Roughly eighty percent of the jungle—the cliffs, the ancient trees, the dense undergrowth—was simply gone. In its place stretched a barren, open landscape, laid bare beneath the night sky. What had once been a labyrinth of shadow and foliage was now a plain of ash and dust.
"He... devours shadows?" Finn said from the clearing, clearly stunned. The bushes and trees that had stood behind him moments ago had also vanished, leaving him exposed in the open field.
Xiao Yong Huo heard his student's voice. He glanced sideways—over his shoulder, past the shadow cast by his own body—toward Finn, still standing afar.
"Yes," he said simply. "He does."
He turned back to face Kiba, his expression settling into something calm. Deliberate. He took a step forward. Then another. Each footfall was measured, powerful, despite the blood still seeping from the wound in his chest.
"We are in luck," Xiao continued, his words directed at Finn but his gaze locked on the demon above. "He isn't at full strength yet—not after breaking free from his seal."
Another step.
"Otherwise, that stunt he just pulled would have left us shadowless. And fading to ash."
Finn's eyes flickered for a moment—doubt creeping in—but then he lifted his gaze to Xiao, who continued his slow, powerful steps forward, unhurried despite the blood seeping from his chest.
Not at full strength... No. No way.
"It's the truth," Xiao said, his voice steady despite the obvious toll. "In fact, I witnessed it firsthand. His battle with the Emperor,his elite soldiers. And Elder Nakami—the Second Supreme Elder before me." He took another step, even and deliberate. "That was 167 years ago."
Then, in that moment, the dark purple aura surrounding Kiba—high above in the night sky—began to waver rapidly. He opened his mouth for the second time, and a swirling wind erupted around him. A black sphere of shadow materialized on his stomach, coated in a steaming purple aura. The air thickened. The night bled into shades of black and white, the world leaching color once more.
Xiao stopped in his tracks.
His hand, still cupping the wound on his chest, dropped to his side. His gaze remained laser-focused on Kiba above, his expression unreadable. When he spoke, his words were not directed at the demon—but to himself. A quiet realization.
"...Perhaps I miscalculated,you might have access to your full power cause if you weren't you won't be devouring almost the entire forest as fuel... still it doesn't change the fact you don't have enough strength yet to devour a shadow from living soul, do you? Heh."
A faint, weary chuckle escaped his lips.
After Xiao Yong Huo's statement, Kiba leaned his upper body downward, aiming with his stomach. The dark sphere of energy inside the monstrous mouth pulsed—beating faster and faster, like a second heart about to rupture. Purple steam erupted from its edges, hissing into the night air. It was ready to blow.
The atmosphere around them grew colorless, the drain spreading wider. The night sky, the trees, the crater—everything within eyesight lost its hue, bleached into stark black and white.
Finn stood frozen in the monochrome world. His gaze flickered from Kiba—towering above, swollen with impending destruction—then snapped back to his master. His grip on Xiao's straw hat tightened at his side, knuckles white. His teeth clenched so hard they ached.
Please...
Then, with a thud that silenced everything, Xiao slammed his left palm against the ground. His other hand lifted high into the air, his body bent in a half-crouch. His half-closed eyes lingered on the earth beneath him—then snapped open, burning with intensity as he screamed.
"YOU WON'T HAVE YOUR WAY! MY WILL IS STRONGER THAN YOUR HATE—EVEN IF IT KILLS ME..."
He paused. Then tilted his face upward toward Kiba, who loomed above. Through the colorless night, Xiao caught a glimpse of a bright purple flash—the dark sphere steaming with raw, violent energy, already ready to strike.
His voice dropped to a whisper, but it carried like thunder.
"Reiki Bu no Ryū: Blazing Rings... Blazing Fist."
In that instant, three rings of pure red fire spiraled to life around his raised arm. They spun rapidly, hovering in the space between his wrist and elbow, expanding furiously wide like a tornado. The ground beneath his feet grew hot—then began to melt. Circles of earth liquefied into glowing lava, spreading outward from his stance. The heat was so intense that the very edges of the deep crater began to soften and collapse inward.
Xiao Yong Huo lifted his head high, the triple rings of fire now expanded to the full width of the crater, turning its walls to molten stone.
He spoke again, calm and final.
"...Now let's get this over with."