Desolate Devouring Art - Chapter 1286 - Sirens Perish Song
Chapter 1286 – Siren’s Perish Song
The Heavenly Dao Book captured faint traces of dark magic lingering in the air. Even Vandore had found dark magic troublesome in the past; light and dark were two absolute extremes that could not coexist.
“Prepare to fight!” Vanya said. At the mention of dark magic, she seemed to become a completely different person.
The light and dark factions had fought for countless years on the Elven Planet, their feud deepening over time. Whenever they met, they fought to the death. They were all elves, yet their philosophies diverged, and battles between the two factions erupted again and again.
Liu Wuxie gathered his focus. He had never encountered dark faction elves before and didn’t know their combat style. He scanned the surroundings with his Ghost Eye and fixed on a large tree in the distance, where a man and a woman stood atop it, dark energy surging around them.
The two elves raised their bows and took aim.
“It’s the Andaru siblings!” Xiao Lan said. She knew of them, and fear flickered in her eyes.
“Siren’s Perish Song!” Vanya said.
The name alone sounded formidable; it was the first time Liu Wuxie had heard it. Black energy massed at the tips of the siblings’ arrows, collapsing the surrounding space inch by inch. As the arrows flew, a strange song like a siren’s echoed through the air—hence the technique’s name. Its terror had left no survivors before.
The Siren’s Perish Song bound their magical force and froze Vanya and Xiao Lan in place.
The siblings ignored Liu Wuxie from the start because he was only at the Origin Conversion Realm. They assumed they could kill him with a single strike.
Vanya chanted, and a torrent surged up before the three of them to block the Siren’s Perish Song. When the black arrows struck, a shockwave blasted out, comparable to a seventh- or eighth-level Primal Origin Realm strike.
Vanya possessed formidable strength, yet the dark faction’s magic still suppressed her. The two arrows punched through the water curtain and continued toward Vanya and Xiao Lan.
They had slain five cultivators at the fifth-level Primal Origin Realm yesterday, and now they faced danger today. Everything in the world had a counter. In recent years, the dark faction had suppressed the light faction and steadily squeezed its living space.
Just as the arrows were about to kill the two women, Liu Wuxie finally moved. He summoned the Heretic Blade and cleaved down, opening a path that met the two arrows head-on.
Magical force surged from the desolate world and intertwined with his true essence, forming a new energy. The sensation shocked him. He wondered if he could practice magic as well. He possessed several spells in his mind—no weaker than, or even superior to, Vanya’s Rain Arrows—but previously he lacked the magical force to cast them.
With the clangor of metal, his strike split the arrows. They dissolved into a mass of magical force and dissipated; they had never been physical arrows.
The siblings raised their bows again, this time aiming at all three. They launched a stronger Siren’s Perish Song.
Even Liu Wuxie felt a mysterious energy lock onto him. He had shattered the first volley easily because it targeted the two women, but now he was locked as well. His movement slowed. He could only shrug off such suppression if he reached the Primal Origin Realm. His cultivation was too low, and dark magic was bizarre. It resembled nothing from the faceless clan.
Vanya grew anxious. The Siren’s Perish Song was notoriously troublesome. Ordinary elves struggled against it unless they practiced the Doom Tempest—a wind-attribute spell so difficult that few in the elven race ever mastered it.
“Do you really think that I’m helpless?” Liu Wuxie said.
He sheathed the Heretic Blade and began to chant. A gale roared to life around him. The desolate world poured out magical force, and when it fused with his true essence, his magic carried a martial will.
He created a precedent by binding the two together. Though he hadn’t absorbed wind-attribute energy from the outside, the desolate world held all elements—wind among them.
“That’s wind magic!” Vanya said. Shock crossed her face. How could a human practice magic? She quickly chalked it up to her ancestor’s guidance. Perhaps Liu Wuxie carried elven blood.
If she had known the desolate world could encompass everything, her thoughts would have raced differently. Liu Wuxie could absorb and reproduce any energy—abyssal, witcher, ghostly, cursed, and more.
The gale intensified, and dread flashed in the Andaru siblings’ eyes. Liu Wuxie had cast the Doom Tempest—their natural counter.
Unlike Vanya, Liu Wuxie’s incantation carried a ferocity all its own. A wind vortex took shape, expanding in every direction. In a blink, it became a raging storm that swept toward the siblings, swallowing the Siren’s Perish Song entire.
“Leave immediately!” Andaru said.
They retreated without hesitation. Liu Wuxie’s Doom Tempest was more ferocious than any they had seen, infusing the profundity of humans’ mythical art into the spell.
The storm raged, leaving ruin in its wake. The storm crushed the tree the siblings had stood upon into dust.
Seeing them flee, Liu Wuxie did not give chase. He knew he couldn’t catch them, and they were determined to withdraw once their strike failed.
Fear lingered on Vanya’s face. Without Liu Wuxie, the consequences would have been dire; the Andaru siblings might have left them gravely injured.
“Who are they, and why is their magical force so powerful?” Liu Wuxie asked.
He sensed the siblings were comparable to ninth-level Primal Origin Realm strength. They had only rendered Vanya helpless because their magic countered hers. Had they fought to the end, it would have resulted in mutual destruction.
“They’re dark saints with the same rank as mine in the dark faction,” Vanya said. She was the saintess of the light faction, while Andaru served as a dark faction saint and possessed pure dark blood. In sheer magical force, he had long surpassed the elven elders.
“I see!” Liu Wuxie said.
He wouldn’t pay Andaru much mind if left alone. But if provoked, he wouldn’t hesitate to kill him outright.
They rested for two hours, waiting for daylight before resuming their journey.
That night, Liu Wuxie continued familiarizing himself with magic. With another offensive method, he wouldn’t fear future encounters with elves. Unfortunately, unlike against elves, magic did little against humans, especially the Doom Tempest.
Night over the mountains was dangerous and tranquil. Several races preferred to move in darkness: the ghost clan, the undead clan, and abyssal races that hunted by night.
Near the Immortal Slaying Domain, many races began guarding roads and robbing travelers of their blacksmithing materials. In only a few days, robberies had erupted in many places.
Liu Wuxie sat cross-legged, circulating the Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron to draw in spiritual energy. He closed his eyes and pondered the artifact he would forge.
Xiao Lan patrolled the perimeter to prevent ambushes, while Vanya practiced the Doom Tempest, which Liu Wuxie had taught her.
Her talent lived up to her title as saintess. In less than an hour, she grasped the basics. Though not as powerful as Liu Wuxie’s version, no one dared underestimate her storm.
A faint fog crept in as night deepened, and the air turned hazy. A chilling wind rose, and Liu Wuxie’s eyes snapped open.
“Deathly energy!” Liu Wuxie said.
Xiao Lan curled up, shivering; the elven constitution lagged behind that of humans.
“So cold!” Vanya said. She startled awake and peered into the fog, but her vision couldn’t match Liu Wuxie’s.
Relying on his Ghost Eye, he saw clearly within several thousand meters.
“We have guests,” Liu Wuxie said, rising to his feet.
Shadows drifted through the fog, gliding left and right without a fixed pattern. No ghostly energy lingered in the air, which meant they weren’t the ghost clan. If they were, his Ghost Eye would have found them long ago.
“The undead clan!” Vanya said as several figures drew near.
Liu Wuxie frowned. He held no feud with the undead, yet they had clearly come for them. Four figures approached, all wearing white robes that made their presence eerie and terrifying at night.
Their bodies were entirely white—their hair, faces, even eyes, which had neither pupils nor irises. As they neared, the temperature dropped further; a deathly energy pressed on Vanya and Xiao Lan, making them visibly uncomfortable.
“If you’re only passing through, use that path,” Liu Wuxie said.
A road cut through the terrain fifty meters ahead; they could use it if they merely wished to pass.
The four ignored him and kept advancing. Liu Wuxie’s eyes hardened. They were here for the three of them.
The undead clan dwells in places where deathly energy pools—graveyards and the like—and remains a mysterious people. Saturated by deathly energy year-round, their bodies held no vitality at all.
Zombies evolved into the earliest undead and, over time, formed the undead clan.
“The women stay, you die,” a strange voice said.
It came from the undead in the middle, whose pale finger pointed at Vanya and Xiao Lan before he ordered Liu Wuxie to kill himself.
