"If you submit to me, I may spare your lives," Li San intoned, icy disdain lacing his voice. "Yet you ungrateful fools persist in defiance."
"Submit to you? Act like your lapdog?" Fu Wansan barked, fury flaring across his features. "Dream on."
Zhuang Ruo nodded fiercely beside him. "The Li clan may be mighty, but that grants you no license to trample us."
"Besides," Fu Wansan added with scorn, "you are but an adopted son of the Li family—do not brandish their name to intimidate us."
His cutting words struck home. Li San's pupils constricted, murderous intent flickering beneath his calm façade.
"You wretched cur," hissed the bespectacled figure at Li San's side, "you have invited your own demise."
"Master, permit me to deal with these ruffians," Nán Tiān offered hastily, stepping forward. Li San inclined his head and spoke with deliberate cruelty: "Be gentle—do not slay Fu Wansan outright. I wish to watch him writhing, broken piece by piece, until he begs for death."
A sinister smile curved Nán Tiān's lips. "As you command."
Red Yánxūn shifted forward, prepared to strike, but Mò Lín's hand on her shoulder stayed her motion. "Stand down," he murmured. "I will handle this myself."
Earlier confrontations with Nán Tiān had taught Mo Lin that provocation must be answered. Nán Tiān sneered condescendingly. "You rush so eagerly… to meet your maker?"
His confidence sprang from one belief: Mo Lin bore none of the oppressive aura that marked a true Spirit-Keeper. He assumed Mo Lin's contracted phantoms were weak, that he was no more than an unremarkable novice.
Mo Lin's lips curved into a cold, mirthless smile.
"Spouting platitudes will avail you nothing," Nán Tiān announced, summoning his wraith. A faceless specter drifted into being at his side. "Fourth-rank spirit, terror-tier bound to my will. A prize you could never claim, even in a thousand lifetimes."
"Terror-tier, is it?" Mo Lin responded softly. "How quaint…"
Before Nán Tiān could revel further, Mo Lin called out one name: "Chén Xī."
A shroud of crimson mist swirled, revealing a spectral woman of flawless beauty. Her porcelain skin glimmered in the dim courtyard. The contrast between her ethereal grace and Nán Tiān's grotesque spirit was stark: where the ugly masked lesser wraiths, the most potent phantoms favored a serene, haunting loveliness.
"Nightmare-tier," Nán Tiān spat, disbelief twisting his features. Confronted with a single nightmare-class spirit, he'd faltered—he never imagined two.
Mo Lin's gaze remained serene. "Only one? Allow me…"
He spoke again, and at his side materialized another nightmare-class wraith, Chù Xíng. The alchemy of power was plain to see: even stalwart Spirit-Keepers recoiled, hearts pounding at the sight of Mo Lin's true mastery.
"Two…" Fu Wansan's bravado crumbled. Li San glanced at the sunlit courtyard beyond the beams overhead and drew a measured breath.
"Afraid?" Mo Lin's voice was gentle mockery. "Do you plan to kill me with those paltry toys?"
Silence fell.
"Three nightmare spirits," Mo Lin continued quietly. "Now, I wonder how Your Grace will confront this?"
In that moment, a third nightmare-class wraith—Hóng Yè—slipped silently into place behind Nán Tiān. The courtyard tightened into an iron cage of spectral might. Hóng Yè, though fairer than her counterparts, exuded a lethal potency unmatched by any lesser phantom.
Even the most seasoned Spirit-Keepers felt their resolve waver. Nán Tiān's forehead beaded with sweat as he realized the stakes: he faced not a mere aspirant, but a fifth-rank master, unrivaled in Cloud River.
Mo Lin stood amid the charged hush, the supreme enigma unmasked, his ascent uncontested.