Han Bo, beside him, his scarred face slack, nodded. "Four Core Formation cultivators in the forest was nothing. He's fighting twenty. Without a weapon. With his bare hands."
Zhou Wei, the lean young man, stared. "This... this isn't Core Formation. This isn't Golden Core. This isn't Nascent Soul. What is this?"
The purple-black aura intensified. Lau's body, the thin frame, began to change. The proportions shifted. The shoulders widened. The arms lengthened. The fingers extended. Claws, dark and curved, emerged from the fingertips.
The demon was emerging.
"Elder brother!" Xu Ran shouted. "Your body! You're..."
Lau's brown eyes, shifting to purple, turned to his younger brother. The gaze, the void-touched gaze, held a fragment of the boy within. A fragment that was fighting. Fighting the transformation. Fighting the demon.
"I'm fine," Lau said. His voice was different. Deeper. Resonant. The voice of two beings speaking through one mouth. "Stay back."
