The charge was quick and the jab was swift, Wu Xiaoming was almost thrown into the air after blocking this attack. The blade left a small cut on his shirt on his left waist, he could almost feel the tingling chilling energy from the blade - if he had not crossed his baton and staff in time, his heart would have been impaled.
The shadow did not wait for Wu Xiaoming to straighten his stance and simply pressed forward to stab at his chest. Wu Xiaoming immediately backed off and stepped to the side, while swinging his soapberry wood staff right at the shadow's head.
"Clunk!" The shadow raised its left hand to block this attack while redirecting his jab.
Wu Xiaoming's energy shield crumbled, the sword's tip was pushed to the side a little and penetrated the edge of his left pec. His muscles twitched and clenched onto the blade from the injury. Streams of paralyzing cold energy to flow into his body. And at the same time, with no holding back from his part, the swing of the soapberry wood staff broke and shattered the shadow's entire left forearm.
"ATTACK!" Wu Xiaoming barked, almost spitting directly at the shadow. The energy blast exploded right on the shadow's face, pushing it as well as Wu Xiaoming back. The blade retracted from his pec, and blood gushed from the wound. He immediately hovered his right hand over the wound, with golden light glowing all over his hand in an attempt to drive the cold energy out.
Before long, the bleeding gradually stopped - as the golden light burned a lot of the unclean energy away, while the Qi inside of his body pushed his muscles to close up the wound and stopped the bleeding, gradually consuming the rest of the energy that had invaded his body.
The shadow, on the other hand, also had to take a moment to recover. It was wearing some kind of helmet, but its face was not protected; at the same time, its left forearm still had yet to recover.
Inflicted with the wound, Wu Xiaoming could only use his right arm. And that was what he did again - while the shadow still seemed moments away from ready to battle, he lunged forward and swung his soapberry wood staff right at its neck.
The shadow raised its left arm and tried to parry the staff strike - but the sword itself was simply too small in size to stop the staff in its trajectory. The tip of the staff struck the side of the shadow's face, as if just giving it a slap.
"Attack! " Wu Xiaoming tried the same trick again, while unleashing a kick right at the shadow between his legs. Dishonorable, yes, but that was one of the least important things right now.
The shadow fell backwards, but before Wu Xiaoming could mount another attack, it turned into a puff of smoke shot up into the air. At the next moment it shot right at Wu Xiaoming. Wu Xiaoming leapt to the side to evade. And right when the smoke blew by him, it turned back into the human shape and swung its blade right at Wu Xiaoming's neck.
Wu Xiaoming lowered his head and dived backwards to avoid being decapitated. At the very next moment, the smoke shot back at him, while he launched himself at the heavily charred wooden board with fire talisman symbols engraved.
"Come here!" Wu Xiaoming yelled at the board just as he was about to take the second step. The board shocked, bounced and slid across the floor to meet his right hand. He clutched it with his three fingers and rolled on the ground to the side. The shadow manifested in its human shape once again, and its crooked blade slashed Wu Xiaoming's back, leaving a long, deep bash.
The smoke circled back in the air and tried to pursue Wu Xiaoming once again, but right when it almost got to him, he rolled to the side and flung a wooden board right at it, hitting the puff of smoke right on the "head".
"Foom!" "Crack!" A firestorm broke out, and the board itself also broke in half. The shadow's entire body caught on fire - the thinner black smoke surrounding its body was not as steady and suppressive of the fire talisman's power as its body itself.
"Got you bitch!" While the shadow whirled in the air, Wu Xiaoming lunged right at it with its soapberry wood staff held behind him. The shaft landed right at the shadow's waist, bringing it down on the ground and cracking its armored body up - cracks that glowed in a gray blue light.
He pressed forward, trying for another strike. But the shadow shot its right leg up and kicked him in the right forearm. The soapberry wood staff flew off his grip. He pulled back his right arm, slamming his palm right at the shadow's leg.
Blinding blue light flashed and a deafening crack of thunder exploded at the same time. A heavy dull object hit him on his left chest - right near the sword wound and forced him back.
Wu Xiaoming groaned and almost growled from the sharp pain shooting through his entire body. He still managed to pass the baton to his right hand and raise it before him, just in time to see the same puff of smoke, now less than half its former size, shot up and disappeared into the ceiling.
"Fuck fuck fuck - " Wu Xiaoming pushed himself to pick up his soapberry wood staff, before exiting the hotel lounge and heading towards the coffee shop.
He almost collapsed right the moment he went through the door. He had been stabbed in the ethereal realm before, but none was as painful and as debilitating as this - for those that did not result in immediate deaths, that was.
He ripped open his torn shirt - his left chest was almost all dark, as if it was heavily infected on the verge of necrosis.
"Fucking - fucking shit." He hovered his glowing palms over his left chest. The light indeed began burning away the curse, causing his pecs and skin to smoke in the process. But this process was not painless in the least, his muscles twitched and even spasmed a few times, causing him to almost bite his own tongue.
Both his Qi and his spirit were being expended at an elevated rate, from the looks of it, he would run out of either or both before he could fully quell this curse. On top of that, as the curse was being lifted and his flesh regained vitality, he began bleeding profusely from the wound as well. So there was only one choice: exit early without pursuing the shadow further, at least for now.
Du Bai was still asleep, curled up in a cradle position on the couch. No smell of burned talismans, the salt circle was intact, the canister of black dog urine seemed just the way it was. What was more importantly, his breathing pattern was still normal.
The time was 5:04 AM, so he actually was just in the ethereal realm for less than three hours. He checked his left chest again - the pec muscles were still slightly sore, but no, the curse did not follow him over to the physical realm.
The sense of relief was quickly washed off by disappointment when he checked his level - he was still level 11, with what looked like slightly over 10% of the experience bar to go. Apparently, his battle against the shadows in the lounge did not earn him as much experience as he had thought.
Current currencies: 23523 Spirit Fragments, 72 Vision Slivers. A little bit of a bump from before, just as expected. The final humanoid shadow that might or might not be Nicolas Sproutlinger was indeed a tough adversary to beat. He could in theory go back in, but 10% was still a lot judging by how big a drop off his experience gain was.
His stomach growled, and immense hunger followed. He needed to deal with this first.