In the Other Shore, they pushed magic into madness, turning mana into numbers like frost etched on glass. They weighed every particle’s mass, density, size, and count like beads on an abacus under moonlight.

Rumor said with that precision, a second-tier mage could unlock vaults meant for the third and fourth, casting forbidden spells like arrows loosed into a storm.

Because study dug that deep, black magic crawled out like a shadow slipping from a lantern, cold and hungry.

The man from the Demon World saw mana congeal in Ouyang’s palm like hoarfrost on steel. He wouldn’t let that tide gather. Yet Ouyang’s fireball whooshed over like a spark across dry reeds.

A single fireball? Cole stiffened, mind snagging like cloth on thorns. Because of the world’s will, they’d both been holding back, keeping to mortal weight. A lone fireball felt absurd.

Confidence snapped like ice. He caught the fireball, and a burst of chill tore out like winter breaking a river. The ground for hundreds of meters flash-froze, a white sheet over earth.

Ice hidden in fire? Cole’s pupils pinched, his breath misting. He had never heard of nesting spells like knives inside scabbards of another element.

In Ouyang’s left hand, seven-colored sigils spun and reknit like a weaving loom under starlight. Moments later, a towering tornado unfurled, a dragon of wind clawing sky.

Lightning flickered inside that whirling spine, and wherever it passed, frost crawled like glass over bark. The gale ripped trees up, roots twisting like serpents in a flood.

Wind, lightning, ice… Cole stood stunned, mind blank as a fogged mirror.

He could shape multi-element spells too, but that was the gods’ table, high and distant. Even mortal archmages at the fourth tier couldn’t sit there. Yet Ouyang did, under mortal rules, like a diver walking on clouds.

Shock fizzed, but he wouldn’t step back. From those moves, Cole knew magic-to-magic he’d lose like sand against tide. His sharpest blade wasn’t orthodox magic. It was black magic, the night’s blade.

Banned or not, if he killed Ouyang, wind would erase the story like footprints on a beach.

Dark red arrays bloomed around Cole like blood-ink moons. He thrust a finger, and a beam shot out like a spear of dusk. Oblivion!

Naive. Ouyang snorted, the tornado raking air like claws, a wall where space wrinkled like paper. Beam met wind. In one breath, both vanished, smoke snuffed by rain.

Impossible. Cole’s heart pounded like drums. Oblivion shouldn’t trade blows and fade with a tornado. Black magic carves rules like a chisel on stone; Ouyang’s storm should’ve been chewed and then he, swallowed.

Not impossible, frog in a well. You simply never touched magic’s marrow. Or rather, we dug deeper than your gods carve. Ouyang’s left hand held black and white particles fusing like ink with milk. They spread, then rejoined, then spread again, a tide breathing.

He set the gray sphere, born of those twins, on his empty right arm. Gray ripples warped the air like heat over sand. With a few breaths, his right arm knit, muscle and bone returning like spring leaves.

Know why? My multi-element magic already brushes black magic’s edge, like fire kissing oil. Black magic is multi-element’s child—hidden where composite stands explicit.

He didn’t expect Cole to understand; the words were smoke to stall time and a peacock’s fan to show off. Cole lived up to it, face blank as fresh clay. He caught half the drift like a bird catching only wind.

For an instant, he felt a new door open like dawn cracking a ridge, a new field beckoning like grain waving in sun.

Too bad. Once Ouyang’s arm was whole, he wouldn’t leave him any time to dream.

A punch.

Ouyang stepped in, fist to cheek, a thunderclap at arm’s length. Cole flew, carving a trench in the earth like a plow, then slammed through a small hill, rock exploding like cracked ice.

The punch was a hammer heavy as mountains, and Cole’s divine body was iron. Under friction and stone, he kept only a bruise blossoming like plum and a few drops of blood like rain.

Boom. Buried in the range, Cole roared, rage blowing out rock like a furnace. Wild mana punched the mountains through, a tunnel lit by fireflies of debris.

Fists? As a noble mage, you used fists? Where’s your faith? His anger wasn’t at the cheap shot, but at knuckles thrown like a brawler’s oath. Mages duel afar, spell against spell. In Cole’s eyes, Ouyang stained the robe, a disgrace among casters.

Ouyang laughed, wind bright in his teeth. Mage? Faith? Sorry, I’m not a mage. And even if I were, who said fists are forbidden? He saw Cole as brittle wood, stubborn by habit.

Who wrote law on air for mages not to punch? Even if someone did, why should Ouyang kneel to that script?

Particles reassembled in his hand, a mosaic turning. Space warped around him like glass in a kiln. He was ready to throw a forbidden spell like a comet.

You faithless wretch, die! Cole’s roar ripped the air. Thirteen dark red arrays rose, beads of blood circling him. Chain Collapse! Thirteen beams cut toward Ouyang, and space behind them left black scars like claw marks in sky.

In Ouyang’s hand, ice and fire braided like twin snakes. He sent them spiraling at Cole. Mid-flight, they vanished, melted into one, and azure flame took their place like a sea lit from beneath.

Taboo magic?! Cole’s mind froze. Taboo meant yoking enemies—ice with flame, light with dark—forcing rivals into one pot. Collision birthed explosions like suns. Fuse them and cast—taboo magic.

Azure flame met thirteen beams. The explosion blew out like a stormflower, shockwaves tearing dust into halos. Only then did Cole notice—it was his black beams that burst like overripe fruit, while the azure kept flying, a hawk cutting wind.

He tried to slip through space, but found the air stiff as iron. Space had frozen like a pond in night.

The azure flame roared, burning plants, beasts, earth, and stone until color bled away like ink washed by rain. Everything turned gray, a landscape of ash.

When the blaze guttered, countless seven-colored particles drifted from the char to Ouyang’s palm like fireflies to a lantern. What remained behind was only gray, a sketch without pigment.

Gray sky, gray earth, gray trees, gray rock. Everything looked like it had lost its soul, a painting left in dusk.

Whew… If I didn’t need you alive, I’d have killed you with black magic already. Ouyang’s breath came rough, the spell’s price biting like frost. For a clean kill, any black magic he knew could have ended Cole. But black magic wrecks like a landslide; if Cole took it, he wouldn’t be like Ouyang, losing an arm and regrowing it like spring.

Branded by azure flame, things had their ling and ti split by force, spirit and body parted like mist and clay. The drifting lights were ling, the gray husks were ti. Cole’s ling sat in Ouyang’s palm like a bird in a cage.

Without ling, Cole’s body fell back to true form, a gray demon bull sprawled on the ground, house-sized like a barn made flesh.

Sigh… I, Ouyang, slay demons and clear the road for the common folk, and no one saw this heroic scene. His humor rose like steam, then faded like smoke.

No one would watch. They’d cracked the mountains like plates. People ran far off like birds from fire. Who would linger? Black scars hung in the sky, a tattered banner, and the earth caved in like a sinkhole.

Strange. Who was he fighting before? When Ouyang first saw Cole, his armor was already shattered, his strength thin as candlelight.

He couldn’t fathom it. You’re half-dead, I’m full, and you still come at me like a moth to flame? I didn’t chase you down, and you still bounced out? Where’d he get the confidence to pull a comeback?

A comeback? More like being brainless. Another riddle: Lagu I get—he’s Night Clan, and he can sense my Other Shore scent like salt on wind. But this bull demon king? Why pick me? And he did it while weak. Isn’t that stupid? Isn’t that brainless?

Fine. Stupid or not, Ouyang set the thought aside like a stone. He looked at Xi, wrapped in black mist like night around a lantern, worry gripping first, breath tight. It’s been so long. She still isn’t taken by Sin?