23 But This Isn't Even My Final Form

"AIE" the ghost had a miserable appearance after sustaining such a prolonged assault. It suffered countless blows, stomps, and burns sent repeatedly its way. Hu Wenxi was not pulling his punches, he genuinely wanted to completely eliminate this ghost. However the ghost's body was extremely resilient. In spite of its injuries it was still able to flee and even counter attack.

Hu Wenxi cast a rain of fire hoping to catch the slippery ghost however as it adapted to the attack and dodged skilfully while weaving through the air. The large sand ball construct chased after it, on the spherical surface heads of the boar, dragon, snake, and rooster appeared.

One by one these heads fired off energy blasts at the ghost. The boar breathed streams of concentrated fire, the dragon relentlessly unleashed Qi blasts form its mouth. The snake's blast was similar to acid and a tiny drop landed on the ghost arm and began dissolving its flash.

"AIE" the ghost lopped off its arm but got slammed in the face by the Qi blast. It fell into the stream of fire where its flesh was incinerated further. The ghost flew up in an attempt to flee however Hu Wenxi had already anticipated this and covered the skies in a thick sheet of ice made from his water spells.

The ice's surface also began raining icicles several of them penetrating the ghost's body. The flesh of the ghost was now relegated to a simple torso, it only had one remaining arm to support it. Yet still it continued to flee southwards.

"You're not getting away" the rooster head began calling in high pitch sound attacks. This began to distract the ghost thus slowing it down. While the ghost can hear sounds due to its spiritual origins it didn't have eardrums to burst hence it was only mildly affected.

Hu Wenxi swiped his arms and long tendrils of sand and water stretched out to grab the creature. Hu Wenxi did not want it to get away. The ghost avoided the sand tendril and slapped away the water tendril yet a second sand tendril stabbed into its body.

"AIE" its mouth roared in pain as several more tendrils stabbed into the ghost. Its current appearance resembled that of a hedgehog then the fearsome monster it was.

"AIE" the ghost attempted one last attack by sending out a massive phantom from its maw. This phantom was many times the size of earlier phantoms and its power easily eclipsed those of ordinary Human Immortals.

The phantom's momentum was able to stagger and even push back Hu Wenxi slightly. Luckily he blocked it with his sword, he entered more strength into his arm and flung the phantom back. "Begone pest" Hu Wenxi slashed downwards and a massive sandy light energy wave cleaved the phantom in two.

It continued along and went through the ghost's body. Purple blood gushed out of the creature. "AIE!" The body of the ghost somehow remained in one piece but fell into the ground below.

Despite Hu Wenxi's time reversal the trees were reduced to nothing but bark and splinters lying atop cracked earth. The monstrous ghost body lied on the ground. An obvious slash wound was on its body that bisected it vertically. However small tendrils were still trying to reconnect both parts.

It still possessed a couple of small eyes who all glanced at Hu Wenxi's descending figure. Hu Wenxi's face was cull of contempt for the ghost. There was no trace of pity, Hu Wenxi didn't feel any sympathy for Sam. The boy was just a cesspool of deluded toxicity.

"AIE" the ghost weakly called out, its eyes looked at Hu Wenxi in violent rage. It wasn't just angry, it was both insane and angry. One will eve call its look crazed. "At the end of the day, you're nothing special" Hu Wenxi raised his hand and a concentrated stream of fire slowed out. The emperor lit the ghost ablaze.

"AIE" it weakly called out as it was burnt. Its physical body was being destroyed along with its spirit. The ghost knows this and could only come up with one solution to saving its life. It may've been crazed but it wasn't mindless, deep down in that insane mind was Sam who despite everything wasn't retarded.

"What's going on?" Hu Wenxi immediately sensed something was amiss. Before he could properly respond a shockwave sent him tumbling back. When he got to his feet again he was shocked at the sight before him.

His immortal senses could pick up thick layers of hatred, sins of debauchery permitted the area. This resulted in thick smoky layers of sinful energy. It combined with its ghostly aura and a horrifying result appeared before Hu Wenxi's eyes.

"How it this possible" Hu Wenxi immediately attack with all his might. He created vast ball of sandy light containing enough power to white out entire worlds and basted it at the ghost before it could complete what Hu Wenxi thinks it's doing.

The monster's body was completely eradicated leaving behind a smouldering crater. Hu Wenxi's attack can easily destroy worlds, thankfully upper realms are far more stable and can handle repeated punishments even from True Immortals.

This however wasn't enough. To Hu Wenxi's shock, despite there not even ashes remaining, thick streams of etherial black energy conglomerated at he centre of the crater. A dark cloaked black skeleton with two massive skeletal arms and two small arms below it appeared. It possessed no legs but rather floated around like a genie. That is if genies were evil looking skeletons.

"Ah, Ah, Ah" it slowly raised its massive finger and wiggled it around. Its voice was a haunting distortion of a teenager's broken voice. This gave a spooky demeanour that only added to its monstrous nature.

"You really hate me that much huh, or was this always you?" Hu Wenxi looked at the floating creature and sneered, "How ironic, the self proclaimed hero turns out to be a creature of sin". Hu Wenxi did not fully understand what had happened. However he knew that the undead ghost had somehow converted into a devil, a fiend of sinfulness.

Hu Wenxi was on guard, he could sense the power emanating from the fiend. This fiend was at least as strong as the golden ape. This meant that it barely crossed into the threshold of a True Immortal.

"Hehehe, emperor is no win" the fiend said once again in its haunting voice.

"So you can speak, that's impressive. Are you still Sam in there?" Hu Wenxi observed the fiend carefully. Unlike the ape this opponent wasn't rampaging, it will be an even more difficult opponent.

"Sam is here, Sam is here. I am Sam, Sam wants play, Sam wants have fun, Sam wants you die." The fiend launched itself clawing at Hu Wenxi who erupted a pillar of sand from the soil smashing the fiend into the sky.

"Sam has fun, Sam has fun" the fiend opened its skeletal mouth, its black holes for eyes also showcased a swirling tornado of darkness within. "Sam huff huff, Sam blow you away" the fiend roared out 3 huge rays of darkness that began descending towards Hu Wenxi.

From the emperor's river map, thick streams of water dragons appeared and clashed against the dark pillars. The two pushed against each other in a bout of titanic struggle. The fiend was evidently concentrating everything at his rays. Slowly however it was beginning to be pushed back.

Hu Wenxi swiped upwards with his sword. A long slash of sandy light swept towards the skeletal fiend. Having no choice the fiend had to flee in order to not be hit. Hu Wenxi's water successfully shattered the pillars of darkness. They condensed into majestic dragons and chased after the fiend.

"Ah emperor strong" the fiend appeared undaunted and clawed at a dragon. The dragon also attack with its claw, the two met in the skies above and the dragon's claw shook. "Yippee, Sam so strong" the fiend raised all four arms and clawed the water dragon to pieces.

Splash!

Thick pools of water dropped from the skies, the dragon had completely dispelled. The fiend then rocketed at the other dragon, it bit down hard on that dragon's neck. It attacked with a corrupting smog ray that entered the water dragon.

Hu Wenxi who was also chasing felt his connection to the water construct disappear. "Impossible" he murmured but his eyes did not lie. The water dragon blackened into a monstrous fiendish dragon.

"ROAR" it reared in Hu Wenxi's direction and flew to attack him. "Yippee, so fun to watch" the fiend danced in the air and sent more rays of black light that transformed into phantoms to attack.

Hu Wenxi swiped his sword and knocked the dragon away. His hourglass flashed and all the phantoms froze midair. "You die" the river map shot our bullets of water that destroyed all the frozen phantoms.

"AWWWW, You no fun" the fiend wined as the black dragon tied around. Hu Wenxi shot bolts of Qi at the dragon who twirled its body around dodging the Qi blast. Suddenly a long icicle crashed into its head splattering it to bits. The water dragon misspelled afterwards.

"AH?" The fiend looked up to see thousands of icicles dropping on it. "OH NO" the fiend opened its mouth and thousands of dark spears shot out to meet the icicles. Hu Wenxi charged in for a melee assault at the fiend. He cut into the bone of its arms and punched out.

"AHHH!" The fiend was knocked back. Hu Wenxi raised his palm that was cloaked in spirit fire. He attack the fiend with lethal intent. Realising this the fiend dashed backwards yet still was hit in its spine like stomach.

It however righted its position in midair as Hu Wenxi relentlessly attacked with fire, water, and sword strikes. "You no fun. You no fun. Sam get more friends" the fiend circled around Hu Wenxi suddenly got close to his face.

Hu Wenxi immediately stabbed the creature however it only looked at him creepily, "BOOOO".

A magnificent white ghost like light illuminated the area blinding the emperor. Hu Wenxi immediately radiated a Qi field destroying everything in a kilometre radius of him. His immortal senses was fuzzy and he had trouble seeing.

When he opened his eyes he saw the destruction around him. Thankfully they were fighting in a known uninhabited zone else there would've been many civilian casualties.

What was perplexing was that the fiend had disappeared.

…

Qiang Mei Hua and other Human Immortals looked up at the skies of the royal capital. A massive black skeletal creature floated in the air.

"Nakama, Nakama!" It sang with a haunting distorted voice. Even the Human Immortals looked with fear. "What is that?" Qiang Wang finally got out.

The fiend was in its own little world. It was thrilled to have tricked the emperor. Without the mean emperor in its way, it can have fun with its 'friends' again.