Hu Wenxi began the exchange by immediately attack. He swiped out with his wooden sword. This sent a large wave of sandy coloured energy towards the monstrous Sam.
Unfortunately Sam leapt over the slash. It gabbed the energy before throwing it back towards the emperor. Not to be deterred Hu Wenxi unleashed several more dispelling his own attack and forcing the monster receive the hits with its own body.
Sam's undead monstrosity was very strong, it easily able to tank all the slashes with minimal damage. Even the strongest of the slashes barely grazed its skin. "Pathetic" the monster leapt into high into the air. The earth beneath it shattering as he jumped with overwhelming force.
Sam reached Hu Wenxi's position in the sky in an instant. He had crossed many dozens of kilometres into the sky in order to reach the emperor. As soon as Sam came in before Hu Wenxi it raised its largest fist and brought it down. This blow contained overwhelming force and could've easily killed peak Martial Saints.
Hu Wenxi's responce was quick and calm. He raised his wooden sword and blocked the punch. Hu Wenxi's robes fluttered wildly in the wind generated by the punch. However his face betrayed no expression but a simple glare.
Sam was startled by Hu Wenxi's block, it raised two more small fists and punched towards the emperor. Hu Wenxi simply twisted his wrist and brought the tip of the blade upwards blocking all 3 punches. On his left hand, the river map glowed, the loud sound of a violent stream could be heard.
Out from the map a violent stream of water charged out. It crashed into Sam's massive body forcing it away. The stream coiled in the air like a dancing dragon several times disorientating the monster. It then went straight for the earth below crashing Sam into the ground. The force was so great a spiderweb was created.
Hu Wenxi followed this up by raising his sword hand, a large cloud of sand appeared above him. It too crashed towards the downed monster like a pillar of solid mass. "Grah" Sam grasped as he was slammed down before he could get back up.
He mass of sand buried Sam before rising up and slamming down again. It was like a giant pizza being flung into the air only to crash back down again. Each time it landed it crushed Sam more and more.
"NO MORE, SUPER PUNCH" the monster roared and punched out with all its fists. This was enough to break the massive cloud. This allowed the monster to see Hu Wenxi's figure once more, his expression hadn't changed, instead he looked to have found this amusing.
"You think its funny" Sam breathed out a smoky wave of ghostly power at Hu Wenxi. The emperor raised the river map and its water was released once more. It clashed against the ghostly power like two opposing waves slamming into each other.
The sand clouds surround Sam suddenly acted. They all flew in the direction of the monster and constricted its boy in various binds made of sand. "What?" Distracted Sam immediately began flexing its muscles to break the chains however as each of its limbs were individually restricted by as many as a dozen seals, the undead beast had trouble moving.
Before Sam could put anymore power into its resistance, Hu Wenxi's stream of water engulfed the monster. It formed a large circular dome of water drowning the beats in its centre. The purpose of this spell was not to drown Sam, no that's stupid. The monster lacked a nose nor did it have gills. It truely did not require oxygen to survive.
All living beings required oxygen to survive. Powerful cultivators could survive only on Qi and as such did not require food nor water. Beverages and gourmet dishes were just that, delicacies, not necessary for survival. As such acts such as drowning is useless on cultivators.
This is even more so for ghosts. Undead beings are not alive, they did not require oxygen to remain active and only needed spiritual energy to do so. Necroplasm is native to the netherworld but can be found in the material universe. It comes through in areas with dimension tears, graveyards or any areas of great death, and corpses. Ghosts also naturally produced it and are essentially immortal unless killed. Even then they are extremely hard to deal with as they have powerful regeneration abilities.
Hu Wenxi's spell was to both restrict and to crush Sam. The water dome expanded crazily as the river map fed more water to it. It enlarged until it was over 1000 kilometres in radius. Its pressure is crushing Sam with immense force. The monster tried to resist but as time goes on it could feel itself loosing the battle.
Sam could feel his bones beginning to break, he could feel his skin contorting, he could feel himself being crushed to paste. "GAH, I will not let this slide". The water began condensing in on itself, even more force was placed on Sam. This magical water was infused with Hu Wenxi's water Heavenly Qi. It cannot be judged with conventional laws of physics. The amount of power it can output can crush an ordinary minor world.
Sam opened its gapping maw. Several of its eyes turned black and it appeared to be charging power. The monster spat something out that was coated in a protective layer of necroplasmic energy which resembled a black fog. This fog traveled through the water propelled by all of Sam's power. Eventually it broke the surface and escaped. The monster's body was immediately crushed into past.
The water dome shrunk until it was the size of a pebble and flew into Hu Wenxi's hand. It suddenly ignited in fire until nothing was left. Hu Wenxi saw the fog that flew out, "You only recently became a ghost yet you're already aware of your special abilities". It was a genuine compliment from the emperor.
The fog transformed into the shape of Sam's undead monster body. It regenerated bone and flesh changing back to its hideous form albeit with depleted energy reserves. "I am a chosen hero, not some stinking self righteous xianxia MC. Don't compare me to you". The monster charged at Hu Wenxi who flew back in time to avoid some vicious swipes.
Sam's many eyes shot out black lasers at the emperor who simple dodged and weaved around the blasts. Some lasers were even blocked by sand clouds floating in the air. Hu Wenxi got close to Sam and threw his wooden sword. The weapon was coated in Hu Wenxi's power and shot at the monster.
Sam met the sword head on with a punch of his own. Two of his fists worked together to repel the sword. Said weapon flew back into the air anding in the palm of Hu Wenxi who swiped out with it cutting into Sam's largest right arm and hacking off one of its smaller arms.
Sam screamed in pain, "NO, you'll pay for that". It grabbed out to wards the emperor who raised his left hand in a palm meeting the monster's attack with a palm strike. They canceled each other out however Hu Wenxi's river map floated behind and blasted Sam once again with a hydro blast.
The water pushed Sam rocketing away slamming him through a large mountain further north. Hu Wenxi then created a massive sand bull that followed the path of water. It charged with impressive speeds easily slamming into Sam injuring him even further.
Hu Wenxi immediately took off towards Sam direction. More and more sand gathered around him forming into other large animals. Among them was a wolf, a chicken, a boar, a snake, and a mouse. The emperor reached Sam who while still wet was wrestling with the sand bull.
The monster had surprising strength and was able to easily toss the animal many metres away. These san constructs were not as big as they were when they were fighting the golden ape but were still easily dozens of metres tall. The bull was bigger then the monstrous Sam and yet it was overcome. It may be smaller but it was no less powerful.
The wolf and boar charged forwards with the canine attempting to bite Sam's massive biceps while the boar cloaked itself in blueish flame. Sam easily smashed the wolf's head in and slapped away the boar. However the flames were caught in its arm.
"AHHHH" The herculean monster screamed in a gut wrenching scream. For whatever reason these flames was immensely effective against him. Hu Wenxi smirked, this fire was derived from a special spiritual fire known as the 'True Flames of Nether'. In ancient times this was one of the top magical fires that was especially effective against ghosts. It was also known as the 'Soul Fire' or the 'Fire which burns to Dead'. It was in the Same category as the 'Golden Crow Sun fire', 'Phoenix Reincarnation Fire", "Zhurong God fire", and "Siren Origin Fire". It even rivalled the legendary 'Flames of Sahmedi'.
This flame may not be anywhere near as strong as the above example but for Human Immortals it was a devastating weapon against ghosts of equivalent rank. "How are you doing this? What is this?" Sam screeched in even more pain before choosing to lop his entire left body off. Without the support of Sam that portion of the body was reduced to nothing.
"You can survive those flames and you could survive me fighting like this" the sand snake coiled around Hu Wenxi while the chicken got ready to attack. Sand clouds reformed the boar and wolf while the bull returned. "You are very strong, you may have never cultivated a day in your life but somehow you acquired the power of a Karmic Lord".
Sam looked in confusion, it did not understand what Hu Wenxi was talking about. Of course for him who was only here to enjoy life, how could he know the more intricate details of the world. Karmic Lords were the equivalent of Human Immortals for ghosts. When Sam's ashes was converted into a ghost, it gained the realm of a peak Karmic Lord.
However as Sam is a mediocre fighter who relied on flashy overwhelming attacks with little techniques, he did not fully understand what he was capable of. His performance thus far was even below that of his golden ape self who barely qualified as a True Immortal.
In truth Hu Wenxi was merely testing the waters so to speak. He was only gauging Sam's abilities to see how strong he was. As such he used more variety of spells to test Sam's limit. From this he discovered that Sam was not fighting at his best yet still was quite dangerous.
"The fucks a Karmic Lord?" The monster growled. Its voice was slowly becoming more and more distorted. In fact its movements resembled much more that of an inhuman creature. Hu Wenxi narrowed his eyes, "It seems you are following your instincts more and more. You human nature was truely holding you back".
Hu Wenxi slashed out with his sword before Sam could react. This blow bisected the monster instantly. The sand snake and wolf quickly chased after both pieces. The snake consumed the lower half and grimaced as if in disgust. The wolf swallowed the top half of Sam's undead body.
"NO I CANNOT DIE LIKE THIS" Sam's upper body was caught in the jaws of the wolf who had expanded to consume it. Sam half apart the wolf's jaws but was slowly being overpowered. Hu Wenxi walked towards him hands behind his back, his sword and river map was instead floating behind him.
"You speak as if you ever had a chance. At the end of the day you're just a sad man child who though the he was the main character. Did you think a few cheats could help you survive?" Hu Wenxi's cold statements cut deeply into Sam's subconsciousness. "The world's not a cartoon, your so called friends can't help you. In fact they were not really your friends were they? Just a bunch of innocents you roped into your sick desires".
"That's not true. YOU BRAINWASHED THEM" Sam's sudden roar caught Hu Wenxi off guard. Sam punched one arm through the wolf's upper jaw with improved vigour. It punched another arm at Hu Wenxi, this arm sent out a dark sickly miasma of necroplasmic energy.
Hu Wenxi's river map moved infant of the emperor and blocked the strike. Sam freed it self but found himself restrained by the snake who constricted its body around him. The chicken leapt onto the snake and pecked at Sam's eyes continuously.
Even the mouse got in on the fun by scratching out several of Sam's eyes leaving him a bleeding mess. "When will you learn?" Hu Wenxi raised his hand and the wooden sword flew into it. He slowly stabbed into Sam's body searching for his ghost core. Every supernatural creature had a vulnerable point, for ghosts they had a core which was similar to its heart.
Before Hu Wenxi could reach it however Sam's eyes glazed over in black light. He released a blood curdling scream that cut deeply into Hu Wenxi's soul. It damaged his spirit which was something Hu Wenxi did not expect Sam to do, Sam had shown a vast lack of proper understanding to a great many ghost abilities but suddenly it used one of them.
Sam mouth spewed out streams of skeletal ghost heads which all bit into the sand constructs. Sam himself rushed towards Hu Wenxi and punched him with the greatest punch this ghost had ever thrown. It sent Hu Wenxi flying back in great force in the direction of the capital city.
Hu Wenxi only had one thought as this went on, 'To suddenly know so many proper ghost powers. Did his instincts as a ghost fully awaken?"