The withered husk that had once been a haughty and proud youth let out a sigh, its pale blood-drained lips moving as though to say something, and then became still. Whatever it was, it was too faint even for Strong River's enhanced senses to detect.

"Getting a bit flashy and wasteful there, aren't we, kiddo?" Mister Black chided.

River chuckled, half-mesmerized by the scene of the blood painting his hand disappearing as the Blood Devouring Palm did its work. "What's a little bit of the blood of a fourth-grade going to do? It was so much better letting him see the inevitability of his end, after all that he and his family have done, isn't it? Even at the very end, he was mewling about his connections and begging for mercy. How many others have had their pleas for mercy answered by him and his uncle?"

River felt justified. This was what real justice should feel like! Exhilarating and final, an executioner's sentence on the wicked and the depraved.

"When you are done congratulating yourself," Mister Black sourly opined, "you may wish to clean up the rest of this and head into the deeper forest. Unless you were planning on waiting for whatever team is following up to show up and handling them the same way?"

That thought was a basin of water poured over the fire of his ardor. "No," River said, shaking his head, "it's time to get some real benefits from this forest."

River looked over Soaring Wave's desiccated corpse, a gaping bloody hole open at his chest where his heart had been removed. Frowning, he thrust both of his hands into the cavity and wrenched to the sides, ripping the upper half of the body apart with the neck dangling off one side. "That's probably more of what you'd expect from a rogue devil, right Mister Black? If they left an intact corpse at all, that is."

"As good as anything else. The ways of devils are multifarious, you could whatever you wanted to."

"A pity I'll have to leave him as is without grabbing anything," River complained. "A powerful devil wouldn't need anything from a fourth-grade junior, and the last thing I need is something to implicate me. Oh well, on to the last detail to take care of."

River left the mangled remains of Soaring Wave and shattered remnants of Stumpy as they were and, at his greatest speed, rushed back to where Archer had been pinned by the hidden dagger. River was particularly proud of that maneuver, managing to retrieve the blade from its bindings under his clothes undetected while dodging the jackals.

The slightest ember of life still flickered in Archer's eyes as River returned to the scene of the confrontation, but the man hadn't managed to find the strength to rise again or to remove the dagger from his chest. River squatted down to be at eye level with the man, shaking his head.

"You should have picked a better man to follow," he chided the mostly-dead man. "Playing his game, trying to kill me. Instead, you're dead for a man who couldn't even remember your name. It's okay, Soaring Wave and Stumpy have already gone ahead and will be waiting for you wherever in Hell those who betray their clan end up in. Now you can join them."

Placing his palm on the man's clammy forehead, River swiftly devoured the man's blood and life force, leaving another mummified corpse where once had been a trusted warrior of the Flowing Water clan. With a hard yank, he pulled the dagger from the man's chest; not a trace of blood remained on the blade's burnished bronze length. Stowing the blade on his belt, River kicked the corpse over and turned to leave.

River ignored the corpses of the four mossbacks scattered around the forest floor; being both third-grade beasts and already dead, they were of no use to his Blood Devouring Palm. He would soon find much more formidable and worthy prey, and so these carcasses were nothing to him. Taking a final look around, he dashed toward the forest's deeper interior.

"Mister Black?" River queried his inner guest.

"Yes, River?"

"Is there a path of advancement for the Blood Devouring Palm beyond where I have taken it?" River decided to check a theory of his.

"The Blood Devouring Palm? Ah, not really. That's not to say that it ever becomes useless, being an art that continues to advance with the user's realm, but it doesn't get more complicated or develop new abilities beyond what you already have."

"Ah," River sighed, disappointed. "Then what about the Blood Devouring Universe?"

"The WHAT!?" Mister Black's inner voice was painfully loud and River almost tripped over a branch stabilizing himself as he recovered from that sudden sharp pain in his forehead.

"I'm sorry, Mister--" River began apologizing, only to be cut off.

"No, no... don't be, I should have had better control of myself. Where did you hear of the Blood Devouring Universe?" Mister Black's voice went from conciliatory to intense with the mention of the technique.

"Well, it was weird, last night I had a dream..." River trailed off, assembling the fleeting details in his mind.

"A dream?"

"Yes, Mister Black, a dream." River continued explaining. "There was a temple, all white with golden doors, and seven old men battled against a man and a woman all in black. The men lost. The man said something about an Aspect of the Devil, while the woman conjured a ribbon from all the blood while talking about a Blood Devouring Universe."

"Interesting," Mister Black replied, "most interesting. I'm not sure about what you saw, but there are indeed techniques called those things. Just that they are at a level you are not yet prepared to know about."

"Oh?"

"Yes. Those are essence techniques, things you can't even begin to reach the cusp of until you have passed beyond the boundaries of your Human Realm physique tempering. The Aspect of the Devil, for example, is a holistic system technique that gives the practitioner of choice of seven different aspects that can strengthen oneself or ennervate one's foes."

"Uh, okay," River replied, mentally stumbling over some of the words Mister Black was using, "I'll take your word for it. What about the Blood Devouring Universe?"

"The Blood Devouring Universe is a domain technique that dominates all blood in its territory and bends it to the practitioner's will. What you saw was no doubt the Sanguine Ribbon, which turns it into a whip-like stream. Practiced to its greater completion, the Blood Devouring Universe can even usurp the blood still inside the bodies of opponents, turning it against them." Mister Black sighed. "And you're confused, aren't you?"

"Um, yeah," River admitted a bit sheepishly. "Holistic this and domain that, I don't really know anything about that..."

"That's because they are realms of techniques far above anything you could have ever heard of. Have you had any other dreams like this, ever?"

River shrugged. "Not that I can remember, at least, Mister Black."

"Hm... strange," Mister Black mused. "Anyway, the Blood Devouring Universe might be a suitable technique for your future practice, but it's far in your future. Right now you should remain focused on body techniques. Speaking of which, let's stop before you penetrate the next layer of the forest and I'll give you a couple new toys to use."

"Okay!" River was ecstatic at the prospect of a new ability. Having only had the two so far -- the Blood Devouring Palm and the Passion Sublimation Technique -- he had begun to worry that he had done something to make Mister Black hold back on him. Each new technique gave River a powerful edge over his peers, who only had their level of physique tempering to rely upon. When facing weaker foes like Soaring Wave, suppression through a superior physique was more than enough, but his very first fights against the bandit thugs had ingrained in him the need for strong techniques to close the gap in cultivation.

River surveyed his surroundings, listening to ensure there were no nearby beasts, and came to a stop. The sun's rays angled through the gaps in the branches above, with a few hours of daylight remaining.

Catching his breath, River stood alert as Mister Black revealed two new techniques to him: Blood Ignition Acceleration, and Dusk Aura Concealment.

The first, Blood Ignition Acceleration, was a skill well suited to accompanying the Blood Devouring Palm. Igniting the practitioner's blood vitality, the user can speed up several times faster than what they usually are capable of. Most remarkably, the user's reactions and perceptions kept up with the accelerated rate. The main drawback of the ability was rather obvious: limited by blood vitality, it could only be used in times of desperation by most cultivators. But to River who practiced the Blood Devouring Palm, so long as he could continue to devour he would be able to fuel the state of acceleration.

Besides learning the mnemonics and principles of the technique, River did not yet practice it. That would best be saved for when he was in combat and had ample opportunities to replenish his blood.

The second, Dusk Aura Concealment, was an art that assisted the user in hiding by clouding their aura and intent, masking it with the atmosphere of the surroundings. As River was staying a few nights in the forest itself, this was an important skill to learn as it allowed him room for rest and respite. The primary drawback of Dusk Aura Concealment was that the user's own strong intent could break the masking. As such, the Passion Sublimation Technique was a suitable complementary breathing technique, with all the possible mental turbidity being consumed by its rotating black hole of sublimation. Rather than relying on vitality or other energy sources, it relied wholly on the user's mental strength to maintain.

River practiced the technique, but found himself at a loss for understanding whether it was effective or not. He felt more or less the same as he always did when using Passion Sublimation, but that wasn't at all useful in gauging if the local wildlife was fooled. Mister Black, so far above the technique's level, couldn't provide much help either as he could see through it.

After spending an hour learning the techniques and attempting to practice the Dusk Aura Concealment, the pair decided it was time to proceed to the next layer of the forest.

River resumed his pace of before, resisting the nagging urge to attempt to use Blood Ignition Acceleration. The temptation was a small itch, an anxiousness to see how much better he could become with his new tools.

Excited for the world of adventure opening up before him, River plunged into the blue-aired region of the forest, ready to test his mettle.

He had no idea of the edge of oblivion which he had so precariously danced along not so long before.