Shawn Young rushed to Mai Kanda’s side and scooped her into his arms. Right now, Mai was completely unresponsive—her once lively face shrouded in a deathly blackness, her hands and feet icy cold. Shawn gently pried open her eyelids and saw a hazy white mist clouding her pupils; those beautiful eyes no longer reacted to anything. He quickly checked her pulse—still faint, but there. That calmed him a little; as long as there was a pulse, she wasn’t dead yet. The Soulstone was ruthless, but it could only snatch away the soul, not the Primordial Spirit. As long as Mai Kanda’s Primordial Spirit remained, Shawn still had a chance to guide it back.
With that thought, Shawn sat down facing Mai. He pressed his left palm to the center of her brow, his right palm to the crown of her head. Eyes half-closed, he bit his tongue without hesitation, risking a serious loss of power as he forced out the last of his spiritual energy. He summoned the power of Second Sight and began chanting the spell to enter her mind.
“Heaven and Earth, Yin and Yang reversed, white mist shapes my form. Yu steps guide me to the light, stars move, earth turns, the Seven Stars lead the way, nine spirits unite—enter!”
Shawn finished the incantation. Pushing his limits, he forced his spiritual energy to reverse flow, making the spell surge with power. The energy inside Second Sight gathered in an instant. His Primordial Spirit awakened, and a purple mist swirled around him. With a rush of consciousness, he plunged into Mai Kanda’s Second Sight, diving deeper and deeper into her mind.
What really shocked Shawn was that Mai’s Second Sight had turned pitch black, surrounded by dead silence. He knew this was the result of her soul being mostly ripped from her body. If he wandered through that endless darkness, even his own Primordial Spirit might get lost forever. So, Shawn focused his will, and his Primordial Spirit spun in midair, bursting out seven dazzling purple rays. Suddenly, the darkness above Mai’s Second Sight lit up with seven sparkling beams—the Big Dipper! This was his Primordial Spirit connecting with the celestial Big Dipper, creating the Seven-Star Lantern. With its guidance, Shawn wouldn’t lose his way in the vast sea of her mind.
Led by the Seven-Star Lantern, Shawn’s Primordial Spirit plunged deeper into the darkness of Mai Kanda’s Second Sight. He had no idea how long he’d been drifting when the lantern suddenly paused. Up ahead, someone stood in the gloom—blurry and indistinct. Shawn hurried over, but the figure had their back to him, and in the dimness, he couldn’t make out their face at all.
Shawn got too close, too fast. The figure suddenly turned around. Shawn thought it must be Mai Kanda’s Primordial Spirit, but as soon as the face came into view, he nearly jumped out of his skin—it was a skull, half-rotted, with no nose or lips, white bone and jagged fangs jutting through patches of dark red flesh. It looked like a demon straight out of hell—enough to make anyone’s stomach turn! If you’d never seen a hellspawn before, this thing was the textbook definition.
Before Shawn’s Primordial Spirit could get any closer, the demon leapt up, a gleaming sword suddenly in its hand. With a wild howl, it swung the blade, sending a deadly arc slashing straight at Shawn’s spirit.
Shawn’s consciousness reacted instantly—his Primordial Spirit sprang into the air, barely dodging the demon’s furious strike. But the hellspawn wasn’t done yet. It kept howling and charged after him, sword raised high for another vicious attack.