The air in the hallway seemed to freeze solid. The foundation-realm pressure radiating from Scarlet's body was almost tangible, a crushing weight that made my chest tighten. On instinct, I raised the meteoric iron chopping board in front of me. The dark-gold runes etched into its surface flickered to life in the dim light, resonating with the spiritual energy I'd cultivated to the ninth layer of Qi Refinement.

System! Scan this guy — give me everything! I snarled inwardly. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a sliver of light leaking beneath Jade Lin's bedroom door, and the faint rumble of River's snoring drifting through it. My heart hammered faster.

Ding! Target identified: Scarlet, core disciple of the Baizhen Pavilion. Cultivation realm: Foundation Establishment, Third Layer. Technique: Scarlet Bone-Corrosion Art (incomplete edition) — specialises in water-attribute dark arts and scale-type spirit artifacts. Spirit artifacts: Blood-Scaled Armour (defensive), Scarlet Blade (offensive, laced with scale-rot toxin), Spirit-Gathering Array Disc (auxiliary). The system's voice carried an unusual gravity. Host, be advised: his technique corrodes spiritual energy, and his spiritual reserves at Foundation Third Layer exceed yours by a factor of ten or more!

Foundation Third Layer. My stomach dropped. I'd only known he was somewhere in early Foundation — I hadn't expected him to be three full layers in. No wonder that blood-red scale he'd thrown had hit like a wrecking ball. The old snake had been holding back.

Scarlet watched me, apparently unimpressed that I hadn't immediately attacked. He tilted his head; the fish-scale markings on his face rippled with the movement in a way that made my skin crawl. "What's the matter? Scared stiff? Where's all that swagger you had back at the Ten Thousand Treasures Pavilion when you were stealing auction items?"

He gave the Scarlet Blade a lazy twirl. The black toxin beaded along its edge sizzled as it dripped, pitting the floor with tiny craters wherever it landed.

"Save it." I drew a slow breath and stopped hesitating. Ninth-layer Qi Refinement surged into the meteoric iron chopping board in a single rushing tide. Simultaneously, my right hand formed a seal, and water-attribute spiritual energy from the Tide Saint Body Art condensed at my fingertips. "Surge!"

A water serpent as thick as a barrel exploded from the fire hydrant at the corridor's bend. It screamed through the air straight at Scarlet's face — a new technique I'd worked out by combining the Tide Saint Body Art with water-type spellcraft, using ambient moisture in the air to launch a sudden strike.

Scarlet sneered and didn't even raise a hand to block. He simply stood there as the torrent slammed into him. The next instant, something astonishing happened: the moment the water contacted his skin it turned to wisps of white steam and evaporated. The blood-scaled armour covering his body was completely unmarked, and the rancid stench rolling off him only thickened.

"That's all you've got?" He let out a contemptuous laugh, then blurred into motion — a streak of red closing the distance in a heartbeat. The Scarlet Blade swept at my throat with a sound like splitting air, moving so fast I could barely track the shadow of the blade.

My pupils contracted. Without thinking, I poured everything the Sea-Sea-Sea-Suppressing Jade Pendant had into a single command. "Sea Veil!"

A translucent curtain of water unfurled in front of me, solid as the sturdiest shield. The Scarlet Blade struck it with a shrieking screech of metal on water. The veil shuddered violently — but held. Even so, I could feel it: black toxin clung where the blade had touched, and the veil was dissolving fast.

"Interesting," Scarlet said, raising an eyebrow. "Pity. Against overwhelming power, it doesn't matter." He flicked his wrist. The toxin on the Scarlet Blade erupted outward and coalesced into the phantom silhouette of a great venomous serpent, its jaws gaping wide, lunging for the veil.

"Break!" I roared. The meteoric iron chopping board swept across in a horizontal slash, sword-intent blazing with the force that shatters the profane. Dark-gold sword-qi and phantom serpent collided with a dull thump. The serpent dissolved instantly; the Scarlet Blade was knocked spinning away.

But it was only a momentary reprieve. Spiritual energy from Scarlet's Foundation Third Layer crashed against me like a tidal bore — a massive invisible force struck my chest, my blood and qi churning in revolt, and I was driven back half a step despite myself.

"Ethan Lu, I think you've gotten confused about something." Scarlet advanced one slow step at a time, each footfall leaving a blood-red print on the concrete floor. "Qi Refinement and Foundation Establishment — that's not a gap, it's a chasm. And you think you can fight me?"

He snapped his hand up. A fan of blood-red scales shot from his sleeve, arranged themselves into a formation in mid-air, and in an instant the entire corridor was drenched in crimson light. The rank, fishy stench was so thick I nearly gagged, and the circulation of my own spiritual energy grew sluggish, as if wading through mud.

Danger — it's a miniature Spirit-Suppression Array! It's throttling your spiritual energy! The system's alarm rang sharp and clear.

I gritted my teeth. I couldn't afford to drag this out. Jade Lin and River were right there behind that door; if this blood array spread, the consequences didn't bear thinking about. I slammed the meteoric iron chopping board against the floor with everything I had. The dark-gold runes blazed, and the force tore a gap in one corner of the blood array.

"Running?" Scarlet laughed coldly, already moving after me.

I didn't look back — I sprinted out of the residential block and headed for the abandoned construction site behind the complex. Open ground, no residents, the best possible arena. Sure enough, Scarlet gave chase; he was considerably faster than me, and I could feel him closing the distance with every second.

"Hey, Ethan Lu." His voice carried the lilt of someone enjoying themselves immensely. "Running this hard — worried I might hurt your wife and kid? Tsk tsk. What a devoted family man. Shame, really. Come tonight, your wife's going to be a widow and your kid's going to grow up without a father. Ha. Hahaha."

I ignored the taunt and kept my mind racing. Foundation Third Layer. Spiritual reserves ten times mine. A technique that corrodes spiritual energy on top of everything else. Head-on was suicide. I needed to find a weakness — or turn the environment to my advantage.

I hit the centre of the construction site and spun around, the meteoric iron chopping board raised across my chest, breathing hard as I watched Scarlet come stalking toward me. In the moonlight, the fish-scale markings on his face glowed with an eerie red sheen. The Scarlet Blade in his hand wept black venom.

"Done running?" He slowed to a stop and began circling me at a leisurely pace, the way a man admires a piece of prey. "Fine by me. I'll finish you here. Honestly? I respect you, Ethan Lu. Going from unemployed middle-aged nobody to Qi Refinement Ninth Layer — you've got talent, I'll give you that. It's just a shame. You picked the wrong side. You made an enemy of someone you had no business making an enemy of."

End of Chapter 43: The Corridor Confrontation