Haotian's sigil chains screamed into overdrive. Metal-Water fused, his blade catching the blow at the exact point where force peaked — yet the impact still sent fractures racing up his armguard. Before he could fully recover, the Warden's other hand struck, knuckles carving a downward arc that split the air into visible seams.
He ducked under, Wood-Light coiling in his legs, launching him upward in a vertical burst. But the Warden was already there — crown tilted, knee driving into his ribcage mid-ascent. Pain jolted through him, breath forced from his lungs, but the Fire sigil ignited in reflex, wreathing his frame in a retaliatory blaze.
The Warden didn't even flinch. It absorbed the flame, twisting with it to hurl Haotian downward toward the abyss's edge.
Mid-fall, Haotian's hands blurred through sigil rotations — Five-Element Spiral Guard, a whirling dome that caught him against the stone's lip. He skidded into a crouch just as the Warden dropped from above, its entire form compressed into a single Primordial Collapse Fist.
The strike landed.
The ground did not break — it ceased to exist. A perfect sphere of absence blossomed outward from the point of impact, devouring stone, air, and even the echo of sound before detonating in a silent flash.
Haotian was already moving through the afterimage, his Eyes having tracked the micro-shift in the Warden's stance that left its side momentarily open. His full-element rotation condensed into a spearpoint, slamming into the guardian's flank with a burst that finally drove it back.
The Warden's vortex flared brighter, its voice a low grind of warstone."You… adapt."
It straightened, the runes around its body rotating into a new pattern. This time, the lattice was sharper — edges honed, movements condensed. The Second Form of the Primordial Codex.
Haotian's own aura surged in answer, his elemental cyclone rising into a violent gyre, ready to clash again.
The Warden's runes twisted, locking into an angular formation that bled sharpness into the air. Every contour of its body became a weapon, every fraction of movement a pre-calculated execution. This was not speed or strength alone — this was inevitability given form.
Haotian's elemental cyclone tightened, five sigil chains weaving into a braided gyre of killing intent. Fire surged down his arms in molten arcs, Water wrapped his legs in flowing steel, Metal sank into his bones until each movement struck with the density of a mountain, Wood coiled through his core in endless renewal, and Light refracted through it all into blinding precision.
The Warden vanished.
A single line of heat cut across Haotian's cheek — not from fire, but from space itself being flensed open by the Warden's re-entry. He pivoted into the blow, Metal-Light flashing along his blade as he deflected a strike meant to decapitate. Sparks rained like a meteor shower, each fragment of light instantly consumed by the Warden's vortex.
Its counter came from below — an upward heel kick that would have crushed his sternum. Wood-Water flared, pulling him into a spiraling evasion that let the strike skim past by less than a hair's breadth. Even so, the sheer force of the near-miss peeled stone from the walls in jagged sheets.
Haotian spun through the opening, sigil chains snapping into Full-Element Impact. His fist slammed into the guardian's flank, Fire detonating against its armor while Water guided the force deeper, Metal split the runic lattice, Wood forced the breach wider, and Light burned through the exposed gap.
The Warden's form blurred, but not from retreat — it inverted the momentum, letting the blow's force spin its torso into a crushing backfist. Haotian's forearm caught the strike, the clash releasing a shockwave that tore their footing apart, both combatants landing atop freefalling slabs of stone as the abyss yawned below.
Neither broke rhythm.
They leapt from falling debris to debris, each exchange collapsing their temporary platforms into dust. The Warden's Primordial Codex tore the air into angular wedges of destruction; Haotian's elemental storm reshaped each attack into a counterstrike before the guardian could lock its stance.
Every impact built toward something more violent, the rhythm of their battle accelerating until the world around them was nothing but fractured geometry, light, and the echo of god-tier force colliding again and again.
A blur of motion cut through the collapsing geometry — the Warden twisting mid-leap, its entire form folding into a single angular strike. The runes along its arm ignited in sequence, each one snapping into the next like a chain of detonations.
Haotian's Eyes of the Universe caught the pattern — not just the path of the blow, but the hidden weave of force underneath it. He shifted half a heartbeat early, Fire and Metal flaring in his right arm while Water and Light surged into his left leg, Wood coiling through his core to hold the torque.
The Warden's strike whistled past his neck.
Haotian's counter was already in motion.
He spun inside its guard, the full-element rotation snapping into perfect compression — five sigil chains condensing into a single blazing point at the edge of his palm. It struck the cracked segment of the Warden's side plating where earlier blows had thinned the rune lattice.
The sound wasn't metal breaking — it was a thunderclap from inside the guardian's body. The armor split along the seam, shards spiraling into the air like molten leaves, each one burning with the fading memory of the runes it once carried.
Through the breach, Haotian saw it — the Warden's core, a churning sphere of stormlight and void threads, pulsing like the heart of a star caught in the grip of a black hole.
The guardian reacted instantly, its free hand lashing out in a point-blank strike that bent the air like a bowstring drawn to breaking. Haotian ducked under, pivoting on a single footstep, every sigil chain realigning for a direct assault on the exposed core.
The space between them narrowed to nothing. The air shimmered with the heat of compressed force, the abyss below swallowing the last fragments of their shattered battleground as both prepared to commit to the next strike without hesitation.
Haotian drove forward, every muscle and meridian surging in unison. The full-element rotation spun tighter than ever, sigil chains blurring into a cyclone of intertwined colors — phoenix flame streaks, silver tidal arcs, emerald root flashes, blinding white lances, and molten steel edges. Each element bled into the next, forming a living spiral drill aimed straight at the Warden's exposed core.
The guardian's response was instantaneous. Its runes shattered from their perfect lattice into a chaotic storm, each sigil splitting into dozens of fragments that swarmed like blades in orbit. The void-light core in its chest pulsed violently, drawing the rune fragments into a spinning shell, a Primordial Aegis meant to seal the breach before Haotian's strike could land.
The cyclone met the aegis.
Flame bit into the spinning runes, burning away the weaker fragments. Water slid through the gaps, eroding the rotational force. Metal clanged against ancient sigil-steel, shearing chunks free. Wood spread like roots through fractured gaps, binding and slowing the shield's spin. Light carved through the chaos in blinding arcs, forcing the Warden's form into stark silhouette.
Every element pressed harder, the rotation screaming at the edge of collapse — and then the aegis gave way.
The cyclone punched through.
Haotian's palm slammed into the core. A shockwave of pure elemental dominance erupted outward, bending space into a concave dome before it snapped back in an implosive roar. The Warden's body convulsed, void threads unspooling in wild tangles as the stormlight inside it bled raw into the chamber.
Instead of recoiling, the guardian lunged forward — both hands gripping Haotian's forearm in a crushing vise, dragging him into the core's eruption. Runes detonated around them, the abyss roaring as the floor disintegrated completely.
They fell together through the wreckage of the sanctum, locked in the heart of the exploding core, elemental cyclone and voidstorm tearing at each other without a shred of restraint. The fragments of the temple's ceiling gave way above, letting in a pillar of daylight that spilled into the churning chaos like a blade from the heavens.
Neither yielded an inch, even as the abyss swallowed them whole.
The abyss was not empty.
As Haotian and the Warden plunged through the collapsing strata, the darkness beneath lit with threads of deep crimson and pale gold, webbing the air like veins in some colossal, sleeping beast. Fragments of the temple fell past them, some disintegrating into dust mid-fall, others bending along unseen currents before vanishing into the gloom.
The Warden's grip tightened, void threads coiling up Haotian's arm like serpents, each one trying to unravel the flow of his meridians. His elemental cyclone shifted instinctively, Water-Wood surging to shield the channels, Metal reinforcing the bone, Fire burning the invasive strands, Light slicing them apart before they could reach his core.
The guardian's helm tilted slightly — not a show of weakness, but recognition. Its runes flared in a sudden, violent bloom. The vortex where its face should be expanded, pulling the crimson-gold veins of the abyss toward them in snapping arcs. The veins moved like living things, writhing free of the dark and lashing into the fight.
Haotian twisted in mid-air, planting a foot on the guardian's chest to wrench himself free. He spiraled backward through the air, sigil chains flaring outward like an elemental lotus — petals of flame, steel, water, root, and light expanding in perfect symmetry. The first whip of abyssal vein struck the lotus, shattering into motes under the layered rotation.
But more followed. Dozens. Then hundreds.
Each vein pulsed with ancient qi — neither entirely hostile nor benign, but hungry. They lashed at both combatants indiscriminately, feeding on the clash of elemental and primordial power like carrion birds circling a battlefield.
The Warden roared, a sound that was half storm, half collapsing mountain. Its runes warped into hooked shapes, tearing through the nearest veins in bursts of voidflame. Haotian dropped low in freefall, his cyclone narrowing into a horizontal blade, cutting a swath through the converging net of living threads.
Their downward momentum slowed as the veins formed a lattice beneath them, a writhing platform that spanned the width of the abyss. The entire mass pulsed once, and Haotian's Eyes of the Universe caught the truth — these were not random growths. They were nerve-lines of something vast beneath the ruins.
The platform shifted. Something was waking.
The Warden stopped moving for the first time since their clash began. It turned its helm slightly toward the dark below, and Haotian caught the faintest ripple in its aura — not fear, but readiness, as though even this primordial guardian knew it was merely the second danger here.
The veins tensed underfoot. Then the abyss exhaled.
The exhalation wasn't air — it was an ocean of ancient qi, heavy enough to make the very flow of Haotian's meridians stagger for a fraction of a heartbeat. The abyss below bloomed with light, not gentle or warm, but searing and molten, the color of a sun viewed through blood.
From that light, a shape began to rise.
First came the crown — not of bone like the Warden's, but of interlocking spines, each spine formed from the same crimson-gold vein material that latticed the abyss. They moved independently, flexing like the quills of a predator sensing prey. Then the rest emerged — a titanic silhouette plated in scales of shifting ore, every scale bearing a rune too ancient for even the Eyes of the Universe to fully translate before it changed.
The Warden's stance deepened, runes spinning faster around its frame, and its vortex-face flared wide as if calling power from a plane beyond sight. The helm turned toward Haotian for the briefest instant — not in alliance, but in acknowledgment that the thing below had just rewritten the rules of their fight.
The lattice of veins beneath them convulsed, flinging both man and guardian apart. Haotian caught himself midair with a Light-Water sigil burst, slowing his descent just enough to land in a crouch on a narrow outcrop jutting from the abyss wall. The Warden landed opposite, the platform between them collapsing into the awakening shape's upper back.
Its head rose at last — an elongated, crown-crested visage with no eyes, only a vertical slit that ran from the top of its crown to the base of its jaw. The slit opened in a slow, deliberate motion, revealing not a mouth, but a spiraling tunnel of light and shadow that drew the surrounding qi inward in great, rolling tides.
Every fragment of the temple still falling above was caught and pulled in — stone, dust, shattered rune-steel — each piece vanishing into that spiral without a sound.
The veins surged upward, lashing toward both combatants again, but this time they moved with coordinated precision, as though guided by the creature's will. The Warden broke three in a single swing, but was caught around the waist by a fourth. Haotian vaulted over one sweeping strand, Metal-Fire igniting his blade to sever it, only for two more to coil around his legs.
The creature's slit-mouth pulsed once, and the pull intensified.
Haotian's cyclone flared to its sharpest edge yet, each sigil chain burning brighter under the mounting pressure. This was no longer just about defeating the Warden — now, the abyss itself was trying to claim them.
The pull from that spiraling maw tore at the world itself, dragging fragments of reality into its depths. Veins wrapped tighter around Haotian's legs, their inner surfaces lined with jagged, qi-infused barbs that tried to pierce through his defenses and bleed away his elemental power.
Fire-Metal roared down his frame, turning the bindings into molten slag in a heartbeat. He launched upward, boots striking the stone wall, then pushing off into a lightning-fast arc toward the Warden. Not to aid it — but to use its proximity as a shield against the creature's pull.
The guardian read the move instantly, pivoting with a Primordial Codex Third Form backhand that would have crushed his ribs. Haotian dropped beneath it, Water-Light whipping his body into a coiled spiral, his blade glancing off the Warden's gauntlet and raking sparks into its exposed side.
The crack from before widened.
The Warden's vortex-face flared, releasing a concentrated beam of void energy meant to tear him apart at point-blank range. Haotian's Wood sigil burst under his feet, a root platform launching him into the air above the beam's path. He spun mid-ascent, sigil chains snapping into full rotation, and came down in a two-handed strike aimed dead-center at the Warden's breach.
Impact.
Armor shattered in a shower of molten fragments, revealing the core in its full, unstable fury — stormlight and void threads whipping out like vipers. The guardian staggered back, its runes faltering, the rotation of its Codex forms breaking under the sheer pressure of the wound.
The abyss-creature's pull increased again, veins lashing wildly. One wrapped Haotian's forearm, trying to drag him down, but he used it — pivoting with the yank to gain momentum. His cyclone condensed to a spearpoint, every element sharpened into killing intent.
He slammed it straight into the Warden's core.
The effect was instant. The guardian convulsed violently, void threads snapping in all directions. Its hands clawed at his shoulders, trying to push him away, but his Metal held firm, Fire burned deeper into the core, Water eroded the binding runes, Wood rooted his strike in place, and Light flooded every crack.
The core split.
A howl tore from the vortex — not words, but the death cry of an entity whose purpose was being erased. The Warden's frame crumbled outward, plates of ancient armor falling like meteor fragments into the abyss. The runes around its body disintegrated into sparks, each one winking out before touching the air.
Haotian pulled his arm free as the guardian's torso collapsed in on itself, the vortex folding smaller and smaller until it vanished in a final implosive pop.
The remains of the Warden — crown, armor, and runes — tumbled silently into the abyss, claimed in an instant by the crimson-gold veins below. The abyss-creature's slit-mouth pulsed, drawing in the last fragments of the guardian like scraps of ash into a furnace.
Haotian landed on a narrow ledge, elemental cyclone still flaring, eyes locked on the colossal form beneath. The Warden was gone — but the abyss had just fed.
The abyss-creature fed without pause, the spiraling slit in its head glowing brighter with every fragment of the Warden it consumed. Each pulse of that light made the crimson-gold veins thrash harder, their whips now striking with enough force to fracture entire ledges from the abyss walls.
Haotian moved the instant the guardian's last shard vanished. The Eyes of the Universe flared, mapping every living vein within sight, tracing their connections, searching for a gap in the net. His cyclone roared higher, each sigil chain spinning into a cutting storm. One sweep of his arm cleared the nearest lashes, and he leapt toward the abyss wall.
The creature's pull tried to drag him back down. Metal-Light flooded his legs, turning each foothold into a blinding step against gravity. He climbed in a rapid blur, shards of rock raining below as veins pursued him like a swarm of crimson serpents.
Above, the ruined sanctum was still collapsing — but through the opening in its ceiling, Haotian caught sight of them. Lianhua, flanked by three of their allies, held her position at the brink.
The temple's upper halls were choking with dust, the air thick from the ceaseless tremors rumbling up from below. Every few breaths, a vein-whip would burst through the cracked walls, snaking toward the disciples like a crimson-gold spear. Lianhua's sword never stopped moving — wide, sweeping cuts fueled by sheer necessity, not elegance.
The survivors were scattered. Of the original sect teams, she had counted barely a dozen still breathing, and most of them were fighting for their lives in isolated pockets. She sprinted through the splintered corridors, grabbing whoever she could reach, barking orders over the shriek of snapping stone:
"Fall in behind me! No detours — if you can't keep up, shout and I'll drag you!"
She cut down two more vein lashes in a blur, the qi from her strike flaring bright enough to burn the tendrils to ash. Behind her, three disciples stumbled into formation — one clutching a bleeding arm, another limping but still clutching his weapon.
They reached a collapsed archway where two more sect members fought back-to-back against a knot of veins. Lianhua's arrival was a thunderclap — her blade split the nearest lash in half, and her boot sent another snapping backward into the rubble. She grabbed both fighters by their collars and shoved them toward the others without ceremony.
The ground heaved, throwing several off their feet. The glow in the cracks beneath them was brighter now, pulsing in time with the abyss-creature's call from below. Lianhua didn't have to see it to know — whatever was coming would wipe out anything left in the temple within minutes.
By the time she reached the upper breach, only seven disciples remained with her, and their qi was fraying under the constant assault. She positioned them in a loose ring around the platform's edge, shouting over the growing roar:
"Cut anything that gets close! Haotian is coming — hold until he reaches us!"
They fought like cornered wolves, the ring shrinking tighter with each assault as vein-lashes struck from multiple angles. One disciple was caught and yanked screaming into the air before anyone could react. Lianhua's teeth clenched, but she didn't turn — she couldn't afford the loss of focus.
And then she saw him. A golden-white streak tearing up the side of the abyss through a storm of snapping veins. Her chest tightened, relief and urgency colliding in the same breath.
She cut another lash in half, voice sharp and clear:
"Clear the path! Make him a way through!"
The disciples obeyed, swinging with whatever qi they had left, carving just enough space for Haotian to break the last gap and crash into the platform in a blaze of elemental fury.
"Haotian!" her voice rang sharp over the chaos, tinged with a heat that came only when fear met fury.
A vein slammed into the wall beside him, shattering it into a spray of molten stone. He pushed off the debris, twisting in midair to deflect two more strikes. Fire-Water merged in his palms, his strikes both burning and slowing the veins that lunged for his back.
The abyss-creature below let out a deep, resonant tone — the kind of sound that vibrated in bone more than in air. Veins erupted upward in a single, coordinated wave, converging not just on him, but on the platform where Lianhua and the others stood.
He didn't think — he was there.
Light sigil burst under his feet, propelling him into a lightning-arc dash that carried him through the swarm mid-ascent. His blade flashed through dozens of vein whips, each cut a clean line of annihilation. The last step of the dash carried him directly into the platform, his cyclone exploding outward to clear the immediate space.
"Move!" he barked, already turning to hold the edge as the creature's assault surged upward.
Lianhua's eyes locked on him for a breath — enough to confirm he was uninjured — before she snapped orders to the others. They began the retreat, racing up the broken stairs toward the sanctum's highest passage. Haotian stayed at the rear, intercepting every vein that dared approach.
The climb was chaos — ceilings falling in chunks, walls splitting into jagged scars, and the crimson-gold lattice trying to plug every exit. The creature's pull grew stronger the higher they got, its slit-mouth tracking them like an unblinking eye through the gaps in the ruin.
At the final choke point, the ceiling above collapsed entirely, leaving only open sky framed by the jagged edges of the temple's last wall. The exit shimmered faintly — the unstable boundary of the Forbidden Realm's seal. Beyond it was the real world.
The creature roared, the sound so deep it bent the qi in the air. Every vein in sight whipped upward in one last attempt to seize them.
Haotian planted himself between the team and the onslaught. His full-element rotation spun to maximum, every sigil chain blazing like a pillar of heaven. Flame became a storm, Water a tidal wall, Metal a fortress, Wood a living lattice of unbreakable roots, and Light a blinding sunburst that pierced every lash that entered its reach.
"Go!" he shouted.
Lianhua was the last to pass the threshold, her gaze holding his for an instant longer than necessary. Then she was through, vanishing into the shimmer.
Haotian let the cyclone collapse inward, all power condensing into a single, perfect strike. The release tore through the advancing mass of veins, shredding them in a spiral wide enough to clear the entire breach. Without hesitation, he stepped into the shimmer.
The world twisted, pressure crushing his ears, vision warping into streaks of light and shadow — then snapping back to clarity.
They stood on solid ground beneath an open night sky, the ruins of the Forbidden Realm shrinking into a single point of light before sealing shut with a soundless flash.
Haotian's cyclone faded at last. Lianhua was already at his side, her hand catching his arm as the others took in the impossible quiet around them. He glanced once over his shoulder at where the seal had been, knowing whatever slept in that abyss would not stay silent forever.
But for now, they were out.