The dragons' roars were like thunder tearing through the marrow of heaven itself. The chamber quaked, walls split, and pillars collapsed as if the very architecture of this ancient place was unworthy to contain such might. Stone shattered into dust, flames licked the air, and molten light bled from every fissure.
Two colossal forms coiled within the ruin, scales gleaming like rivers of liquid metal under the dim glow. Their horns twisted skyward like obsidian spires, and every breath they exhaled carried the weight of ages, a heat that could sear mountains into glass.
At the heart of the chaos stood Lin Mun. Her sword trembled faintly—not from fear, but in resonance with the murderous intent coursing through her veins. In her eyes burned not hesitation, but the resolve to carve through fate itself.
She whispered, almost casually, "Two of you at once? Fine."
Her words were not bravado; they were the cold statement of one who had long since turned defiance into instinct.
The first dragon lunged, maw opening wide, a torrent of fire churning like a sun about to be born. Lin Mun's figure blurred, streaking forward like silver lightning. Her blade struck the beast's snout with a resonant clang, sparks cascading in the dark chamber. A storm of heat exploded outward, blinding, suffocating, but her form cut through it without pause.
Behind her, the second dragon's tail swept. The impact crushed pillars into rubble, splitting the chamber's foundation as though an earthquake had been summoned. Lin Mun spun midair, vaulting onto the beast's back. With precise cruelty she thrust her sword between scales, the tip finding the narrow gap of living flesh.
The dragon screamed, a roar that scattered debris like rain and drove fear into the marrow of every creature present.
And yet, Zhou Tian did not run.
He stood at the edge of the devastation, powerless. His body was already fractured, lungs seared by the dragons' aura. Each breath was a knife dragged across his throat, each heartbeat a hammer striking against hollow bone. He was a mortal, stripped of cultivation, exposed to a battlefield where even armies would be reduced to ash.
But his eyes never strayed from Lin Mun.
She was a figure carved from rebellion itself, every strike of her sword a declaration against inevitability. She was dancing with death, holding back two titans that could wipe out kingdoms with their breath. Zhou Tian's chest tightened—not only in awe, but in dread. For though her movements were perfect, every strike precise, she bled life with each exchange. Against immortality and endless might, a human body could only burn so bright before fading.
The ground cracked into magma rivers, smoke and fire clouded vision, and the chamber descended into a hell that bent the very concept of time. Minutes felt eternal.
Lin Mun's sword slashed across the first dragon's wing, tearing through sinew. The appendage tore free with a gush of molten blood, the torrent sizzling upon impact with stone. She pivoted, ready to drive the finishing blow—
And then she froze.
In the eyes of the second dragon flickered something not beastly but cunning. The flames within its throat extinguished, its body dissolved into shadows, vanishing into the smoke.
Zhou Tian's breath caught. It had not fled. It was stalking.
Lin Mun's blade drove into the first dragon's chest, impaling its heart in a single devastating strike. The beast convulsed, collapsing, its scream shaking the chamber to its foundation. She turned—
Too late.
From the shroud emerged the second dragon, its maw glowing with a condensed sphere of flame. Not wild, not unfocused, but compressed destruction, an inferno forged into purity.
And it was not aimed at her sword. Not her armor.
It was aimed directly at her heart.
For one instant, Zhou Tian's mind went blank.
He had no power. No cultivation. No chance.
And yet—his body moved.
He hurled himself forward, casting his fragile, broken form into the void between dragon and swordswoman.
The dragon's breath met him.
White fire consumed everything. Stone turned molten, air screamed, the world drowned in unbearable radiance. Zhou Tian's body became an offering to the inferno—flesh charred, bones shattered, blood vaporized into red mist. He was hurled across the battlefield, landing in a twisted heap, coughing blood that stained the scorched earth.
The chamber dimmed.
Lin Mun, for the first time in countless years, hesitated.
She had seen death. She had seen sacrifice. But never—never had a stranger, a mortal no less, cast himself into the jaws of annihilation for her sake. Something inside her chest jolted, an unfamiliar weight.
Her gaze locked on his broken body, half-buried in rubble, his breaths shallow, each one a step closer to silence.
Her sword rose once more.
This time, it did not merely answer her will. It carried the storm of something deeper, something stirred by a man's self-destruction.
"Courage… greater than sense."
Her whisper was colder than steel, sharper than flame.
Her aura erupted. The flames around her bent away, space itself trembled. The two dragons roared together, their cries merging into a cacophony of rage and doom.
But Lin Mun's sword was no longer a weapon.
It was judgment.
The chamber collapsed around her as she unleashed her secret art. Space warped, night bled into the ruin, and her blade blazed with the essence of stars themselves.
One strike severed the first dragon's throat.
The other cleaved the second in half, from skull to tail.
Their death cries rose like collapsing heavens before silence swallowed them whole. Their titanic bodies slammed to the ground, convulsing one last time before finally stilling.
The chamber quieted. Smoke and blood hung in the air like curtains of doom.
And then, the aftermath revealed itself.
From the corpses of the dragons seeped a fog—dense, shimmering, alive. It rolled across the battlefield like a tide of whispers, glittering with golden motes yet veined with sinister darkness.
Lin Mun's eyes narrowed. She recognized it instantly.
"Dragon essence… and something else. Poison."
The fog did not obey her. It flowed past her defenses, circling the broken form of Zhou Tian. He stirred faintly, too weak to resist. The mist pressed into his wounds, flooding his body with a violent, burning tide.
His back arched. His veins glowed like molten rivers as the dragon essence tore through his mortal shell. Bones cracked, muscles screamed, but beneath the agony, his body reforged itself.
A breakthrough.
His aura surged, climbing beyond mortality, reshaping itself into the presence of a Tier-A Ranker.
But the fog was not pure.
Entwined with the essence was the venom of dragons: the Love Poison. It lanced into him, into her, twining through their veins, binding them in a heat more dangerous than fire.
Zhou Tian's ragged eyes opened, colliding with hers.
The world blurred. Smoke dissolved. All that remained was the fire rushing through their blood, an instinct neither could deny.
No words were spoken. No words were needed.
The poison devoured restraint.
Breath mingled, hearts thundered, reason drowned beneath primal force. Two figures collided, not as cultivator and mortal, but as man and woman, bound by venom masquerading as desire.
The fog swirled around them, hiding all from the gaze of heaven.
…
When at last the haze dissipated, silence reclaimed the battlefield.
The dragons' bodies had crumbled into dust, their blood seeping into the earth. Only two objects remained amidst the ruin—external relics, crystallized fragments of the dragons' essence. They pulsed faintly with light, ominous, alluring, each carrying the weight of an unspeakable legacy.
Lin Mun stood still, her robes disheveled, her face pale. Her eyes, normally colder than steel, now hid a storm she refused to name. She turned away, suppressing the warmth that flickered within her chest.
Zhou Tian lay beside her, body whole yet transformed. The aura of a Tier-A Ranker emanated from him, sharp as unsheathed steel, his mortal fragility replaced by something eternal.
Neither spoke of what had transpired.
But the relics pulsed, as though whispering truths that could not yet be faced.
From that moment onward, the threads of fate had bound them together—in blood, in poison, in silence, and in the corpses of two slain dragons.
And destiny, once disturbed, never sleeps.