The balance of the battle shattered the moment Kael's forehead connected with his opponent's face. The sound, a sickening crunch, was a signal flare in the tense silence of the Garden of Blades. The disciple slumped, his sword still grotesquely embedded in Kael's grip. The Unmoving Peak simply grunted, wrenching the blade free with a brutal twist and tossing it aside with a clatter that echoed through the stone forest.
Across the labyrinth, Li didn't waste a second. Seeing Kael's sacrifice and the opening it created, his mind, sharpened by a hundred near-disasters, calculated an impossible angle. He didn't throw a wind blade. Instead, he slammed his Gale-Fans together.
THUUUM.
A single, concussive blast of pure, undirected sonic force erupted. It wasn't aimed at his own elusive opponent, but at the monolith directly behind the man fighting Kael. The polished stone, vibrating at its precise resonant frequency, exploded inward. A hail of razor-sharp shrapnel peppered the disciple's back, shredding his robes and shattering his defensive Qi. His cry of shock and pain was the death knell of the Heavenly Sword Sect's carefully laid plan.
Kael and Li, bloodied but unbroken, stood panting for a single, unified breath. Their eyes met across the carnage. No words were needed. As if their very souls were tethered, they turned in perfect synchronicity. Their gazes locked not on the remaining Heavenly Sword disciples, but on the narrow canyon of blades where Jian was pinned.
The pack was reforming.