Wang Zhen pressed first this time—fifteenfold power under perfect calm. He curved a straight punch with a path-bend, stacked a shell-and-core split so the shell triggered Jin's outer guard, and the core arrived a hair later. Jin answered by setting Law of Silence over the hit, deadening its spiritual edge, and pulled the core's force sideways with a small spatial shear. The blow skidded across his chest instead of through it. SWISH! A shallow line cut his robe.
Jin stepped in. His palm sank—heavy, simple. Fragment of Thread Law of Gravity dragged on Wang Zhen's limbs as if the air had turned thick—Fragment of Thread of Law of Suffering laced the center of the strike. Wang Zhen cut the weight with the Fragment of Thread of Law of Restriction and rode the line of the palm with a forearm brush, then drove a rising knee layered to harden at the last inch.
Jin shifted his hip, took it on the meat instead of the joint, and replied with a compact shoulder check that crushed the space between them for a blink. BOOM! Both slid back two steps in the air.
They were even—near enough. But the difference wasn't in skill. It was in fuel. Jin's divine energy came steady, deep. Wang Zhen's spiritual energy, even multiplied, still burned hotter and shorter. He knew it and kept his face calm. Just to match an Ascendant with a Deity Formation cultivation, Wang Zhen was using too much spiritual energy in a short amount of time, giving his all.
-
They fought on—long arcs, short traps, breaths cut in half to fit a counter. Wang Zhen's fragments played like simple tools used perfectly: dull here, sharpen there, bend now, bind later. Jin's ground on, detailed but never fussy: add weight, take breath, smother ripple, wear the edge smooth.
Twice, the void opened, and it was pitch black. Twice, it sealed with a snap when they pulled power back from the brink.
They passed each other again. Wang Zhen's heel drew a thin line across Jin's ribs—inside-peaking, not skin-showing. Jin's knuckles brushed the side of Wang Zhen's neck—Law of Suffering skimming, not rooting. Both turned, both checked, both stepped back into measure. The halos pulsed once, answering the push and pull.
They closed a final time in that exchange—no feints, just clean intent. Wang Zhen led with a straight that broke late, Jin met with a palm that sank early. Their powers met in the middle and buckled the air. BOOM! The void cracked open like a circle drawn with a knife, hung for a heartbeat, then shrank to a seam.
They broke apart.
Wang Zhen's eyes stayed clear, but his chest lifted a shade higher with each breath. Jin's face held even, each inhale controlled, each exhale slow.
They hovered, not rushing the next step. The fight stretched long and precise, neither man giving a sloppy inch. Around them, energies still surged and bled, pulled back and surged again, like the tide trying to decide whether to drown the shore. Wang Zhen's thought cut through the calm, the same quiet line he'd drawn before: "If this keeps up, I'll run out of spiritual energy." He held that truth in one hand and his composure in the other.
Then they moved again—two straight lines crossing, halos turning once more, void waiting for the next crack.
...
Jin Shang closed the gap first. His fist drove into Wang Zhen's stomach. THUD! Wang Zhen folded and flew back, as he coughed blood. "Now is the time," he said, coughing.
From his dantian, a sealed light stirred. He triggered a rank seven Gu—Fiftyfold Sound Speed Gu. Once refined, it lives in the dantian and can be used any time, as long as spiritual energy is fed to it.
A bright highlight traced down both his legs.
He took one step in the air.
BOOM!
A clean shockwave cracked outward. Wang Zhen vanished. The air where he had stood snapped shut with a late whoosh—and he did not reappear.
Jin's gaze swept the torn sky and the ragged edge of the field. Nothing. Only drifting dust and the thin seam of void that pulsed and stilled. He narrowed his eyes. "How many good things does this man have?" he thought, not annoyed, but cautious.
Fiftyfold Sound Speed wasn't a teleport Gu. It was a speed Gu. With the Calm Soul Gu on his mind and the Emperor Berserk power running clean, Wang Zhen could chain steps far beyond normal pursuit. One boom to break the sound around him, the next to carry him past range, the next to leave sight entirely.
Silence settled over the cracked ground. Jin didn't chase blindly. He listened to the air and to the way the world bent around recent force. He felt only echoes, already fading.
In this world, anything above rank seven—Gu worms, artifacts, restrictions—is rare enough to change wars. Imagine a region with ten Deity Transformation Cultivators. There might be only five rank-seven treasures among all of them. Demand is high, supply is thin. That scarcity makes each rank seven worth more than a hundred swords, and it means many Deity Transformations fight without a single rank seven Gu or artifact. They build around rank six cores, good coordination, and patient timing. That is why a balanced kit—speed to choose distance, calm to aim, a controlled surge to seize the moment—can decide a fight even when realms don't match. It is also why those who carry true rank seven cards hide them—because once revealed, many power-hungry cultivator turns toward them.
-
Back on the field, Jin lowered his fist. The red-black halo behind him dimmed a shade, steady and unshaken. He looked at the empty air where Wang Zhen had stood and let out a slow breath. High above, the seam of void thinned to a hair and went still. On the wind, the echo of a last boom drifted, then faded like a closing door.
...
Wang Zhen fled hard, every step cracking the air. Each burst carried him more than twenty li. BOOM! BOOM! The land below blurred into broken lines and dark patches of forest. He glanced back once and saw no one.
"Is he not chasing me?" he muttered between shallow breaths. "He should have a speed Gu… maybe even a teleport. With his cultivation, he can catch up to me. So why—"
The air ahead buckled.
A shockwave rolled out in a clean ring, flattening clouds of dust and bending thin branches below. An old man stood where the wave began—appearing as if the world had decided he should be there. Wang Zhen stopped midair, feet braced on nothing.
He knew that face.
...
Ancestor Jin Fan. Four-star Ascendant. Jin Shang's Ancestor—the kind of name that made mountains hold still.
Wang Zhen's thoughts tightened. "Ancestor Jin Fan… why is this old guy here?"
The old man's voice was calm, almost friendly. "Kid, don't run. Let's have a good chat."
Wang Zhen's expression cooled. "Why would I chat with you, old man? Scram. Or else…"
Jin Fan chuckled, not offended. "Fiery temper isn't a great trait to have at a young age."
A black spear appeared in his grasp, the haft dark as night, the tip a clean silver iron that caught and held light. He slid his hand along the shaft, relaxed, like someone checking a familiar tool.
Jin Fan said. "If you can take one hit from me, I'll let you go. I won't chase you. I'll even stop Jin Shang from chasing."
Wang Zhen's eyes narrowed. The thought came quick and clear: "If he really holds Jin Shang back, that would be for the best." He measured the distance, the angle of the spear tip, the way divine energy was already collecting around it like iron filings finding a magnet.
"Fine," Wang Zhen said. "Old guy, don't go back on your word."
Jin Fan laughed—short, pleased. "Good. Stand up straight, then."
He raised the spear and leveled the point toward Wang Zhen. His off-hand floated to the mid-shaft, loading the angle with a slight twist. The air along the tip trembled.
Wang Zhen's pupils tightened. "I can't fight him," he thought, steady and honest. "But I can at least block one hit. As long as it's not an ultimate killer move."
He gathered what he had left—strength under the Emperor Berserk, mind locked steady by the Calm Soul, fragments choosing defense over flourish. He stacked them in a clean frame: weight-splitting, force-bleeding, path-bending, a shell to take the first bite and a core to hold the bones underneath.
Jin Fan shifted one foot forward. The spear aligned in a straight line from heel to tip. His red hair barely moved in the high air. Divine energy surged—sudden and violent—coiling at the spearpoint like a storm found its center. The light around the tip didn't blaze; it tightened, focused, the world dimming at the edges as if all color wanted to be part of that single, bright edge.
The sky hummed. The air thinned.
...
Divine energy gathered tighter at the spear tip, and the metal seemed to drink it in. A phantom head of a wolf unfolded over the point—jaws open, the spear tip resting like a fang between its teeth. From that spectral head, a trail of divine light streamed backward along the shaft, flowing toward Jin Fan's hands in seven steady colors, bright and clean, like a river of banners pulled in the wind.
Behind Jin Fan's shoulders, a solid halo snapped into place—green and black, heavy as stone. From its lower edge, both left and right sides, except the middle, a fall of divine energy poured downward in a straight, disciplined line. Above his head, to the right, a half-halo formed—unlike Jin Shang's translucent sign, this one was black and solid, a hard crescent set in the air like a seal. The whole sky felt smaller around it.
Even Wang Zhen, who could not sense divine energy and held only spiritual energy in his grasp, felt a cold prickle run down his spine. The wolf phantom's breath seemed to thin the air in his lungs.
"Divine Wolf Trail Spear?" his mind tightened. "A thousand years ago, this old man killed a grade-eight mid-tier beast with one strike from that move. How am I supposed to take this?"
Options fell away one by one. He reached into his dantian and pulled the last card he had no wish to play.
Divine Shield Gu. Rank seven.
Once refined, it could be used again and again—but every use at Deity Formation was a cut taken from the self. Wang Zhen had already forced two rank-seven Gu into play not long ago. Calling a third would leave him exposed afterward. If the old man broke his word, there would be nothing Wang Zhen could do.
He didn't have any other choice.
He gathered the dregs of his spiritual energy and pushed it all into the Gu. The response came like pressure easing through a narrow gate—resistance first, then flow.
Seven-colored divine light formed in front of him, petals folding into plates, plates locking into a shield the size of a city gate. Its surface wasn't bright; it was dense. Lines of eleven refined Fragments of Thread of Laws glowed inside it—interlocking like spokes and rings.
It wasn't meant to dazzle. It was meant to resist an ultimate killer move of a Four-Star Ascendant, as all of his spiritual energy dried up, just by activating the Gu.
Jin Fan's spearpoint didn't flare; it focused. The wolf's phantom jaws clenched a fraction tighter, and the seven-colored trail streaming back along the shaft grew narrower, faster, more exact. The green-black halo behind him fed a steady fall of power down his spine.
"Stand firm," Jin Fan said, no malice in it—only a craftsman's warning.
He moved.
The spear left his hand with a sound like silk torn in a single clean pull. The phantom wolf surged forward, jaws open, point carried in its teeth. As the weapon flew, the clouds above tore in a straight corridor, peeled away to the horizon on both sides. Air staggered and chased in behind the shaft. The ground beneath the spear's path tore open as if a plow had been dragged through the earth by a god—trees sheared at the base, stone ripped into layers, soil folded back in long, brutal tongues.
Wang Zhen braced with everything he had—shoulders set, core locked, shield fed by the last threads in his meridians. The seven-colored plates tightened, lines of law inside them brightening to a steady, unblinking glow.
The spear crossed the field, and the sky kept opening in its wake. The land under that line wasn't just scarred—it was unmade, carved down so cleanly that raw bedrock stared up like a wound. Even from high above, the base of the gouge could not be seen with the naked eye.
-----TO BE CONTINUED-----