Days passed.
The Heavenly Sovereigns' blood had barely finished soaking into the Dragon Arbiter Stage when the next storm arrived.
It did not descend with the primal, world-splitting wrath of Heavenly Sovereigns tearing open the sky.
It began with a roar.
Not wild.
Not uncontrolled.
A roar full of insulted pride and festering hatred—like old grudges finally catching scent of fresh blood.
The shout rolled over the Heavenly Dao Academy like thunder, wrapped in golden radiance and cold azure mist.
"Ling Feng!"
On the various peaks and stone platforms, disciples stopped mid-form, blades freezing mid-swing, meridians still buzzing with circulating fate energy.
"Again…?" someone choked. "Wh-who is it this time?"
They turned toward the source.
From the distant horizon, two streams of light tore across the sky, splitting clouds as they came—one gold, one azure-blue. Behind them trailed banners and escorts, a tide of experts pressing down with suffocating prestige.
An elder from Sacred Era Hall, who had already aged ten years in worry over the recent Heavenly Sovereign incident, felt his legs weaken.
"The… alliance…" his voice cracked. "Zu Huangwu… Heavenly Prince Qing Xuan…"
The names flashed like lightning through the mountain city.
Zu Huangwu—Brilliance Ancient Kingdom's prime descendant. Brilliance Great Child. The chosen successor of a kingdom founded by Immortal Emperor Yao Guang and later strengthened by Immortal Emperor Fu Mo. A bearer of emperor prestige and an Imperial lineage's combined hopes.
Heavenly Prince Qing Xuan—descendant of the Azure Mysterious Ancient Kingdom, a lineage created by Immortal Emperor Qing Xuan and later producing Immortal Emperor San Dao. A kingdom with two Immortal Emperors in its history, its arrogance buried deep in its bones.
Both had ties to Heavenly Dao Academy's Sacred Era Hall.
Today, both arrived with naked killing intent.
The two figures descended above the academy's main square, their auras spreading like tidal waves. The Dragon Arbiter Stage beneath them hummed faintly, as if sensing the blood yet to come.
Zu Huangwu's body was tall and straight, armored in gold that burned with dao runes. Around him gathered countless golden laws, forming the vague outline of an imperial throne behind his back.
Above the alliance, two Immortal Emperor Life Treasures floated in the air.
Over the Brilliance camp, a black rod hung vertically like a pillar holding up the heavens—the Black Tortoise Rod. The emperor weapon created by Immortal Emperor Fu Mo. Each subtle twitch of its engravings made space ripple, heavy with the power to suppress oceans and clamp shut entire regions.
Over the Azure Mysterious side, a massive hammer hovered—the Imperial Violet Hammer, Immortal Emperor San Dao's Life Treasure. Violet lightning coiled around it like enraged dragons, each bolt carrying emperor intent that could crush mountains and burn away laws.
Heavenly Prince Qing Xuan was wrapped in cold azure mist, his features handsome yet remote, like a statue carved from divine jade. Behind him, the shadow of an emperor-level existence loomed within that mist—the will of his clan's Immortal Emperor heritage.
Brilliance banners snapped in the wind.
Azure Mysterious banners fluttered on the other side, each one embroidered with dragons and immortal glyphs.
Just looking up made the knees of many disciples turn to water.
"This… this is too much," someone whispered, voice hoarse. "Two Ancient Kingdoms at once…"
On a peak belonging to Lion's Roar Country, Chi Xiaodie stood with her group. Her hands were clenched at her sides, knuckles pale against her spear.
Beside her, Bing Yuxia's jade fan was half-open, eyes narrowed slightly, the cold aura of someone long used to palace schemes wrapped around her like thin frost.
"…They truly came," Bing Yuxia murmured. "For Ba Xia, Hu Yue, for the Heavenly Sovereigns… and to warn the academy."
Around them, whispers surged like waves.
"Brilliance Ancient Kingdom…"
"Azure Mysterious Ancient Kingdom…"
"Both are Imperial Lineages with Immortal Emperor heritage. To offend one is already courting death, but both…"
"Even for Ling Feng, is this not too reckless…?"
Someone in Grand Era Hall swallowed hard.
"Will we… really go to war with the Ancient Kingdoms?"
On the forefront platform, the storm's eye stood lightly.
Ling Feng.
He wore simple black clothes, no emperor aura, no supreme treasure floating above his head. Just a Named Hero realm aura compressed into something too dense, too quiet, like a black hole disguised as a glass of water.
He looked up at the two approaching figures, then at the banners behind them.
He snorted.
"Two more clowns," he said lazily. "The Eastern Hundred Cities is really trying hard to send me gifts."
Li Shuangyan stood at his right, jade aura calm but eyes slightly narrowed, Pure Jade Physique quietly harmonizing with heaven and earth.
Chen Baojiao stood at his left, fire burning under her skin, Tyrannical Valley Immortal Spring Physique making the ground's vitality hum faintly beneath her bare feet.
Xu Pei, Bai Jianzhen, Chi Xiaodao, and the others spread behind them, tension coiled in their stances, each one feeling the oppressive weight of the two Ancient Kingdoms' combined prestige.
High above, Zu Huangwu locked onto Ling Feng with a gaze like a spear dipped in molten gold.
"Ling Feng!" he thundered. "You killed Gui Fushu! You slaughtered geniuses, killed Heavenly Sovereigns in front of the Eastern Hundred Cities! Do you truly believe there is no justice in this world?!"
His accusation dragged the Heavenly Sovereigns' corpses back into everyone's minds—the shattered forms of Saint Country's Mortal King and Tiger King, their blood still staining the Dragon Arbiter Stage's ancient lines.
Ling Feng raised an eyebrow.
"Justice?" he said. "That's a silly thing to mention between us."
The words were light, almost lazy—but they echoed through the square like a slap.
Heavenly Prince Qing Xuan's voice was colder than Zu's rage.
"You killed members of Azure Mysterious Ancient Kingdom," he said. "You crippled those we had marked for greatness. You sullied the prestige of ancient lineages."
The azure mist around him thickened, swallowing light.
"Today, we come not only for Ba Xia and Hu Yue…"
His eyes sharpened, murderous intent pouring out like a flood cresting its banks.
"…but also to take your life."
The pressure descended fully.
It was not just power—it was the weight of two Immortal Emperors' legacies pressing down on the academy. Emperor seals flickered faintly in the clouds, phantom palaces looming in the sky.
Disciples in the lower realms went pale, their blood churning, and collapsed to their knees, unable to withstand it. Even some older elders had to hastily circulate their cultivation to resist, faces strained.
Chi Xiaodie's heart clenched.
Her gaze swept from Zu's golden radiance to Qing Xuan's azure mist, then back to the slender figure in black standing so calmly under it all.
"…Lion's Roar will be dragged into this," she whispered, voice almost lost under the rumbling pressure. "If these two die here, the hatred of Brilliance and Azure Mysterious will not stop with Young Noble alone…"
"Tiger's Howl School, Furious Immortal Saint Country, Azure Mysterious, Brilliance…" Bing Yuxia said quietly, fan hiding her lips, eyes sharp. "Too many eyes will turn toward the academy. Too many ancient monsters will remember today."
The air between them was heavy with political instinct—a princess raised among court daggers and a young ruler carrying a country on her shoulders.
Ling Feng glanced back at them.
The corner of his mouth lifted.
"You two worry too much," he said.
Chi Xiaodie stared at him, incredulous.
"…How can we not worry?" she said. "These are Ancient Kingdoms with Immortal Emperor heritage."
"Exactly," he replied. "Which is why they should know better than to send their young ones to bark here."
His tone was light, almost amused, but his eyes were flat and cold when they turned back to the sky.
Chi Xiaodie moved instinctively, as if to grab his sleeve and hold him back from stepping directly into a storm that could drown nations.
His hand shot out first.
He caught her wrist lightly.
Her breath hitched; the pressure in her chest stuttered.
"Princess," he said, eyes crinkling slightly. "Didn't we talk about this? You run Lion's Roar. I deal with noisy people."
His fingers squeezed her hand, warm and reassuring, before he let go.
He turned to Bing Yuxia next.
She lifted her chin, ready to snap something sharp to hide the thread of unease in her chest.
Ling Feng reached out and flicked the edge of her fan instead.
"You just got that new law from me," he said. "If you frown too much, your dao heart will get wrinkles."
Her fan froze mid-air.
"…You are spouting nonsense again at a time like this," she said coldly.
But the edge of her fear eased by a heartbeat.
The atmosphere did not.
Zu Huangwu's golden aura surged higher, emperor intent rolling like a burning tide.
Heavenly Prince Qing Xuan's azure mist thickened, tiny emperor seals glimmering coldly within like stars in a frozen night.
"Ling Feng!" Zu Huangwu roared. "Come up and pay with your life!"
"Bring your women," Qing Xuan added, voice like glacial steel. "Let them bear witness when the 'geniuses' you raised are crushed into mud."
More than a few gazes turned toward Li Shuangyan and Chen Baojiao.
To the old monsters watching from afar via secret methods, they were simply pieces on a board, women whose value lay in their talent and bloodlines.
Ling Feng sighed.
"You two really don't understand me at all," he said.
He turned his head, gaze sliding sideways to Li Shuangyan and Chen Baojiao.
"You remember that bet?" he asked lazily. "About me letting you girls stomp the so-called geniuses of this era?"
Shuangyan's eyes flickered, an almost invisible ripple in her usually placid jade lake. She remembered: that night in Ancient Sky City, his voice low and warm, promising to let them use the world's 'peerless talents' as stepping stones.
Chen Baojiao grinned outright, a fierce, reckless light leaping up in her gaze.
"Mm," she said, voice throaty with anticipation. "I remember. I've been waiting to beat someone with an Immortal Emperor toy."
Gasps burst out like sparks in oil.
"Li Shuangyan… Chen Baojiao…"
"He couldn't possibly…"
"He won't—"
Ling Feng smiled.
"Shuangyan," he said softly. "Take Zu Huangwu."
His gaze shifted, a hint of mischief curling in his eyes.
"Baojiao. Qing Xuan is yours."
The Dragon Arbiter Stage below them began to glow.
Ancient dao lines carved into the stone in ages past lit up one by one, jade-colored brilliance flowing along the edges. The formation that had seen countless life-and-death struggles hummed with anticipation, as if it too understood a new legend was about to be carved into its bones.
"Life and death are determined by fate; wealth and honor lie in the heavens."
The old words carved on the Dragon Arbiter Stage seemed to sink deeper into stone today.
Li Shuangyan stepped onto the stage first.
The moment her white boots touched stone, the Dragon Arbiter Stage trembled faintly, as if acknowledging a familiar dao.
Her Pure Jade Physique shone subtly; not blinding brilliance, but a crystalline transparency that made her entire figure seem carved from perfect jade. Six Fate Palaces loomed behind her back like silent worlds, each deep and boundless—refined through Chaos-augmented cultivation until every trace of impurity had been burned away.
From the stands, disciples sucked in sharp breaths.
"Six Fate Palaces…"
"As a Nine Saint Demon Gate descendant, she was already famous. But this…"
Above her, Zu Huangwu descended in a blaze of gold.
Emperor light wrapped around him, heavy and oppressive, like a sea of molten metal. The Black Tortoise Rod stood tall behind him, its shell etched with ancient emperor runes. In the distant sky, the Imperial Violet Hammer's violet lightning snaked restlessly, responding to Azure Mysterious' prince but still lending pressure to the alliance as a whole.
Zu's gaze swept her up and down without a hint of respect.
"You are Li Shuangyan?" he said, voice deep and arrogant. "Once hailed as the Prime Descendant of the Nine Saint Demon Gate, now reduced to a man's concubine."
His lip curled.
"A pity. You could have become Empress in the future. Instead, you chose to follow a mad dog."
A murmur ran through the crowd—part condemnation, part raw curiosity.
Li Shuangyan's expression did not change.
Her jade eyes were clear; a thin arc of silvery sword light flickered in their depths.
"Whether this one is a concubine or a wife is none of your business," she said calmly. "Today, you have only one role."
Zu Huangwu sneered.
"And what role is that?"
Her fingers brushed the hilt of the Frost Dragon Sword at her waist, but she did not draw.
"To be crushed," she replied.
The sentence was not loud, but its calm certainty fell on every heart like a quiet thunderclap.
Zu Huangwu's smile vanished.
"Arrogant woman!"
He roared, and emperor power erupted.
The Black Tortoise Rod shuddered as countless dark waves surged out, an endless tide of black water composed not of liquid, but condensed emperor seals. Each wave carried enough force to drown a kingdom.
From the alliance's side, the Imperial Violet Hammer responded as well, violet lightning tearing down from the sky. Each bolt was infused with Immortal Emperor San Dao's engraving—lightning that had once scorched real dragons and shattered dao seas.
Tidal wave below, lightning storm above.
The joint pressure from two Immortal Emperor Life Treasures made the Dragon Arbiter Stage groan audibly. Cracks spidered along the protective barriers high in the sky.
Faced with this catastrophe, Li Shuangyan did not retreat.
She lifted her hand.
The Pure Jade Sacred Heart Art burned quietly in her chest. Her meridians glowed with condensed, frictionless Spirit Energy; under Ling Feng's Chaos refinements, every circulation of power was smooth as water flowing over polished jade.
Behind her, her six Fate Palaces blazed like six moons.
One step.
The Dragon Arbiter Stage rang like a bell.
A peerless sword-intent shot straight from her body to the heavens. There was no visible sword in her hand, but the world itself seemed to form one for her.
Within that slash was not just Li Shuangyan's own dao, but traces of the Chaos World Attacking Sword Immortal Law Ling Feng had taught her—using the world as the blade, turning sky and earth into the edge of a sword.
"Pure Jade—Heaven-Cleaving Light," she whispered.
She slashed.
The attack was almost invisible.
No grand waves, no painted phenomena.
Yet when it met the thunderous Emperor power descending, the watching crowd saw something unbelievable.
The violet lightning that could annihilate legions slowed.
Then cracked.
Bolts of emperor lightning split into fine powder, scattering as harmless motes of light drifting down like fireflies.
The black tidal wave of seals shuddered. The dense, crushing weight that had seemed unstoppable suddenly lost its foundation, collapsing inward as if some hidden pin had been pulled from reality.
High above, Ling Feng watched with his arms folded, eyes half-lidded, expression somewhere between proud lover and bored spectator at a circus.
The Chaos World Attacking Sword Immortal Law stirred within that strike, anchoring her attack not only in her personal power, but in the Dragon Arbiter Stage's dao lines, the suppressed divinity in the academy's veins, the very heavens over the Eastern Hundred Cities.
Zu Huangwu's pupils shrank.
He poured more blood and energy into his Life Treasure.
The Black Tortoise Rod's engravings lit up one by one, each rune awakening a different layer of emperor power. Across the battlefield, the Imperial Violet Hammer's violet inscriptions responded, thunderheads thickening.
"Suppress!" Zu bellowed.
The combined might of the two Immortal Emperor weapons gathered into a terrifying joint pressure, the air locking around Li Shuangyan like stone.
She took another step.
This time, her jade aura flared.
The pure luminescence around her became a translucent dome overlaying the world—a second heaven quietly spread atop the first.
Within that heaven, Zu Huangwu's Emperor power felt…
A little dimmer.
A little slower.
As if his attacks were being forced to circulate through someone else's system before reaching her.
"Feng…" she exhaled, so soft only the stage itself might have heard.
Chaos energy geared within her foundation responded, threading along her nerves, reinforcing the crystalline lattice of the Pure Jade Physique. Every ounce of Emperor pressure that entered this domain was quietly taxed, slowed, and diverted.
Her six Fate Palaces roared, towering behind her like six sovereign realms arrayed for war.
She raised her hand again.
"Break," she said simply.
The second slash fell.
The invisible blade drew a line between heaven and earth.
The joint Emperor assault trembled—then split along that line. Violet lightning dispersed; black waves parted like a curtain and fell away, unable to cross the boundary of her Pure Jade Heaven.
The Emperor Life Treasures groaned.
The phantom Immortal Emperor wills within them flickered as they fought against the suppression of an alien law threading through the battlefield.
But Li Shuangyan was not interested in breaking the treasures.
She attacked the man.
Like a jade needle sliding through silk, her sword-light ignored the frontal clash and appeared directly in front of Zu Huangwu, only inches from his chest, as if space itself had accepted her dao as the new path.
His eyes widened.
"How—"
The light pierced his chest.
Blood sprayed across the Dragon Arbiter Stage—a bright, shocking red against the jade glow.
The Black Tortoise Rod staggered in mid-air, Emperor spirit reeling as its master's control faltered. The Imperial Violet Hammer's lightning faltered for a heartbeat.
On the stands, disciples screamed.
"Zu Huangwu… was hurt…"
"By Li Shuangyan…"
Zu Huangwu roared, Emperor blood igniting.
"I will kill you!" he bellowed. "Even if I have to burn my foundation!"
Emperor Life Wheel flames erupted behind him.
He burned his Longevity Blood without hesitation, the fire of an Ancient Kingdom's prime descendant devouring his own years in exchange for an instant of overwhelming power.
The Black Tortoise Rod's shell brightened, as if an invisible tortoise colossus had awakened. From the alliance side, the Imperial Violet Hammer shook violently, violet dragons spiraling, resonating with Qing Xuan's rage.
The phantom silhouette of an Immortal Emperor flickered faintly behind Zu Huangwu, pressure spiking to a level that made some weaker elders cough blood.
On some distant peak, ancient ancestors watching through secret mirrors stiffened.
"That foolish brat… he's really burning his foundation…"
"…At this rate, even victory would cripple him…"
Li Shuangyan's expression stayed calm.
Inside, her heart beat once.
Ling Feng's voice echoed in her memory, warmer than the Frost Dragon Sword's icy resonance.
"It's fine. If he burns everything, I'll be here. Your job is to walk your dao straight."
She exhaled.
Her Pure Jade Physique flared to its absolute limit.
Crystal light flooded the stage, not as an explosion but as a smooth, all-encompassing tide. It seeped into every gap between Emperor runes, filled every tiny crack between laws.
For one brief instant, jade light and Emperor light competed for dominance over reality itself.
Then her Fate Palaces opened fully.
Six worlds aligned behind her like a string of suns. Each one was being fed not only by her own Spirit Energy, but by the Chaos-enhanced circulation Ling Feng had carved into her foundation. The frictionless purity of her physique allowed power far beyond what a normal Enlightened Being could endure to flow without a single crack.
She brought her hands together.
Between her palms, a single point of jade light formed.
It was small—no larger than a pearl.
Yet every cultivator on the stands felt their souls shrink away from it, as if that tiny bead of light contained an executioner's blade sharpened to an impossible edge.
"Jade Heart—World-Severing Radiance," she whispered.
She released it.
The pearl of light drifted forward lazily, almost peacefully.
It touched Zu Huangwu's blazing Emperor domain.
Silence.
Then—
Cracks crawled through the Emperor light around him like spiderweb fractures in glass.
The Black Tortoise Rod screamed, a deep, shell-grinding reverberation echoing out of the emperor weapon. The phantom shell ringing its body splintered, its defensive domain full of holes.
At the same time, the violet lightning called by the Imperial Violet Hammer flickered, then froze. The dragons of emperor lightning shattered one scale at a time.
Zu Huangwu's Emperor power could not comprehend what was happening.
To him, it felt as if the laws he had relied on all his life—defense, weight, suppression—had been overwritten by a new rule carved into the world:
This light is sharper than you.
The Emperor domain shattered.
The pearl of jade light reached his chest again.
This time, it did not simply pierce.
It erased.
From the stands, they saw only this: a pearl of light touched Zu Huangwu's heart.
Then the part of him the light touched simply ceased to exist.
No explosion. No gore. Just… absence.
Zu Huangwu's body stiffened.
He looked down at his own chest, disbelief etched into every line of his face.
"…Impossible…" he whispered.
Li Shuangyan's jade eyes were steady, her chest rising and falling calmly.
"If you want to blame someone," she said quietly, "blame the man who told me to walk straight."
The Emperor flames behind Zu Huangwu flickered.
Then his Life Wheel cracked with a sound like breaking porcelain.
He fell.
The Brilliance Ancient Kingdom's prime descendant.
Brilliance Great Child.
The man who thought he would one day stand at the peak of the Eastern Hundred Cities.
His body hit the Dragon Arbiter Stage like any other corpse.
The Immortal Emperor Life Treasure of Brilliance—Black Tortoise Rod—hovered, untethered, its Emperor spirit trembling in confusion and instinctive fear.
Across the battlefield, the Imperial Violet Hammer shuddered as well, the echo of its counterpart's collapse running through the emperor weapon.
On the viewing platforms, an uproar erupted.
"Zu Huangwu is dead…"
"Brilliance Ancient Kingdom's pride… cut down by a woman at Heavenly Dao Academy…"
"This… Heavenly Dao Academy… has they gone mad…? The hatred of Brilliance will shake the Grand Middle Territory!"
Up on the platform, Ling Feng lifted a hand.
His fingers curled slightly.
"Come," he said casually.
The two Immortal Emperor Life Treasures—Black Tortoise Rod and Imperial Violet Hammer—shuddered.
For a brief instant, ancient wills tried to resist, imperial might pushing against invisible chains.
Then the Chaos-infused command in Ling Feng's voice, the alien force outside the Old Villainous Heaven's net, simply stepped past those shackles and patted the Emperor spirits on the head.
They flew obediently toward him.
The gasp that went up from the crowd nearly shook the mountains.
"Immortal Emperor Life Treasures… obeying…"
"Who is this Ling Feng… really…?"
On the other side of the Dragon Arbiter Stage, Chen Baojiao rolled her shoulders once, the violent qi of the Tyrannical Valley Immortal Spring Physique bubbling under her skin like a host of restless springs.
Across from her, Heavenly Prince Qing Xuan descended in a swirl of azure mist.
His features were as handsome as carved jade, but there was no warmth in his eyes—only cold arrogance and deep, ancestral pride.
"Heavenly Prince Qing Xuan," Chen Baojiao called out, tilting her head, lips quirking. "Your kingdom has two Immortal Emperors. You should have learned how to bow your head when you're outmatched."
He smiled faintly, thin and poisonous.
"Today, I will show you how foolish it is to rely on a man's borrowed courage," he said.
Behind him, his Emperor Life Treasure blazed. Azure light flooded the stage, coalescing into a massive, blade-shaped dragon. Emperor seals flickered along its scales, each one the crystallization of an Immortal Emperor's dao insight.
The dragon coiled in the sky, opening a maw that could swallow armies.
Within its gaze, all other life was mere dust.
Chen Baojiao laughed.
Her Fate Palaces roared to life behind her, six worlds swirling with storm clouds. The Violent Cloud Chant thundered through her meridians, but under Chaos refinement it no longer exploded outward wastefully—it spun, compressed, and then released in brutally efficient bursts.
Her Tyrannical Valley Immortal Spring Physique made every pore in her body feel like a bottomless well. Any power that entered could be swallowed, refined, and spat out stronger.
"Good," she said, eyes bright. "If you didn't go all out, I'd be disappointed."
The azure dragon descended, Emperor fangs bared, scales clashing with the shriek of tearing worlds.
Baojiao moved.
Her first step cracked the Dragon Arbiter Stage beneath her feet.
She drove her fist upward.
No Life Treasure.
No divine weapon.
Just a bare hand backed by a physique rarer than Immortal Physiques, six Fate Palaces, and Chaos-tempered violence.
Fist and dragon collided.
For a heartbeat, the two forces struggled, a stalemate between emperor law and spring-fed madness.
Then the Tyrannical Springs inside her body roared.
Like a dozen geysers erupting at once, they devoured the impact of the Emperor attack, dragging the azure force down into her foundation, grinding it up, and sending it surging back up her arm.
Her fist vomited the stolen Emperor power out tenfold.
The dragon's head exploded.
Azure shards scattered across the sky like broken glass.
Heavenly Prince Qing Xuan's eyes went cold.
"Courting death!"
He vanished.
To the majority of disciples, he simply disappeared and reappeared—a streak of azure lightning blinking out of existence and reappearing behind her.
An Emperor blade condensed out of mist, descending toward the back of her neck with enough force to split mountains and souls alike.
In the audience, Bai Jianzhen's hand tightened around her sword hilt, her sword intent responding instinctively to such a pure killing stroke. Chi Xiaodao shouted without thinking:
"Baojiao, behind—!"
Chen Baojiao grinned wider.
"You're not the only one who can play with speed," she said.
The Violent Cloud Chant erupted again.
Storms didn't just explode in her meridians—they twisted sideways. Her body pivoted with an impossible bend, guided by the spinning storms, the Emperor blade missing her neck by a hair's breadth.
Her elbow slammed backward.
It drove into Qing Xuan's ribs with a dull, cracking thud.
An ugly sound echoed across the stage.
He spat blood, azure mist warping around him, eyes blazing with fury and disbelief. He tried to retreat, emperor seals flaring to blur his outline and drag him through space—
Baojiao didn't let him.
The storms in her Fate Palaces detonated under her feet one after another, controlled micro-bursts propelling her forward in zigzagging movements. Every strike she threw burned the Tyrannical Springs under her skin, absorbing the recoil and turning it into more speed, more power, more hunger.
To weaker disciples, the stage had become a blur of blue and storm-grey, two streaks of light smashing into each other again and again.
To the elders and Ancient-level characters watching, the scene was clearer—and far more terrifying.
She was driving Heavenly Prince Qing Xuan back.
A woman from the Eastern Hundred Cities, born in a small country, raised under the Chen Clan, now propelled to Eternal Prestige under Ling Feng's hand, was crushing the descendant of two Immortal Emperors' kingdom in close combat.
Qing Xuan's fury hit a peak.
"Azure Mysterious—Supreme Heaven Seal!" he roared.
Taboo art.
The Emperor Life Treasure behind him flared at full force. Emperor seals poured down like a storm of written laws, compressing into a single devastating seal aimed directly at Chen Baojiao's heart.
The weight of that single seal made even some Ancients narrow their eyes.
Even Ling Feng's gaze sharpened, amusement fading slightly.
"That one's a bit heavy," he murmured.
Chen Baojiao's grin didn't falter.
"Feng told me not to be stingy," she said under her breath.
The Chaos World Attacking Sword Immortal Law activated within her dao.
But instead of turning the world into blades above her, she used it differently. She collapsed the "world" inward—her fist becoming the dense center of a collapsing star, her entire body the axis of a spinning storm.
She stepped into the descending Emperor seal.
"Break!" she shouted.
Her fist met the Supreme Heaven Seal.
For an instant, the world went white.
Sound disappeared.
Then the Emperor seal shattered.
Fragments of azure law flew in all directions, razor-sharp shards that could have cut down a crowd—but they never reached anyone. The Tyrannical Springs under Baojiao's skin sucked them in like hungry mouths, devouring and compressing every piece of shattered Emperor dao.
Her fist did not slow.
It slammed into Heavenly Prince Qing Xuan's chest.
The armor woven from generation upon generation of emperor blessings crumpled like cheap tin.
The crack of his ribs breaking was as clear as a temple bell.
His Life Wheel shivered violently. Fine cracks spread across it.
He coughed blood, eyes wide with disbelief and dawning horror.
"You…" he choked, voice ragged. "You are just a woman from the… Eastern Hundred Cities…"
Baojiao's eyes burned.
"Yeah," she said. "And?"
She grabbed him by the collar and yanked him close, their faces inches apart.
He could see clearly now the wild light in her eyes, the unyielding pride that would never again bow to so-called 'superior lineages.'
"Remember this," she whispered, so softly only he and a few others close by could hear. "The one who raised me… is worse than any Immortal Emperor you've ever bowed to."
Her free hand pressed flat against his chest.
The storms inside her body—
—unleashed.
They roared into him through that single point of contact, Tyrannical Springs pouring raw, violent force into his meridians. Emperor seals tried desperately to resist, but the springs did not care about titles or heritage. They ground down everything in their path.
Heavenly Prince Qing Xuan's body convulsed.
His Life Wheel couldn't withstand it. The fine cracks exploded outward.
Then it broke.
From the stands, they saw his chest cave in with a sickening crunch. Blood sprayed, then suddenly stopped as the last of his vitality was devoured by the storm.
He fell like a cut kite, azure mist scattering.
Chen Baojiao opened her fingers and let him drop.
The second dazzling pillar of this era—Heavenly Prince Qing Xuan, descendant of Azure Mysterious, descendant of two Immortal Emperors' dao line—lay broken on the Dragon Arbiter Stage.
The azure Emperor Life Treasure hovering behind him trembled, Emperor spirit shrieking in shock.