"Ugh—! Y-You… You are also a refiner!?" The Earth Elder's voice was a ragged, wet rasp, choked by the copper tang of sudden internal injury.
Coughing up dark, viscous blood that spattered the dry earth in thick, heavy droplets, the Earth Elder stared in raw disbelief at Su Min. She stood completely unscathed before them, her glazed azure armor gleaming with a cold, crystalline light under the afternoon sun. There wasn't a single scratch on its polished surface, despite the violence of their preceding clash. He was barely upright now, his trembling weight supported by the Flame Elder's shoulder. His brother was himself battered, his robes scorched and his breathing coming in heavy, ragged lungfuls of air that smelled of smoke and sweat.
The older man was in far worse shape. A gaping, horrific wound tore across his abdomen, a jagged rent left by Su Min's reckless, all-or-nothing strike. Worse yet, a single, persistent sliver of her Nanming Lihuo had invaded his meridians, burning like a white-hot needle deep within his chest. He was now frantically circulating his spiritual energy, trying to force the corrosive, otherworldly flame out before it could consume his core from the inside out.
"You damn wench!"
The Flame Elder's fury was a palpable heat that radiated from his skin like an open oven, yet he didn't dare advance. Instead, he positioned his own body as a shield for his wounded brother, his feet planted firmly in the churned dirt. His eyes darted across the immediate battlefield, scanning for a path of retreat and ready to flee the instant the situation became truly hopeless.
That was exactly the reaction Su Min had hoped for. She didn't press her attack. It was far better to let them cling to a sliver of false hope and waste their remaining strength here than to have them scatter into the chaotic sea of soldiers. If they vanished into that press of bodies, she might lose her chance for a clean kill.
"Give them a thread of hope, make them think they can still win," she reasoned, her expression unreadable behind her visor. "If they bolt into that army now, I might not catch them both."
From their brief, brutal exchange, she had already confirmed a crucial fact. Their cultivation levels were equal, and their elemental affinities were a close match; however, her Nanming Lihuo utterly dominated the Flame Elder's ordinary spiritual fire. If they clashed head-on again with their full power, he would be incinerated.
And then there was her armor. She saw the flicker of raw, desperate greed in the elder's eyes as he looked at the azure plates. Her enchanted battle armor was a treasure rarer than most high-tier spiritual tools. Forging such a complete set required a staggering, almost impossible quantity of rare ores and monster parts.
To craft it, she had emptied her personal spatial ring and spent every bit of the spoils given by the Desert Tribes. She had even melted down the bizarre metallic core harvested from a powerful metal elemental beast. She had poured in everything she owned, leaving just enough residue to finally forge her own sword.
Now, facing them in full regalia, she was the walking embodiment of overwhelming advantage. She was a pay-to-win warrior, brutally overgeared for the fight.
"We have to use that move," the Earth Elder gasped, steadying himself. "The backlash will split between us, but we have no choice. Without it, we can't even scratch her."
Despite his grave injury, a peak Qi Refining cultivator's vitality was tenacious. Yet both of them understood the grim reality. His wounds would prevent him from fighting at his full capacity. Even though the Flame Elder was equal to Su Min in realm, her strange fire suppressed his. Her superior armor and elusive movement techniques gave her a crushing, comprehensive advantage.
Their only hope now was to combine their very beings.
"Damn it! If we had known she was this strong, we would have fused from the very start!"
Both brothers cursed their own caution. Yet it was hard to blame them. Who could have expected such a young girl to hide so many devastating trump cards? Their fusion technique was their most precious secret, a last resort that left both users severely weakened and vulnerable afterward.
But now, none of that mattered. Survival was all.
"Old fools," Su Min's flat, mocking voice carried across the distance between them. "Still hesitating to merge?"
She didn't attack immediately. Instead, she waited. Her senses were sharpened to a razor's edge as she anticipated the brief but critical moment of instability that came during the fusion process; it was the perfect, fleeting opening to strike. This wasn't a game with honor codes. In reality, cultivators fought to win. She had no intention of playing fair. Why risk a straight fight when she could stack every possible advantage in her favor?
"Little brat, don't think that fancy armor makes you invincible!"
Sure enough, seeing her hesitation, the two elders suddenly widened the distance between them and Su Min. Their hands flashed through a complex, synchronized series of hand seals, their fingers blurring in the light. Their spiritual energies began to twist and intertwine in the air, manifesting as visible ribbons of crimson and ochre power.
"Now."
"Tiger Soul Possession!"
At that exact instant, Su Min's own energy underwent a violent shift. The bestial, raw power of the Tiger Soul within her body surged forth, igniting her spirit and flooding her limbs with explosive strength. In the same motion, she threw a pale green pill into her mouth, swallowing it without a second thought. Her figure then blurred, vanishing from sight and reappearing as a streaking afterimage of light.
[Galeburst Pill (Grade-2)—Temporarily enhances movement speed upon use]
As a master alchemist with the entirety of Prince Yong's treasury at her disposal, she had plenty of such niche, situational pills. Originally, this combination of possession and pill was meant for swift, deadly ambushes. Today? There was no need for subtlety.
SHING—!
In that single, blinding flash of accelerated motion, time itself seemed to stutter and stop.
"Defend!!"
Years of life-or-death battle instinct screamed at the Flame Elder. He threw his hands forward, manifesting a massive shield of concentrated fire and spiritual energy before him. But in the very next moment, the shield shattered like glass under a heavy hammer. A blade of condensed Nanming Lihuo, hotter than the core of a forge, tore through his desperate defense. A line of crimson appeared across his thigh, and blood sprayed in a dark arc.
"FUSE!!!"
Their desperate, simultaneous shout tore through the air as their two bodies were forcibly drawn together, spiritual light erupting around them in a blinding, chaotic sphere.
BOOOOM!!!
A moment later, a single, fused entity roared, unleashing its full, combined power. An explosive wave of spiritual might, denser and heavier than anything before, erupted outwards. It flattened the earth for dozens of meters and sent a visible ripple through the air across the entire battlefield, knocking over those standing too close.
"…Foundation Establishment!?"
On the city wall, the four cultivators who had just barely recovered their strength felt the pressure and paled. That overwhelming, suffocating aura could only mean one thing. The brothers had temporarily crossed the threshold. They had successfully fused, reaching the pseudo-Foundation Establishment realm. A wave of despair washed over the defenders. This level of battle was far beyond their ability to intervene. Instead of pointlessly throwing their lives away, they turned their focus to the outer skirmishes, leaping from the wall to slaughter the lesser Body Tempering cultivators still swarming the plains below.
Su Min, however, remained perfectly calm. Her earlier lightning strike hadn't been aimed to kill, but to cripple. She had severed the tendons and meridians in the Flame Elder's leg. Now that the brothers were fused into a single being, their wounds were shared. Escape was now impossible for the fused entity.
"An impressive technique," Su Min said, striding forward through the dissipating energy. She seemed completely unfazed by the Foundation Establishment level pressure washing over her. "But tell me, how much of that strength do you actually have left to use?"
As she advanced, a thousand-meter zone of death formed around the fused elder. Their own unstable, raging aura flattened any soldier, friend or foe, who stumbled into it. The massive elder itself then stumbled, falling to one knee with a heavy crash. Its body trembled violently under the strain of containing its own unstable power.
In game terms, its status would be clear:
HP < 50%
Crippled: Movement Severely Impaired
Severe Stat Debuffs from Meridian Damage
It was a "Foundation Establishment" in name and pressure only, a crippled giant.
"Y-you—"
The fused elder's face, a grotesque blend of both brothers' features, twisted in pain and disbelief. They couldn't run, not with their shared leg crippled.
And then, something even more terrifying unfolded.
A wave of serene, azure flame burst forth from Su Min's body, enveloping her completely without a sound. Her hair and pupils ignited, shifting to a vivid, glowing crimson that held the depth of an eternal forge.