Her voice rang out, clear and resonant across the chaotic field, cutting through the heavy din of clashing steel and desperate screams. "Four Symbols Heavenly Sun—Vermilion Bird Possession!"
In the blink of an eye, a towering inferno of serene, azure flame erupted around Su Min, consuming the very air with a hungry roar. Brilliant, semi-transparent crimson wings of pure, condensed energy unfurled from her back, spanning wide against the smoke-choked sky. A scorching, supernatural wind swept outwards across the dry plains, withering the parched grass instantly and forcing the nearby men to shield their eyes from the blinding, intense heat radiating from her form. The air shimmered and warped, distorted by the raw power she had unleashed.
"So this... this is her true power?" one of the cultivators stammered from the ramparts. His face turned ashen as he watched the display, the flickering light of the azure flames reflecting in his wide pupils. "Just touching the edge of those flames would leave us half dead."
The four cultivators who had so often sparred with her felt a physical weight press into their chests, a crushing gravity born of pure spiritual pressure. Ever since they reached the Qi Refining stage, she was the only one qualified to instruct them in combat. Yet never, not even once, had she revealed the full, terrifying extent of her strength during their training sessions.
The difference in their relative power was unmistakable. It was truly terrifying to behold, a gap that seemed less like a difference in cultivation and more like a difference in species.
The truth was, even though Su Min hadn't gone all out in their previous spars, she hadn't been holding back completely either. The effects of the Tiger Soul Possession were simply too subtle, its enhancements to her raw speed and physical strength too difficult for their untrained senses to fully grasp. They hadn't realized just how vast the power gap had already become until this moment.
Boom!!!
A moment later, the controlled firestorm swirling around Su Min detonated outwards among the closest enemy ranks. Dozens of grassland soldiers caught within the blast radius were instantly swallowed by the blazing inferno, their desperate screams lost in the overwhelming roar of the flames as they were reduced to ash before they could even fall. This was the raw, destructive might she could unleash now that she stood at the very peak of the Qi Refining stage.
This time, she didn't waste any words on her opponents. Earlier, she had allowed the elders a chance to merge, to face her with their full, combined strength in a fair test of power. But now that every escape route was cut off and their defeat was inevitable, there's nothing left for her to say to them.
"Damn it...!"
Even the seasoned, hardened hearts of the fused Flame and Earth Elder trembled at the sight. If they were in perfect condition, perhaps they wouldn't have feared a direct confrontation. But to clash head-on with Su Min now was to invite certain death. Their situation was dire. Their shared form was crippled, their shared legs mangled from her earlier lightning strike. The Vermilion Bird's corrosive flames still sizzled painfully within their damaged meridians, resisting every attempt at suppression.
There was no room for even a single mistake in this fight.
Escape was now impossible. The only reason they could still stand and move was by forcibly channeling their spiritual energy into their damaged limbs. But against a foe who could take to the skies on wings of fire, there's truly nowhere left to run.
Clang!
Their forces collided again in a violent shower of spiritual sparks that lit up the afternoon air. Now that the old men had fused into one being and temporarily stepped into the Foundation Establishment stage, they could finally breach Su Min's layered defenses and land a few solid, resonating blows against her azure armor. Yet, after dozens of frantic midair clashes that shook the sky, despair only grew in their hearts.
Su Min fought with an unnerving, preternatural precision. She seemed to understand their attack patterns, their ingrained techniques, and even the slight delay in their fused movements. She seized every tiny weakness she found, her sword striking exactly where it would disrupt their spiritual flow most, as if she had studied their every move for a lifetime.
"Who the hell are you?!" the fused entity roared, its voice a distorted, echoing blend of two distinct men.
With one final, shattering impact that sent out a shockwave, Su Min slammed them out of the sky. They hit the ground like a falling meteor, cratering the earth and sending up a plume of thick dust. Gasping for ragged breaths, the two old monsters trapped within the form shouted again, raw panic bleeding into their voices.
"A passing Kamen Rider."
"...What?"
Their confusion barely had time to register before Su Min blurred into motion again, the Galeburst Pill's effect still lingering in her system. She appeared directly in front of their kneeling, battered form in a flash of light.
"DIE!!!"
They both cried out in unison, their voices cracked with desperation as they hurriedly raised their massive, mountain-like earthen shield artifact to block her. But at that exact moment—
ROAR!!!!
A deafening, purely bestial roar exploded directly in their minds. It was a spiritual attack from Su Min's Tiger Soul Possession that shattered their concentration and focus in an instant.
"You—you actually have a mid-grade Yellow rank spiritual weapon, you—"
Before the fused elder could finish the sentence, Su Min was already upon them. She didn't strike with her sword, but with the dark, unassuming gourd she pulled from her spatial ring. It slammed into the shield's surface.
In the blink of an eye—
BOOM!!!
A thunderous, earth-rending explosion tore across the battlefield as a blinding, vengeful bolt of black lightning surged out from the gourd's mouth. The devastating strike swallowed the two men whole, then continued on its path, cleaving a deep, smoldering trench across the battlefield for nearly a hundred chi and cleanly splitting the field in two. The earth vitrified into jagged black glass where the bolt had passed.
Tens of thousands of soldiers on both sides froze in place, their fight momentarily forgotten as they stared at the destruction. Even atop Yongzhou's high fortress wall, the soldiers and Prince Yong himself stood utterly stunned, unable to speak as they gazed at the smoldering earth.
"She... she split the entire battlefield with one strike?" someone finally whispered, their voice trembling with awe. "How is that possible?!"
It was the Demon Slaying Thunder. After absorbing the essence of the two powerful late-stage Qi Refining beasts, it had been building up immense, cataclysmic power within the gourd. Combined with Su Min's peak cultivation at the moment of release, its power was truly apocalyptic, silencing the entire war in one single, terrifying instant. The Flame and Earth Elders were completely, utterly annihilated by the surge, leaving not even ash behind on the blackened ground.
Even Su Min was slightly taken aback by the sheer scale of the destruction she had wrought. But thinking it over, it made sense. The last time she had used it, the gourd had only contained the giant clam demon's essence. Now, it hadn't digested two powerful late-stage Qi Refining beast corpses. Its stored power had multiplied many times over.
"Looks like even if I hadn't softened them up beforehand," she mused to herself, "even at their peak, one full blast of the Demon Slaying Thunder wouldn't have left them on the brink of death."
True Foundation Establishment cultivators were no joke, and she had been wary of a desperate self-detonation from the fused entity. So she had seized the perfect opportunity and struck first. The only real downside to the strike? There wasn't even a single corpse left to loot.
"Good thing the main spiritual artifacts survived the blast. The two peak Qi Refiners' essence—what a boost for my foundation."
Muttering to herself, she waved her hand and used her spiritual sense to summon the two core artifacts—the earthen shield and the fiery root—back to her hand. It was their misfortune that the earth-type artifact couldn't endure a direct strike from her sword, and the fire-type weapon was completely useless against her own superior flames.
With her Golden Bell Barrier, her enchanted armor, and her Nanming Lihuo protecting her, her defensive and fire-resistant capabilities were nearly absolute. As she calmly collected her spoils, the entire battlefield sank into an eerie, profound silence. With her flaming wings still spread wide, she hovered in the sky, silhouetted against the bright sun like a divine being descended from the heavens to pass judgment.
As she slowly descended towards the churned earth, the hundreds of thousands of enemy soldiers who witnessed it began to take slow, trembling steps backward. She couldn't possibly kill them all, of course, but that no longer mattered. Every single person on that field had seen what she was capable of doing. No one doubted that she could kill any one of them in an instant, personally, and without any visible effort. The black lightning that had torn the world apart was proof enough for them.
When death itself descends from the heavens, the human spirit breaks. Even the legendary Flame and Earth Elders, their paragons of power and prestige, hadn't been reduced to less than dust before their very eyes.
And now? She was no longer a person in their eyes. She was a goddess of vengeance and flame.
"She is a god—RUN!!"
No one knew who shouted it first, but that single, terrified cry triggered an avalanche of pure panic. The front ranks broke formation entirely, fleeing in a chaotic, mindless rush and cutting down anyone who blocked their way. Even the officers and soldiers meant to suppress deserters were swept up in the tide and forced to retreat or be trampled underfoot.
The cavalry had horses to escape. Those behind—the slaves, the porters, the old and the weak—had nothing but their own feet. Within seconds, they were trampled and buried beneath the stampede of their own retreating army. A living, breathing nightmare of humanity's worst instincts unfolded before Su Min's eyes as the army collapsed.
"Everyone—CHARGE!!!"
Prince Yong's voice, raw with triumphant fury, roared from atop the wall.
The massive city gates burst open with a crash. Ten thousand elite cavalry surged out, their hooves pounding the earth, led by the four Qi Refining cultivators and a legion of vengeful Body Forging warriors. The enemy had no will, no formation, and no leadership left to resist the onslaught. It wasn't a battle. It was a slaughter. The moment the two forces met, it was no longer a clash of armies—it was butchery.
"War..." Su Min sighed softly, shaking her head as she watched the grim aftermath unfold below.
With that, she turned her back on the carnage and soared gracefully back to the walls of Yongzhou. She had no more interest in this massacre. The outcome had been decisively decided the moment the black lightning fell. There was no need for her to lift a finger anymore.