The quiet, crystalline dust of three hundred atomized elite warriors drifted lazily through the suffocating fog, clinging to the jagged black rocks of the Sea-Mist Crags like a shroud of winter frost. The three-mile wide canyon, once teeming with the lethal, bloodthirsty presence of an army, was now an eerie, barren wasteland of polished volcanic stone and lingering absolute-zero cold.
High above on the remaining shattered peaks, the three surviving Stage-5 High-Grade Sovereigns—Grand Elder Blood-Vane, Matriarch Poison-Lotos, and Master Void-Walker—stood frozen in absolute, paralyzed horror. Cold sweat drenched their elaborate, embroidered robes, freezing into icy crusts upon their pale skin before it could even drip onto the stone.
They had spent months preparing this absolute execution ground. They had assembled three hundred Stage-4 experts, sealed the natural spiritual Qi of the universe with the ancient Nine-Abyss Spatial Sealing Array, and brought four Stage-5 Sovereigns to lead the slaughter. Yet, in less than ten breaths, their entire vanguard had been atomized into useless frost-dust—all because the solitary man in the dark traveler's coat had unsheathed a single inch of his heavy blade.
"He... he is not a man..." Matriarch Poison-Lotos whimpered, her withered, age-spotted hands trembling so violently that she could no longer hold her serpent staff. The ancient hardwood staff slipped from her numb fingers, clattering uselessly against the frozen granite. "He is an absolute god of death... We cannot win... Blood-Vane, we must break the array and flee!"
"Flee?!" Grand Elder Blood-Vane's face twisted into a grotesque, bloodthirsty mask of pure desperation. His blood-red eyes burned with hysterical madness as he spat a plume of dark, icy blood onto the stone floor. "The Nine-Abyss Array is locked from the outside! There is no retreat for us! If we do not kill him here, the supreme ancestors behind us will hunt down our clans and wipe us from existence! We have nowhere left to run!"
He pointed his long, razor-sharp fingernails toward the sky, roaring at the top of his lungs until the veins in his neck nearly burst, "ACTIVATE THE SECOND LAYER! CONSUME THE BLOOD SACRIFICE!"
BOOOOM—!
The blood-red spatial array hovering across the night sky flared with a violent, demonic brilliance!
The glittering blue frost-dust covering the canyon floor—the pulverized remains of the three hundred elite warriors—suddenly began to glow with a dark, sinister purple light. The lingering blood essence and spiritual cores of the fallen experts were forcefully drained by the array, shooting up into the sky in three hundred streams of crimson plasma!
The blood plasma converged directly above the heads of the three remaining Stage-5 Sovereigns, forming a massive, three-hundred-yard wide Blood-Fiend Avatar! The monstrous entity possessed eight colossal arms, six burning crimson eyes, and radiated an oppressive, realm-shattering pressure that forced the very bedrock of the mountain to crack open!
"Hahaha! Die!" Blood-Vane screamed, his entire body merging directly into the chest of the giant Blood-Fiend Avatar!
Matriarch Poison-Lotos and Master Void-Walker, driven by the sheer terror of death, threw themselves into the avatar's shoulders as well, fusing their Stage-5 core energies into a single, apocalyptic force!
"Blood-Fiend Domain: Nine-Abyss Devouring Flame!"
The eight-armed giant roared, unleashing a mile-wide tidal wave of corrosive, blood-red solar fire from its six eyes! The searing heat was so intense that it instantly melted the surrounding volcanic granite into glowing rivers of liquid magma, shooting straight down toward Li-Wen and Xiao-Yue!
The sky above turned into a boiling inferno of blood and fire, burning away the dense sea fog and illuminating the dark ocean waves below in blinding shades of crimson and orange.
Down on the narrow stone path, Li-Wen did not slow his pace. His broad palm remained gently wrapped around Xiao-Yue's small, warm hand.
The little girl looked up at the terrifying, roaring giant in the sky, but her hand did not tremble. The ruby-red halo from her pink lotus lantern burned with a steady, serene warmth, keeping the suffocating blood-heat completely at bay, creating a small sanctuary of peace amidst the descending hell.
"Brother Li-Wen," Xiao-Yue whispered softly, her sweet voice breaking through the roaring heat, "the big monster in the sky is making a lot of noise. Is it angry?"
"It is just a dying flame, Xiao-Yue," Li-Wen replied, his voice calm, flat, and devoid of any emotion. "It makes noise because it knows it is about to burn out."
Facing the apocalyptic tidal wave of blood-fire descending upon them, Li-Wen raised his right arm into the air. He did not touch the hilt of his heavy blade this time. He simply extended his index and middle finger, making a swift, vertical slashing gesture toward the sky!
SWOOSH—!
A single, hairline arc of deep, sapphire-blue light shot up from his fingertips!
The moment the sapphire arc touched the mile-wide tidal wave of blood-red solar fire, no violent explosion occurred. The roaring crimson flames snap-froze instantly into a colossal, three-hundred-yard wide wave of solid blue ice, hanging motionless mid-air above the canyon!
"WHAT?!" Blood-Vane's terrified scream echoed from inside the giant avatar's chest.
Before the three Stage-5 Sovereigns could even process the horror, the hairline arc of sapphire light sliced effortlessly through the frozen wave of fire, continuing its upward trajectory without losing a single fraction of its momentum!
SNAP—! CRACKLE—!
The arc of light passed clean through the massive, three-hundred-yard Blood-Fiend Avatar!
For a microsecond, time seemed to stand still.
Then, the six burning crimson eyes of the giant avatar lost their light. The eight massive arms froze into brittle blue ice.
BOOOOM—!
The colossal Blood-Fiend Avatar, along with the three Stage-5 High-Grade Sovereigns fused inside it, shattered simultaneously into millions of sparkling, pale blue ice crystals!
Matriarch Poison-Lotos and Master Void-Walker were completely atomized on the spot, their souls and cultivation bases wiped out from existence before they could even scream!
Only Grand Elder Blood-Vane was thrown out from the exploding ice, his legs completely frozen and shattered, his chest caved in as he crashed violently onto the razor-sharp rocks near the cliff edge, coughing up plumes of frozen blood.
"Cough... Cough... Monster..." Blood-Vane gasped, his eyes wide with pure, unadulterated terror as he watched the dark-coated figure step calmly over the glittering frost toward him. "The... the array is still active... You cannot break... the spatial cage..."
Li-Wen stopped three paces away from the dying Sovereign. He did not look down at the blood-soaked elder. His dark, indifferent eyes remained fixed on the swirling void mist directly behind Blood-Vane's back.
"The array was never holding me," Li-Wen said softly, his voice carrying the quiet, terrifying weight of an absolute zero glacier. "It was holding you."
However, just as Li-Wen raised his hand to finish the final elder, his acute, primordial senses picked up a tiny, almost imperceptible ripple in the spatial fold directly behind his left shoulder—a blind spot completely concealed from mortal perception!
Deep within the hidden fold of space, a gaunt, shadow-like figure—Ancestor Shadow-Void, the supreme assassin of the spatial guild—had been holding his breath for three hours, waiting for this exact, split-second window of distraction!
Ancestor Shadow-Void had sacrificed fifty years of his lifespan to activate the Absolute Spatial Concealment Rune, suppressing his heartbeat, his body heat, his breathing, and his spiritual consciousness to absolute zero. He had watched three hundred warriors die and three Stage-5 Sovereigns atomized without making a single move. He knew he only had one chance—one single microsecond while Li-Wen's attention was drawn toward the dying Blood-Vane!
In Ancestor Shadow-Void's hand, the pitch-black Void-Piercing Needle flared with an absolute, dark-violet killing intent!
The artifact was forged from the dark marrow of a fallen spatial void-beast and quenched in the blood of nine Stage-5 Sovereigns. It carried no physical weight, no sound, no aura fluctuation, and no thermal signature. It was an absolute assassination weapon designed specifically to bypass physical armor, aura barriers, and spatial protections!
Now! While his attention is on Blood-Vane! Ancestor Shadow-Void sneered silently in his heart, his gaunt figure flickering out from the spatial fold like a phantom knife!
The black needle shot forward with silent, instantaneous speed!
It did not aim for Li-Wen's head, nor did it aim for his chest where the ancient Northern Rune rested. Ancestor Shadow-Void was a master assassin who knew that Peak Sovereigns often possessed defensive heart-plates or soul-barriers. Instead, he aimed for the lower spine—the critical junction where a cultivator's spatial meridians and lower dantian converged!
If the needle pierced that single point, Li-Wen's internal core Qi would instantly leak out, paralyzing his lower limbs and temporarily shattering his ability to mobilize his absolute zero aura!
And even more sinisterly... the trajectory of the needle was calculated so that if Li-Wen dodged to the left, the dark-violet spatial needle would pass clean through his body and strike directly into the heart of little Xiao-Yue standing beside him!
A lethal, unavoidable dilemma!
If Li-Wen stood still, his core would be pierced and crippled!
If he dodged, the child behind him would die instantly under the void poison of the needle!
Ancestor Shadow-Void's eyes gleamed with a sickening, triumphant madness. In his mind, the outcome was already decided. A man who carried a fragile mortal child into a battle ground had already surrendered his ultimate invulnerability!
"Die, Northern Sovereign!" Ancestor Shadow-Void's raspy whisper echoed directly inside the spatial fold!
The pitch-black needle reached a distance of precisely three inches from Li-Wen's dark traveler's coat! The void-tearing energy at its tip was so concentrated that it began to unravel the outer fabric of his coat before even making physical contact!
Down on the ground, Grand Elder Blood-Vane saw the dark-violet gleam out of the corner of his eye and burst into a hysterical, blood-soaked laugh! "HA HA HA! You are dead! The Void-Piercing Needle spares no one!"
The wind in the canyon seemed to stop. The drifting blue frost particles hung frozen in mid-air.
Facing the ultimate, point-blank ambush from a Stage-5 spatial master, Li-Wen's face did not register a single trace of surprise or panic. His dark eyes remained cold, calm, and undisturbed as an ancient abyss.
He did not dodge to the left. He did not move to protect himself.
Instead, with speed that surpassed the very concept of spatial movement, Li-Wen did something that no cultivator in the history of the continent would ever dare to do.
He shifted his body half an inch to the right—placing himself completely between the needle and Xiao-Yue—and allowed his back to receive the full force of the Void-Piercing Needle!
PUKS—!
A sharp, sickening sound of flesh being pierced echoed through the quiet canyon!
The pitch-black Void-Piercing Needle bit deep into Li-Wen's back, penetrating through his traveler's coat and driving three inches into his lower meridian junction!
"BROTHER LI-WEN—!" Xiao-Yue screamed in sheer terror, her small hand clutching his fingers with all her strength as she saw black blood stain the back of his coat!
The dark-violet void poison instantly burst forth from the needle's tip, surging into Li-Wen's meridians like millions of microscopic spatial razors, wildly tearing at his internal channels and locking down his lower dantian!
"HAHAHAHA! IT STRUCK! IT STRUCK!" Ancestor Shadow-Void materialized behind Li-Wen, his gaunt face twisted in manic, ecstatic triumph! "His meridians are sealed! His core energy is leaking! The Northern Sovereign is crippled—!"
However, Ancestor Shadow-Void's frantic laughter died in his throat the very next microsecond.
He expected Li-Wen to collapse to his knees. He expected him to scream in agony as the void poison tore his internal organs apart.
He did not expect Li-Wen to remain standing like an unyielding, iron mountain.
Li-Wen did not make a single sound of pain. He did not even flinch.
Slowly... agonizingly... Li-Wen turned his head around. His dark, void-like eyes locked directly onto Ancestor Shadow-Void's pale face.
In those dark eyes, there was no longer any indifference, no calm, and no quiet cold.
There was only a terrifying, dark abyss of absolute, primal murder!
"You..." Li-Wen's voice was no longer flat. It was a low, abyssal growl that vibrated through the bedrock of the mountain, causing Ancestor Shadow-Void's ears to bleed instantly. "...touched her."
CLACK—!
Li-Wen's right hand reached back with phantom speed, grabbing Ancestor Shadow-Void by the throat like an iron vise!
"No... NO! HOW CAN YOU STILL MOVE?!" Ancestor Shadow-Void shrieked in absolute, soul-shattering terror, wildly mobilizing his Stage-5 spatial energy to escape back into the void!
He couldn't.
The moment Li-Wen's hand touched his neck, the absolute zero aura—now fueled by a dark, volatile rage—surged directly into Ancestor Shadow-Void's body!
SNAP—! CHILL—!
Ancestor Shadow-Void's spatial energy, his blood, his bones, his soul, and his five-hundred-year cultivation base frozen solid into a dark blue ice block in less than a millisecond!
Li-Wen did not throw him away. He simply squeezed his fingers.
CRUSH—!
Ancestor Shadow-Void—the supreme assassin of the spatial guild—shattered into a cloud of useless, frozen dust between Li-Wen's fingers!
Grand Elder Blood-Vane's laughter turned into a terrifying, choked whimper. He dragged his broken, frozen body backward along the rocks, screaming like a madman, "Monster! Monster! HE IS A DEMON FROM THE UPPER REALM!"
Li-Wen did not even look at Blood-Vane. He casually flicked his left hand toward the dying elder.
BOOOM—!
A wave of sapphire shockwave slammed into Blood-Vane, instantly obliterating the final Stage-5 Sovereign and the surrounding cliff face into complete, non-existent dust!
The battle of the Sea-Mist Crags was over. All three hundred elite warriors and four Stage-5 Sovereigns were dead.
However, as silence returned to the mountain, the dark-violet void poison inside the needle behind Li-Wen's back began to flare with violent, unstable spatial vibrations! The heavy injury to his meridians forced a trickle of dark, frozen blood to spill from the corner of Li-Wen's lips.
"Brother Li-Wen! You're bleeding! You're bleeding!" Xiao-Yue cried hysterically, tears streaming down her pale, terrified face as she tried to use her small sleeve to wipe the blood from his chin. Her pink lotus lantern wobbled wildly in her hand.
"I am... fine, Xiao-Yue..." Li-Wen said softly, his voice raspy as he swallowed the surging blood in his chest. He reached down to comfort her.
However, neither of them realized that high above the canyon, the Nine-Abyss Spatial Sealing Array—having consumed the blood of four Stage-5 Sovereigns and hundreds of experts—was now completely out of control! The death of Ancestor Shadow-Void had triggered the array's self-destruction mechanism!
BOOOOM—!
The blood-red sky collapsed inward! A terrifying, three-mile wide spatial fissure tore open directly above the cliff edge, unleashing a roaring, chaotic vortex of spatial blades and vacuum currents that swept across the mountain peak like a world-ending storm!
The razor-sharp spatial blades rained down from the collapsing sky, shooting straight toward the defenseless, weeping little girl!
With his meridians compromised and his core energy suppressed by the void needle, Li-Wen knew he could not expand his absolute zero domain in time to freeze the entire spatial collapse!
Without a single microsecond of hesitation, Li-Wen threw his broad body forward, wrapping his heavy arms completely around Xiao-Yue, using his own flesh and blood as an unbreakable shield to protect her from the descending spatial storm!
See you in next chapter...