The sky above the Sea-Mist Crags did not merely shatter; it bled space itself.
When the core runes of the Nine-Abyss Spatial Sealing Array destabilized following the death of Ancestor Shadow-Void, the fragile tapestry of reality holding the mountain canyon together dissolved into absolute chaos. A jagged, blood-red rift over three miles long ripped open across the firmament, roaring like an ancient, star-devouring beast.
From within the dark, swirling stomach of the void, thousands of chaotic spatial blades—each capable of cleaving an armored Stage-4 expert into microscopic ribbons—rained down upon the crumbling granite cliffs in a dense, lethal hail. The surrounding peaks were sheared off like fragile parchment, tumbling into the frothing, black ocean waters thousands of feet below.
In the center of this collapsing hell, Li-Wen did not attempt to flee.
With the black Void-Piercing Needle still wedged deeply behind his left shoulder, tearing at his primary meridians with dark-violet, agonizing poison, his internal core Qi was locked in a violent, volatile war. A normal cultivator faced with such an injury would have been paralyzed instantly, their dantian rupturing under the immense pressure of their own backed-up spiritual energy.
Yet, Li-Wen's face remained a mask of iron-like stillness.
Instead of drawing upon his frozen meridians to manifest an absolute-zero defensive sphere, he made a choice that defied every law of martial survival.
He dropped to one knee on the trembling stone path, pulled Xiao-Yue tightly against his broad chest, and locked his heavy arms around her small shoulders like an impenetrable vault of steel and leather. He tucked her head against his collarbone, using his broad back, his dark traveler's coat, and his own flesh and blood to construct an absolute barrier between her fragile mortal body and the apocalyptic storm descending from above.
"Brother Li-Wen...!" Xiao-Yue gasped, her small hands clutching tightly to the lapels of his coat.
She could feel the violent, irregular thudding of his heart—a stark contrast to his usual slow, rhythmic pulse. The sharp, iron scent of his frozen blood filled her nostrils, mixing with the sweet, ruby radiance emitting from her pink lotus lantern. She tried to raise the lantern to shield him, but his broad, warm hand gently pressed her arm down, keeping her tucked safely beneath his shoulders.
"Stay still, Xiao-Yue," Li-Wen murmured into her hair. His voice was remarkably soft, devoid of any fear, carrying a quiet warmth that completely detached them from the violent world dying around them. "Do not look up. Close your eyes."
"I'm not scared of the dark... I'm scared for you!" she cried, tiny tears escaping her eyelids and dampening his dark coat. "The bad needles... you're hurt!"
"A needle cannot cut a mountain," he whispered smoothly. "Hold your lantern. Do not let the light go out."
CLANG—! CLANG—! BOOOOM—!
The first wave of spatial blades struck.
The void razors slammed directly into Li-Wen's back with the momentum of falling meteors! Each impact generated a terrifying, deafening ring that echoed across the collapsing canyon like the striking of a colossal bronze bell!
The outer layers of his heavy traveler's coat were shredded into dark ribbons, exposing the dense, pale skin beneath. Yet, as the spatial blades made contact with his flesh, they did not slice through him like water.
The ancient, primordial Northern Rune resting against the center of his chest flared with a deep, pulsing sapphire light!
Even with his dantians suppressed and his meridians laced with poison, Li-Wen's physical body—refined through centuries of absolute-zero temperature and ancient elemental marrow—was itself an indestructible artifact! The moment the void blades touched his skin, the kinetic impact was instantly converted into microscopic frost. The spatial energy shattered upon contact, exploding into harmless showers of glittering blue sparks that cascaded down his back like shooting stars!
However, while his physical body could withstand the sheer sharp force of the void blades, the violent, repeated impacts pushed the Void-Piercing Needle deeper into his flesh!
PUKS—!
The dark-violet poison surged with renewed, malicious fury, creeping further along his spinal meridian and forcing another line of dark, icy blood to leak from the corner of Li-Wen's mouth.
Li-Wen did not grunt. He did not utter a single groan of agony. He merely tightened his grip around Xiao-Yue, leaning forward slightly to absorb the kinetic shockwaves into his own frame, ensuring that not even a single stray breeze of spatial force reached the little girl beneath him.
High above, the three-mile spatial fissure expanded further, turning into a massive, devouring black void vortex!
The gravitational pull of the collapsing array became immense! Huge chunks of the volcanic mountain—weighing hundreds of thousands of tons—were ripped from the earth and sucked upward into the swirling vortex, where they were instantly ground into fine gray powder!
The granite floor beneath Li-Wen's knee began to fracture completely! The entire cliff edge, spanning half a mile in width, broke away from the main coastline, tilting dangerously toward the roaring black ocean waves below before being pulled toward the devouring void in the sky!
Seeing the ground beneath them give way, Li-Wen's dark eyes narrowed.
If we are sucked into the chaotic void while my meridians are locked, protecting Xiao-Yue from the endless spatial currents inside will prove troublesome, he calculated silently with terrifying, cold logic. This spatial tear must be silenced now.
Li-Wen slowly raised his right hand from around Xiao-Yue's shoulders.
He did not draw his weapon. He did not channel his spiritual energy through his poisoned meridians.
Instead, he relied entirely on the pure, unadulterated physical power of his primordial constitution!
He formed a fist—a simple, unadorned right fist.
The air surrounding his fingers compressed so violently that a high-pitched sonic boom shattered the surrounding rocks before his arm even moved!
Li-Wen looked up at the roaring, three-mile wide spatial vortex devouring the sky, his dark eyes burning with an unyielding, absolute authority.
"Quiet," he commanded flatly.
Then, he punched straight up into the sky!
BOOOM—!
It was not a martial technique. It was not a spell. It was the absolute, raw physical force of a body that had stood at the absolute apex of the Northern Realm!
A massive, invisible shockwave—spanning over five hundred yards in width—erupted from his fist, shooting skyward like an invisible battering ram! The raw kinetic velocity was so extreme that it created an absolute vacuum in its wake, blowing away the descending spatial blades, the blood fog, and the falling boulders in a single, instantaneous sweep!
The shockwave slammed directly into the center of the three-mile spatial vortex!
CRACK—! SNAP—!
The violent, devouring suction force of the void vortex was forcibly halted mid-air! The raw physical impact compressed the unstable spatial tear so violently that the chaotic void currents were squeezed out of existence, suffocating the rift's energy source!
Like a tear in paper being forcefully smoothed out by a heavy iron press, the massive three-mile spatial fissure collapsed inward on itself, snapping shut with a deep, echoing rumble!
The blood-red light vanished from the sky. The chaotic void blades melted away.
The night sky above the Sea-Mist Crags cleared completely, revealing the quiet, serene moonlight drifting down through the dispersing sea mist, illuminating the ruined, quiet canyon once more.
Silence returned to the world.
The massive cliff face, though severed from the mainland, settled into the calm coastal waters below, floating like a small, flat island of volcanic granite amidst the quiet ocean waves.
Li-Wen slowly lowered his fist.
He took a deep, steady breath, regulating his breathing to suppress the surging void poison behind his shoulder. His dark traveler's coat was torn and stained with dark, frozen blood, but his posture remained as straight, firm, and unbending as an ancient mountain peak.
He looked down at his chest.
Xiao-Yue was still shivering slightly, her tiny fingers tightly clutching his lapels. The pink lotus lantern in her hand was still burning brightly, its ruby flame reflecting softly in her large, tear-filled eyes as she slowly looked up.
"Brother... Brother Li-Wen?" she whispered, her voice trembling as she searched his face. "Is... is the bad storm gone?"
"It is gone, Xiao-Yue," Li-Wen said gently, reaching out his hand to gently wipe the tears from her small cheeks with his broad thumb. "The sky is quiet now."
Xiao-Yue looked up at the clear, moonlit night sky, then looked back at his torn coat and the dark, icy blood on his chin. Tears welled up in her eyes again, but she quickly wiped them away with her sleeve, trying to be brave.
"You defended me..." she sobbed softly, pressing her forehead against his chest. "You let the bad needle hurt you so I wouldn't get hit..."
"It was just a needle, Xiao-Yue," Li-Wen replied, his voice calm, flat, and carrying an absolute, comforting certainty. "A needle cannot harm me. But if a single drop of rain touched you, I would have had to destroy the sky."
Xiao-Yue blinked her large eyes, her heart swelling with an indescribable sense of warmth and absolute safety. She leaned heavily against his broad shoulder, wrapping her small arms around his neck as tightly as she could.
"I won't ever leave your side, Brother Li-Wen," she promised softly. "Even if a hundred bad monsters come!"
Li-Wen let out a tiny, almost imperceptible sigh—a rare, soft sound that vanished into the coastal breeze. He reached around with his broad palm, gently holding her against his side as he slowly stood up on the flat stone island floating in the sea.
However, as he stood upright, his internal senses registered the persistent, dark-violet poison of the Void-Piercing Needle still active within his meridians. The needle was forged from spatial void marrow; as long as it remained lodged in his back, it would continue to draw upon the surrounding void energy to suppress his primary dantian.
To pull it out normally would require opening his spatial channels—which would allow the poison to flow directly into his heart core.
Li-Wen did not attempt to forcefully pull it out.
Instead, he focused his consciousness inward, steering a thin, concentrated thread of his primordial absolute-zero energy straight toward his lower spine.
Freeze, he commanded coldly in his mind.
In a fraction of a second, the absolute-zero energy enveloped the black Void-Piercing Needle.
The dark-violet poison was not neutralized; rather, the needle, the poison, and the surrounding spatial vibrations were snap-froze into solid, absolute-zero ice inside his tissue! The needle became completely inert, encased in a microscopic shell of deep sapphire frost that completely isolated it from his meridians and blood vessels.
While the needle remained trapped inside his body, preventing him from utilizing ninety percent of his internal spiritual Qi, his physical strength and his passive absolute-zero aura remained entirely unaffected.
For a man who had walked through the frozen hell of the Northern Boundary for three centuries, a minor meridian seal was nothing more than an insignificant dust particle on his coat.
Li-Wen turned his head, looking toward the dark ocean horizon stretching out before them.
The Sea-Mist Crags were entirely annihilated. The three hundred elite experts, the four Stage-5 High-Grade Sovereigns, and the spatial guild assassin were all wiped from the face of the continent. The news of this battle would inevitably send seismic shockwaves through the seven great sects and the central empires within days.
They would soon realize that the solitary man traveling with the mortal girl was not a mere wandering expert, but a walking calamity that no spatial array or joint alliance could ever hope to seal.
"Brother Li-Wen," Xiao-Yue said softly, looking around at the quiet ocean surrounding their floating stone island. "Where do we go now? The path on the land is gone."
Li-Wen looked down at the dark, clear ocean water lapping gently against the edges of the granite island.
He extended his right boot, lightly tapping the surface of the sea water.
SNAP—! CHILL—!
In a microsecond, a wide, gleaming path of solid, deep-blue ice materialized upon the ocean surface, expanding outward into the dark horizon like a majestic, frozen highway, stretching as far as the eye could see under the bright moonlight!
The ice path was completely smooth, solid, and illuminated by tiny, glittering frost crystals that mirrored the stars in the sky above.
"We walk across the sea," Li-Wen said calmly, taking Xiao-Yue's small hand in his once more.
Xiao-Yue's eyes lit up with wonder as she looked at the glittering blue ice highway extending into the distant darkness. The ruby flame of her pink lotus lantern cast a beautiful, warm pink light across the frozen ocean floor, creating a breathtaking contrast against the deep blue night.
"An ice bridge on the ocean!" she cheered softly, her previous fear completely forgotten as she stepped onto the solid ice beside him. "It looks like a path made of fallen stars!"
"It is just ice, Xiao-Yue," Li-Wen said, though the faint trace of a soft smile touched the very corner of his lips as he looked down at her cheerful face. "Walk carefully. The sea is deep."
"I won't fall!" she laughed happily, holding his fingers tightly. "Because Brother Li-Wen is holding my hand!"
Together, the solitary Northern Sovereign—his coat shredded, his back carrying an inert dark needle, his aura quiet and unyielding—and the small mortal girl holding her pink lotus lantern stepped forward.
Their steady footsteps echoed softly against the frozen sea as they walked into the quiet night, leaving behind the ruined ash of the Sea-Mist Crags, carving a smooth, frozen path across the endless ocean toward the distant, unknown lands of the Western Continent.
See you in next chapter....