The flames of Bai Village licked the sky.
The group arrived at the outskirts in a sprint, blood and ash mingling in the air. The sight before them brought silence.
The once peaceful village, nestled in the heart of snow-dusted hills, was now a battlefield. Huts were in ruins, walls collapsed, and the training hall lay half-shattered.
Screams echoed between alleys, metal clanged on metal, and dark silhouettes moved like phantoms between fire and smoke.
Figures in black armor, faces masked, danced through the chaos. They were quick, brutal, and coordinated. Against them stood the villagers and remaining martial artists, many wounded but refusing to yield. Some fought with crude farming tools, others with polished blades. Bodies littered the streets, beast and human alike.
Adam barely recognized it.
His eyes locked on a familiar figure: Old Zhang.
Once a kind-faced elder who had shown Adam how to till frozen earth and identify wild herbs, he wasn't the first person he warmed up to after old bai in the village, a very kind hearted man.
The same Zhang now moved like a tempest. His loose robes flared with each movement, and the cane he once leaned on was now a metal staff glowing with dark matter. Every sweep of that staff cracked bone and shattered stone.
A masked attacker lunged. Zhang turned smoothly, caught the blade between two fingers, and snapped it in half. Before the attacker could blink, Zhang's palm landed on their chest, sending them flying across the village square and crashing through two huts.
Adam stared in disbelief. "Zhang... is a Grandmaster?"
Zhao, beside him, could only nod. Sharing the same dumbfounded expression.
Not far from Zhang, another battle raged. Madame Yue, the stern yet graceful overseer of the academy, stood with blood running down her temple, her left arm limp. She faced off against two enemies—both clad in black, both Grandmasters!
They struck in tandem, blades flashing like fangs of lightning.
Madame Yue deflected one strike, barely sidestepped another, and sent a burst of concentrated dark matter from her palm that cracked the ground. One opponent was blown back, but the other surged forward with a crescent blade.
Yue blocked it with the hilt of her weapon but stumbled.
Then Lin Kuan arrived.
He crashed into the fray with a roar, his guandao intercepting the blade meant for Yue. Sparks exploded at the collision. The masked attacker skidded backward.
Lin Kuan didn't speak. He didn't need to.
He stood beside Yue, shoulder to shoulder, and the battlefield shifted.
Two Grandmasters against two.
What followed was chaos.
Steel screamed. Wind howled. The four moved in ways that defied the eye. Each clash was a thunderclap, each strike a whirlwind. They used everything—blades, fists, feet, energy, terrain. Stone shattered under their feet, huts collapsed from shockwaves, and every movement left afterimages burning in the air.
Adam was frozen.
He had never seen anything like it.
Then came a different sound—a sound that didn't belong on the battlefield.
A hum.
High-pitched. Piercing.
The sky cracked.
Adam's head snapped up.
There, above the clouds, a figure floated.
Old Bai.
The village chief, always calm and cheerful, now hovered with robes fluttering and a long wooden staff swirling in complex patterns. Blood ran from the corner of his mouth. He was fighting desperately.
And facing him was something far worse.
A young man.
Younger than Adam. Dressed in simple dark robes. Unarmed.
But he too was floating.
His presence alone felt like a weight pressing down on the entire village. His eyes were pale gold, and his expression unreadable. He moved lazily, as if bored.
But each gesture sent waves of power crashing into Old Bai.
A palm. A flick of a finger. A tilt of the head.
Old Bai dodged, redirected, blocked. But he was being pushed back.
Below, the village burned. Around them, warriors clashed. But in the sky, gods battled.
Adam took a step forward, but Zhao grabbed his arm.
"Don't even think about it. That... that's a different realm altogether."
Adam nodded slowly.
Then turned to look at the battle still raging in the streets.
Old Zhang spun through a trio of masked fighters. Each time his staff moved, someone fell. He ducked a blade, swept the feet of one opponent, and sent a burst of energy into the chest of another. He didn't look tired. He looked furious.
Zhang's staff pulsed with black and red energy as he activated the same forbidden technique lin kuan did previously. For a moment, his veins glowed through his skin. He leapt, spun mid-air, and brought the staff down like a meteor. The shockwave leveled a street corner.
On the opposite side of the village, Lin Kuan and Madame Yue pushed their enemies back. One of the masked Grandmasters faltered, stumbling from a slash across the chest. Lin Kuan didn't give them time to recover.
He stepped forward, his blade glowing white-hot, and drove it straight through the mask and skull. The body crumpled.
One remained.
Madame Yue, bloodied but resolute, pressed the attack. Her palms danced in a pattern that summoned dozens of tiny dark matter shards, each one honing in on the masked figure. They tried to dodge, but Lin Kuan was already there.
A vertical strike from his guandao shattered their weapon. Yue's shards pierced through the gaps in their armor.
They fell.
Two Grandmasters down.
The battle in the streets turned.
Without their leaders, the black-clad attackers grew sloppy. Disorganized. Villagers fought with renewed strength. Tier Two and Tier One martial artists rallied. Even the wounded joined the fight, dragging themselves from cover to strike back.
Instructor lin and the other two instructors have also joined the other master tier martial artist in the slaughter.
But in the sky, Old Bai was still losing.
Adam looked up again.
The young man hadn't moved much. But now his hands glowed with strange light—not dark matter. Something colder. Thinner. Adam felt it even from the ground.
Bai coughed blood, drew a circle with his staff, and unleashed a dome of energy. The young man flicked his wrist and cracked it like glass.
Old Bai began to fall.
Adam's heart stopped.
But before the village elder could crash to the ground, a force caught him. A warm glow.
From within the village, another figure stepped out.
Madame Yue looked up, her lips parting. "That... can't be."
Adam turned to see a woman with flowing silver hair walking calmly through the ruins, barefoot, her eyes glowing with soft white light.
The temperature in the air changed.
Even the young man in the sky paused.
And smiled.
"So you're finally decided to show yourself".
Adam didn't know who she was.
But the tide of the battle was about to shift again.