Elliot's snort was sharp as a blade, his voice dripping with contempt.
"Let's see how tough your bones are."
Before the echo faded, he vanished into the void.
Taiyi did not move immediately. Instead, he turned to Feng Jiu. His cold exterior softened, just for her. He pressed his lips gently to her forehead, his hand lingering on her cheek.
"For this moment, live," he whispered. Then, without hesitation, he too disappeared.
The next instant, the two collided.
Fist met fist, and the universe shook. The clash tore vibrations through the dome, shattering sound itself. Bones cracked—not their own, but the invisible bones of the heavens straining under their might. Elliot stumbled one step. Taiyi three.
The difference was slight, but in this duel of absolutes, it revealed Taiyi's restraint. He had not used everything.
Elliot's gaze sharpened. Why was he holding back?
Taiyi himself did not know the full answer, only that instinct warned him: the battle was not yet in its true form. Perhaps the heavenly dao itself waited to intervene. Perhaps a hidden variable lurked. Until then, he fought with the Emotionless Sword Dao, his greatest anchor.
They clashed a hundred times in the blink of an eye, but the dome remained whole, unyielding, an eternal cage.
Meanwhile, Feng Jiu's battlefield was a sea of gods. Over a hundred ancestral beings surrounded her, their aura collapsing the space itself. Even with one foot into the Supreme Realm, she was outmatched. But retreat had never existed in her heart.
"Then burn," she whispered.
Her body burst into fire. Crimson feathers unfurled, wings vast enough to shadow the battlefield. A phoenix rose, its cry splitting heaven and earth. Within the dome, flames devoured everything—her own Fire Realm, born of her bloodline. Here, she was sovereign. Here, her power multiplied. With every beat of her wings, divine armies screamed as they fell, scorched to ashes.
Taiyi, clashing with Elliot, caught her blazing silhouette from the corner of his eye. For a fleeting moment, pride and tenderness flickered within him. She had always been like this—unyielding even in despair.
The ancestral gods cried out to Elliot for help, but Taiyi blocked every attempt. His sword flashed, his dao pressed forward. He would not allow interruption.
Years passed.
Two years of blood, fire, and endless war.
The dome was no longer pristine. It was a graveyard. Corpses of gods lay in mountains, rivers of divine ichor seeping into the soil, staining the battlefield with gold and scarlet. The very air screamed of death.
And then, amidst the endless carnage, a miracle came.
Feng Jiu's cry shook the heavens as her flames erupted into a sun. A phoenix reborn in fire—she ascended into the Supreme Realm. Her aura blazed with such majesty that ancestral gods trembled, despair filling their eyes. For the first time, hope stirred in the hearts of their allies.
Taiyi's lips curved into a rare smile. "Well done, Xiao Jiu."
But Elliot's expression remained unreadable.
On that day, the battle reached its pinnacle. Dozens of supremes fell, their daos collapsing into void. Yet Elliot did not waver. His patience ended.
With a gesture, a vast wheel appeared in his hand, forged of countless cycles, radiating inevitability. The Samsara Wheel. His dao artifact, his supreme weapon.
The air bent under its weight, as though all time bowed before it.
"Taiyi," Elliot's voice thundered, resonant and final. "Enough games. This farce ends now."
For the first time, Taiyi felt a blade of crisis press against his heart. The samsara wheel was not merely a weapon—it was inevitability itself.
He exhaled slowly, and lifted his gaze to the heavens. His voice was calm, but every word carved itself into fate.
"In all history, only two beings have seen me unsheathe my true sword. Elliot… you will be the third."
Elliot's sneer deepened, but his confidence faltered when the impossible happened.
The dome split.
No, not split—sliced. A sword descended from the void, cutting through space itself, faster than even thought. It appeared at Taiyi's side, resonating with him like a long-lost brother.
Taiyi gripped it, and for the first time in centuries, he smiled without restraint.
"I missed you, brother."
This was Xue Kai, his companion since youth.
Others abandoned everything for the sword dao, treating their blade as god, lover, or obsession. Taiyi was different. His sword was neither master nor lover. It was his companion, his constant.
When he had been alone, it listened.
When he had been encircled by enemies, it cut a path.
When grief consumed him, he held it, drank, and endured.
It had been with him through madness, sorrow, and triumph. To discard it would be to discard himself.
Behind him, a colossal phantom sword manifested, piercing eternity.
Elliot's eyes narrowed. His samsara wheel expanded into a world-sized cycle, grinding all existence beneath its inevitability.
Neither yielded.
"Sever emotion, sever weakness, sever hesitation. Nothing is absolute! Everything fades! Become the sword!" Taiyi roared, his sword cleaving through space.
"All living things fall into samsara. Samsara is eternal, samsara is absolute. Not even severed emotions can escape its cycle!" Elliot answered, his wheel crashing down.
Sword and Wheel collided. Light and shadow screamed, tearing open creation itself.
But it did not end there.
Otherworldly ancestral gods broke through amidst the chaos, stepping into the Supreme Realm. They joined Elliot's side, tilting the balance. Feng Jiu, though newly supreme, was overwhelmed by their sudden rise.
Taiyi's eyes sharpened. Without hesitation, he split his focus. While clashing with Elliot, he also faced the swarm of supremes, his sword carving thousands of arcs, each perfect, each fatal.
It was madness. But it was Taiyi.
He fought like a storm unending, smiling as blood ran down his arm. Because he knew: if they lost, the world would end.
---
Far from the dome, in the vast battlefield of outer space, another story unfolded.
Tie Ling, daughter of Taiyi and Feng Jiu, stood atop the fortress lines of the heavenly armies. Her armor was cracked, her blade drenched in blood, but her eyes blazed with determination. For two years she had led the vanguard, and for two years she had not faltered.
"Commander, reinforcements will not come!" a general shouted, his voice trembling.
Tie Ling's hands tightened on her spear. Her father's words echoed in her heart—"If you cannot hold the line, cut off your head, or bring me the enemy's commander's head instead."
She had known the price from the beginning.
"Then we hold," Tie Ling said, her voice firm, unwavering. "If this line breaks, all realms fall. If I must die here, so be it."
Her soldiers roared, their morale surging at her resolve. Even the gods who once doubted her saw her as her father's true heir.
In the skies above, she caught faint glimpses of her parents' battle—two figures against eternity, their cries shaking creation itself.
Tears welled in her eyes, but she did not falter. If they bore the heavens, she would bear the earth.
"Forward!" Tie Ling cried, charging into the enemy ranks.
Her spear burned with divine light, piercing through immortal after immortal. Her heart pounded, not with fear, but with pride.
She was her father's daughter.
She was her mother's daughter.
If they fought against fate itself, then so would she.
And so, across heaven and earth, a family of three fought together—one at the peak of gods, one in the flames of ascension, and one at the frontlines of mortality.
The war of extinction raged, and the dusk of gods drew near.
But none of them would yield.