"He's... he's not fighting," Yun Wuxin whispered, confused. "He's just running."
"No," Chi Wuyao said, her dark eyes narrowed in intense concentration. "He is fighting. Look."
They focused.
They saw it then. Xiao Mo wasn't just dodging. Every time he moved, he left a faint, almost invisible ripple in the void.
He wasn't running; he was weaving. The Devil God, consumed by rage, hadn't noticed.
"The mountain stands eternal, though the river rages at its base!" Xiao Mo declared, his voice suddenly sharp.
"I AM TIRED OF YOUR GAMES!" the Devil God roared, lunging for him one final time, pouring all its power into a single, realm-shattering strike.
But as it did, the void stopped.
The faint ripples Xiao Mo had left behind suddenly flared to life, connecting in an intricate, beautiful, and utterly terrifying array.
It wasn't a profound formation of the God Realm. It was something else.
The Devil God froze mid-lunge, its body trapped in a web of shimmering, poetic light.
"What... what is this?! My power...!" The Devil God's dark energy was being neutralized, dissolved by the gentle light of the array.
Xiao Mo finally turned to face his opponent. He sighed, as if burdened.
"My Master always said: True strength is not in the striking, but in the returning."
He raised his hand, where a simple, unassuming sword had appeared. "This... is for my headphones."
His sword didn't slash space; it unwove it. He pushed the blade forward.
The Devil God watched in horror as the blade passed through its connection to its dark profound energy.
It was a conceptual strike.
FZZZSSST!
The Devil God's overwhelming aura collapsed instantly.
It didn't die, but its power was severed, collapsing back to the level of a mortal.
It fell to the ground, weak and powerless.
Jasmine, from her throne, shot to her feet, her black aura flaring with rage.
"You...!"
"The second match," Chi Wuyao's voice cut across the void, sharp and clear, "is a victory for the God Realm."
The survivors, stunned into silence, suddenly erupted. They had won.
A single, desperate spark of hope was ignited in the suffocating darkness.