The entire road turned into a battlefield of legends.
Azrath Kain Veyl stood in the center of the cracked highway, volcanic qi rolling off him in waves of molten gold and obsidian. The air itself ignited around his feet. His tailored black coat flapped like living wings, horns glowing white-hot. Golden Core pressure crushed the ground into glass for fifty meters in every direction.
Across from him, Lian Wuxin (Zhao Wuyan under his true cultivation name) held his blood halberd loose at his side. Grey robes untouched by wind, eyes dead flat, neutral-path qi forming a perfect sphere of absolute stillness around him. The two domains clashed silently; space warped, the sky above split between crimson fire and colorless void.
Then they moved.
Azrath stepped forward once.
The earth detonated.
A single punch; "Inferno Dragon Ascendant".
A colossal flaming dragon erupted from his fist, jaws wide enough to swallow a house, roaring straight at Lian. The heat flash-boiled the moisture out of the air and turned nearby boulders into lava.
Lian didn't dodge. He raised the halberd horizontally.
"Neutral Annihilation; Severing Void".
A paper-thin line of grey qi extended from the blade. The dragon hit it and simply ceased to exist, erased from reality like it had never been born. The leftover shockwave carved a canyon fifty meters deep behind Lian.
Azrath grinned, teeth too sharp.
He blurred.
Ten after-images of him appeared in a perfect circle around Lian, each one throwing a different martial form at the same time.
- Volcanic Uppercut from the left
- Magma Knee from the right
- Hellfire Palm straight ahead
- Lava Elbow from behind
- Eruption Kick from above
Lian spun the halberd once.
"Neutral Cycle; Thousand Mirrors".
The grey sphere around him multiplied into a thousand reflective surfaces. Every strike hit a mirror and reflected back at Azrath from impossible angles. Azrath took his own punches to the face, chest, and spine at the exact same moment. Blood sprayed from his mouth, but he laughed through it.
He inhaled.
The ground for a kilometer cracked open. Lava rivers surged upward like reverse waterfalls.
"Inferno Domain; Hell's Crucible!"
The entire battlefield became a lake of molten rock. Temperature spiked past two thousand degrees. The weaker cultivators in Lian's gang screamed as their protective qi melted and their skin began to slough off.
Lian's robes finally fluttered. He stomped once.
"Neutral Path; Absolute Zero Stasis".
A perfect circle of grey frost exploded outward. The lava flash-froze into black glass. The air crystallized and shattered like diamonds. Azrath's domain was forcibly locked in a stalemate; half the battlefield molten, half the battlefield arctic void.
They rushed each other again.
Azrath's fists ignited into twin miniature suns.
Lian's halberd split into nine phantom blades that existed in nine different timelines at once.
Every clash birthed shockwaves that leveled forests in the distance.
Every step cracked the planet's crust.
Every breath they took pulled clouds into spiraling vortexes.
Far away, inside the carriage, Thorne Varg (the replacement driver, a scarred veteran incubus) floored it. The nightmare stallions screamed as they hit supersonic speed, the vehicle itself glowing red from friction.
Ace, Kai, and Riven barely noticed; too busy balls-deep in succubi, moans drowning out the sonic booms.
Back on the battlefield:
Azrath and Lian stood three meters apart, breathing hard, blood dripping from identical wounds, smiling the exact same flat, dead smile.
Neither had used their true killing moves yet.
The ground between them split open into a bottomless chasm, as if reality itself was giving up.
The fight was only just beginning. The battlefield was a smoking crater the size of a small city.
Half molten glass, half frozen void, the sky torn open like ripped paper.
Azrath and Lian stood in the center, chests heaving, blood streaming from a hundred cuts.
Neither had landed the finishing blow yet.
They were too evenly matched, and both knew it.
Lian's halberd trembled in his grip.
His neutral-path domain flickered, then collapsed entirely.
Something inside him cracked.
The halberd fell from numb fingers and clattered on the glass.
Lian Wuxin (Golden Core peak, feared captain, the man who massacred two thousand demons without blinking) dropped to his knees.
Then to all fours.
Then he started crying.
Not quiet tears.
Full-body, snot-bubble, ugly, hiccupping sobs that echoed across the ruined landscape.
"M-Mommy said my cock was enough… she promised… then he came with that stupid huge demon dick and she forgot my name… I just wanted her to love me again…"
His twenty hardened subordinates stood frozen, mouths open, unsure whether to laugh, cry, or dig a hole and die in it.
Azrath stared down at the broken man for a long, silent moment.
Then he sighed, walked over, and crouched beside him.
He pulled a massive jug of infernal whiskey from his storage ring and popped the cork with his thumb.
"Here," he said, shoving it into Lian's shaking hands. "Drink. First one's on me."
Lian took it with both hands like a toddler with a sippy cup and chugged. Half of it went down his chin.
Azrath sat cross-legged beside him, took the jug back, and drank deep.
"…Your dad cucked me too, you know," Azrath muttered after a while. "Took my favorite succubus maid when I was fifteen. Still salty."
Lian hiccupped. "Really?"
"Yeah. She calls him 'Master' now. Makes me bring her tea sometimes."
They both stared into the bonfire one of Lian's men had nervously started (someone had hunted a six-legged lava boar and was roasting it on a sword).
Another long silence.
Then Azrath started laughing.
Not his usual volcanic roar; actual, wheezing, helpless laughter.
Lian blinked, wiped his face, and started laughing too.
Soon both of them were rolling on the glass, clutching their stomachs, tears streaming for completely different reasons now.
The gang slowly, carefully, joined in. Someone passed skewers. Someone else cracked open more alcohol. Someone started singing a very off-key drinking song about broken hearts and demon dicks.
Hours later:
Azrath and Lian sat shoulder-to-shoulder on a boulder, passing the jug back and forth, cheeks flushed.
"So," Azrath said, slinging an arm around Lian's shoulders, "friends?"
Lian sniffled, then grinned; first real smile in years. "Friends. But if you ever tell anyone I cried like a bitch—"
"I'll say you won the fight and I begged for mercy," Azrath promised solemnly.
They clinked the jug together.
Behind them, the twenty neutral-path cultivators were now drunk-roasting the boar with the succubi who had tumbled out of the carriage, everyone swapping war stories and bad pickup lines.
In the distance, the carriage (now driven by Thorne Varg) disappeared over the horizon, Ace, Kai, and Riven still inside, completely oblivious, still balls-deep in their own entertainment.
Azrath looked up at the fractured sky and chuckled.
"Dad's gonna be so pissed he missed this."
Lian raised the jug in salute.
"To shitty parents and the brothers we choose instead."
They drank.
The war was over.
The barbecue had just begun.