The fight began not with earth-shattering blasts, but with a speed that defied vision. Nix became a blur of grey annihilation, his every movement carving lines of void in the sky. Jiang remained a point of stillness that only moved at the last possible fraction of a second.
CLANG!
A sound like a mountain being rung like a bell. Jiang's bare forearm, glowing with dense, internal Jingdao light like sunlight through amber, met the edge of Nix's manifested null-blade. His wrist turned with impossible precision, redirecting the force that could shatter a city wall off into the empty air.
He moved with flowing, economical grace. A twist of his torso let a thrust pass by his ribs. A sidestep turned a decapitating sweep into a harmless gust of wind. His palms, the edges of his hands, his forearms—all reinforced to a degree that made celestial steel seem soft—deflected, guided, and slapped away Nix's furious assault. This was the highest form of martial art, where the body itself became the ultimate weapon, and the Wheels were not spells but the principles that made the flesh unbreakable.
From the peak, the students watched, breath held. A dance of death, beautiful and terrifying. Their Immortal, a man of serene wisdom, had transformed into a peerless warrior. Hope, wild and fragile, began to bloom.
"He's… holding him off," Liang whispered, awestruck.
Even Zeph, watching impassively, gave a slight tilt of his helm. Resistance was not new. But this… this was not desperate struggle. This was counter. Nix was being parried.
"Your form is aggressive, but hollow," Jiang observed, his voice calm even as he leaned back to avoid a grey crescent of energy. "You rely on the weight of your mandate, not the depth of your skill. With such a foundation, you will never achieve a true victory."
Nix's only answer was a snarl. He disengaged, soaring back. "Mock me, worm? I have purged ten worlds! Your smoldering cinders will be the eleventh! Your little tricks mean nothing!"
Jiang raised his hand. From the ambient light of the dying suns and the crackling energy of the clash, a sword coalesced in his grip. Simple, straight, glowing with pure white light. He reinforced it not with an external shell, but by weaving Jingdao into its very creation, making it an extension of his own unyielding will.
He met Nix's next charge sword-to-sword.
CLANG! CRACK! SHING!
The sounds grew sharper now, reports that split the air. Sparks—not of fire, but of disintegrated matter and annihilated energy—rained down from their impacts. Nix fought with brutal, overwhelming force, each blow meant to shatter both sword and wielder. Jiang's swordsmanship spoke a different language—efficient, precise, each deflection leaving a tiny, glowing rune of energy in the air that subtly disrupted Nix's flow.
The students felt it now—the sheer, oppressive power radiating from Nix even in his frustration. Each clash sent a wave of psychic pressure down onto the peak. Tiang Feng, standing like a statue before the huddled students, frowned. His flint-like eyes analyzed every exchange. A single clean strike from that blade would annihilate most Fifth Wheel cultivators. It carried the weight of dead worlds. But he was Tiang Feng. He had faced the Fire Kumpeng and lived. He did not worry. Yet.
Nix roared in frustration. He could not break through. Jiang's defense formed a perfect sphere, his offense a needle that constantly found the gaps in Nix's rage.
"Enough of this!" Nix bellowed. He shot skyward, then spread his arms. The grey energy around him exploded outwards, then crystallized.
"Domain spell: Tomb of Fallen Gods!"
The sky around them for a thousand yards changed. It became a forest of floating, grey swords. Thousands of them, each humming with nullifying energy, points aimed inward at Jiang. They quivered, a lethal ecosystem waiting to erupt.
The sharpness of the domain proved absolute. On the peak below, ancient pine trees a mile away silently sheared in half, their upper halves sliding off with delayed groans. The very air felt sliced. A wave of cutting intent surged toward the students.
Tiang Feng moved. He appeared in front of the crowd, his back to them. His Fire Kumpeng, with a shriek that sounded of tearing metal and open furnaces, unfurled its wings of living flame. A wall of incandescent fire erupted, meeting the wave of cutting intent. The air screamed where absolute sharpness met immolating heat, but the shield held. The students crouched, shielded by the Stag and his legendary beast.
Inside the forest of swords, Jiang looked around. A genuine, almost youthful smile touched his lips. The serene mask was gone, replaced by the thrill of a master presented with a novel problem.
"A domain spell," Jiang mused, spinning his light-sword casually. "It has been centuries since one posed any difficulty. Let us see if the magic bestowed upon executioners can truly stand against the Wheels of Destiny."
Nix, from the heart of his domain, pointed a finger. "DIE!"
A thousand null-swords lanced in at once, a converging storm of grey death.
Jiang exploded into motion. He danced into the storm. His left hand came up, fingers splayed. At the tip of each finger, a tiny, perfect point of absolute blackness appeared—a Fendow technique refined to its essence: Null Point Zones.
As the grey swords shot toward him, they disappeared. Each point of blackness on his fingers became a miniature maw that severed the energy holding the swords together, causing them to dissolve into harmless mist before they could reach him. Pop. Pop. Pop-pop-pop. A rapid, percussive counterpoint to the silent onslaught.
He moved as a ghost in the sword-rain, weaving, fingers flicking, disintegrating paths through the impossible barrage. A sculptor using negation as his chisel.
Yet, the domain stretched vast. One sliver of annihilating intent, thinner than a hair, slipped through. It kissed the hem of his simple hemp robe, shearing a clean piece away. Another grazed his jaw, leaving a thin, red line—the Immortal's first blood, drawn under the watching eyes of his world.
The wound seemed to calibrate him. His eyes narrowed, not in pain, but in focus.
In the heart of the dissolving storm, he found his opening. He closed the distance to Nix in a blink, his Jingdao-reinforced body moving faster than thought. Nix, surprised by the aggressive advance, brought his own null-blade up for a desperate, close-quarters stab.
Jiang let the blade come. At the last possible moment, he turned his body, the edge scraping against the sunlight density of his reinforced ribs with a teeth-jarring shriek. In that same moment, his free palm—glowing not with light but with condensed, sun-core white—slapped flat against the center of Nix's ornate chest plate.
A click sounded. Deep and final, like the sealing of a tomb.
Then the world turned white.
From the palm-contact point, a sphere of pure, silent annihilation erupted—not Nix's grey nullification, but something older, hotter, more fundamental. Jingdao, Shidow, Heidow, and Fendow combined and mastered into a single point: the Sun-Heart Palm.
The sphere consumed them both, a miniature star born in the sky above the peak, its blinding, merciless light swallowing the Divine General and the Immortal whole.
For one eternal second, there was only white.
Then, from within the star—a silhouette. One figure, still standing.
Gen's heart stopped. Was it his father? Or was it the monster?
The light began to fade.