Nix spat a mouthful of thick, dark blood onto the sand, taking several stumbling steps back. He almost fell, only saving himself by driving his nullification blade into the ground and leaning on it like a crutch. His mind was chaos. *That blow… that blow could have taken my life.* The thought felt absurd to someone like him. He had slain countless cultivators, helped annihilate several worlds with the Damocles. Yet today, for the second time in this stupid, wretched world, he had been forced to the very abyss of death. How could he accept that?
He looked up, panting. Varja was not moving, still frozen in that final, lunging pose.
"He's dead now!" Nix rasped, then began to laugh, a wet, hacking sound. "Haha! Dead!"
The crowd, which had been holding its breath, erupted into a panicked roar.
"He's still alive! The General is still standing!"
"We should run! If he can still fight, he'll kill us all!"
"The barriers are gone! We're exposed!"
Panic spread like a contagion. People shoved and scrambled in the terraces. Even in the still-standing pavilions, the leading elders wore faces of deep, grim frowns. None of them had expected this outcome—a mutual kill that wasn't mutual.
Gen, at the edge of the ruined pavilion, saw Varja not moving. Despite the cold fear coiling in his gut, he acted. Before Madame Su or Lorel could scream his name and stop him, he vaulted over the splintered railing.
He slid down the broken stonework and landed on the arena floor with a solid *thump*, his body instantly sheathed in the faint, amber light of his **Jingdao** reinforcement.
"You can't lose, Varja!" he shouted, his voice breaking. "You can't lose! Not now!" He was in tears, desperate. He wanted to kill the Divine General himself, but not like this. He didn't want Varja to die. He didn't want *anyone* else he… he liked… to die.
Nix, leaning on his blade, lifted a scarred eyebrow. "Aren't you the Jiang thing? Hah. So you're alive, then."
Gen bared his teeth, his fists clenched. He wanted to charge.
Outside the arena line, Madame Su moved to follow him, but elders of the Li Family materialized, blocking her path. "The young master Jiang has put himself in that situation of his own will," one said, his voice cold. "The primary barrier has been recreated to protect everyone else. He has chosen to be reckless."
"But he is a child!" Madame Su snarled.
"No one cares," the Li elder replied, his gaze unwavering. "He has made his choice."
On the arena, just as Nix pushed himself upright, summoning a nullification blade—its light not as dazzling as before, but still shimmering with lethal energy—Varja moved.
He lifted a hand, a slow, heavy motion, and waved Gen back.
Gen froze, shocked.
Varja's voice, when it came, was a rough, painful rumble that carried across the silenting arena. "I failed you all."
The crowd, caught between panic and confusion, slowly fell silent.
"I thought I could win," Varja continued, each word labored, "before the poison got a hold of me. But it seems… I was wrong."
The words landed like thunder in the silent arena.
Every person in the venue stood up in shock. Heads turned left and right as murmurs exploded into shouts. "Poisoned?!" "Varja was poisoned?!" "When? How?"
Even Nix slowed, his intent to attack faltering. The shock was so profound his scarred face twisted in ugly surprise. But he quickly recovered, forcing a sneer. "It is impossible. Do you want to accuse your loss on poison?"
Behind Varja, staring at the Pillar's broad, bleeding back, Gen felt something die in his heart. *The jar. The look with Juo Si.* It clicked with terrible, final clarity. Varja had known. He had known all along.
But why? *Why still drink it?*
Before he could even ask, Varja spoke again, not to Gen, but to Nix. "I don't care if you believe it or not. I was arrogant. I thought I could win before the poison took effect. Hence… the three minutes." He took a shuddering breath, fresh blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. "However, it's fine. I still have sixty seconds before it ends. Prepare to die, Nix."
Nix, on the other hand, frowned deeply. In his mind, the pieces connected. *That's why, at the last minute, I felt the power in his fist slow down. Could it be true? Would he have won without it?* The thought was so absurd, so insulting to his very being, that his train of thought stalled, forgetting for a critical moment that Varja was still there.
The fight resumed.
Varja blitzed through the space, disregarding any defense. His entire body blazed with golden light, the Unbreakable Varja pushed to its absolute limit, cracks of normal flesh now visible through the glow like fine porcelain about to shatter.
Nix stepped back, shooting a blinding blade of light. Varja chased him, his fist crashing forward. Nix tilted and evaded, summoning the surprising, resonant power of the **Tomb of the Fallen God** to slow Varja just enough to swing his nullification blade.
Varja was like a madman. He took the swing head-on, accepting a terrible wound across his chest that bit deep. With the same motion, he caught Nix by the face.
He slammed the Divine General into the ground with earth-shattering force, causing the entire arena floor to sink another foot.
Then he lifted Nix off the sand and shot into the sky, straight toward the hovering points of the null-swords.
Nix cursed, his face crushed in Varja's grip. "You can't kill me with my own spell!" His words were muffled. He focused, causing one of the giant nullification swords to tilt sideways and slash at Varja's flank.
The impact was dazzling, a burst of grey and gold light. Both of them were thrown back, skidding through empty air. Both were bleeding heavily, panting.
But on Varja's chest, black lines, like poisoned veins, began to spread from the wound over his heart.
*Using Heidow to fuse the remnants of my Qi with my heart's rhythm allows me to fight a little longer,* Varja thought, his mind a landscape of pain and crystalline focus. *But soon, the poison plus Nix's strike will get the better of me. I need to win. Fast.*
Nix stared at Varja, a flicker of something like horrified respect in his eyes. "How can you even still move after I pierced your heart? What are you cultivators of this world made of? I *hate* this."
He clapped his hands together.
The thousands of floating null-swords in the Tomb of the Fallen God shuddered. Then, they dissolved. Every single one melted into a stream of liquid grey light that shot toward Nix's outstretched hand. The light pooled, compressed, and shrieked—a sound of rending metal and dying frequencies. From the pool, Nix pulled a sword. It was not a blade of light, but of solidified silence. Where it pointed, sound died.
Outside the arena, the youngest cultivators had already fallen to their knees in tears. They watched the smiling, blood-covered figure of Varja still fighting. "Stop!" one screamed. "Please, stop now! You might still be healed!"
From the pavilion, Lia Kai's voice joined a chorus. "FATHER! STOP!"
Even Gen, closest to the fight, feeling the burn of the aftermath on his skin, screamed through his tears. "VARJA! STOP!"
Varja heard it like a distant chant to his soul. A little smile touched his ruined face. He murmured, the words lost to all but the wind. "Let this generation rise… and bring our world to the peak of the Milky Way. Beyond this realm. Beyond the Divine Generals. Beyond… perhaps… immortality."
Grasping at the void of nothing, Varja smiled.
Then he dashed forward in a final, condensed fist of everything that remained—the Unbreakable Varja, his will, his sacrifice.
Nix cursed, gripping the terrifying sword he had condensed, and dashed forward to meet him.
Time seemed to tick by. The last ten seconds of Varja's promised three minutes bled away.
All time seemed to slow. With three seconds left, the duo was still inches from connecting.
Two seconds.
One second.
Just as they reached the last fraction of the last second, the golden light sheathing Varja's body… winked out.
His forward momentum ceased.
He stopped moving, frozen in mid-air, his fist inches from Nix's face.
Nix's condensed nullification blade, however, did not stop. It lanced forward, piercing straight through Varja's body once more.
The impact was silent.
Despite the fist not touching him, Nix's entire chest armor disintegrated on the spot, vaporized by the sheer, unconveyed will of the almost-blow. The arm holding the sword went limp, dangling sideways as if every bone within had been turned to dust.
The two figures hung there for a moment in the sky.
Varja, posed to strike, eyes closed.
Nix, horror dawning on his scarred face, his weapon-hand broken.
Then they fell, tumbling separately to the sand below.