Even with Xu Yunfei and Xu Yansheng standing shoulder to shoulder against their elder brother, Xu Xiao, the difference in power was suffocating. He had already stepped into the Divine Realm — a newborn god of Mìngjiè Xiānlù — and his mere presence warped the air, pressing upon them like a mountain of cold, merciless will.
Their combined strength should have been formidable, yet his divine might forced them back with ease. Each step they retreated felt like wading through a storm of celestial force, their bones trembling beneath it.
Then the air shifted.
A hand, pale and slender, pressed gently against Xu Yunfei's and Xu Yangsheng's back, steadying them. Luo Xianling stepped forward like a rising tsunami, her presence swelling until it washed across the battlefield. The waves she summoned surged outward, towering and alive, each crest spiralling with divine artistry.
As she advanced, the water obeyed her every motion. With a twist of her wrist, a serpent coiled from the tide; with a sweep of her leg, a qilin's hoof crashed forward in perfect synchrony. The waves shaped themselves into mythical beasts — dragons, tigers, phoenixes — each performing precise martial forms that mirrored Luo Xianling's own strikes.
Her fist descended, and a colossal dragon-head of water crashed down with it.
Her foot swept across the earth, and a tidal tiger pounced, claws born of churning floodwaters.
Every movement she made became a divine technique, an elegant yet devastating dance where the sea itself acted as her limbs. Under the relentless rhythm of her assault, Xu Xiao found himself driven back — no longer the predator, but a man standing before a tsunami that had finally chosen to swallow him whole.
I witnessed all of it while fighting beside Liraine, Shuyin, and Sura. Madam Yuelin — mortal, but never in spirit — moved through the carnage with the precision of someone who had survived far worse. Her hair was loose, her sleeves torn, yet every strike she delivered found its mark.
Nagni fought silently at my side, her hood still drawn low over her face. Only the faint glint of her eyes was visible beneath it — cold, reptilian, and unblinking. Her movements were fluid and merciless; every enemy that reached her fell within a heartbeat, their bodies hitting the ground before their screams even finished.
Together, we carved our way through Xu Xiao's loyalists, slaughtering them one by one as the battlefield drowned itself in fire, shattered stone, and divine fury.
Across the blood-soaked city, I saw Xu Xiao's mother fall to her knees as she watched her son. Her hands trembled as she reached toward him, pleading, begging him to end this madness. But he ignored her completely, his focus locked on Luo Xianling as he fought to find an opening in her shifting, tide-like assault — her fighting style flowing like a tsunami, crashing and dancing with unbroken rhythm.
Realising she could not sway him, Xu Xiao's mother finally turned and fled back toward her husband.
The old patriarch lay barely breathing, his chest carved open by the divine aura Xu Xiao had unleashed moments earlier. A newborn god's blade had sliced through him as though he were nothing but fragile paper; no demigod could hope to withstand a divine strike.
His wife knelt beside him, pressing her blood-slicked hands desperately against the gaping wound. Her cries were swallowed by the roar of collapsing buildings and the deafening clash of divine power overhead. The medics struggled to save him, working frantically despite the chaos — until Xu Xiao's demigod loyalists tore through the battlefield and fell upon them like wolves.
They were slaughtered where they knelt, their bodies collapsing before they even realized death had come.
With the healers dead, the loyalists turned their hungry eyes toward the patriarch's wife. Their intent was clear: restrain her, drag her away, and let the dying patriarch bleed out alone.
But she did not back down.
She rose in a single fluid motion, divine light flashing beneath her skin. She was a Demigod as well — and she fought like one. Her blade carved arcs through the air, severing limbs, splitting armor, cutting down several attackers in the span of a heartbeat. Blood sprayed across the broken courtyard.
And even as she fought, she never took her focus off her husband.
With her free hand she pressed spiritual essence into his wound, forcing healing energy into flesh that had been torn open by divine aura. Each strike she delivered, each enemy she felled, was done while maintaining her desperate attempt to keep him alive.
Around her, Xu Xiao's loyalists closed in again.
Above it all, the war raged without pause — Divine Realm and Demigod Realm cultivators tearing the Xu family's sacred city apart until it resembled nothing but a wasteland of fire, shattered stone, and ruin.
The patriarch's wife stood her ground against her son's loyalists, refusing to retreat even as she channelled spiritual essence into her husband's torn chest. She was surrounded on all sides — blades flashing, teeth bared, divine fury crashing down — yet she did not yield. More bodies fell beneath her sword with every passing breath, her movements fuelled not by rage, but by a desperate, unwavering devotion.
The patriarch turned his head towards her. His breathing was shallow, wet, and failing, yet his gaze remained unbearably gentle.
"It's all right," he whispered. "My time has passed. It is time for Xu Yansheng to lead. …and three days and three nights of this ridiculous battle your son insists upon."
He coughed, blood spilling across his lips, staining his chin.
"I failed him as a father," he murmured. "But I did what I thought was right. He was never ready to be patriarch. His heart was already filthy… corrupted from the beginning."
His trembling fingers reached for her hand.
"It's all right. Go. Save yourself, my dear wife."
Before she could protest, he pushed her back — a single, devastating gesture of love.
And then he let go.
A demigod's body detonated with the force of a divine nuclear blast. The courtyard vanished inside a blinding sphere of light and thunder. A shockwave tore through the battlefield, obliterating everything within its radius. Stone shattered. Corpses vaporised. The very earth split open beneath the force.
The patriarch's wife screamed his name, her cry drowned beneath the roaring inferno as she was hurled across the ruins.
Xu Xiao saw the explosion.
He did not smile.He did not cry.
He simply watched his father's death with the cold, hollow gaze of a man who had long since lost whatever humanity remained in him.
Then he turned back to Luo Xianling.
He was not faring well.
Her cultivation dwarfed his own by a margin that should never have been survivable. His divine aura flickered and cracked like a candle drowning beneath a waterfall. Every strike she delivered forced him further back, crushed bone, shredded sinew, stripped his divinity away layer by layer.
And she was smiling — not cruelly, but knowingly.
She was toying with him.
This battle could have ended the moment she arrived. She could have crushed him with a single blow. But she hadn't. She moved like a predator indulging the final moments of a dying animal, deciding whether it was worth sparing… or simply washing away with the next tide.
With her level of power — and with her husbands, the Luo clan, and the Xu family members who had refused to follow Xu Xiao's madness — the outcome had been sealed long before this moment.
And Xu Xiao, choking on his own divine blood, began to laugh.
The sound was ragged, broken, bubbling through the crimson leaking from his mouth.
His eyes swept the battlefield — wild, desperate — and finally landed on me.
He saw me driving my blade through one of his wives, another enemy falling beside her. Then he saw the corpse of one of his children, cut down in the chaos.
He snapped.
"Shen Wuyin!"
My name tore from his throat like a beast's howl.
"This is all your fault!" he screamed, coughing black-red blood. "I should never have allowed you into the Xu family — not you, not her, that filthy bitch Lingxue with her princess airs, acting high and mighty because of a title!"
His divine aura flickered violently, convulsing with hatred.
"I should have killed you when I had the chance! I should have listened to my instincts!" he raged. "I would have preferred being friends — allies, even! But no. You had to go for my sister."
His voice cracked, twisted, broken by obsession.
"Xu Yunfei is mine! She belongs to me! You don't deserve her — not her soul, not her body, not her love — and certainly not her bearing your children. She should have borne mine!"
I looked at him with indifferent eyes.
He stepped — and appeared directly before me, divine killing intent bursting forth.
But he never reached me.
Luo Xianling blurred between us, forcing him to his knees with a flick of her divine aura. She pressed her bare foot against his face, grinding him into the shattered stone. Her eyes shone with amusement as she glanced back at me.
"I've just saved your life, Shen Wuyin," she said sweetly. "Are you still going to deny me? Still refuse to marry me?"
I said nothing.
I simply watched Xu Xiao, who continued screaming at me, blood dripping down his chin, hatred and despair twisting his features.
Luo Xianling scoffed, annoyed that I ignored her. She shifted her weight, preparing to crush his skull and end this childish farce of a battle.
But a voice cut through the chaos.
"Luo Ancestor."
Xu Yunfei stepped forward, covered in dirt, ash, and blood — yet her back remained straight, her eyes cold.
"Please," she said, "allow me to kill him.Thank you for your assistance… but a Xu should deal with a Xu."
Luo Xianling paused, intrigued, still grinding Xu Xiao's face into the shattered earth with the effortless pressure of her foot. Her eyes shifted, studying the girl who approached — not with pity, but with growing curiosity, like a spectator waiting to see how a fragile thread would choose to snap.
Xu Xiao forced his head up as far as her divine weight allowed. His eyes widened when he saw his little sister step through the smoke and ruin.
She looked at him without flinching.
Cold.Expressionless.Unyielding.
Not a tremor of fear. Not a flicker of the affection she once held for him.
Just judgement.
"Yunfei… please…" he choked, blood bubbling from his lips. His voice shook, broken by desperation. "Please… I love you. I've always loved you…"
He reached out for her — or tried to. His arm barely lifted before Luo Xianling pressed her bare foot down harder, grinding his cheek into the blood-soaked stone. A strangled gasp tore from his throat.
Yet even with his bones cracking beneath her, he kept pleading, his voice breaking under the weight of obsession.
"I love you… and Mother… more than anything in this world," he rasped. "The only two who ever mattered… Don't abandon me… don't leave me for him. Remember the memories we had… all the happiness… don't throw it away…"
He tried to look past her — toward me — hatred and longing twisting violently across his face.
But Xu Yunfei stepped into his line of sight, blocking out everything except her.
Her silhouette towered above him, shadows stretching long behind her.Her hands did not tremble.Her breathing did not falter.Her eyes held no warmth, not even grief.
Only finality.
She raised her blade.
Xu Xiao screamed.
"Yunfei—! Sister—please! I beg you—spare me!"
His gaze darted wildly, searching for anyone, anything that might save him. It landed on his mother — her robes torn, her face streaked with ash and tears. She watched with despair, but she did not move to stop her daughter.
He choked on his breath, panic rising as he looked elsewhere — anywhere — before the blade descended.
He saw Lingling.
She stood cradling his child in her arms. Her face, once filled with soft devotion, was now completely hollow. Empty. Cold.
"Lingling—" he sobbed. "I did love you! It wasn't fake! Everything I did… everything… was to take you from my little brother! He didn't deserve you — he never loved you! You said it yourself! You said you felt abandoned by him! I gave you love! I gave you everything!"
But Lingling said nothing. Her silence stabbed deeper than any sword.
Then another voice cut through the din — sharp, furious, shaking with long-buried agony.
"Just die already, you filthy bastard!"
Liraine stepped forward, tears burning in her eyes as she screamed his name.
"You destroyed my family — my sister! You killed them all in cold blood, even when she was carrying your child! You deceived us, you monster! I survived — barely — and now I want to watch you die!"
Xu Xiao snarled at her, madness twisting his features.
"Shut up, you filthy bitch!" Xu Xiao spat, desperation twisting every word. "I remember you now — you whore. All you're good for is flaunting that pretty face and that seductive body of yours to men and women with power, letting them use you however they please! You're only lucky Shen Wuyin took pity on you and bought you out of Blooming Blooms! Just like the two beside you — sluts, the lot of you!"
He writhed beneath Luo Xianling's heel, his gaze whipping frantically across the shattered city as though salvation might crawl out of the smoke.
But no one came.
They were either dead… or had long since accepted the truth of his end.
Slowly, inevitably, his eyes returned to Xu Yunfei.
She stood before him — still, shadowed, utterly unmoved. Not anger. Not grief. Something colder. Something final.
She lifted her blade, firelight sliding along its edge like liquid gold. When she spoke, her voice trembled only with the weight of something once cherished now broken beyond repair.
"Goodbye, Xu Xiao. You've shown us who you truly are. I… I loved you, Big Brother. I truly did. But now… goodbye."
"Ungrateful bitch!" he shrieked. "Ungratef—!"
Her sword fell.
And then—
Silence.
A silence so complete it devoured even the ghost of his last scream, leaving only ash drifting gently across blood-soaked stone.