The air snapped with tension as Wang Zhen locked eyes with Yan Fei, waiting for an answer. Before further words could pass, Old Man Jin and Wei lunged for him without warning.
Jin attacked first, his sword flashing in a clean arc—a silver line slicing through space, aimed straight for Wang Zhen's collarbone. Wei followed with the weight of the 44 Mountain Seal, his hands moving in intricate gestures. A surge like a collapsing mountain compressed the air; phantoms of rocky peaks flickered behind him, forming seals that pressed down with tangible force.
Wang Zhen met Jin's sword head-on, fist curled tight with years of hidden power. His black-and-white yin-yang halo spun, sun and moon glittering at its poles, lending steadiness to his stance. Jin's blade crashed against Wang Zhen's knuckles with a clang—shockwaves whipped out, tearing chunks from the ground beneath.
Wei's 44 Mountains Seal split into forty-four individual seals. Each mountain descended, slamming through the air, slowing Wang Zhen's movements and pinning him between sword and stone. Wang Zhen ducked under the blade, pivoted, and swept his fist in a wide curve. The punch carried not just strength, but intent—a ripple of law fragments twisting around it.
Jin recovered, sword swirling in a defensive pattern, sparks flying as blade and fist collided again and again. Wei pressed onward, the 44 Mountain Seals multiplying in scale and intensity, each conjured peak threatening to pin Wang Zhen in place.
Wang Zhen slid between two seals, the pressure of mountains squeezing every breath. He shifted his fist's angle, channeling the law of Strength and Energy Displacement, scattering the weight into thin lines that broke the seals' grip for a blink. Jin drove the sword low, aiming for Wang Zhen's hip—Wang Zhen blocked with a forearm, the impact ringing out with a metallic THUD!
Wei roared, sending another wave of seals crashing—a dozen stone peaks fell, hammering the earth and pulling on Wang Zhen's limbs like gravity turned vicious. Wang Zhen spun, using the law of Shattered Time to buy himself the crucial half-moment. With force and finesse, he landed a punch squarely into Jin's sword, snapping the blade in half as the fragments ricocheted into glowing dust.
Jin staggered, eyes blazing with rage and surprise; Wei redoubled the mountains until the world seemed solid with stone. Under that crushing weight, Wang Zhen planted his feet, summoned a burst of the yin-yang sun and moon power, and threw out his fist in a blinding arc. The force shattered five seals, cracked more, and sent Wei stumbling backwards, breathless.
Both attackers paused, swords broken, mountains fragmented—Wang Zhen stood tall, fist clenched, his gaze unwavering.
Only silence and the echoes of the fight remained, the dust slowly settling around three figures locked between vengeance, heritage, and survival.
-
Wei and Jin recovered from the last disastrous attack, still breathing hard and bloodied, but their determination unshaken. With silent agreement, they charged again, power gathering behind them. As they moved, twin halos—translucent rings of pure power—flared into being. Behind Wei shimmered a green halo; behind Jin, a black one. These halos pulsated, resonating with their cultivations, spirits taut like drawn bows.
Wang Zhen watched them approach, his own halo—a solid yin-yang ring with radiant sun and moon—spinning faster. Shadows and faint lines curled around his hand, CRACK! Soft cracks opened in the nearby air to reveal glimpses of the black void beneath. His voice came out cold, echoing through the stone and air: "Enough! If you want to die, I'll grant your wish."
Without waiting for their response, Wang Zhen condensed five fragments of the threads of law into his fist. Power gathered: strength, void, lethality, hellfire, and destruction. Each fragment glowed with intense color and heat, crackling. The space around his spinning halo grew warped, every revolution engraving faint cracks in reality.
Wei and Jin pressed forward but stopped abruptly, sensing the overwhelming power. They exchanged a wary look before both retreated a dozen paces—no words, just a silent understanding of the peril they faced.
"Not so fast!" Wang Zhen roared.
BOOOMMM!!! CRACK!!! CRACK!!! SWISHH!!!
He punched forward. Immediately, a wide beam of purple fire burst from his knuckles. The void at his wrist split and peeled back, and the fire swept across the battlefield in a roaring wave. Space buckled and shimmered, edges of the world curling away from the sheer destructive force.
Seeing no way to evade, Jin and Wei threw everything they had into defense. Jin layered black shield over black shield, each one reinforced by fragments gathered from decades of study. Wei conjured mountains of green energy, 44 seals stacking into a near-impenetrable wall.
CRACK!! SWISH!! CRACK!!
The purple fire crashed into their barriers. Shields shattered, seals broke apart with thunderous cracks, and the fire surged forward with the force of an avalanche. Jin and Wei disappeared into the beam—a cyclone of destruction and hellfire, engulfed by energy that was as much void as it was flame.
The battlefield glowed with lingering purple light, fractured with new cracks that pulsed into the silent void. Wang Zhen hovered, fist still smoking from his attack, and the people were watching to see who or what might emerge from the devastation.
-
Without a moment to spare, as his attack against Jin and Wei still burned through space, Wang Zhen pivoted to face Yan Fei. He lunged forward, fist crackling with condensed force, intent sharp. Mo Gu—standing near Yan Fei—immediately sensed danger and retreated several steps, his expression wary.
Wang Zhen's voice rang out, heavy with the past. "Yan Fei, I want the truth!"
Yan Fei's posture shifted from relaxed to guarded, sensing the gravity in Wang Zhen's tone and advance. He responded with iron in his words, "Little Wang, don't chew more than you can bite off."
From his spatial ring, Yan Fei summoned the hammer axe—a weapon with both crushing force and precise edge. Behind Yan Fei, a halo formed: a blue ring solid as the sky, scattered with white, blue, and purple sparks, resembling a starry night swirling with potential.
Wang Zhen narrowed his eyes. "Don't be too arrogant. YAN FEI!" His fist drew back—power surged as more than seven fragments of the threads of laws gathered in a spiral, each thread weaving heat, void, strength, destruction, speed, gravity, and void around his knuckles, burning with purpose.
At the same moment, seven fragments of threads of law converged onto Yan Fei's hammer axe, crackling with elemental force—fire, frost, lightning, lethality, destruction, fission, and void. The weapon dripped with raw energy, humming as the blue halo flared brighter behind him.
CRACK! CRACK!
The two Deity Transformation titans crossed the ruined field. Each step fractured the space around their weapons, tiny cracks revealing slivers of black void. The air felt charged—dangerous even to the lowest cultivators watching from safety within and outside the blessed land.
"He's going to clash with Lord Fei!" whispered a young cultivator, eyes wide.
"Look—space itself is tearing from their power!"
"Deity Transformation is peak—who can stand against them?"
The crowd shuddered—and even the seasoned elders whispered among themselves.
Wang Zhen and Yan Fei closed the distance, weapons drawn.
IMPACT!!! BOOM!! CRACK!!
As Wang Zhen's fist collided with Yan Fei's hammer axe, a thunderous boom shook earth and air together. Cracks rippled outward, darkness peeking from the wounds in reality.
The clash's shockwave blasted away the ruined land—trees, boulders, and clouds. Dust billowed, clouds dissolved, and a chill swept through the glowing world.
Neither Wang Zhen nor Yan Fei gained ground. Their powers met, fought, and tangled in the air, equilibrium holding tight—a true stalemate. Waves of energy continued to erupt from the point where fist met axe, rolling outward in successive explosions, each more violent than the last.
Cultivators in and out of the blessed land could do nothing but gasp, whisper, and watch as a battle that felt timeless shattered the sky and earth before their eyes.
-
The fight between Wang Zhen and Yan Fei was a thunderstorm unleashed on the battlefield, each move a furious symphony of power and precision. As Wang Zhen's fist smashed against Yan Fei's hammer-axe, the impact cracked space itself. CRACK! BOOM! The shockwave rippled, tearing the earth beneath them and sending clouds scattering like startled birds.
Wang Zhen's fist burned with the concentrated power of seven fragments of law—each weaving through the veins of his punch like raging lightning. His muscles coiled and unleashed with vicious elegance, every strike laced with deadly intent and layered effects designed to destabilize and crack defenses.
Yan Fei met the assault with every ounce of his skill. The hammer-axe in his grasp was more than a weapon; it was a conduit of the blue halo's cosmic power, a swirling galaxy of white, blue, and purple sparks imbuing each blow with celestial force. He shifted seamlessly between offense and defense, each strike crushing air with the weight of mountains, folding gravitational waves to slow Wang Zhen.
Their weapons clashed again and again, each collision shattering the battlefield further. BOOM! CRACK! The ground heaved, great fissures splitting the earth. Trees snapped, and the wind carried the scent of scorched soil and cracked stones.
Around them, cultivators held their breath, watching the titanic exchange. Whispers ran like wildfire:
Waves of divine energy cascaded outward from each impact, swelling and crashing in endless surges. Lightning-fast shifts of speed, masterful manipulations of the fragments of threads of laws, and bursts of raw power lit the dance.
Wang Zhen's technique was a fusion of precision and chaos: he edged his strikes with threads of shattered time, slowing incoming blows barely in time to raise shields woven from void and toughness. His hellfire crackled like a thunderstorm contained in a chamber, burning brighter as his will flared.
Yan Fei's counter was a masterpiece of balance and brutality: gravitational seals weighted Wang Zhen's every breath, his hammer-axe struck with devastating force, blurring the line between destruction and creation. His blue halo drew strength from the cosmos, sparking with the fury of distant stars.
Neither gave ground.
The sky, too, betrayed the battle's severity. Clouds rent open like slashed silk; sunbeams fractured into shards that danced among the billowing dust. The once serene, blessed land was now a chaotic storm of raw, intersecting energies.
And still, they fought.
One moment, Wang Zhen's fist arced like a comet, charged by Lethality and Destruction, ready to cleave the heavens. The next, Yan Fei's hammer-axe spun, a spiral of cosmic force railing against the onslaught.
The dance of battle was brutal and beautiful, eternal and fleeting.
Cracking ground, rolling dust, and distant echoes of unknown powers were left in their wake.
The cultivators around the edge of the blessed land watched in stunned silence and awe, knowing they had glimpsed a confrontation for the ages.
In that dance of shadows and light, no victor was crowned—only the unbreakable will of two titans locked in perfect, deadly balance.
-
CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!
Fissures in space began to spiderweb above and around the blessed land as Wang Zhen and Yan Fei's clash tore at its already weakened protection. The dome that had once shielded the realm was gone; now the very fabric of reality around it groaned and split. Thin, pitch‑black cracks opened in the air like ink strokes, some close to the ground, others high above where fist and hammer-axe met again and again.
Inside the blessed land, panic spread.
Cultivators looked up and saw the rifts widening, felt the unstable pull of the void beyond them. A few of the weaker ones staggered as their spiritual sense, and seas trembled under the pressure. Someone shouted, "The space is collapsing! Run! Get out of the blessed land!" Others followed without hesitation. Talismans flared, flying swords were summoned, movement techniques fired one after another as people scrambled toward the exits, desperate to leave before a stray blow from Wang Zhen or Yan Fei erased them from existence.
Some risked a final glance back at the duel in the sky, then fled outright. No one wanted to be near two Deity Transformations fighting at full power in a realm whose anchors were coming undone.
Far away from the main currents of panic, an invisible figure stood still—Han Chen.
Hidden by his concealment, he watched the fissures form and spread, feeling the strange tug each one radiated. "Is the blessed land breaking apart?" he thought, eyes narrowing. "If this continued, the entire realm could be exiled into the void, cut off from the outside world."
Before he could decide whether to escape with the others, something stirred in his sea of consciousness.
The Heavenly Eye glimmered.
It wasn't a gentle pulse this time, but a clear, insistent flicker, as if it were rejecting his instinct to flee, quietly pushing back against the idea of leaving. Han Chen frowned. "What does it want now? Does it… want me to stay here?"
From within his sea of consciousness, Yue Ruo's calm voice answered, carrying a trace of excitement. "The Heavenly Eye does indeed want you to remain. If Wang Zhen and Yan Fei continue fighting like this, and the fissures keep growing around the blessed land, the entire realm will eventually be exiled into the void. Once that happens, the Heavenly Eye will be able to fully absorb the elemental qi contained within this blessed land."
Han Chen's heart skipped. "The Heavenly Eye can do that too?" The idea of an artifact or existence that could swallow an entire realm was not just terrifying—it was an opportunity beyond measure.
He stood in silence for a breath, watching a new fissure open above, black and deep as if it led to nowhere. Outside, cultivators were still rushing for the boundary, throwing everything into escaping. Inside, the world trembled around him like a beast ready to shed its skin.
"Alright," Han Chen said at last, decision settling in his chest. "I'll stay."
The Heavenly Eye pulsed once more, this time steady and satisfied, like an acknowledgment. While the blessed land shook, while the void's cracks grew sharper, and while the two Deity Transformations tore at reality above, Han Chen remained where he was—no longer merely a trapped spectator, but a quiet, willing piece on a much larger board, waiting for the moment when the blessed land would be cast into the void and the Heavenly Eye could take what it wanted.
-----TO BE CONTINUED-----