Steel slid free of its sheath with a ringing cry that rolled across the mountain like a dragon's roar.
Sword intent burst forth.
It wasn't the raw, cutting frenzy of an immature blade. It was deep—like the sea at night. The surface looked calm, but beneath that calm, endless currents of sharpness surged back and forth, each one honed by countless hours in front of a sword stone.
The sword in Jiang Baoyun's hand fell.
Not toward Zhu Yan.
Into the ground.
Clang—
The dueling arena shuddered like a living thing.
From the point of impact, streaks of light erupted—thick, heavy sword gleams that shot outward in all directions. They didn't simply flash and vanish. They rose and fell like tides, overlapping and interweaving, until the entire stage seemed to transform into a boundless sea of blades.
Fine seams appeared in the air.
To weaker eyes it was only distortion, ripples of light. To those with sharper senses, each seam was an invisible edge, a line where space itself had been quietly sliced apart.
A sea of swords spread between heaven and earth.
Within that sea, Jiang Baoyun's body stirred.
Sword intent boiled.
Behind him, something stepped forward—a second Jiang Baoyun, birthed from sword light itself. The figure was faint, its features blurred, its eyes closed. It wasn't a phantom born of illusion, but the projection of a sword soul that had been nurtured day and night on Absolute Sword Peak.
"Sword Spirit…"
Someone from Seven Profound's Sword Faction choked out the words, voice hoarse.
Jiang Baoyun's Sword Spirit Avatar—his greatest pride, the miracle that had once shocked the entire South Horizon Region.
In the original river of time, he had displayed it at the peak of the Total Faction Martial Meeting, pushing forward in a duel that had shaken Sky Fortune Kingdom's martial circles. Here, under a different heaven and a different man's shadow, the avatar took form once again, stepping out into the sea as if returning to an old battlefield.
The sea roared.
Sword pressure descended like a falling sky.
Even the Five Element Region's ordinary elites felt their blood and true essence halt for a breath, as if a cold sword edge had been laid across their throats. On the outer mountains, lower-realm cultivators turned ashen, many clutching their chests, some imaging the sensation of their bodies being split in half.
The sword sea pressed down.
Zhu Yan stood at the heart of that pressure.
Sword intent washed over him like a storm tide crashing against a cliff.
It rolled off.
Before Ren Ming, that would have been impossible. Once, the old Zhu Yan—the proud, sharp-tongued chief disciple—would have been half-suffocated by this domain, his flame dragged into chaos. Now, the disparity between what he had been and what he had become was so vast it almost felt absurd.
He exhaled once, breath steady.
This… is the gulf between our worlds, he thought quietly.
Fire flared in his dantian.
Patterns stirred.
The modified Heretical God Force moved—not like a berserk beast smashing open gates, but like some invisible overseer opening painstakingly carved channels one by one. The "inner governor" Ren had woven into the art tasted the strain on his meridians, traced the tension in his bones, and loosened restriction after restriction with measured precision.
Flame-aligned true essence flooded his body.
It was thickened by the Lantern-Heart Flame Diagram's understanding of Fire—not just heat, but purification, transformation, burning away the useless and leaving behind essence. It was shaped by the Heaven-Piercing Elemental Canon's logic, folding Fire, Wind, and Thunder into a single, merciless line.
His blood warmed.
Above his Spiritual Sea, the Heaven-Piercing Elemental Canon's pattern turned.
Fire, Wind, and Thunder lines braided together, each node lighting up, one after another, until a three-layered design hummed behind his sternum. At this realm, this was his Small Success—killing edge condensed, waste stripped away, every notion of "attack" compressed into a single point that longed to pierce through everything in front of it.
He stepped forward.
He didn't draw a weapon.
His hand rose, fingers curling slowly into a fist—as casual as a man testing his grip after waking from a nap.
The sea of swords crashed down.
Countless sword beams fell like a storm of falling stars, heavy and majestic. The Sword Spirit Avatar raised its blade, its own sword intent merging with the domain's tide. Every streak of light carried the weight of Jiang Baoyun's sleepless nights, the raw flesh of his calloused hands, the cold loneliness of standing on a wind-scoured peak with only a sword and the stars.
In Seven Profound's eyes, this was a divine ocean.
In front of Zhu Yan, in that instant, it looked like a wave.
A huge wave, yes. Beautiful, in its own way.
Still… just a wave.
His fist punched out.
No dramatic stance.
No fancy flourish.
No named technique cried to the heavens.
A straight punch, wrapped in mid Houtian true essence.
At his knuckles, Fire, Wind, and Thunder wrapped around each other in a tight spiral, compressing into a red-gold core where violet lightning crawled in thin arcs, and unseen currents of wind folded space along the shortest path between his fist and the sword sea's heart. The Lantern-Heart Flame Diagram refined the heat into something purer, denser; Heretical God Force's Seeds multiplied the weight of his energy; the Elemental Canon shaved away every unnecessary ripple.
From the stands, the only thing people saw—
Was a simple, straight punch.
It met the leading edge of the sword sea.
Sound vanished.
For a single breath, the world forgot how to speak.
Then—
Boom.
The sea didn't explode outward.
It imploded.
All that majestic sword light, all that patiently cultivated sharpness, all that pride—sucked inward toward Zhu Yan's fist as if dragged by an invisible black hole of red-gold brilliance.
Sword beams twisted, stretching into thin, trembling lines that bent around his arm before snapping like overdrawn bowstrings. The Sword Spirit Avatar shuddered, its form flickering. Cracks appeared across its chest and limbs like a spiderweb of shattered glass.
"—!"
Jiang Baoyun's pupils shrank to pinpoints.
Agony stabbed through his Spiritual Sea, as if an invisible fist had smashed straight into his soul.
The sword in his hands screamed.
This was a blade forged and nurtured alongside him, its spirit fused to his own. Now, that spirit wailed as if being ground under a mountain.
Zhu Yan's fist did not stop.
The compressed true essence detonated point-blank.
Red-gold light erupted, thunder splitting the air, wind howling in a short, savage burst. The sea of swords lost all cohesion; countless blade-lights disintegrated into sparks that were dragged backward, streaming away like a rain falling in reverse.
The Sword Spirit Avatar shattered.
Fragments of light scattered like broken scales and dissolved back into nothingness.
Jiang Baoyun's body took the rest.
His greatsword was hammered aside, ripped from his grip and sent spiraling through the air. It hit the far arena wall point-first and sank in with a shrill, unwilling cry.
The remaining force slammed into Jiang Baoyun's chest like a falling mountain.
Bones snapped in rapid succession—sharp, horrible cracks that made even seasoned elders flinch. His lungs seized; the breath was punched out of him as a sheet of blood exploded from his mouth. His body shot backward, crashing into the arena barrier hard enough to make the protective array flare.
The barrier held.
He slid down it, leaving a faint, red smear.
Then he crumpled.
Silence.
Zhu Yan held his punching pose for a heartbeat more.
Then he slowly drew his fist back.
His breathing was unhurried.
He glanced down at his knuckles.
Not a speck of blood.
As expected, he thought calmly. If I can pressure Revolving Core elders, then below Revolving Core…
He gently exhaled.
He turned toward Jiang Baoyun's unconscious form and cupped his fists with quiet respect.
No mockery.
No cruel words.
He didn't need them.
Reality had already spoken more clearly than any insult.
Then he walked back toward Divine Phoenix's side, each step steady, as if he'd merely helped someone demonstrate a flaw in their sword path.
On Seven Profound's platforms, sound seemed to have been stolen.
Jiang Lanjian's sword hand trembled for the first time since he had started cultivating. He stared at Jiang Baoyun's fallen body, then at Zhu Yan's back, expression tight and pale.
On the Array Faction's side, Fang Qi's lips moved silently.
…That… how…?
He replayed the punch in his mind, tracing the flow of true essence, the shift of heaven and earth origin energy. Every calculation reached the same conclusion and collapsed: that level of concentrated destruction could not be carried by any weapon he had ever forged.
In Refiner Faction's section, Huo Yanluo's pupils shrank.
He imagined pouring that red-gold power into a top-grade treasure. In his mind's eye, metal warped, inscriptions burned away, artifact spirits shrieked and died. His heart clenched. It wasn't about forging a weapon that could contain it.
It was about accepting that the boy's flesh was already a better vessel than all of his life's work.
On the Puppet Faction's side, Mugu Buyu's thoughts raced.
He tried placing that punch against his proudest puppet designs. Defensive arrays shattered. Cores cracked. Reinforced frames split apart. His every projection ended with his creations collapsing like clay toys dropped beneath the wheels of a divine chariot.
Ouyang Ming's fingers dug into his own palm until blood welled up.
The humiliation of Acacia Faction being flattened by Ren Ming once before echoed in his chest, louder and sharper, magnified by seeing Jiang Baoyun—Sword Faction's towering hope—swatted aside in a single move by a "mere" mid Houtian disciple trained under that man.
Jiang Wuji's lips parted.
Nothing came out.
Shi Zongtian's chest rose and fell slowly, heavily, like a bellows being forced to keep working under too much weight.
Jiang Huang's eyes were bloodshot.
Baoyun had thrown himself into cultivation for four months, had pushed his sword domain to the edge of a new threshold, had awakened the Sword Spirit Avatar earlier than in the original flow of fate. In Seven Profound's eyes, he had become an even sharper blade than before.
And yet—
The one who had shattered his sword sea was not even the sharpest "blade" on Ren Ming's side.
He was a Heavenly Abode disciple at mid Houtian, someone whose entire cultivation system had been torn open and reforged by that same man… and with one fist, he had crushed the Sword Faction's greatest hope.
That was the gulf.
The difference.
Despair seeped in, quietly.
Jiang Baoyun coughed.
The sound was wet and ragged. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, staining his chin.
Ribs screamed. His chest felt caved in, every breath like breathing knives. The sword sea's collapse echoed inside his Spiritual Sea, leaving it ringing, hollow, like a temple bell that had been struck too hard.
But beneath the pain, a thin, stubborn clarity remained.
He forced his eyes open.
The sky above him swam, a blur of clouds and light.
He couldn't see Zhu Yan's face, only his back—straight, a little relaxed, shoulders looser than any true "junior" from this land, as if he walked in a world where these mountains weren't the limit but only the floor.
He let out a weak laugh that tore at his lungs.
"So this… is your world," he murmured, voice barely there. "I see…"
The bitter smile on his lips held no self-pity.
The wave he had tried to become… had smashed against a higher shore.
Behind his eyes, that simple, straight punch replayed again and again. It carried no fancy form, no ostentation—just terrifying, condensed inevitability.
His fingers twitched, reaching for a sword that was no longer within reach.
I was wrong, he thought, as darkness crept in from the edges of his vision. Not about chasing the flames…
About thinking I could already stand beside them.
Blackness swallowed him.
His head lolled to the side, and he sank into unconsciousness.
Only then did Seven Profound's healers jolt awake and rush forward, faces pale.
No one cheered.
No one argued.
They couldn't.
The mountain had seen.
Ren Ming did not bother looking toward Seven Profound's platforms.
Their silence was enough.
He stood with hands loosely clasped behind his back, gaze turning instead toward the distant platforms of the Five Element Region's sects.
Thundercrest.
The thunder sect's mountain, once a proud pillar of lightning, now wore its shame in the open. Its Thunder Soul—fractured by Murong Zi's earlier spear strike—hung crooked in the sky above its peak. Lightning that had once roared like dragons now hissed weakly, like rain falling on cold stone.
The Thundercrest Sovereign's fingers still bore splinters from the armrests he had crushed when Murong Zi's spear and the lotus pattern on her back had torn through his sect's confidence.
Ren clicked his tongue softly, more amused than angry.
"Thundercrest's 'chief disciple' has already been beaten to near death," he said, tone almost lazy. "What other 'chief disciple' wants to be next?"
His voice wasn't loud.
But the array carried it anyway, every syllable echoing on the hearts of the gathered sects.
Lei Jingtian's hands tightened.
He remembered Murong Zi stepping onto his mountain—the dark-rainbow lotus blooming faintly behind her, the way one spear thrust had pierced the Thunder Soul and scarred the sky above his sect. He remembered the suffocating sensation of that incomplete yet terrifying lotus pattern that Ren had imprinted on her back.
His cracked molars ground together.
He wanted to stand.
Thundercrest's pride howled at him to stand.
But his rationality—hammered by the sight of his Thunder Soul's fracture, by the memory of his "genius" Zhou Lie being crushed, by the way Zhu Yan had just erased Jiang Baoyun—forced his body to remain seated.
If Thundercrest stepped forward again and was flattened again… the last scraps of dignity surrounding their Thunder Soul would be trampled into dust.
Ren's gaze drifted past them without lingering.
Sunfire Sect.
Their platform simmered like a burning plain. Flame auras rose and fell, flaring and contracting like a restless blaze pressed beneath a lid.
Ren's mouth curled.
"Sunfire Sect," he said. "I recall your chief disciple still has all her bones."
The words were spoken calmly.
The implication landed like a slap.
Several Sunfire elders flinched.
Almost involuntarily, they turned toward the front of their disciples' ranks.
A young woman rose.
Scarlet flexible armor hugged her lithe frame, each plate fitted like molten scales that moved with her breathing. Her hair fell like a waterfall of embers, long crimson strands flowing freely down her back. As she stepped forward, Sunfire flames coiled around her, each flicker so tightly controlled that the air itself seemed to bend along invisible lines.
Her gaze was bright, proud, and stubborn.
"Huo Ruyan…" someone whispered. "Sunfire Princess…"
Chief disciple of Sunfire Sect. A genius whose control over flame had once been praised as superior to many Vermillion Bird Faction core disciples at the same realm, ranked second among the young elites of the Five Element Region in the original lists.
Here and now, facing a power that had quietly upended the South Horizon Region's logic, she still stepped forward.
Her crimson armor gave a soft, rippling clink with each step she took until she reached the front of her platform. Scarlet flames rose from her skin, then sank back into her body, compressing into a Sunfire core within her dantian. The heat around her sharpened, becoming a shimmering veil.
She cupped her fists toward Divine Phoenix's side, toward Ren.
"Sunfire Sect's Huo Ruyan," she said clearly. "Requests guidance."
Her voice did not tremble.
Fury burned beneath her calm, humiliation twisted like barbed wire under her ribs, unwillingness clawed at her heart—but she was no coward.
If no one from the Five Element Region answered this man's open challenge, then all their sects would become a joke.
Ren studied her for a moment.
His gaze read the way her flames curled obediently around her limbs, the density of Sunfire Laws braided through her true essence, the half-formed Sunfire field clinging to her like a second skin.
In terms of pure control of flame, she truly stood at the pinnacle of her generation—
In this region.
He smiled faintly.
Then he turned his head and spoke without the slightest hint of solemnity.
"Ling Sen."
He didn't need to shout.
He never did.
The Heavenly Abode's seats straightened as one.
Ling Sen rose.
Among all the disciples Ren had taken from Seven Profound Martial House, his aura had grown the stillest. Once, his Ashura battlefield intent had been a raging storm of blood and steel, all edges and no center. Now, under Ren's hand and his own relentless effort, that storm had settled into a deep, quiet river—still bloody, but flowing straight and unyielding.
He was at mid Houtian.
His combat power, beneath the veil of that calm, pressed steadily against mid Revolving Core.
Even standing unmoving, he made the space around him feel… heavier. As if invisible battlefields, piled atop each other, lay coiled under his feet.
Ren's eyes met his.
"Carve it into their bones," Ren said lightly. "Show them what disparity really looks like."
Ling Sen's gaze sharpened.
He cupped his fists.
"Yes."
He stepped off the platform.
Each stride was even, neither hurried nor slow. A spear wrapped in plain cloth rested against his shoulder, the understatement of its appearance at odds with the tension it stirred among the observers who knew what he had become.
When he landed on the arena, the stone trembled faintly, as if remembering older battles fought under a different heaven.
Huo Ruyan's eyes narrowed.
She inhaled slowly.
Her Sunfire domain unfurled.
Scarlet flames burst from her like a rising tide, racing across the arena floor. They didn't rampage uncontrollably. They twined and braided, rivers of flame circling her limbs, wrapping around her waist, flowing through her steps as if the arena had become the heart of a burning world and she was that heart's pulse.
Heat thickened.
Within ten breaths, the entire arena lay under her Sunfire field.
Light warped.
The air distorted like molten glass. From the outer mountains, spectators saw the stage through a veil of trembling flame; to their eyes, Huo Ruyan had become the core of a red world, her Sunfire domain swallowing every other color.
Sunfire elders sat up straighter, backs unconsciously straightening with pride.
This domain was the accumulation of generations of Sunfire comprehension, their sect's cherished understanding of the Sunfire Laws gathered into one young woman's hands. In the original history, this control had once drawn praise as something even Divine Phoenix Island's Vermillion Bird disciples might not match at the same realm.
Up above, Sunfire Sovereign's eyes brightened with a sliver of hope.
Within the field, Huo Ruyan spread her arms.
Flames surged skyward, spiraling into a blazing vortex.
At its peak, the fire contracted—crushed down by her will.
A cry rang out.
A phoenix's call—sharp, fierce, brimming with burning pride.
A Sunfire phoenix plunged out of the vortex, its wings a span of molten feathers, each plume burning with heat that could soften refined steel. Every wingbeat dragged the domain's power with it; every feather carried the weight of a sect's belief.
It dove, talons extended, beak aimed at Ling Sen's chest.
"Sunfire Burning Heaven!" A Sunfire elder couldn't help but exhale the name, face taut.
This was one of Huo Ruyan's proudest techniques—domain, Sunfire core, flame heart all fused into a single annihilating dive.
Ling Sen watched the phoenix descend.
His spear remained wrapped.
He did not open his Ashura Intent fully.
He did not boil his blood.
He simply stepped forward.
The cloth around his spear whispered as he stripped it away.
The weapon beneath was simple. No gaudy inlays, no arcs of spirit light, no overbearing aura that demanded attention. A spear, plain and clean, its tip cold and sharp.
He gripped it with both hands.
Ashura intent stirred.
It did not explode outward as a crimson ocean. It rose as a river—broad, deep, flowing past silent graveyards where broken blades and shattered banners lay half-buried in the mud. The killing will he had once let run wild had been refined, distilled into something quieter but infinitely more lethal.
He drew a breath.
Within him, the Heaven-Piercing Elemental Canon turned.
Fire, Wind, and Thunder converged along the length of the spear, threading its shaft, pooling at its tip.
He thrust.
The spear moved.
The world changed.
To the eyes of seasoned elders, it was as if someone had drawn a straight line between "now" and "impact" and the spear simply followed that inevitability. There was no wasted motion, no trace of traveling through space—only the sense that the shortest path between his heart and the phoenix's chest had been acknowledged by heaven and made real.
Wind surged into that line, compressed so tightly the air screamed. Fire Laws, drawn toward Huo Ruyan's domain, were seized and twisted, forced to refine themselves into something thinner, crueler. Thunder essence crackled like hairline fractures along glass, threading through the strike.
The spear met the phoenix.
For a heartbeat, the two forces wrestled.
Huo Ruyan's Sunfire field roared, pumping power into her phoenix, trying to smother this intrusive spear, to drown it in molten light.
Ling Sen's Ashura intent sharpened.
Behind him, the ghost of a battlefield rose higher—shattered weapons, toppled flags, dried rivers of blood. The spear he held carried not only elemental laws, but the silent, relentless edge of someone who had stood inside Ten Thousand Killing Array and walked back out without letting his gaze waver.
The spear punched through the phoenix's beak.
Cracks raced through the flaming bird's skull.
Its body fractured.
The Sunfire phoenix imploded.
Flames that had been gathered and refined for one devastating strike collapsed inward. Then, all at once, they burst outward again as disordered sparks, scattered along the spear's vortex, stripped of form and dominance.
The backlash slammed into Huo Ruyan.
Her domain buckled.
Flame lines that had woven her field snapped back toward her like enraged serpents, whipping at her defenses. Her crimson armor flared, internal arrays activating desperately to shunt the impact aside.
They held—for an instant.
Ling Sen twisted his wrists.
A brutal shockwave was sent down the spear at the moment of contact.
The spear tip crashed into Huo Ruyan's defenses.
Her layers of protective Sunfire true essence shattered like fired clay.
The first plates of her armor cracked; then the splits spread, racing across her chest and sides. Scarlet fragments exploded away from her body, clattering to the arena floor like falling embers.
The remaining force smashed into her ribs.
Bone creaked, then snapped.
Huo Ruyan's breath was ripped away in a raw, voiceless cry. Blood burst from her lips as her body was thrown backward, trailing broken Sunfire radiance. She struck the barrier with car-crash force, making the array flare brilliantly. Waves of Sunfire and spear intent rippled across its surface like colliding tides.
She slid down.
Her head tilted limply to the side, hair disheveled, eyes half-closed.
The Sunfire Sect stands went white.
"Huo Ruyan!"
"Princess!"
Several elders half-rose, hands trembling at their sides, not daring to rush forward until the barrier acknowledged defeat and parted.
The Sunfire Sovereign's face turned the color of ash under his own simmering flames.
Ling Sen held his thrust for a breath longer.
Then, just as Zhu Yan had done, he drew his weapon back.
The Ashura aura wound itself inward, settling into his bones. Only a faint, metallic scent remained, like old blood washed off steel but never entirely gone.
He looked at Huo Ruyan.
His words were quiet, but they carried across the arena.
"Not bad."
He meant it.
Her control of fire, her domain, her will to step forward… in the Five Element Region's original story, she would have stood as a peak genius. Under a different sky, she could have shone.
Then he turned away, resting the spear back on his shoulder, walking off the arena as if this world-shaking clash had been nothing more than another drill in his long, unending training.
The mountain remained utterly silent.
Thundercrest's disciples, still bearing scars from Murong Zi's earlier spear, swallowed in unison. Some flinched as Ling Sen's shadow swept past their platform, as if expecting that simple spear to swing toward them next.
Verdant Wood Sect's foremost genius clenched his fists until his nails bit bloody crescents into his palms. Sweat ran down his spine despite the absence of heat around him.
On Golden Bell Mountain's side, elders listened inwardly.
The bells they trusted to resonate with opportunity did not chime with excitement.
They chimed with warning.
Arctic Ice Palace's envoy felt her frost aura tighten like armor around her shoulders, a reflexive response to a threat that did not even glance her way.
Deep Earth's hall masters, whose Dao always emphasized steadiness, stability, endurance, found themselves thinking, for the first time, that perhaps the earth beneath their feet was not the most unshakable thing present.
Even Storm Valley's bold elites, who normally laughed the loudest and feared the least, felt their throats dry.
"It was already proven when Murong Zi crushed Zhou Lie," someone in the crowd whispered, voice raw. "But this… this…"
Murong Zi now stood firmly in Xiantian. With Heavenly Demon Lotus and Heaven-Piercing Martial Intent layered atop her cultivation, her combat strength had stepped into a terrifying range where Revolving Core elders could no longer "see through" her at a glance. Four months ago, when she had still been in the Houtian realm, she had driven her spear through Thundercrest's Thunder Soul and Lei Jingtian's pride at the same time.
Now—
Now, Ling Sen, only mid Houtian, only a disciple on the modified Heretical God Force and Heaven-Piercing path, had shattered Huo Ruyan's Sunfire domain with a single spear thrust.
Zhu Yan, also mid Houtian, had crushed Jiang Baoyun's sea of swords with one punch.
Under Ren Ming's guidance, the definition of "junior" had quietly shifted several steps upward.
On Sunfire's platform, no one spoke.
Huo Ruyan's chest rose and fell in shallow breaths. Her domain was in tatters, her Sunfire heart wounded. If Ling Sen had chosen to kill instead of merely crush, she would have died under that spear.
Even so, the pain that burned hottest inside her wasn't the broken ribs.
It was the gap.
Not losing.
Losing was something any genius accepted as the price for walking the path.
It was the merciless, overwhelming difference—that feeling of pouring every flame she had into an attack and watching someone else erase it with a single, almost casual motion.
Her fingers twitched, grasping at empty air where her domain should have answered.
…Too far, she thought bitterly, vision blurring.