Ren watched Ling Sen return.
He didn't clap. He didn't praise him. He didn't so much as nod.
He didn't need to.
Ling Sen stepped back into the Divine Phoenix ranks, Ashura aura tucked away, spear resting lightly on his shoulder once more. The bloody phantom that had loomed behind him moments ago had vanished as if it had never existed, leaving only a tall young man whose eyes were calm and dark.
He glanced once at Murong Zi, Bai Jingyun, Qin Xingxuan, Na Yi, Na Shui.
They all met his eyes.
None of them seemed surprised.
On Divine Phoenix's main platform, Mu Qianyu's hand slipped into Ren's sleeve.
She moved without thinking.
Her fingers curled, nails pressing lightly into his skin—a quiet surge of heat and pride that she couldn't suppress. The Vermillion Bird blood in her veins was already boiling from Ling Sen's earlier performance, from the repeated trampling of South Horizon "geniuses" under Divine Phoenix feet. Touching Ren grounded that fire and fanned it at the same time.
He squeezed back, thumb rubbing across the back of her knuckles in a gentle, teasing stroke, as if they were simply watching a small courtyard spar instead of a martial meeting that the entire region was now staring at.
"How is it?" he murmured, voice low, only for her ears. The tone was casual, almost lazy, with that soft American drawl threading through perfect Divine Phoenix diction. "Feels good, seeing our people stomp the world like this?"
Mu Qianyu's lips curved, Vermillion Bird flames flickering faintly in her eyes. The phoenix mark between her brows seemed sharper today, the Life Destruction body she'd reforged under his Dao humming quietly under her skin.
"…It is a bit excessive," she said softly.
Her words were righteous.
The smile in her phoenix eyes was not.
Mu Fengxian's lips were tilted into a sharper smile entirely.
She stood in phoenix robes that fit a youthful, sword-bright figure, Vermillion Bird Life Destruction realm blazing quietly.
Seeing these so-called great sects reduced to silence by junior disciples… it stirred something deep in her phoenix blood. It stirred something in the ancient Dao she had once thought she would never touch again.
Good, she thought. Let the world learn to bow to different faces.
Mu Yuhuang's gaze remained cool, imperial, but the corners of her eyes held a fierce, almost savage satisfaction. For the first time, she felt the ground tilt toward her instead of the other way around.
Mu Xiaoqing's eyes were shining.
Shining, and hungry.
Adoration coiled with ambition. Every time one of "their" people stepped onto the stage and made a region tremble, the lotus lines on her back grew warmer.
Ren's smile deepened a fraction.
These were his women.
His disciples.
His Heaven's seedlings.
Good, he thought. Remember this feeling. Burn it into your bones. Then make it commonplace.
Let "crushing the region" feel like morning exercise.
Across the mountain, sect masters, elders, and geniuses alike felt a chill crawl up their spines.
This was no longer just a display.
It was a declaration carved into their bones.
The South Sea Demon Region's emissaries, hiding in shadows, stared with wide, disbelieving eyes.
They had wanted a storm.
They had gotten one.
And this storm had decided to make landfall by grinding the South Horizon Region's pride into dust.
As the horrified silence settled in like cold ash, Ren finally moved again.
He turned his head.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
His gaze drifted away from the collapsed form of Huo Ruyan on Sunfire's side, slid past Thundercrest's trembling disciples, brushed over Sunfire's ashen elders and Deep Earth's silent hall masters.
It rose.
Toward the platform where yin and yang fish chased one another in an endless cycle, forming a grand Tai Chi diagram that bent the local heaven and earth into a duality of extremes.
Yin-Yang Profound Palace.
Their robes were black and white, scarlet thread woven into hems and cuffs. Their juniors were powerful. Their Dao was subtle. Their backing… heavy.
In the original flow of fate, they had once stood above the Five Element sects in certain aspects, their disciples standing proudly on equal ground with Great Zen Temple's monks, their Palace holding friendship with Divine Phoenix Island when the South Sea Demon Region stirred.
Now, under Ren's shadow, even they felt their hearts tremble.
Ren let that silence stretch.
On Divine Phoenix's side, the air was warm—Vermillion Bird heat, phoenix plume radiance, the faint, dark-rainbow shimmer of Heavenly Demon Lotus lines drifting like ink through space. The array beneath their feet hummed comfortably, threads already overlaid by Ren's lotus Dao during his earlier arrival.
Across from them, above the Tai Chi platform, Yin-Yang Profound Palace's cold brilliance pressed down like a slab of marble.
Two worlds.
One blazing with reborn phoenixes and demonic lotus.
One carved in polished yin-yang stone and ancient balance.
Ren exhaled once, slow.
Then he smiled.
Not the gentle curve he gave Mu Qianyu in quiet courtyards.
Not the soft, teasing one he used to coax Mu Xiaoqing into leaning into his chest.
This one was edged.
He lifted his free hand and lazily pointed at the Yin-Yang Profound Palace platform, index finger moving as if he were casually picking something off a restaurant menu.
"You know," he said, voice mild enough to be a casual remark over tea, "for a sect that likes to call itself 'number one' in South Horizon… you're kind of a joke."
The words fell like stones into a still pond.
For a heartbeat, no one moved.
Then murmurs burst out across the mountains like a wave of startled birds.
"Did he just—"
"Number one… a joke?"
"Is he insane?!"
"Does Divine Phoenix Island plan to cut off every road of retreat?!"
Ren's smile deepened, eyes half-lidded, black irises ringed by faint, muted color that only those sensitive to Dao could see.
"Compared to Divine Phoenix Island," he added, tone still light, "you're utter dogshit."
The word exploded across the arena.
Dogshit.
It wasn't refined. It wasn't polite. It was crude in a way that ignored every layer of "face" a fifth-grade sect normally wrapped itself in.
It cut deeper for exactly that reason.
On the Yin-Yang platform, elders surged to their feet.
Yin-Yang Profound Palace's protective array blazed brighter as their auras spiked—black and white true essence rising like twin columns toward the sky, red-tinged Scarlet Flame coiling through them like blood.
The grand Tai Chi diagram beneath their platform turned more slowly, but each rotation made the atmosphere heavier. Yin and yang fish in its center seemed to grow clearer, one dark as ink, one white as bone, eyes marked by blood-red flames.
Xing Yan's killing intent surged first.
The Young Master of Yin-Yang Profound Palace was dressed in black-and-white robes trimmed in crimson, long saber slung across his back. Yin and yang true essence coiled around him in the shape of two fish, endlessly chasing, their scales traced in faint flame patterns.
His jaw clenched; veins bulged in his neck.
Beside him, Xing Zizzan's face went so dark it almost matched his black robes. His fingers dug into the armrest of his seat, joints pale.
"Guest of Fire," a Yin-Yang Profound Palace elder snapped, "do you understand what you are say—"
Ren didn't let him finish.
"Shut up."
The two words were quiet.
They cracked across the mountains like thunder all the same.
He didn't raise his aura. He didn't explode true essence. He simply let a thread of will slip out—Heaven-Piercing perception sharpened to a needle, brushing past Yin-Yang's formation as easily as a hand slipping into water and pressing down on the elder's throat.
The elder's next word strangled in his mouth.
His body jerked as if someone had gripped his neck. His face flushed a mottled red-black; the yin true essence he'd been lifting surged up, then scattered chaotically inside his meridians.
The grand Tai Chi diagram beneath Yin-Yang's platform shivered once.
Ren didn't bother looking at him.
His gaze slid to Xing Yan instead.
The Young Master's eyes were narrow, pupils contracting. For a brief instant, under his anger, there was something else.
Wariness.
"Come down," Ren said, tone almost bored. "Get crippled."
The arena drew a collective breath.
Thundercrest's elders stiffened; Deep Earth's hall masters exchanged alarmed glances. Storm Valley's people froze mid-whisper. Even Great Zen Temple's monks—robed figures from the distant Great Zen Region—frowned, golden brows knitting.
Calling for a fifth-grade sect's Young Master to be crippled at their own public gathering…
That wasn't just "disrespect."
That was a slap across an entire sect's face.
"That man…" one Storm Valley elder muttered, dry-mouthed. "He doesn't leave any way back for himself."
His voice trembled between horror and something uncomfortably close to envy.
On the Divine Phoenix platform, Mu Qianyu's fingers tightened around Ren's sleeve again, nails pressing into his arm. Her eyes had gone sharp, phoenix flames dancing in their depths. She didn't speak, but her breathing quickened by a fraction.
Mu Fengxian's lips tilted higher, youthful face gleaming like a tempered blade that had finally remembered the joy of cutting.
Mu Yuhuang's gaze didn't change, but the pressure around her grew colder, heavier—Vermillion Bird imperial aura drawn tight like a cloak about to unfurl.
Mu Bingyun's breath steamed in the air, frost rolling off her shoulders in thin waves.
Mu Qingyi's eyes flickered, ice-clear, but her reforged body thrummed with heat, Snow and Storm Laws settling into battle rhythm.
Mu Xiaoqing's heart slammed against her ribs.
He wants to cripple the Young Master of Yin-Yang Profound Palace.
He wants… me to watch it.
Her gaze slid up, almost on instinct.
Ren was already looking at her.
Their eyes met.
He squeezed Mu Qianyu's hand once, thumb brushing along her knuckles in a quick, familiar caress. Then he let go and shifted his hand, palm opening toward Mu Xiaoqing as if inviting her forward, as if this were some quiet training ground and not the center of the South Horizon's attention.
"Xiaoqing," he said.
His tone gentled. The lazy cursing edge vanished, replaced with that warm, teasing softness he reserved for his girls.
"Go cripple that dumbass," he said. "If he forces you to, kill him. I don't care."
The mountain seemed to tilt.
Mu Xiaoqing's breath caught.
Crippling a fifth-grade sect's heir here, at a martial meeting, in front of Great Zen Temple and half the South Horizon Region…
Normally, that was how sect-destroying wars started.
But the rest of her…
The rest of her thrilled.
He's giving this to me.
He's letting me be the one.
Something hungry, something wild and fiercely feminine lit up in her chest. Her Heavenly Demon Lotus petals stirred, faint lines blooming under her skin. The Heaven-Piercing Martial Intent she'd comprehended under his guidance condensed around her like a sharp, invisible breeze.
Mu Xiaoqing stepped forward.
Her phoenix robe flared, embroidered feathers catching the light as she walked to the edge of the Divine Phoenix platform. The lotus lines imprinted by Ren's Dao glimmered faintly across the stone beneath her feet, petals blooming in invisible layers.
"Sect Master!" someone hissed behind.
Mu Fengxian's fingers twitched before she could stop herself.
"Ren…" she said, exchanging a glance with Mu Yuhuang. Her voice dropped into a sound transmission between the core elders. "Crippling Yin-Yang's Young Master in public like this… you're picking war with a fifth-grade sect."
Mu Yuhuang's phoenix eyes narrowed ever so slightly. For all her imperial arrogance, the weight of centuries sat behind her gaze.
In South Horizon, fifth-grade sects were "kings" in their own right. Their words could crush smaller kingdoms; their moods could shift the pattern of an entire region.
Mu Yuhuang had never been afraid of them.
But she had always calculated them.
Now, for the first time since she'd stepped into Life Destruction, she found herself half a step behind someone else's pace.
Ren laughed.
He didn't keep it private.
His voice rolled out on a wave of true essence, carried by a light layer of Heavenly Demon aura. Everyone felt the vibration—like a breeze across their eardrums—though only the Divine Phoenix side could clearly "hear" his words. The rest simply sensed the rhythm of his Dao.
"You're thinking too small," he told them, amusement threading through every word. "You're phoenix sovereigns who can slap away an entire Divine Kingdom if you feel like it. This is just some provincial little sect playing at being 'number one.'"
On the surface, the words were reckless.
Underneath, there was a calm, unshakable conviction that made their hearts throb.
Mu Fengxian stilled.
A "fifth-grade sect" was supposed to be a mountain.
In front of him, it felt more like a hill.
Mu Fengxian's lips curved, sharp and bright.
Mu Yuhuang's earlier worry burned away, the embers fanned into imperial fire. Her phoenix eyes cooled into a terrifying calm.
"Very well," Mu Yuhuang whispered back along the sound transmission, voice faintly amused. "Since you say so, Ren… we shall see what weight 'fifth grade' truly has."
Far away, on Thundercrest's side, Lei Jingtian's pupils shrank.
This is bad.
That thought blazed through his mind like lightning.
He'd already been rattled by Ling Sen's earlier display. The Ashura spear that had shredded Thundercrest's proud Lightning Domain still seemed to echo in his bones. Now, watching Ren treat Yin-Yang Profound Palace like some annoying bug instead of a hegemon, Lei Jingtian felt something cold gnaw at his gut.
If Divine Phoenix Island really stands on that level…
If this "Guest of Fire" can treat even Yin-Yang like this…
He didn't finish the thought.
Lei Jingtian's body flickered.
One moment he was standing on Thundercrest's platform, lightning flickering faintly along his sleeves; the next, his aura blurred, lightning folding around him. He retreated—not fleeing in panic, but slipping away along the outer edge of the arena, sliding into the currents of formations with a lifetime's cunning, heading toward that shadowed platform where the South Sea Demon Region's emissary watched.
No one noticed.
Or rather—no one except Ren.
Ren's gaze tracked Lei Jingtian's movement for half a heartbeat, watching the lightning-threaded figure disappear behind banners and watching disciples.
His smile didn't change.
Inside, his amusement deepened.
Go on, Lei Jingtian, he thought lazily. Run to your demon friends. Beg them to drag me down.
Help me gather all my enemies in one neat pile.
He turned his attention back to the arena.
Below the Yin-Yang platform, Xing Yan moved.
He stood.
His black-and-white robes rustled softly as he stepped to the edge of their platform. For a breath, he stared at Ren as if trying to carve this man's face into his bones.
Then he stepped off.
True essence gathered beneath his feet, forming a black-and-white Tai Chi disc that slowed his descent and carried him like a throne down to the central martial stage. As he landed, the entire arena's array lit up—yin and yang fishes swimming through Scarlet Flame, their tails chasing in an endless circle.
The air rippled.
Yin and yang seeped into the martial stage, twisting local Heaven and Earth into an extreme duality. One half of the stage cooled until breath misted faintly; the other grew hot enough that the air above it warped.
Xing Yan reached for his saber.
It left its sheath with a shrill, metallic cry.
Black and white light poured from the blade in equal measure, crimson flame licking along the edge. The saber's body gleamed with the luster of a peak high-grade earth-step treasure, inscriptions along its spine twisting into faint fish patterns as his Law essence poured in.
Behind him, Yin-Yang Profound Law condensed—an enormous Taiji diagram that rose like a halo, bending space around its edges. Within its field, heat and cold, light and shadow, life and death all spun toward balance… under his control.
Scarlet Flame blazed along one half of the diagram, the white fish's eye burning blood-red.
He looked up at Mu Xiaoqing, voice dripping frost.
"Little girl," Xing Yan said. "You dare to cripple me?"
Mu Xiaoqing stepped onto air.
Lotus lines bloomed under her bare feet, grandmist-tinged petals spreading out and condensing into invisible platforms. She descended toward the stage as if stepping down from some higher Heaven, Vermillion Bird feathers embroidered along her robe fluttering in the heat coming off Xing Yan's saber.
Her heart pounded, but her back stayed straight.
She paused at the edge of the arena, glanced once over her shoulder.
Ren stood on the Divine Phoenix platform, hands tucked casually into his sleeves, lips curved in a calm, confident smile. His eyes were warm when they landed on her, amusement and pride woven together.
He tilted his head a fraction.
Go on.
Mu Xiaoqing's eyes burned.
She turned back to Xing Yan.
"Ren told me to," she answered simply. "So yes."
A ripple ran through the audience.
On Seven Profound's side, disciples sucked in a breath. Even the ones who'd been brutalized during the Heavenly Abode training period felt their scalps tingle.
"This little sister…" a Storm Valley elder muttered hoarsely, "…is crazier than half the old monsters here."
On the Yin-Yang platform, Xing Zizzan's fingers clenched around the railing hard enough that the wood splintered under his grip.
"Arrogant," he hissed. "Too arrogant."
Xing Yan's eyes went cold.
Scarlet Flame coiled along his saber; yin and yang fish spun faster behind him, the Tai Chi diagram twisting the local Heaven and Earth into an even more extreme duality. Cold and heat pressed against each other until the air hummed.
He moved.
The saber drew a circle.
True essence surged.
"Yin-Yang Flame Whirlpool Slash!"
The name didn't matter.
What mattered was what his Laws birthed.
The black-and-white Taiji diagram behind him spun violently, birthing a spiraling blade storm. Yin and yang true essence wove together into a whirling vortex of cuts. Scarlet Flame wrapped around each arc, burning along the edge of every blade. Wherever the storm passed, space twisted—hot and cold colliding, then sharply reversing, sucking in and grinding apart anything it touched.
The storm rushed toward Mu Xiaoqing like a living thing—a grinding maw of yin, yang, and flame.
The arena's formations blazed, lines racing beneath the stone as Seven Profound's array masters desperately redirected the worst of the pressure away from spectators.
Mu Xiaoqing stepped once.
Heavenly Demon lotus petals flared.
To ordinary eyes, nothing appeared.
To those who could see Dao lines, a dark-rainbow lotus bloomed faintly on her back, ink-dark petals rimmed in blood-red, violet, dusk-gold. Grandmist seeped from that bloom, thickening the space around her, dragging at energy, at Laws, at the very weave of Xing Yan's attack.
To the South Sea Demon Region's platform, to Limitless' narrowed eyes, it felt as if a piece of an older, crueler Heaven had briefly opened its eye.
Her right hand rose.
Heaven-Piercing Martial Intent condensed.
From her heart, a thin strand of multi-colored light stretched down her meridians and poured into her arm. Violet thunder arcs crawled along that thread. Earth-red flame sank into its core. A transparent wind halo wrapped around it, compressing everything tighter and tighter.
Fire, wind, and thunder folded together along the shortest path.
The air around her right hand warped.
She didn't conjure a physical spear.
The "spear" was alignment—a single direction where all the power she possessed agreed to go.
Mu Xiaoqing's pupils shrank, perception snapping into razor focus. In that instant, her mind thought dozens of times faster than her heartbeat, each breath a lifetime of timing adjustments.
She thrust.
"Break."
Her voice was calm.
Her hand blurred.
From the stands, it looked like a single collision—blade storm versus bare hand shrouded in multicolored light.
Inside that moment, everything slowed.
Heavenly Demon Lotus tugged.
Grandmist currents, nascent but real, reached out from the lotus on her back and caught at Xing Yan's Laws. The carefully woven yin-yang field, the Scarlet Flame balanced between them, the circulation patterns that defined his saber domain—they all felt a pulling force, an urge to "forget" their form and drift back toward origin.
Yin and yang fish that had been chasing each other in perfect, proud balance stuttered.
Heaven-Piercing sliced.
Mu Xiaoqing's thrust ignored nearly half of the Law weave underpinning Xing Yan's blade storm as if it were paper. The most complex, most precious lattice of yin-yang interplay was exactly what Heavenly Demon Lotus delighted in dragging down; the rest, Heaven-Piercing simply refused to acknowledge.
Her spear of compressed Fire, Wind, and Thunder slammed into the weakened heart of the storm.
The world detonated.
Scarlet and black-white light erupted outward, shredded into a thousand fragments. The elegant Taiji diagram buckled, its edges warping as if something had slammed a fist into its center. The saber in Xing Yan's hands, baptized by countless battles, screamed.
Cracks raced along its length like spiderwebs.
A heartbeat later, it shattered.
Peak high-grade earth-step metal broke apart under the joint assault of Mu Xiaoqing's True Essence and Law essence, exploding into jagged shards that spun through the air like broken teeth. A few larger fragments slammed into the arena, gouging out deep furrows before embedding in stone.
Most were simply carried away by the shockwave.
That wave hit Xing Yan a half-breath later.
His arm nearly exploded.
Bones shattered along its length with a sickening series of pops; meridians tore; true essence channels ripped open like overstrained cords. His chest caved slightly under the impact; ribs cracked; blood spewed from his mouth in a thick arc, scattering across the arena floor.
His body flew.
He slammed into the far edge of the martial stage, stone cracking under the impact. For a moment, he hung there like a broken doll, then slid down, leaving a smear of blood behind.
Silence.
The Yin-Yang law field faded.
The grand Tai Chi diagram shattered into motes of light and scattered, its earlier oppressive order collapsing into drifting fragments.
Mu Xiaoqing stood exactly where she'd started, right hand slowly lowering, lotus petals dimming beneath her robe.
She didn't look at Xing Yan.
She turned her head back toward the Divine Phoenix platform instead, eyes bright, cheeks flushed.
"You want him dead now?" she asked, voice steady.
It wasn't bravado.
It was a simple question.
Do you want me to finish him?