Chapter 8: The Sovereign's Blood
The Thunder Plains were a desolate expanse of purple grass and jagged rocks, perpetually shadowed by storm clouds that rumbled with the sound of angry gods.
Jiang Chen, Mo You, and Feng Xi emerged from the shadows of a large boulder.
"I smell them," Mo You whispered, her purple eyes narrowing. "Hundreds of sweaty, fearful souls. They are waiting for us."
Jiang Chen looked ahead. In the center of the vast plain, standing atop a small hill, was Luo Tian. But he wasn't alone.
Behind him stood the scions of the Bai Clan and the Ye Clan. And behind them, a battalion of nearly three hundred students spread out in a massive crescent formation. They were dug in, weapons drawn, mana flaring.
It wasn't a hunting party. It was an army.
"Welcome!" Luo Tian's voice was amplified by wind magic, booming across the plains. "I knew you'd come, Jiang Chen. Your arrogance is your compass."
Jiang Chen stepped into the open, his hands in his pockets. He looked calm, but inside, his Grandmist Perception was screaming. The mana flow in the ground was wrong. It was too static.
"Luo Tian," Jiang Chen shouted back. "You brought three hundred people to kill one 'cripple'? I'm flattered."
"I take no chances with monsters," Luo Tian sneered. He raised his hand. "Now!"
BOOM!
The trap sprung.
It wasn't an attack. It was a cage.
Twelve massive metallic pillars shot up from the ground in a perfect circle around Jiang Chen's group. Runes flared to life, connecting the pillars with walls of translucent, golden light.
[Warning: High-Tier Suppression Array Detected.]
[Type: Spirit Shackle Array.]
[Effect: Severing Summoner Connections.]
Jiang Chen felt a sledgehammer blow to his chest. It wasn't physical pain—it was spiritual. The golden bond that connected his soul to Mo You and Feng Xi was violently squeezed, like a tourniquet cutting off blood flow.
"Urgh!" Mo You gasped, dropping to one knee.
The invincible Dragon Empress clutched her heart. Her skin turned pale, her terrifying aura vanishing instantly. "My... my mana... it is blocked."
"Master..." Feng Xi stumbled, her glowing dress flickering and fading into dull grey fabric. She looked terrified. "I feel... heavy. I can't feel the sun."
"Hahaha!" Luo Tian laughed, watching them struggle. "Do you like it? This is a military-grade array designed to suppress Beast Tamer bonds! Without your mana feeding them, those two are just mortal women. In five minutes, their physical forms will destabilize and they will vanish back to their dimension!"
Luo Tian pointed his spear at Jiang Chen.
"You relied on your pets to carry you, Jiang Chen. Now that I've cut the leash... what are you? Just a broken glass prince."
The army of students cheered. They banged their shields and weapons, sensing victory.
"Get them!" Luo Tian ordered. "Kill the cripple! But capture the women! I want them alive!"
"Yes!"
"Charge!"
Three hundred students surged forward. Fireballs, ice shards, and arrows rained down like a deadly hailstorm.
Mo You gritted her teeth, trying to summon a shadow shield, but nothing happened. "I... I cannot..."
"Stand back," a voice said.
It was low. Calm. And terrifyingly cold.
Mo You looked up.
Jiang Chen had stepped in front of her.
"Master, no!" Feng Xi cried out, tears forming in her eyes. "You are mortal! You cannot tank this! Run!"
"I said... get back."
Jiang Chen didn't look at them. He was looking at the incoming army.
For eighteen years, he had been the one protected. He was the one who needed medicine, the one who needed guards, the one who needed pity. Even after awakening, he had relied on Mo You and Feng Xi to fight his battles.
'Not today,' Jiang Chen thought.
He felt the Grandmist energy in his gut—the Origin Power. It was raging against the array. The array blocked mana, but it couldn't block Physique.
[Grandmist Sovereign Body: Overdrive.]
[Warning: Skeletal Structure at risk. Output 120%.]
"Open," Jiang Chen snarled.
CRACK.
The ground beneath his feet shattered.
He didn't draw a shield. He didn't cast a spell. He drew Nightfall.
The black blade hummed.
"Void Step."
Jiang Chen vanished.
To the charging students, he didn't disappear—he just moved faster than their eyes could track. He reappeared ten meters ahead, right in the path of the first wave of spells.
He swung the sword.
CLANG!
He deflected a fireball. He sidestepped an ice lance. He caught an arrow out of the air with his bare hand and crushed it.
Then, he collided with the front line.
It was brutal.
"Argh!"
"My arm! He broke my arm!"
Jiang Chen was a whirlwind of black steel. He wasn't using fancy techniques. He was using raw, unadulterated speed and strength. He kicked a Ye Clan berserker in the chest, sending the 200-pound boy flying back into his teammates like a bowling ball.
Slash. Kick. Elbow.
Every movement was efficient. Every strike broke a bone.
"He's fighting!" Luo Tian screamed from the hill, his eyes bulging. "Why is he fighting?! He's supposed to be C-Rank!"
But Jiang Chen wasn't unscathed.
Thud.
An earth spike caught him in the side. Blood sprayed.
Slash.
A wind blade cut his cheek open.
"Master!" Mo You screamed, trying to stand up, but the suppression array forced her back down.
She watched in horror. She watched the "weak" mortal, the boy she had called an ant, take a sword through the shoulder... and simply keep moving.
Jiang Chen didn't stop. He couldn't stop. If he stopped, they would get to Mo You and Feng Xi.
He grabbed the student who stabbed him by the throat and threw him aside. He pulled the sword out of his own shoulder with a grunt, blood soaking his black suit.
"Is that all?!" Jiang Chen roared, his voice shaking the battlefield.
He looked like a demon. Covered in blood—his own and his enemies'—with purple energy crackling around his eyes.
The students faltered. They were kids. They were here for points. They weren't ready for... this. This wasn't a spar. This was a death match.
"He's a monster..." one student whispered, backing away.
"Don't back down!" Luo Tian shouted, panic rising in his voice. "He's bleeding! He's tired! Finish him!"
"Luo Tian!"
Jiang Chen's voice cut through the chaos.
He was standing on a pile of unconscious bodies. He looked up at the hill. He pointed Nightfall, dripping with crimson, straight at the ringleader.
"You made a mistake," Jiang Chen panted, his chest heaving. "You targeted them."
Jiang Chen looked at the twelve pillars maintaining the array.
He couldn't fight three hundred people forever. He was losing too much blood. His vision was blurring. He needed to break the cage.
He spotted the core pillar—the one glowing brightest, channeling the energy of the others. It was behind the enemy lines, guarded by the elite Ye Clan berserkers.
"One shot," Jiang Chen whispered to himself.
He gripped Nightfall with both hands.
[Grandmist Art: Sovereign's Execution.]
He poured everything he had left into his legs. The muscles tore. The bones groaned.
"VOID STEP: FLASH."
BOOM.
Jiang Chen broke the sound barrier.
He didn't run around the army. He ran through it.
He was a black streak of violence. He plowed through the defensive line, ignoring the spears that grazed his ribs, ignoring the fire that singed his skin.
He reached the Core Pillar.
Ye Kuang, the massive leader of the Ye Clan, stood in his way, holding a tower shield. "You don't pass here, cripple!"
Jiang Chen didn't slow down. He jumped.
He spun in the air, using the momentum of his sprint, the gravity of the fall, and the weight of the Grandmist energy.
He brought Nightfall down on the shield.
CRUNCH.
The A-Rank tower shield split in half.
Ye Kuang's armor shattered.
The giant boy was smashed into the dirt, unconscious.
The sword didn't stop. It continued down, striking the base of the Core Pillar.
PING.
A high-pitched sound echoed across the plains. A hairline fracture appeared on the metal pillar.
Jiang Chen roared, pumping the last ounce of his life force into the blade. "BREAK!"
SHATTER.
The pillar exploded.
The golden dome flickered... and died.
The suppression vanished.
Jiang Chen stood there for a second, swaying. The adrenaline crashed. The pain of a dozen wounds hit him all at once.
He fell forward, hitting the dirt face-first.
Silence descended on the battlefield.
"He... he fell," Luo Tian laughed nervously. "He's down! He's down! Quick! Kill him before the summons recover!"
The remaining students rushed toward the fallen Jiang Chen.
But they stopped.
Because the temperature was dropping.
It didn't just get cold. It got absolute zero. Frost crawled rapidly across the grass, freezing the blood on the ground into red crystals.
At the same time, the sky above turned pitch black. The sun was blotted out.
A sound echoed from where the "helpless women" had been.
It was the sound of a woman weeping. But it wasn't a sad sound. It was the sound of a predator realizing its mate had been hurt.
"You..."
Mo You stood up. Her eyes were no longer purple. They were abyssal black voids. Her hair floated around her like a halo of shadows.
Feng Xi stood up next to her. The "innocent" Phoenix was gone. Her skin was glowing with blinding white light. Tears of liquid gold streamed down her face, sizzling where they hit the ground.
"You made him bleed," Feng Xi whispered. Her voice was distorted, harmonic, terrifying.
Luo Tian stepped back, his spear shaking. "Wait... the array... it should have drained them..."
Mo You looked at Luo Tian.
"Run," Mo You said.
It wasn't a suggestion.
Shadows erupted from the ground, forming thousands of jagged spikes.
"Because if you don't," Feng Xi raised her hand, and a miniature sun formed above the battlefield, "there will be nothing left to bury."
The Queen of the End and the Queen of the Beginning had been unleashed.
And they were very, very angry.