Liang Feng closed his eyes.
His breathing slowed.
A deep, muted pulse was born within his chest—steady, profound, like the heartbeat of an ancient being. Around him, the air grew dense, saturated with icy moisture. Each breath caused the spiritual currents of the Blue Star to tremble, dragged out of inertia by a will that no longer sought negotiation.
He slowly raised his right hand.
Two fingers rose.
Index and middle finger.
They traced a vertical seal in the air, leaving behind a trail of luminous water that instantly froze into translucent ice. The symbol pulsed once, then sank into space itself, as if engraved directly into the world's underlying structure.
The ground trembled.
The planet's deep waters responded violently. Invisible currents tore free from oceans, underground aquifers, and rivers buried beneath stone. They converged toward Liang Feng, spiraling around him in slow arcs, laden with a cold that gnawed at the soul more than the flesh.
He lowered his left hand.
The temperature plummeted instantly.
The cold spread without shockwave, extending like a law enforcing itself. Particles of air froze into perfect geometric structures, suspended between motion and stillness. Water became ice. Ice became principle.
Beneath his feet, a crystalline lotus emerged, petal by petal, each blade of ice inscribed with ancient runic circulation lines, forcing the Dao of Water and Ice into a precarious equilibrium.
Liang Feng opened his eyes.
His gaze was clear, steady, devoid of hesitation.
Behind him, the accumulated energy condensed.
Space bent.
A silhouette slowly took shape, sculpted by the summoned flows—identical to him, yet stripped of emotion and vital warmth. The Avatar formed fully, its contours solidifying as twin dragons of light manifested at its flanks: one fluid and infinite, coursed by moving currents; the other rigid and immobile, composed of absolute ice.
Their presence crushed reality.
Above the Avatar, a vertical sword materialized, forged of pure Dao, piercing heaven and earth like an axis of judgment. Its blade vibrated with silent authority, binding the sealed past, the shattered present, and a forbidden future.
The Blue Star groaned.
The planet's spiritual veins entered overload, forced to sustain an existence far beyond their tolerance.
Liang Feng finally placed a hand over his chest.
The energy exploded.
Not in chaotic release, but in a controlled, methodical, overwhelming expansion.
"Forbidden technique…"
His voice resonated, carried by the Avatar.
"Manifestation of the Avatar of the Primordial Dao of Water and Ice."
And the world understood that a battle of laws had begun.
---
The sky was already broken, torn by fractures that even time could no longer mend—yet around Míng Jiǎo Zūn, nothing happened. No surge of pressure announced danger. No brutal distortion ripped through space. No energy was summoned to mark a rupture. The laws of the Blue Star remained active, seemingly intact, yet abruptly relegated to irrelevance, like rules no longer applicable to the situation at hand.
Míng Jiǎo Zūn stood motionless, arms at his sides, perfectly aligned with the surrounding chaos. Then, slowly, he tilted his head. The gesture held no ritual or symbolism; it resembled a minute correction, a precise adjustment applied to a reality that had been operating under a tolerated approximation.
At that instant, something changed.
Not in space.
Not in time.
But in the hierarchy of laws themselves.
An invisible lock gave way—not with spectacle, but in absolute silence, as though an ancient constraint had simply been released. This was not a violent rupture, but a deliberate disengagement.
Around him, constants ceased attempting to interpret his presence. Gravity continued to exist, faithful to its function, but abandoned any attempt to measure him. Light kept shining, yet refused to define him. The local Dao continued to circulate—elsewhere—diverted, as if it instinctively recognized something it must not approach.
Míng Jiǎo Zūn slowly raised a hand. The gesture targeted no one and carried no intent of invocation. His fingers merely opened—and the world realized, far too late, that what it had been restraining was not compressed power, but a constrained form.
Behind him, the Avatar manifested.
It did not descend from the sky, was not projected from another plane, nor did it emerge from a rift. It coincided with reality, as though its presence had always been anticipated, merely delayed. The silhouette was identical to Míng Jiǎo Zūn's, yet stripped of biology, warmth, and human narrative. Its black-blue body was etched with living profanation lines, stable and ordered like cosmic constants, while the axes orbiting it behaved neither as weapons nor objects, but as segments of a single concept, arranged in a geometry the Blue Star had never learned to articulate.
The halo behind its head emitted no light; it annulled the very necessity of illumination.
Then, the planet reacted.
Not through defense.
Not through resistance.
But through profound structural fatigue.
Mountain ranges slowly ceased to maintain cohesion, as though effort itself had become meaningless. Seas lost their spiritual circulation, their currents drained of purpose. Ancient formations forgot their function—not through destruction, but through abandonment.
There was no overt violence—only the cold evidence of fundamental incompatibility.
Míng Jiǎo Zūn inhaled.
The Avatar inhaled with him.
This breath consumed nothing, produced no debt, demanded no exchange. It merely established an irrevocable fact.
原相降临.
The Origin Form has descended.
Only then did Míng Jiǎo Zūn speak, without raising his voice, without imposed authority.
"I did not activate anything.
I simply stopped pretending to be lesser."
The sky did not answer.
The earth did not protest.
But the Blue Star understood a simple, irreversible truth: what would destroy it would never be a direct attack, but the permission it had granted to something that was never meant to exist within it.
---
For a moment, neither moved.
Between the ice lotus and the origin shadow, space itself hesitated, as though reality were still deciding which presence held priority. The Blue Star's spiritual veins vibrated in unison, stretched to the breaking point, unable to sustain this unnatural coexistence any longer.
Míng Jiǎo Zūn broke the silence first.
He observed Liang Feng's Avatar with near-clinical focus, his gaze following the frozen water currents, the runic circulation lines, the forced balance between fluidity and immobility.
"So you still impose form on that which refuses to have one," he said calmly.
"Even now… you persist in protecting this world."
Liang Feng did not look away.
Around him, the dragons of water and ice coiled slowly, their massive bodies tracing concentric circles that stabilized space with each pass. The vertical sword above his Avatar vibrated faintly—not with aggression, but readiness.
"This world never asked to receive you," Liang Feng replied.
"And yet you impose yourself as inevitability."
Míng Jiǎo Zūn allowed an imperceptible smile.
"False."
He slowly raised his hand, palm turned toward the shattered sky.
"It recognized me. The only mistake was believing it could endure me."
Without transition, one of the axes orbiting his Avatar detached.
It was not thrown.
It advanced.
Space ahead of it reorganized instantly, distances folding to grant it direct passage. Where it passed, reality did not tear—it simply ceased to exist, replaced by a conceptual void where neither matter nor Dao could persist.
Liang Feng reacted in the same instant.
His index finger traced a horizontal arc, and the water dragon surged forward, its body unfolding into a celestial tide that did not attempt to block the axe, but to envelop it. Water began to circulate around the void, forcing that which should not be contained into an imposed cycle.
The collision made no sound.
The void was absorbed, diluted, redistributed within the flow.
But Liang Feng took a step back.
Beneath his feet, the ice lotus cracked slightly.
Míng Jiǎo Zūn watched with interest.
"You see?" he said.
"You are already spending."
He opened his fingers.
All the axes began to rotate.
This time, they did not separate. Their orbit accelerated, geometry tightening until they formed a perfect circle around Míng Jiǎo Zūn's Avatar. The halo behind his head pulsed once, and a silent wave spread outward.
The sky above the Blue Star tilted.
Not visually.
Conceptually.
Directions lost meaning. Up and down ceased to be absolute. The planet itself seemed to incline, drawn toward an authority that no longer recognized its center.
Liang Feng clenched his teeth.
He slammed both hands downward.
The ice dragon rose, its form growing denser, more precise, until its body solidified into a flawless crystalline structure. Cold spread at an absurd speed, freezing not matter, but transition itself.
The axes slowed.
Their rotation faltered.
Míng Jiǎo Zūn tilted his head slightly.
"Interesting," he murmured.
"You even freeze change itself… but for how long?"
He took a single step forward.
That simple motion produced a wave of desynchronization. The ice dragon cracked, its fissures spreading not through structure, but through the logic sustaining its coherence.
Liang Feng felt pain rise.
Not physical.
Structural.
He inhaled deeply, and the vertical sword above his Avatar descended another measure, embedding itself deeper into the world's framework. Water and ice merged into a perfect cycle, absorbing the desynchronization and redirecting it into the ground.
The Blue Star groaned.
Entire continents lost spiritual stability for a fraction of a second.
"Enough," Liang Feng said, his voice heavier.
"Every step you take kills this world."
Míng Jiǎo Zūn stopped.
He observed the planet beneath them—the fractures, the exhausted seas, the strained spiritual veins.
Then he replied, without anger, without triumph.
"I am not killing it.
I am simply reminding it that it was never meant to survive my presence."
He slowly raised his hand.
This time, Liang Feng sensed danger before the attack even took form.
All the axes aligned.
The halo expanded.
Míng Jiǎo Zūn's Avatar briefly overlapped with itself, as if multiple states were attempting to coexist.
Liang Feng understood.
This was no longer an attack.
It was a declaration of end.
He placed a hand over his heart.
The ice lotus shattered completely.
The energy he had been restraining until now was released.
"Then look carefully," he said, blood finally spilling from his lips.
"Look at the cost of your mere existence."
The two Avatars moved.
---
The silence that followed their final collision was no respite.
It was an analytical void, an instant where the world held its breath not in fear, but because it had ceased to be a relevant arbiter. Liang Feng remained motionless at the center of the flows, his Avatar still standing behind him, the water and ice dragons tracing ever-tighter circles—not to attack, but to preserve coherence at increasing cost.
He inhaled slowly.
And for the first time since the battle began, he did not search for an opening.
He observed.
Beneath his feet, the Blue Star's spiritual circulation no longer responded with the same precision. The veins he had ordered trembled with an infinitesimal delay—barely perceptible, yet sufficient to betray a truth no will could correct. Each cycle of water and ice now demanded additional compensation, as if the planet were borrowing against its own future to sustain the present.
Liang Feng lowered his hand slightly.
The water dragon slowed.
Not from weakness, but because the world's response was no longer instantaneous.
Then he felt the pain.
Not violent.
Not sharp.
A dull pressure in his chest, where his cultivation had anchored for centuries. His Dao was not cracking.
It was tiring.
And that fatigue was not his.
It belonged to the Blue Star.
He lifted his gaze toward Míng Jiǎo Zūn.
The black-blue Avatar remained unchanged. No oscillation. No overload. No trace of expenditure. The axes continued their perfect orbit, geometry unaltered, stability almost insulting. Even the halo behind its head remained identical, indifferent to the distortions it had caused.
Then Liang Feng understood.
Not by intuition.
Not by fear.
By comparison.
Every technique he activated required a forced accord with the world. Every adjustment of law demanded negotiation, circumvention, implicit debt. Even his Avatar—however perfect—was a maintained structure, an artificial balance torn from a reality that had never consented to support it.
Míng Jiǎo Zūn negotiated nothing.
He imposed nothing.
He activated nothing.
He simply existed.
"…I understand."
His voice was low, nearly calm, yet something within it fractured.
The dragons stilled.
The vertical sword above his Avatar vibrated one final time, then stopped—not deactivated, but unfed.
Míng Jiǎo Zūn turned his head slightly, attentive.
"You only see it now?" he asked without irony.
"You held on a long time… for someone fighting in a world that cannot bear him."
Liang Feng clenched his fists.
Around him, the cold retracted—not in retreat, but in conservation. Water ceased full circulation, as if refusing to answer an order it could no longer sustain without total collapse.
"I am not the one who will lose," he said slowly.
"The Blue Star is."
Míng Jiǎo Zūn did not answer immediately.
He observed the planet.
The scarred continents. The depleted seas. The exhausted spiritual veins. The ancient formations already stripped of function.
He felt neither guilt nor satisfaction.
Only confirmation.
"Correct," he replied at last.
"And that is why you cannot continue."
Liang Feng closed his eyes.
In that suspended instant, he clearly saw the outcome of every possible path. To continue the battle meant maintaining the Avatar, forcing laws, absorbing attacks that did not aim to destroy him, but to gradually exhaust the world. Even a theoretical victory would be absolute defeat—because nothing would remain to protect.
He opened his eyes.
And for the first time since the confrontation began, his gaze held no defiance.
Only cold resolve.
"Very well," he said.
"Then I will no longer try to defeat you."
Míng Jiǎo Zūn inclined his head slightly, intrigued.
"What do you intend to do, Dragon God?"
Liang Feng placed a hand over his chest.
The bond with his Avatar tightened dangerously.
"What I should have done from the beginning."
A heavy silence fell.
"Delay the inevitable…"
His gaze shifted imperceptibly toward where Wang Lin had been removed from the battlefield.
"…and pay the price myself."
At that precise moment, Míng Jiǎo Zūn understood as well.
Liang Feng had accepted his defeat.
And that made what followed far more dangerous.
And the Blue Star entered absolute silence.