The valley floor beneath the Heavenly Pillar had transformed into a vision of the underworld. The sunset didn't bring darkness, but a sickening, violet twilight cast by the "Ghost-Fires" dancing atop the Alliance's front lines.
High Lord Jo Mu-Sang's gamble had manifested in the flesh. The "Silver Vow" army was no longer a collection of martial artists; it was a mass of "wick-candles." Thousands of disciples, their veins bulging like black worms against their skin, had consumed the Blood Refining Pellets. They stood in a state of "Ignition," their eyes glowing with a milky, terminal light as their bodies consumed decades of potential lifespan in a matter of minutes to produce a jagged, artificial Sword Force.
From the center of this frantic mass, a single figure glided forward. He wore the ancient, sky-blue robes of the Namgung family from three centuries ago. This was Namgung Seung, the "Sword Sovereign of the Azure Sky," a legend brought back from the Forbidden Sanctum. Though he looked like a man in his prime—a byproduct of the Unrestrained Realm's rejuvenation—his aura was stagnant, smelling of tomb-dust and the metallic sweetness of Blood Lilies.
"Three hundred years," Seung rasped, his voice sounding like two gravestones grinding together. He unsheathed a blade that seemed to be made of solid, crackling lightning—the Azure Heaven Martial Dominance. "I return to find the Central Plains governed by children who play with 'vibration' and mountain peasants who claim the sky."
The Collision of Eras
Yun Baek-Ho stepped out from the Yun formation, his white linen robes the only point of calm in the chaotic valley. He didn't carry a weapon, yet the atmospheric Ki around him rotated in a perfect, three-dimensional Divergent Flow, creating a "Quiet Zone" where the Ghost-Fires could not burn.
"You are not a sovereign, Namgung Seung," Baek-Ho said, his voice carried by Eternal Sound-Transmission. "You are a parasite. You are drawing your strength from the very children you were born to protect. Look at them. They are dying just to keep your heart beating."
Seung didn't answer with words. He answered with the Heavenly-Slaying Infinite Force.
The Ancestor lunged. His movement was not "Qinggong" but a literal tearing of space. He appeared in front of Baek-Ho in the time it takes for a heartbeat to finish. He swung his lightning-blade in the Azure Heaven Dragon Claw form. Five distinct talons of blue-white Sword Force tore through the air, each one capable of decapitating a Peak master from fifty yards away.
The Dance of the Void
Baek-Ho didn't retreat. He transitioned into the Green Jade Horse stance, the foundational defense of the Yun Clan.
As the lightning talons struck, Baek-Ho utilized the Universal Origin Scripture: Atmospheric Lockdown. He didn't block the strikes with his arms; he manipulated the local gravity to create a "Ki-Vacuum" inches from his skin. The blue lightning hit the vacuum and shattered like glass, the energy "unspun" and scattered into the dirt.
"Legacy cannot strike what does not exist!" Baek-Ho shouted.
He countered with the Black Glacier Charge. He glided forward, his feet leaving footprints of real, physical frost on the grass. He struck out with a spear-hand, utilizing Slash Projection to manifest a blade of "Heart-Chilling Frost" directly inside Seung's defensive aura.
Seung snarled, his skin turning a bruised shade of violet as he channeled Blood Qi. He caught the frost-blade with his bare hand, the ice shattering against his palm. "My body is an Imperial Divine vessel! Your frost is nothing but a summer breeze!"
The battle escalated into a blur of color and sound that pulverized the valley's limestone. Seung unleashed the Heavenly Thunder Rock Blast, slamming his blade into the earth. A pillar of high-voltage energy erupted beneath Baek-Ho's feet, intended to turn him to ash.
Baek-Ho leaped, but it wasn't a standard jump. He utilized Wind Walking at the highest tier, literally "stepping" on the air molecules to ascend above the blast.
While mid-air, Baek-Ho performed a Nature Transformation. He opened his core—his "Empty Core"—and synchronized with the very frequency of the Ancestor's stagnant Blood Qi.
He descended like a falling star, his right hand glowing with a soft, white light.
"Universal Origin Scripture: Vibration-Shattering Palm."
Seung raised his lightning-sword to parry, confident in the weapon's "Spirit Iron" durability. But Baek-Ho didn't hit the sword. He didn't even hit the man. He struck the air in front of the blade.
The impact produced a sound that wasn't a bang, but a high-pitched, crystalline screech—the sound of 1,000 glass windows shattering simultaneously. This was a Complete Energy Transfer. The "Soft Break" resonance bypassed the lightning, the armor, and the skin. It traveled directly into Namgung Seung's Origin Source—the artificial, alchemical heart that kept his soul anchored to his corpse.
For a heartbeat, the Ancestor stood frozen. His azure-dragon robes flickered, then began to turn grey.
"The Heavens... do not... want me..." Seung whispered.
The "Imperial Divine" master didn't explode. He crumbled. His jade-like skin cracked into a million fine shards, and his entire form dissolved into a cloud of grey ash that was instantly swept away by the wind. The Azure Heaven Martial Dominance sword fell into the mud, its lightning snuffed out, now nothing more than a rusted piece of iron.
The Aftermath of the Ghost-Fires
The "Silver Vow" martyrs, seeing their "God" reduced to ash by a boy in linen, felt the last of their artificial fervor evaporate. The "Ignition" in their bodies flickered out, leaving them physically hollow and spiritually broken.
Baek-Ho stood in the center of the clearing, his white robes still pristine. He looked at the Alliance martyrs—the children who had been sacrificed for a dead era.
"The grave is closed," Baek-Ho declared, his voice echoing across the entire battlefield. "If you wish to live, throw down your iron. The Murim Federation does not need your blood. It needs your heart."
By the time the moon reached its zenith, the Alliance's "Last Stand" had become a mass surrender. The Night of the Ghost-Fires was over, and the path to the Alliance headquarters in Wuhan was finally, truly open. The age of the ancestors was dead, and the era of the 10 High Heavens had just claimed its first mythic victory.