Cheng Shi smacked his lips and offered no comnt.
Setting aside whether Qin Xin's words rang true, the current situation had beco crystal clear. The man's target was indeed Cheng Shi, and he'd genuinely wanted a fight — but his purpose extended beyond Cheng Shi alone.
As he'd just reasoned: nobody could sustain an offensive of this scale for long. Qin Xin's choice to burn this much ntal energy in a fight with him couldn't be for a quick finish.
Because this level of overkill would only make the "quick finish" happen to the attacker himself!
Case in point: Qin Xin's face had already lost its icy composure. He was flagging.
This was definitely not a trap designed to lure the snake from its hole. Cheng Shi had run the numbers. If he himself had been releasing attacks at this scale, even with the Thorn Weeping Rite doubling his capacity, he'd have blown far past his ntal energy ceiling.
Which ant Qin Xin's current expenditure was at a terrifying level — and he was still going. Even with Cheng Shi turtled inside the Bone Gate, this War follower continued torching the entire enclosed space.
What did that tell him?
Was this barrage truly ant to burn him to death?
No!
Not at all!
Qin Xin wasn't trying to crush Cheng Shi's survival space — or rather, he had been at the start, but by now his target had shifted entirely!
His target was no longer Cheng Shi. It was the space they stood in — this pocket of Existence!
He wanted to burn through reality!
A gleam of insight flashed through Cheng Shi's eyes. He saw it now: this slice of reality was abnormally stubborn. Under normal attack intensity, fire this extre would have burned clean through reality and opened straight into the Void long ago.
Yet here the entire space was warping — and reality still hadn't shattered!
The strength of Existence here was far too high. So high that the caster trying to break through was running himself into the ground!
Qin Xin's final arrow was clearly ant to be the last weight on the scales tipping reality into collapse. But could he succeed?
Cheng Shi had his doubts. In a trial involving tiline disruption, attempting to skip class was unimaginably difficult.
Yes — skip class.
Qin Xin's attempt to shatter reality wasn't a whim. He had a purpose: to bypass Ti's shackles and search the Void for a thod of escape, or a way to approach "the future."
Because he'd already searched the target area and confird Cheng Shi's theory was wrong. This Ti trial was far more complex than they'd imagined. And Qin Xin had just stumbled into an opportunity to fight Cheng Shi, which sparked his own solution: break reality, enter the Void.
Nobody knew where the Void connected to from this world. But the Void was Void's territory. The interference of Existence would be weaker there than anywhere in the trial. It was a sound line of thinking.
Moreover, Qin Xin rembered that the Fla of Hope — who had always sheltered the Torchbearers — once said: if you encounter a problem you can't solve, co find
in the Void.
Qin Xin didn't want to dwell on why the Fla could help from the Void. He only needed to know there was an ally there. So yes — he was skipping class. Ti's class.
By the ti the battle's outco was all but decided, Qin Xin was already figuring out how to throw Cheng Shi clear. Not that he didn't want Cheng Shi to skip class with him — he just wasn't sure his thod would work, and refused to risk dragging Cheng Shi into danger.
Of course, this wasn't his nobility or kindness protecting "the weak." It was face he was saving for the An Mingyu of another world. He could see that the Blind One and Cheng Shi got along well, and he didn't want to create trouble for this world's Torchbearers.
So when Cheng Shi summoned a Bone Gate to protect himself, Qin Xin feigned "rage" — drawing his bow with all the fury of a lion — and loosed his final arrow, hoping it would simultaneously slam that gate shut on Cheng Shi and shatter this pocket of space, giving him the answer he sought.
The arrow's presence was staggering. From behind the door, Cheng Shi watched through the crack as a fireball swelled from a distant point to fill his entire vision — a miniature sun descending — scorching even the surrounding air until it boiled.
He felt fire creeping into his nostrils. His heart clenched. He snatched back the die and closed the Bone Gate another fraction.
And at that instant — BOOM — the "sun" crashed against the gate. War's inferno consud every last inch of space within the fire wall.
Space twisted even further. Existence itself was being roasted into abstraction. And yet — the space still didn't break!
It was like an endlessly inflating balloon. The walls were paper-thin, transparent, stretched to their absolute limit — yet they refused to burst from the inside!
Qin Xin failed. His face went white. He dropped from the fire back to the ground — a ground no longer recognizable, scorched down who-knew-how-many ters.
War's fla couldn't harm a War follower. But the fire in this War follower's heart was undeniably cooling.
This path seed blocked. Ti had forestalled every possibility of skipping class.
He knelt on one knee and laughed at himself, then raised his eyes to glance at the Bone Gate — hoping to check on the perpetually-turtling Fate Weaver. But to his surprise, a die ca sailing through that hairline crack — a Destiny die, immune to fla.
The die rolled slowly through the fire and landed at Qin Xin's feet, one pip facing up. Looking at that crimson dot, more vivid than the scarlet flas themselves, Qin Xin felt it was the ultimate mockery.
It seed to say: Look, clown!
"You..."
"You what? Are you ready?"
"?" Qin Xin's head snapped up toward the Bone Gate. Through the raging inferno, a withered-wood hand was poking out of the gap... jabbing a finger at him.
"Yeah, you — the mopey Torchbearer. Are you ready?"
Qin Xin blinked. He furrowed his brow, drained: "Ready for what?"
"Ready... to go ho?"
With that, the dead-wood hand snapped its fingers. And as the sound rang out, the sea of fire — like a reford army answering a bugle call — erupted in a deafening war cry, as if welcoming its "new marshal."
And in that instant, the blazing flas within the arena surged to more than double their intensity. The balloon, stretched to its absolute limit, could no longer withstand the monstrous pressure. Within the roar of eldritch fire—
BOOM—
It burst!
Reality shattered!
Ti's shackles broke!
Everything inside the fire wall plumted into the Void.
And the reason for all of this was simply...
Destiny, too, has its deviations!
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