Nian Shi raised the Blade of Eternity high, its edge humming with the condensed power of dead universes. "I will not be mocked by a dead bird’s final tantrum! Ti’s End!"
He unleashed a concentrated beam of pure entropy, a lance of gray nothingness designed to unravel the fundantal laws holding the barrier together. It struck the fiery storm with the force of a collapsing galaxy.
The barrier shimred. The flas rippled. But it did not break. The beam of ending ti simply... dissolved upon contact, its power absorbed and neutralized by the perpetual, self-sustaining cycle of life and sacrifice within the flas.
He tried again. And again. He fractured the space around it, trying to isolate it from the flow of ti. He summoned echoes of past cataclysms to batter it. He attempted to fast-forward its existence to a point of natural decay.
Nothing worked.
The barrier remained, a constant, unwavering testant to Nantian Fengyu’s will. It was as if she had created a pocket dinsion where her sacrifice was the only law, and that law was protection.
Frustration boiled over into raw, incandescent rage. =
"BREAK!" he roared, slamming the Blade of Eternity against the flas in a purely physical, undignified show of force.
BOOOOOM!
The impact sent shockwaves through the barren land, but the barrier didn’t even flicker. He was reduced to beating against it like a common mortal, his primordial dignity in tatters.
"Heh."
From a distance, a soft, mocking chuckle cut through the silence.
Yin, who had been observing the entire spectacle with evident amusent, finally spoke. "Stop wasting your energy, Tikeeper. You will never break it."
Nian Shi whirled around, his face a mask of thunderous fury. "What did you say?!"
Yin gestured lazily with his chin toward the barrier, a strange, almost respectful glint in his dark eyes. "This is not just a barrier forged from life essence or soul power. Any common god could do that. This..." He paused, as if savoring the revelation. "...this is sothing far more profound. That little Phoenix didn’t just sacrifice her life. She completely and utterly gave up her Nirvana."
He let the word hang in the air, allowing its significance to sink in.
"For a Phoenix, Nirvana is everything. It is their core, their promise, their eternal cycle. It is the guarantee of return, of endless rebirth. She didn’t just die for him. She erased her own future. She extinguished the very possibility of her own return across countless lifetis. She traded eternity itself for this single, perfect mont of protection. You cannot break a will that has already embraced absolute oblivion for its purpose."
Yin’s gaze grew distant, almost thoughtful. "Among all the mythical beasts that woman created," he said, referring to the Creator with a mix of contempt and familiarity, "she always did seem most fond of the Divine Phoenix. I never understood why until now. It reflects her own sentintality, doesn’t it? A symbol of destruction and creation, death and rebirth... a stubborn, foolish belief that sothing new can always co from the ashes."
He looked back at the impassable fiery storm, and a hint of genuine, unexpected surprise entered his voice. "I have to admit... even I did not expect the power of such a complete sacrifice to be this potent. To defy even you... it’s almost admirable in its futility."
Nian Shi listened, his rage cooling into a cold, simring dread. Yin was right. He could feel it now—the absolute finality in the flas. There was no "life" to end within that barrier, only a concept—"protection"—that had been made eternal through the ultimate price.
His power over endings was useless against sothing that had already ended everything it could ever be.
He lowered the Blade of Eternity, his hand trembling slightly not from fatigue, but from sheer, frustrated impotence. He, the God of Ti, could not break the final wish of a Phoenix who had loved too much.
However, Nian Shi would never give up. Yun Lintian was just a few ters away from him. It was impossible for him to let such a ripe opportunity go.
His gaze then shifted to Yin, who stood observing with that infuriatingly amused detachnt. A new thought, cold and sharp, cut through his fury. He couldn’t break it. But Yin could.
Uncreation was the antithesis of all existence. Where Nian Shi could end ti and life, Yin could unmake the very concepts that bound them together.
This barrier, for all its power, was still a construct of creation—a will given form through sacrifice. It was the absolute pinnacle of what the Creator’s designs could achieve. And thus, it was the perfect target for the power that sought to undo all she had made.
Yin, as if reading the very currents of his desperation, let out a low, mocking laugh. "That look in your eyes, Tikeeper... don’t tell you’re thinking I will remove this little inconvenience for you?"
He shook his head in mock disappointnt. "How pathetically predictable. You encounter a problem your own power cannot solve, and your first instinct is to look to for help?"
Nian Shi remained silent, his jaw clenched tight. His silence was confirmation enough.
Yin’s laughter grew louder, a sound that seed to devour the light around it. "Hah! I always held a sliver of belief that you were at least a little clever, Nian Shi. A scher. A planner. It seems I have vastly overestimated you. You are just another shortsighted fool, trapped by your own limitations. Why would I lift a finger to help you claim the very prize I seek for myself? Watching you struggle against a dead bird’s love is far more entertaining."
The mockery was ant to provoke, to enrage. But sothing in Nian Shi’s expression shifted. The raw fury drained away, replaced by a glacial calm. The God of Ti was thinking, calculating once more, his mind racing through eons of mories and secrets.
He had co prepared. He would not be thwarted so easily.
Just as Yin’s laughter began to subside, Nian Shi spoke. His voice was quiet, yet it cut through the air with the sharpness of a honed blade.
"I will exchange it," he said, his tone flat and devoid of emotion. "The Creator’s original essence. The ’Spark of Chaos.’ I will give it to you."
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