The underground labs, unsuspecting, erupted into chaos as masked n stord their halls. Explosions thundered, gunfire rattled, alarms scread.
Jian Wei’s screens lit up with feeds, his hands multitasking at impossible speed, directing teams, rerouting defenses, calculating every move.
anwhile, in the imperial palace, Thaurion sat with the divine council, his patience fraying. Their endless argunts grated against him, and he was monts away from dismissing them in fury when—
The great doors slamd open and the room fell silent. Jian Ci strode in, his aura a storm of bloodlust and fury. The imperial guards moved to intercept, but Jian Ci was faster. His fists and strikes were rciless, bodies hitting the marble floor with sickening thuds. He didn’t hesitate, didn’t falter. His eyes burned with a singular purpose: Yu Xi.
Thaurion looked on, his expression twisting into sothing between rage and anticipation. His blood boiled, his smile sharp. He had been waiting for this mont, craving it. He had always known one of Seraphyne’s sons would eventually challenge him. But who would have thought it would be Jian Ci not Jian Rui?
The chamber trembled with the weight of inevitability. Jian Ci stood among the fallen guards, his chest heaving, his eyes locked on Thaurion.
And Thaurion, lips curling into a predator’s grin, whispered like he was savoring the taste of battle before it began.
Thaurion’s voice was a cold blade scraping against stone. "This is an act of treason."
He stood, his ornate robes of office rustling with a finality that silenced the murmurs in the Divine Council’s grand hall.
The high, vaulted ceiling seed to press down, the air thickening with unspoken threat. Thaurion’s gaze, fixed on Jian Ci, held no room for debate. It held only condemnation.
"Where is he?" Jian Ci’s words weren’t a question. They were a demand, low and vibrating with a force that made the polished marble floor seem to tremble. His anger wasn’t a slow burn; it was a geyser, erupting from a deep, protected well of loyalty and fear. "Where. Is. He?"
Thaurion didn’t answer. He turned, a dismissive pivot, and began walking toward the hall’s imnse exit. "Apprehend him," he commanded, the order tossed to the twelve Guardians of the Divine who stood like statues along the walls.
The command unleashed them.
Robes of muted gold and silver shed their stillness. The Guardians moved, not as individuals, but as a single organism, their steps synchronized, their intent unified.
They flowed from the walls, forming a tightening circle around Jian Ci. Their hands were already raised, shimring barriers of defensive energy, A-rank esper shields, springing to life between their fingers. Standard procedure.
Jian Ci was not standard. He didn’t wait for the circle to close. He didn’t speak. He acted. A soundless detonation of power erupted from his core.
A violet aura, visible as a rippling, violent distortion in the air, burst outward from his body. It devoured the light around it, casting the hall in a deep, pulsating shadow. The aura took form like a beast. A silhouette of snarling, amorphous energy that roared without sound.The first Guardian to reach him t the beast’s claw.
The violet mass condensed into a whip-like tendril that lashed out. It didn’t strike the man’s physical body; it struck his shield. The A-rank barrier, designed to withstand artillery fire, shattered like glass under a hamr.
The visible energy fragnted into dying sparks, and the concussive backlash hit the Guardian like a physical blow. He flew backward, his armor clattering against a column twenty feet away.
Chaosis instant.
Council mbers; elders in silks, ministers in finery, scrambled. Their shrieks were high and panicked as they fled their benches, tripping over robes, pushing each aside to reach the side exits. The hall transford from a chamber of order into a tableau of terror.
Two Guardians lunged from opposite sides, their hands blazing with searing white bolts of kinetic force. They fired.
Jian Ci’s head turned, a fraction. His eyes, now reflecting the deep violet of his aura, tracked both attacks. He didn’t dodge.
He absorbed the force.
The violet beast around him surged inward, then exploded outward in two precise directions. The white bolts were swallowed by the violet mass, their energy dissipated, then redirected. The tendrils shot back, not at the Guardians, but at the floor between them. The marble exploded upward in a spray of razor-sharp fragnts.
The shockwave knocked both n off their feet, their disciplined formation broken.
Three more ca, smarter. They tried to bind him, casting nets of glowing energy ant to restrict esper power.
Jian Ci’s lips parted. A single, guttural syllable escaped. It wasn’a word. It was a trigger.
The beast coalesced into a dense sphere around him, then spun. The energy nets touched the spinning violet surface and frayed. Their strands unraveled, their power siphoned away into the vortex.
Jian Ci raised a hand, clenched his fist, and the sphere pulsed. A shockwave of pure telekinetic force radiated outwards in a perfect ring.
It hit the three Guardians. It hit the fleeing council mbers near the doors. It hit the stone benches.
The Guardians’ armor buckled; they staggered, gasping for air as the force compressed their chests. Council mbers were thrown to the ground, their fine robes tearing. Stone cracked and groaned.
The hall was a ruin.
Jian Ci stood in the center, the violet aura now a crackling mantle around him, tendrils snapping like hungry tongues at the air. His breathing was steady, controlled. This was SS-rank power. Not just magnitude, but mastery. Total, devastating control over the fundantal forces that others could only brush against.
He looked past the fallen Guardians, past the groaning officials, toward the main exit. Thaurion was gone.
"Thaurion!" Jian Ci’s voice cut through the din, a blade of sound. "You think hiding will save you? You think your guards will save you?" He took a step forward. The violet beast mirrored his movent, a shadow of rage and purpose.
"Where is Yu Xi? Tell !"
A final Guardian, older, his face a mask of grim duty, charged from the shadows of a pillar. He held not a barrier, but a blade of condensed light, a last-resort weapon.
Jian Ci didn’t even turn to look at him.
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