"Collapse."
The voice was soft.
So soft it didn't seem like a command.
Crack…
Crack…
Hiss-!
The battlefield groaned.
He turned.
And watched winter arrive without warning.
A single petal.
Small... Pale white.
It drifted past his cheek like a snowflake touched by sorrow, then thousands followed.
Ice petals, falling from the sky, they fluttered gently.
Softly.
Like a maiden's sigh after breaking your neck.
They didn't slash, they didn't explode.
They simply touched.
And where they touched...Stillness.
Hundreds of raiders that had been charging at Ranran stopped mid-motion.
Arms outstretched, mouths open.
Flesh turning blue, then white, then crystal.
All frozen.
Even those mid-leap froze, turned into shattered sculptures of malice.
A claw half an inch from Ranran's cheek never touched her.
It turned into ice-flesh, and crumbled at the joints.
[Thousand Petals of the Frozen Sky]
A seemingly impractical art, wide area, low intensity, hated by duelists. But against these filth-born weak Core Formation raiders?
It was perfection.
It didn't just stop them.
It turned them into a gallery.
A massacre in slow motion.
Su Yiran exhaled, her breath icy mist, ehe stood at the center of a graveyard frozen in beauty.
A single lift of her hand...CRRRAAAACK—!
The entire battlefield shattered.
Statues crumbled, limbs fell, skulls split like frozen fruit. A few still twitched inside the thicker ice, teeth moved, fingers clawed.
But the Ice Qi covered again, hungry, enjoying itself.
Each petal that landed birthed a ten-centiter radius of frozen reality.
And there were thousands.
"It… worked…"
Su Yiran exhaled a wisp of icy mist, her voice tinged with disbelief. Even after she'd shattered the frozen husks, no new hunters crawled free, they had been sealed within the frost.
The corner of her lips twitched… into a smile, but too early to celebrate.
Whoosh!
"Co with !"
"Wh—?"
Before she could react, a figure descended from above, fast, smooth.
Hands wrapped around her waist.
The world spun.
By the ti she blinked, she was being carried across like a kidnapped princess, wind screaming in her ears, toward the battlefield where the Marshals clashed.
Who else could it be?
Su Xiaobai.
The worst struck her heart like a falling star, he was using her.
As bait.
There was no way her frost mist could freeze a Marshal… not yet.
But before she could protest, Su Xiaobai landed with her, his grip releasing at the precise mont her feet touched ground.
"Stay behind,"** he said, red flas coiling faintly around like a armor, "Freeze whatever I kill… before it multiplies."
"Oh…" Su Yiran shook off her shock and nodded, crimson lips parting. "Your flas…"
She'd noticed it, they weren't erupting outward, but circulating inwards, wrapping his body like a second skin.
He wasn't attacking.
He was defending.
Conserving.
Burning these pests one by one was a waste of Qi. He let them touch him… let them bite…
But never too deep.
Though he knew these were no plague-ridden zombies, their bite wouldn't turn you — Su Xiaobai was nothing if not paranoid.
Still, the flas were too scorching.
Hiss~!
Her mist would approach… only to evaporate into steam.
So he extinguished the fire.
He took the hits.
She froze the corpses before they could spawn.
A duet of death, one slicing, one sealing.
Everything was going fine.
Beibei, that annoying flying chicken, had already cooked the two Marshals, earning a few shallow wounds in return.
Su Xiaobai pried their cores from the remains, shoved them into his storage.
Then ca the first.
And second.
And third.
Three last Marshals, now standing.
It was as if they sensed defeat.
Because they self-detonated.
Boom—!!
Not in fla.
But in flesh.
They burst into a thousand crawling horrors, hunters spilling like guts from a burst stomach.
Suffocating.
Squelching.
Su Xiaobai and Ranran were dragged under a tide of limbs and gnashing teeth.
Beibei shrieked, lightning exploded, flash-frying the swarm, the stench of charred at rising like incense from hell.
She tried to reach Su Xiaobai.
But too bad.
"AHHHHHHHH!!"
A scream echoed through the battlefield.
Ye An.
A red mist boiled around her, pulsing like a heartbeat, each throb shredded anything nearby into pulp.
Her eyes turned black.
"No… no…"
Her last plea trembled from her lips.
For the first ti — she was afraid.
Within her consciousness, she was nothing but an ant before a throne.
A towering shiloutte stood dwarfing her like an ant.
Twisted, and bloody.
It laughed.
The Devil.
Its silhouette stretched across her soulscape, so imnse it could blot out the firmant.
She knelt.
Puchi!
Blood stread from her eyes.
From her mouth.
Then, she collapsed.
The Devil's lips curved.
____
There is an old saying in the Heavens: T.hi-s vers!ion% is s&ourc^e$d f@ro#m@ M#V 3$L3&M^PYR.
"The Devil once dread above the sky."
He had been a guardian.
A protector of balance.
But dreams rot.
And he betrayed the Heavenly Laws.
So the Heavens tried to seal him.
They failed.
He vanished.
Hid.
Not in a cave. Not in hell.
He hid inside the hearts of the living.
And whenever a cultivator loses control of their Dao Heart…
He wakes.
Ye An lost control, for just a mont. The words of Sykarra and Vaelzaar struck deeper than they should have, stirring sothing savage beneath her skin
Combined with the guilt of losing another S-ranked Guardian under her watch… her ntal state was already fragile.
And that was enough.
Now possessed, she moved like a demon reborn, Slashing through the Calamity Sisters, who scread as their bodies burst like grapes.
Each swing of her blade flung back a hundred hunters.
Each second, a hundred slashes.
Blood splattered.
Flesh lted.
Even Su Xiaobai and Su Yiran, in the midst of battle, felt it, a change in rhythm.
Sothing was wrong.
But by the ti they turned... It was already too late.
Tens of miles away, beneath the faded glow of dawn, a lone figure stood upon a crag, his gaze locked onto the volcano that had beco a butcher's altar.
"That's…"
Long Yushen's brows furrowed.
He hadn't run.
Not yet.
From where he stood at the volcano's base, he could only see the occasional bursts of light, flashes of lightning, sparks of fla, far above.
Zhou Ping, the coward, had already escaped
Slipped away the mont no one was guarding them.
Found a gap in fate and vanished.
But Long Yushen remained, watching.
Then, the mountain changed.
It was as if a dam had collapsed.
No, worse.
As if a hundred armored warriors had been forced into a single prayer hall, and more kept being shoved in, until flesh spilled from every crack.
An avalanche of bodies.
Hunters.
Not thousands.
Tens of thousands.
No, perhaps fifty thousand or more.
They poured from the crater like insects from a bloated carcass.
Flooding the peak.
Falling inside.
Spilling outside.
Overflowing every ridge and crevice.
Long Yushen, usually calm even in slaughter, took a step back.
A rare flicker of fear crossed his eyes.
And he wasn't alone.
Su Xiaobai and Su Yiran, still atop the battlefield, felt it before they saw it... A wave.
No, not a wave.
A sea.
A sea of hunger, hatred, and teeth.
Then — Darkness.
They were engulfed.
Su Xiaobai roared, his Infernal Flas erupting in full bloom.
He burned them... By the dozens.
By the hundreds.
By the thousands.
He lost count.
His mind blurred, his body scread.
Still, they ca.
Still, they spawned.
With a low growl, he pulled out the Crimson Armor, wrapped himself in its hell-forged shell, and sat down.
There was no strategy left.
Only waiting.
Waiting for the horde to end.
If it ever would.
He didn't even know where Beibei was anymore.
Just that the world around him had beco flesh and ash.
"Screeeee!"
Beibei soared high into the reddening sky, her wings crackling with static.
She glanced down at the peak with troubled eyes.
Still they spilled.
Still they poured.
There was no end.
And then she understood.
Sykarra and Vaelzaar, the elites of Czaar's inner circle, they weren't just commanders.
They were vessels.
They had devoured more souls than a sect library held scrolls.
Swallowed entire villages... Cities... Tribes.
They had fed on life for centuries.
And now, as Ye An cut them down…
It was all being released.
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