The sound of bones breaking wasn't a crack, it was a collapse.
The Blood Demon's clawed strike drove straight through Kai Feng's chest, slamming into him with enough force to shatter ribs and rupture spirit channels. His vision went white. Then black. Then white again. The air left his lungs in a strangled hiss, blood rushing up to choke his breath.
He didn't fly.
He was launched—his body a broken projectile that slammed into the base of the ancient anchor stone holding the Nether Realm portal in place. A quake rang out. Stone fractured beneath his weight. The entire ridge trembled.
Yin Shuang screamed.
But she didn't hesitate.
The Blood Demon advanced, towering with dark glory, his corrupted Qi seething around him like living fire. But Yin was already moving.
She raised the Peerless Sword and drew a formation mid-air with one swipe of her blade. The sword pulsed not with cold steel, but raw Sword Qi, now fully awakened, luminous and furious, extending beyond its hilt like a second, radiant limb.
"Come back!" she shouted.
The technique was Heaven's Drawn Horizon, one of the Peerless Sword's advanced technique. A crescent arc of silver and crimson slashed through space, not at the demon, but at Kai's body.
In a flash of light, Kai's limp form halted mere inches from the Nether Realm portal's breach. The sword's energy wrapped around his waist like binding silk, yanking him away from the brink of eternal consumption.
Yin caught him mid-slide. Blood spilled down his robe and onto her arm, hot and frighteningly still.
"Kai!" she shouted. "Kai, look at me!"
His eyes flickered. Pain bled from every movement. But he was alive.
"Still… here," he rasped, lips barely moving.
The Blood Demon roared, eyes flaring like collapsing stars. "You delay the inevitable. Fall now, and die honored!"
But Yin stood, her form straight as the sword she held. Behind her, Kai pushed himself upright, bones mending through sheer spiritual pressure. His Chaos Qi shimmered with wild instability, but it did not collapse.
It converged.
And then it quieted.
Kai rose beside her.
Together.
He wiped blood from his mouth. "Let's finish this."
She nodded. "One last time."
The battlefield grew still, something was changing.
Kai and Yin stepped forward in unison, and the world noticed. Their auras no longer bled raw and wild. They merged, eclipsing and illuminating each other.
Sword and Eclipse.
Chaos and Harmony.
Their breathing synchronized. Their stance aligned. Two cultivators who had once stood back-to-back against a demon far beyond them—now stood as near-equals to that same threat. Their energies wove into a dance both ancient and new.
Kai's hands glowed with interlocking sigils—Inverted Light, Celestial Compression, Chaos Spiral, all meshing into a web of intent.
Yin's sword flared brighter than moonfire. Not just a blade—it was now a manifestation, her spiritual intent given edge and momentum. It hummed not from steel, but from memory, will, and lineage.
The Blood Demon raised both arms.
"You think advancement will save you?" he bellowed. "You've merely climbed a taller cliff. I am the final storm."
Then the final storm began.
The Blood Demon struck, a blast of corrupted Qi in a beam wide enough to flatten a cliff.
The beam roared forward and shattered harmlessly against Kai's Inversion Field, a Chaos-Eclipse fusion that reversed energy vectors mid-flight.
Kai retaliated with Celestial Rift, his palm tearing open a spiral of warping gravity that collapsed the air around the Blood Demon's feet.
The demon stumbled—but Yin was already there.
She appeared behind him in a blink—Void Petal Flashstep—and slashed upward. Her energy blade passed through armor like water through silk, severing a chunk of the Blood Demon's shoulder. His roar turned feral.
He spun, claws lashing—
But Kai was behind him now.
And Twin Eclipse Bloom landed flush on his spine.
The explosion shook the mountain.
The Blood Demon slammed to one knee.
"Impossible…" he growled, dark Qi flooding from the wounds. "You cannot—surpass me!"
"Looks like we did," Kai said, voice calm despite the blood still staining his robes. "We outgrew you."
Yin stepped beside him, sword humming. "You're not the storm anymore. You're just a shadow cast by someone else's ambition."
The Blood Demon roared, his body unraveling at the edges. His form flickered—Wu Ming's face flickering beneath the crimson helmet, contorted with pain and shame.
"Mistress…," he rasped. "Hhelp me…"
He fell to one knee.
And for a breath, silence returned.
The temperature dropped.
The wind ceased.
The sky blinked.
A ripple of silver-gold light split the horizon, parting clouds and reality alike. Out stepped the Immortal Paragon of the Pure Path.
She glided to the ground like a petal on still water.
Her robes whispered through the void. Her expression was unreadable, radiant as a statue carved from divine light.
"Help me…" Wu Ming—what was left of him—crawled forward, his voice weak. "Mistress… I did what you asked. I found the fragments. I bore the burden. I gave myself…"
The Paragon looked down.
And for a moment, she said nothing.
Then, without altering her expression, she raised one hand.
And pointed.