Chen Qi beats his wings, angling his body forward as his spear points straight at the newly arrived enemy.
The Earthly Official towers before him, more than eight feet tall, his entire body covered in seamless metal skin that reflects the battlefield like a distorted mirror.
Dark fire erupts from the tip of Chen Qi's spear, spiralling outward with violent momentum.
The Earthly Official responds instantly.
He slaps his hand forward.
A gigantic palm of condensed energy forms in midair, massive and oppressive, blocking the dark fire head-on and continuing forward without losing speed. The flames are crushed and dispersed, erased layer by layer as the palm advances unimpeded toward Chen Qi.
Chen Qi reacts without hesitation.
He begins forming the Dark Shield spell.
But he is only proficient in it.
Not mastered.
The spell formation is slow.
Too slow.
Before the shield can fully take shape, the energy palm crashes into it, shattering the incomplete spell and striking Chen Qi directly. His dark fire and the half-formed shield drain part of the palm's force, just enough.
Chen Qi braces.
He blocks with his spear.
The impact sends a shockwave through his arms and chest, but he is not injured. His body is flung backwards instead, pushed through the air as his wings beat wildly to regain balance.
The energy palm dissipates.
Chen Qi steadies himself and looks up.
The Earthly Official is chanting.
A spell.
Directed at him.
Chen Qi's pupils contract.
He begins preparing his defence—
Then a streak of light cuts across the sky.
A light arrow.
It slams toward the Earthly Official with precision and force.
The Earthly Official halts his chant instantly. An energy shield flares into existence, and the arrow crashes against it, detonating in a burst of radiance.
Chen Qi recognises the attack.
Minyu.
Even while locked in battle with the other Earthly Official—the one fused with sand elemental beast parts—Minyu has found an opening.
Chen Qi's heart pounds.
An opportunity.
The metal-skinned Earthly Official is focused on blocking Minyu's light arrow.
Chen Qi does not hesitate.
His fighting style is rooted in martial arts.
Close combat is where he is strongest.
His wings beat harder, faster, tearing through the air as he closes the distance in an instant.
"Die!"
Dark fire coils around his spear as he thrusts forward.
The spear tip collides with the Earthly Official's raised palm, dark flames exploding outward on impact. At the same time, the Earthly Official's other hand crushes the fading remnants of Minyu's light arrow, dispersing its last traces.
In that brief moment, Chen Qi retracts his spear.
Then he releases a technique.
Cones of dark fire erupt outward, layered and overlapping, surging toward the Earthly Official from multiple angles.
It is not an ultimate martial art.
But it is a technique Chen Qi has completely mastered.
Not only mastered.
He has been refining it continuously.
The Earthly Official retreats half a step, defending carefully.
He cannot afford mistakes.
He broke through to the Earthly Official Realm only a few days ago.
His transformations are incomplete.
His control is unstable.
That is why the headquarters sent him here immediately after his breakthrough.
The Night Dynasty is under pressure.
Their blockade around the desert is close to being broken.
They have invested too many resources in conquering this wizard camp.
If the camp is not taken now, every sacrifice, every resource, every death will have been meaningless.
And that is something they cannot accept.
The metal-skinned Earthly Official advances.
Each step folds the air inward, pressure stacking layer upon layer, the difference in realm made brutally clear. He is a Spiritual Wizard, a full realm above Chen Qi. Even without fully stabilising his cultivation, every metric—strength, speed, durability, control—is magnitudes higher.
Against him, Chen Qi is outmatched in every conventional sense.
The Earthly Official thrusts both palms forward.
Metallic runes ripple across his arms as compressed force slams outward, crushing space itself.
Chen Qi dodges by instinct, wings snapping hard, but the shockwave still clips him, tearing through his defences and rattling his internal circuits. Blood surges into his throat, and he swallows it down, eyes sharp, refusing to slow.
He counters.
Dark fire condenses along his spear and detonates forward in a focused thrust.
The flames strike the Earthly Official's chest.
The metal skin dents.
Cracks spiderweb outward.
The Earthly Official grunts, genuinely startled.
That attack should not have hurt him.
But Kaelan's blood burns within Chen Qi.
It twists elemental output beyond normal limits.
Chen Qi is fragile.
But his attacks hit far above his realm.
A glass cannon.
The Earthly Official roars and retaliates, metal skin glowing as he swings a crushing backhand.
Chen Qi barely raises his spear in time.
The impact sends him flying.
Wings tear through the sky as he tumbles backwards, stabilising only at the last instant. His arms tremble violently, bones screaming under the strain.
Above and to the side, pressure shifts.
A blade of condensed spirit-light slashes in.
Minyu.
The attack tears across the Earthly Official's shoulder, peeling back metal and exposing scorched flesh beneath.
At the same moment, a ripple of spirit-dominant force crashes from the opposite angle.
Lin Zian.
Even while locked in battle with their own opponents, they are watching Chen Qi.
They cannot let him fall.
The Earthly Official snarls, twisting his body as he deflects the combined interference, but the moment of disruption is enough.
Chen Qi surges forward again.
He attacks relentlessly.
Spear after spear.
Dark fire blooms, collapses, reforms.
Each strike lands with terrifying force, forcing the Earthly Official to defend rather than advance.
But the cost is mounting.
Chen Qi feels it.
His mana pool is draining at an alarming rate.
The battlefield is chaos.
High-level clashes have shredded the natural flow of energy, turning the air turbulent and violent. A Gold Wizard's magic circuit is not designed to refine this kind of chaotic energy efficiently.
Every breath yields less mana.
Every spell costs more.
Sweat beads on his brow.
His vision sharpens unnaturally.
The Earthly Official senses it too.
A cruel smile spreads across his metal-lined face.
"You're burning out," he growls.
He presses harder.
A barrage of metallic fists rains down, each one carrying crushing force. Chen Qi blocks, dodges, and counters, but his movements are slowed by fractions of a second.
Enough.
A palm slams into his side.
Something cracks.
Chen Qi is sent spiralling downward, barely arresting his fall before smashing into the air currents above the plateau.
His wings falter.
Mana drops dangerously low.
The edge of defeat closes in.
Chen Qi laughs.
It is hoarse.
Wild.
"So this is it," he mutters.
Then he makes a decision.
A gamble.
He burns his vitality.
Not recklessly.
Precisely.
Life force ignites within him, flooding his magic circuit, forcefully compensating for mana consumption. Pain explodes through his body as the backlash hits instantly, but power answers.
His aura surges.
Dark fire thickens, turning almost solid.
Chen Qi screams as he charges.
A flurry of spear strikes erupts, faster than before, heavier, each one carving burning arcs through the sky. The Earthly Official is forced back, metal skin cracking further, fragments tearing away under the relentless assault.
And then—
Something shatters.
Not outside.
Inside.
Chen Qi feels it clearly.
A thin, invisible barrier that has always blocked his perception suddenly fractures.
Like breaking through a window.
Beyond it, the world changes.
He feels them.
Heaven.
Earth.
The vast, indifferent power that governs all things.
For the first time, it answers him.
Chen Qi throws his head back and roars.
"Crow Strike!"
Behind him, a phantom manifests.
A colossal crow formed of shadow and dark fire, wings spread wide, eyes burning with ancient ferocity. It mirrors his motion, merging with his intent.
Chen Qi drives his spear downward.
The crow dives with him.
They become one.
The impact is apocalyptic.
Dark fire detonates across the sky, swallowing the Earthly Official in a roaring inferno. Space distorts violently as the explosion expands, clouds vaporising instantly under the heat and pressure.
For a heartbeat, nothing exists but black flame.
Then silence.
From within the fading inferno, a figure falls.
Spinning.
Smoking.
Crashing downward toward the desert far below—
At the same moment, far away in the Chen Kingdom's capital city, the sun hangs high in the sky, bright and ordinary, bathing the streets in the warmth of a typical summer day.
Then the world changes.
From the wizard tower behind the Royal Palace, a vast cloud of death energy erupts outward like a silent explosion. Grey-black mist floods the sky, spreading across the city in a heartbeat. The air turns heavy. Laughter dies mid-breath. The warmth of summer is swallowed, replaced by a bone-deep chill that makes even cultivators shudder.
For an instant, the entire capital feels as if it has stepped into a grave.
Then the cloud reverses.
Death energy folds inward, collapsing back upon itself, pouring into the wizard tower as if summoned by an unseen will. The oppressive atmosphere lifts just as abruptly, leaving behind stunned silence and lingering fear.
On the rooftop of the wizard tower, the gathered energy condenses.
Veena appears.
She stands motionless, eyes closed, her presence overwhelming.
The final criterion has been completed.
The runes of the wizard tower flare instinctively, attempting to suppress her presence—but they fail. Her body is no longer flesh. No longer blood. No longer cells.
She is fully elemental.
Every fragment of her form is composed of pure Death Energy.
The transformation is absolute.
Veena opens her eyes.
Power floods through her awareness, unprecedented in its clarity and depth. There is no heartbeat. No breath. No biological rhythm anchors her existence. She understands instantly.
She no longer has a physical lifespan.
Only the lifespan of her soul remains.
As her consciousness sinks inward, her perception deepens beyond the physical world. Space peels back, revealing a dimension she has never seen before. There, golden chains pierce through her elemental body, anchoring her existence to something vast and incomprehensible.
She follows the chains.
At the other end lies a presence so immense that her spirit trembles instinctively.
The World Will.
Veena's eyes snap open.
She suppresses her aura instantly, her elemental body stabilising as she pulls herself back into the present. In the next instant, her form dissolves into mist, and she reappears inside the core room of the wizard tower.
She does not hesitate.
She activates the communication array.
"Kaelan."
Within seconds, Kaelan's image forms before her, projected through layered runes.
He speaks first, anticipation already in his voice.
"Veena, I was about to call you. Reports just came in—there was a massive eruption of Death Energy from your wizard tower."
Veena answers calmly.
"I have completed the elementisation of my physical body."
For the first time in a long while, Kaelan's composure cracks.
His eyes widen.
"Then don't waste time," he says sharply. "Come here. Immediately."
The projection vanishes.
Veena turns, already preparing to leave—
When the wizard tower emits an alert.
A sharp, unmistakable signal.
Someone has rung the tower's bell.
Veena's body dissolves into elemental mist, and she reappears outside the wizard tower in a blink.
Standing at the front gate is Lu Chen, his back straight, posture respectful, unaware of the transformation that has just taken place above him.
Veena speaks before he can turn.
"Lu Chen."
He pivots instantly.
"I am leaving for the Tang Kingdom," Veena says. "You are now responsible for this wizard tower."
Before he can respond, she flicks her wrist.
A rune key arcs through the air.
Lu Chen catches it instinctively, eyes widening as he recognises its authority.
"Master—"
Veena does not wait.
Her body dissolves completely, transforming into a stream of dense grey death energy. She shoots into the sky, accelerating in an instant.
From the ground below, witnesses see a streak of grey-black cloud tear across the heavens, like a meteor carved from death itself, racing toward the Tang Kingdom.
And far away, on the battlefield where dark fire still rages and a figure falls toward the desert—
The balance of power begins to shift.