Veena steps into the core room of the Tang Kingdom's capital wizard tower.
Within the communication projector, Tian Ruyang's image appears, his body now covered in the skin of the Sand Wolf King. The savage aura surrounding him is obvious, but neither Kaelan nor Veena reacts to it.
Tian Ruyang notices Veena at once and bows deeply.
"Lord Veena."
Kaelan's attention shifts immediately.
"Where is Chen Qi?"
For a brief instant, an image flashes through Tian Ruyang's mind—Chen Qi falling from the sky, dark flames dispersing, followed by the third Spiritual Wizard–level enemy crashing to the ground with a hole burned clean through its chest.
His expression turns complicated, grief mixed with respect.
"Lord Kong… Commander Chen is unconscious."
Kaelan does not react emotionally. His attention is already drifting back to Veena.
"What happened?"
Tian Ruyang answers carefully.
"Commander Chen burned his vitality to kill an Earthly Official."
Kaelan responds flatly.
"I thought he was useless. He proved otherwise."
Then his eyes sharpen slightly.
"But I don't believe his strength alone was enough to kill an Earthly Official."
He looks directly at Tian Ruyang.
"Was the Earthly Official injured beforehand?"
Tian Ruyang shakes his head.
"No. I believe that at the final moment, Commander Chen was able to borrow the power of heaven and earth."
Kaelan's gaze shifts.
The value of Chen Qi rises immediately in his mind.
If Chen Qi can borrow the power of heaven and earth, then his breakthrough into the Spiritual Wizard Realm is no longer uncertain—it is only a matter of time.
Kaelan speaks decisively.
"With the new reinforcements, I am sending spiritual materials capable of replenishing vitality."
Tian Ruyang nods, then reports the remaining losses and confirms that Twilight Race reinforcements have already arrived at the camp.
Kaelan gives his final order.
"Tian Ruyang, you are in charge of the camp until Li Lingfang arrives to take command."
The projection ends.
Kaelan turns fully toward Veena.
She is already seated, her posture calm.
"So," she says, "the siege has ended."
"For now," Kaelan replies. "They've retreated."
He reaches out with his perception and scans her without restraint.
What he senses is not flesh.
Not blood.
Not structure.
She is a condensed mass of Death Energy, stable yet vast.
Kaelan asks quietly,
"What changed after full elementisation?"
Veena answers without embellishment.
"My physical lifespan is gone. I can control far greater quantities of energy. And I can see the rule network of the world."
She pauses.
"But it feels dangerous. If I try to interfere with it directly, I sense resistance."
Then she adds,
"And there is something else."
She describes the golden chains—how they pierce her body from an unseen dimension, binding her to a vast presence.
"The World Will," she says.
Kaelan listens carefully.
"Perhaps," he says slowly, "you can break through the Third Stage of Transcendence after cutting that chain."
Veena nods.
"I think so as well."
She rises to her feet.
"Open a cultivation room for me."
Kaelan shakes his head immediately.
"Not here. We're going somewhere no one else is around."
Veena frowns slightly.
"Why?"
Kaelan answers calmly.
"The World Will is locking mortals from advancing to the Third Stage. You may be the first to break that chain."
"If that happens," he continues, "the World Will may punish you."
Veena's expression darkens.
"Are you sure?"
Kaelan exhales slowly.
"I'm not sure whether it will punish or reward you. But it's safer if no one else is nearby when you try."
They move together to the roof of the wizard tower and lift into the air, passing over the wizard academy and flying west into the forest.
Deep within the forest, they stop above a mountain rich with magical energy.
A tiger demon occupies the peak, but the moment it senses their presence, terror floods its instincts, and it flees without hesitation.
They land.
Veena looks around once.
"Let's do it here."
Kaelan nods and retreats, floating at a distance above the forest.
Veena sits cross-legged at the mountain's peak and closes her eyes.
Minutes pass.
Kaelan cannot see what happens next.
But he hears it.
The sound of chains.
Rattling.
Straining.
Then shattering.
A sudden fluctuation surges through the air.
Veena's aura destabilises violently.
Kaelan's eyes widen as he sees her right foot vanish completely—no blood, no wound, no regeneration.
Just absence.
Veena's eyes snap open.
Kaelan appears beside her instantly, his gaze fixed on the missing foot.
It does not regenerate.
Kaelan's gaze lingers on the empty space where Veena's right foot should be, and his voice turns solemn.
"What happened?"
Veena looks down at the absence calmly, then lifts her eyes to meet his.
"I cut the chain connected to my right foot," she says slowly, "and this happened."
Silence stretches between them as they stare at the place where nothing exists.
Kaelan breaks it first.
"Can't you regenerate it?"
Veena closes her eyes. Seconds pass. Death energy stirs faintly around her body, probing, testing.
Then she opens her eyes and shakes her head.
"It can't regenerate," she says. "I need to rebuild it."
Kaelan understands immediately.
The data of her right foot no longer exists.
Her elemental body does not register that a right foot should be there. To her body, it never existed in the first place, so regeneration is impossible.
His expression darkens as another conclusion forms.
"If cutting one chain erases part of your body," he says slowly, "then cutting all the chains means destroying your body completely."
Veena frowns.
"Then what happens?" she asks. "Will I advance to the Third Stage if my body is destroyed?"
Kaelan exhales.
"How would I know?" he replies bluntly. "I haven't reached the Third Stage."
Veena's expression tightens with frustration.
"Then what should I do?" she asks. "Should I continue cutting the chains?"
Kaelan thinks for a moment, then speaks carefully.
"In cultivation, essence, energy, and spirit are all equally important," he says. "If your physical body is destroyed, it means your essence is gone."
Veena does not immediately reject the idea.
"Destroying the physical body," she says quietly, "may be the price required to break into the Third Stage."
Kaelan does not argue.
He knows she may be right.
After a moment, Veena adds, "I can rebuild the body afterwards."
Kaelan shakes his head slightly.
"To rebuild it, the resources required would be enormous," he says. "And you wouldn't be rebuilding a mortal body, or even a First or Second Stage Transcendent body."
"You would be rebuilding a Third Stage body."
Veena falls silent.
The forest wind passes over the mountain peak, stirring leaves below.
Kaelan's mind races, running through countless possibilities—ways to sever the chains without erasing the physical form, ways to bypass the World Will's constraints.
Then a memory surfaces.
His clones.
Especially the third clone.
When that clone embedded his conscious threads into every component of the flying ship, the ship itself became a temporary physical body. But because its attributes did not match his own, he refined a new treasure to stabilise the connection.
An idea forms.
Kaelan sends a message to his third clone, ordering him to return immediately.
He turns back to Veena.
"For now," he says, "can you reconnect the cut chain to your body?"
Veena looks at him, puzzled.
"Why?"
"Return to the wizard tower," Kaelan replies. "Then I'll show you."
Their eyes meet.
After a moment, Veena nods.
She closes her eyes again. Minutes pass. The air grows still.
Kaelan watches closely as faint golden light flickers at the edge of Veena's aura. Slowly, impossibly, her right foot begins to take shape again—not regenerated, but reassembled, as if rewritten into existence.
Veena opens her eyes and stands.
Both feet are there.
Without another word, the two of them rise into the air and fly back toward the wizard tower.
Far below, the tiger demon that fled earlier peeks from behind a tree, watching their retreating figures. After they vanish from sight, it creeps cautiously toward the mountain peak.
It reaches the spot where Veena sat.
It lowers its head and sniffs.
In the next instant, its eyes roll back.
The tiger collapses, lifeless, its body struck down by lingering traces of death energy.
For mortals—and even for cultivators who have not entered the First Stage of Transcendence—Veena does not need to attack.
Her mere existence is lethal.
A single trace of her power is enough to kill them, even if she has no intention of doing so.