The silent, inevitable descent of the Dimensional Collapse was the pure, raw power of the Silent Star Crevice asserting itself. The ceiling was folding inward, not with debris, but with compressed, annihilating space, an attack that ignored physical defenses.
Lin Feng's concentration was violently fractured. He was split between the agonizing strain of maintaining the Void Sovereign Nexus on Siku and the necessity of saving his allies from instant obliteration. The whimper from Siku was critical—if the Infant Chronos panicked, the resulting temporal explosion would erase the entire area.
"Hold the Ice!" Lin Feng roared, his voice cracking with exertion, directing the command to Wanying. If Wanying lost control of the Absolute Stillness, the Astral Jade would destabilize and erupt.
Yin Xiu's Shadow Veil Displacement was fast, but it only bought them a precious microsecond—enough time for Lin Feng to dedicate a portion of his Void Domain to defense.
"Void Sovereign Aegis: Vertical Shift!"
Lin Feng focused his Void-Earth and Void-Metal cores. Instead of manifesting a broad dome, he created a thin, intensely hardened planar barrier of compressed space directly above them. This wasn't to stop the collapse, but to force the collapsing dimension to shift slightly around his field of influence. It was the purest application of the Void Law as a spatial cheat code.
The invisible crushing force slammed into the Vertical Shift. The sound was a horrific, subsonic thrum that resonated in their bones. The pressure was immense; blood instantly trickled from Lin Feng's nose, but the spatial fold was diverted by millimeters, funneling the crushing force down the cavern walls instead of through their location.
"The Shift won't hold!" Lin Feng gasped, his Void Sovereign Nexus flickering dangerously around Siku. "Qingwu, counter-force, NOW!"
Xia Qingwu needed no second command. She was already anticipating the tactical necessity. The goal was not to defeat the spatial fold, but to give the Vertical Shift a physical target to push against.
She channeled the purest heat of her lineage, deploying her unique anti-structural skill.
"Phoenix Seal: Structural Incineration!"
She fired two focused, swirling streams of Phoenix Fire Qi at the weakest points of the descending spatial fold—the edges where the shifting space intersected the ancient rock. The fire didn't melt the rock; it exploited the imperfections of the stone's elemental bonds, causing the rock matrix itself to vaporize violently.
The sudden, focused vaporization of matter created a massive counter-pressure blast of superheated air and rock dust. This physical force slammed into Lin Feng's Void Sovereign Aegis: Vertical Shift, giving the collapsing space a new, easier path to follow—the path of least resistance along the newly vaporized fault lines.
The Dimensional Collapse instantly changed its vector, roaring down the sides of the cavern, sparing the central team by a hair's breadth. The sheer force of the deflected energy blasted Lin Feng backward, and he almost lost his grip on Siku.
Wanying, meanwhile, had faced her own internal crisis. The destabilizing energy of the collapse had threatened to shatter her Ice Empress: Absolute Stillness technique on the Astral Jade.
She leveraged the brief moment of stability provided by the Vertical Shift. She didn't look at Lin Feng; she focused on her internal control. She pushed her Primordial Ice Law past its current safe limit, instantly manifesting a dense, secondary shield of pure, protective ice around the Jade.
"I have the Jade!" she announced, her voice strained, but infused with the unwavering resolve of her clan's legacy. "It is fully isolated. The purity is maintained."
With the immediate threat deflected and the Jade stabilized, Lin Feng knew they had a few seconds before the Crevice produced its next terrifying spontaneous collapse. They had to complete the cut.
Lin Feng channeled his healing power from the Void-Wood/Water Loop for a brief, critical instant, instantly sealing the ruptured capillaries in his nose.
"Yin Xiu! Monitor the temporal flow near the base!" Lin Feng commanded, his voice regaining its sharp, arrogant authority.
"Qingwu, continuous Fire Seal on the cut! Wanying, sustain the Stillness! We finish this NOW."
He pushed his Void-Metal core again, focusing all his energy and concentration into the finest point of his fingertip. This time, he added a tiny, precise amount of Void-Earth Qi to the Metal, giving the cutter superior, grinding density.
"Void Essence Cutter: Diamond Sovereign Form!"
The refined, multi-elemental energy blade slammed back into the base of the Astral Jade. This time, there was no screeching sound. The cutter didn't slice; it pulverized the connection point at the molecular level, relying on the Earth Law for crushing pressure and the Metal Law for density.
Crunch.
The Astral Jade Vein snapped free from the wall. Lin Feng immediately grabbed the massive, shimmering silver chunk of Heavenly material before it could fall and shatter.
Victory was fleeting. The Infant Chronos Dragon, Siku, exhausted by the extreme fluctuations, finally lost control. It let out a single, powerful cry—not of fear, but of sheer depletion.
This cry was not a temporal wave, but a localized Chronos Burst.
Lin Feng felt an unimaginable pressure on his senses. He looked down at Siku, and for a terrifying second, he saw two versions of the creature superimposed—one older, one younger. The temporal law had gone haywire.
"Sovereign! Move!" Yin Xiu screamed, her Shadow Veil Displacement activating on reflex.
Lin Feng knew that the Chronos Burst would not just age them; it would scatter them through random points in time. Their victory was about to be undone by their adorable new pet.