Long Qingxuan's figure blurred.
One moment she was standing there—
The next, her fist was buried in Meng Xuan's stomach.
The Blood Tyrant coughed blood, his body bending from the impact. But he laughed, grabbing her wrist before she could pull away.
"Good hit," he wheezed. "But not enough."
He slammed his forehead into hers—
Long Qingxuan staggered, but she dug her heels in, refusing to fall.
Yue Zhihe rejoined, her sword weaving intricate patterns of frost that slowed Meng Xuan's movements.
Qian Jinglei harassed from the sidelines, her lightning strikes chipping away at his defenses.
Linlin and Qingqing coordinated their attacks—the White Tiger's brute force combined with the Wind Spirit's elusive hit-and-run tactics.
And at the center of it all, Long Qingxuan pressed forward, her draconic aura clashing against Meng Xuan's blood-soaked domain.
Yet despite being outnumbered five to one, the Blood Tyrant held his ground.
Every wound healed instantly.
Every attack was countered.
"Is this all you've got?!" he roared, backhanding Linlin away before kicking Yue Zhihe's sword out of her grip.
Qingqing dashed in, aiming for his eyes—
But Meng Xuan caught her by the throat.
"Got you, little pest."
Meng Xuan's fingers clenched, golden veins bulging as he prepared to crush Qingqing's tiny throat—
Her body dissolved into a gust of emerald wind, slipping through his grasp like smoke. The Wind Spirit reappeared a dozen paces away, sticking out her tongue.
"Hah! Can't catch me again!"
Meng Xuan's face darkened. "Enough games."
His aura erupted, a volcanic surge of slaughter-energy that dyed the entire space crimson. The ground beneath him melted into a pool of bubbling blood, and from its depths, a monstrous spear emerged—its shaft carved from bone, its tip dripping with the essence of a thousand massacres.
"Blood Judgment Spear," he intoned, his voice shaking the ruins. "I'll impale you all on this and let your man watch you squirm."
The moment the spear fully manifested, space itself screamed. Cracks spread through reality like spiderwebs, unable to withstand its weight. The surviving cultivators—those still conscious—vomited blood from the sheer malice radiating off it.
Even Linlin flinched, her white fur standing on end. "That thing… it's made of condensed genocide…"
But Long Qingxuan stepped forward, her hair whipping in the bloody wind.
"Stand back," she said quietly.
Her fingers twitched—
And the World Ender Sword materialized in her grip.
The moment the azure blade appeared, the blood-red sky split apart.
A tidal wave of draconic majesty erupted from Long Qingxuan, her body engulfed in sapphire flames. Her eyes shifted, pupils elongating into vertical slits—no longer human, but pure dragon.
Meng Xuan paused, his smirk faltering.
"Oh…?" His golden eyes narrowed. "You've been holding back this whole time?"
Long Qingxuan didn't answer. She simply raised her sword, and the weight of an entire dragon lineage pressed down on the world.
The ground sank. The air solidified. Even the Blood Judgment Spear trembled in Meng Xuan's grip.
"Leave," she told the others, her voice echoing with ancient authority. "This is my fight now."
Linlin growled but obeyed, her massive form shrinking back to cat-size as she retreated. Qingqing pouted but flitted away. Yue Zhihe and Qian Jinglei exchanged glances before falling back, their weapons still drawn but no longer intervening.
Only Tang Wei remained unmoved, his liquid form shielding Long Chen from the crushing pressure.
Meng Xuan licked his lips, his excitement growing. "Good. Very good. Finally, a real fight."
Meng Xuan moved first.
The Blood Judgment Spear thrust forward, its tip tearing a canyon through reality itself. The attack wasn't just physical—it carried the screams of every soul the Blood Tyrant had ever slaughtered, a tsunami of torment meant to break the mind before piercing the flesh.
Long Qingxuan met it head-on.
Her sword flashed, and a dragon's roar split the heavens. Azure flames coalesced into a gigantic serpentine form—a spectral dragon that clashed with the spear's malevolence.
The collision obliterated the remaining pillars, reducing them to dust. The shockwave flattened the ruins for miles, sending debris hurtling into the horizon.
Meng Xuan laughed, his muscles bulging as he pushed forward, forcing the spear deeper into the dragon's maw. "Your flames can't purify true sin!"
Long Qingxuan's eyes narrowed.
She twisted her wrist, and the World Ender Sword flared. The azure dragon split apart, transforming into nine smaller dragons that swarmed Meng Xuan from all directions.
He roared, spinning his spear in a whirlwind of carnage, bisecting the spectral dragons one by one—
But for every one he destroyed, two more took its place.
"Get lost!" he snarled, golden blood dripping from a dozen new wounds.
Long Qingxuan didn't let up.
She advanced, her sword strokes methodical, precise. Each swing carried the weight of an epoch, the wisdom of the dragon ancestors.
Meng Xuan blocked, but his arms trembled. For the first time in millennia, he felt strain.
She kicked his knee, shattering the joint.
Before he could recover, her sword carved a gaping wound across his chest.
Golden blood fountained.
Meng Xuan staggered, his grin finally vanishing.
Long Qingxuan didn't answer.
She raised her sword for the final strike—
Meng Xuan's eyes darkened.
"Fine. If I'm going down…"
He slammed the Blood Judgment Spear into the ground—
And the entire Temporal Palace shook.
From the cracks in the earth, rivers of blood surged upward, forming a gigantic, grotesque altar. At its center, a pulsing heart of condensed slaughter-energy throbbed.
"Blood Sacrifice Ritual," Meng Xuan panted, his body breaking apart from the strain. "I'll burn my divine core to drag you all to hell!"
The altar pulsed, and every drop of blood in the vicinity—living or dead—levitated, drawn toward it like iron to a magnet.
Long Qingxuan's expression hardened.
Meng Xuan laughed, his body dissolving into the ritual. "Come with me, dragon girl!"
The altar erupted, a pillar of crimson annihilation shooting toward the heavens.
The entire space trembled and everyone could only stare at the altar…
The temporal domain trembled as two supreme existences clashed within its collapsing boundaries.
Yun Lintian's Heaven Sunderer carved through layers of distorted time, each swing severing entire epochs from existence. Lu Xingzhi danced between the fragments, his skeletal form flickering like a ghost through the ruins of unraveled causality.
"You're quite stubborn," Lu Xingzhi mused, his voice echoing from a dozen different timelines simultaneously. "Most would have crumbled by now."
Yun Lintian didn't respond. His movements were precise, economical — every strike calibrated to counter temporal manipulation without wasting energy. The battle had settled into a deadly rhythm, neither gaining ground.
A backhanded temporal wave shattered against Yun Lintian's crossed arms. He slid back three paces through warped space before arresting his momentum.
Lu Xingzhi's laughter rippled through the crumbling domain. "Still holding back? After all this?" His golden eyes gleamed with amusement. "Fine. If you won't show me willingly..."