From atop her flying sword, Jin Xifeng raised one hand. A tide of twisting shadow rose, wrapping around the sect mountain closest to her. He Yu’s perception rebelled at it. The immensity of the technique was too much. Trying to look at it through the Peerless Judgment felt like it would rip his mind apart. The only point of reference he could pin it to was what had happened with King Hao, but even that was a meager approximation.

  The shadows receded, and with them, the mind-numbing power followed. When they had finally cleared, the mountain was simply gone. No rubble, no remains. Just a barren valley where one of the inner sect’s mountains had once been. He Yu couldn’t come to terms with it. It was close to where Elder Wen had been holding the western ingresses to the sect. Had there been anyone else in the area? He Yu couldn’t bring himself to think about what he’d just witnessed—how many potential lives had just been erased.

  Jin Xifeng pointed towards the elders’ mountain. The tallest of the sect’s peaks. The tide of shadow rose once again. This time, it was met by something capable of resisting.

  Sect Leader Zhou Shanyuan towered to the heavens. Under the crushing weight of his presence, He Yu fell to the ground and spit up mouthful after mouthful of blood. Cycling everything he had into the Empyrean Ninefold Body Tempering, he desperately flexed his own presence to simply keep himself from being crushed.

  Zhou Shanyuan was a mountain in truth. A peak that touched heaven and reached deep into the earth. Ancient and strong. Unmoving. Eternal. He was earth and metal and mountain. He was the creator of the White Mountain Body Art. An art he had mastered hundreds of years prior. A Divine Soul Apotheosis cultivator at the peak of his power, he stood against Jin Xifeng.

  She met him in kind.

  Red light washed over the world. The sun behind Jin Xifeng hung motionless in the sky. It grew to swallow the lands below. The field of the countless dead at her feet rose. A tide of corpses, a tide of shadow, a tide of want crashed against the mountain. Crashed against the very bones of the earth and those bones trembled. The world shook with her hatred and rage and desire for always more.

  He Yu coughed up more blood. The clash of presences, of two Eighth Realm cultivators, was far too much for him to handle. A few feet away, Zhang Lifen fared little better.

  “How?” was all He Yu could choke out between gasps for breath.

  “Get somewhere else,” she forced through gritted teeth. “We can’t stay here.”

  He Yu didn’t need to be told twice. He crawled off in a direction he hoped would lead to safety. All around him, the world broke.

  Mountains erupted from the earth, only to be drowned in a tide of shadow and stolen power. The sun burned red in the sky, and the earth opened to swallow it up, to drag the bloody disk below the horizon. The clash of shadow and blood and mountain tore apart the nearby landscape. The mere existence of these two experts reshaped the very land itself.

  Elder Cai Weizhe joined the struggle. A pillar of alabaster rivaling Zhou Shanyuan’s mountain appeared. Of the four faces carved upon its surface, the western visage opened its eyes. Twin beams of radiant heaven burned away the field of corpses. Radiance lit the sky’s eternal twilight. Golden heaven qi cracked and surged down the pillar’s length.

  The Eternal Mountain and the Pillar of Heaven crashed against the Blood Red Sun. Three titans ripped apart the world. All that the western face of the pillar beheld, it destroyed. The mountain reshaped the land even as it grabbed hold of the setting sun. The sun touched the world, burned away life and death alike, and drowned its foes in a sea of want.

  Below, hundreds died. Somehow, He Yu found himself inside a formation barrier. One of the sect’s training fields? He couldn’t be certain. Zhang Lifen must have dragged him there. She lay on her back nearby. Her chest heaved as she struggled to bring her breathing back to normal while she stared into the blood red sky. The weight inside was still oppressive, but bearable. At least so long as the formation held.

  He Yu struggled to make sense of all that passed just outside the barrier. The clash of spirits was so far beyond his comprehension. He only caught snatches of the battle, and even those came more in impressions rather than an exchange he could follow. As though his advancement just wasn’t far enough to grasp the profound truths contained in these three experts’ techniques. The only thing he could say for certain was that even though he could only grasp a fraction, he now bore witness to the true heaven defying power wielded by peak experts of the Eighth Realm. Yet a greater realm still lay beyond.

  Then he grasped something concrete. What he saw horrified him.

  Jin Xifeng stood on her flying sword. Nine more swords floated nearby. In one hand, she’d caught Zhou Shanyuan by the wrist. For a moment, time stretched on forever while they stood atop their treasures. Face-to-face. Unmoving.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Nine swords pierced Zhou Shanyuan’s body. Jin Xifeng tore the sect leader’s arm from its socket and tossed it aside like a piece of trash. The mountain in the sky cracked, then crumbled. Sect Leader Zhou Shanyuan fell from his treasure and plummeted to the earth. In that moment, He Yu knew—he’d seen the battle of Jin Xifeng’s suppression. He’d seen through the Cloud Emperor’s Peerless Judgment and the memories of Cai Weizhe. He knew exactly what she was capable of.

  Jin Xifeng turned towards Elder Cai. He stood atop a cloud and held a golden ringed staff. Shadow and blood surged around Jin Xifeng. Heaven and radiance crackled over Cai Weizhe. In that moment, the First Elder looked incredibly old. He looked incredibly tired.

  He pointed his staff at Jin Xifeng, and heaven opened. Sheets of lightning rained down from the sky. Although it was so far beyond what He Yu could do with the technique, he still recognized it. Heaven’s Descending Blade—the fury of heaven’s judgment descended. A radiant beam of light, hundreds of feet across, surged forth from Elder Cai’s staff, and the world vanished. In its place, the alabaster pillar had returned, and now all four of its faces were awake, their eyes open, and the devastation of their gaze fully unleashed.

  With a lazy, contemptuous gesture, Jin Xifeng met Elder Cai’s technique. Turned it aside, redirecting it to a nearby peak. A peak that, when the attack faded, simply vanished. Her swords trailed shadow, and the army of her servants surged around her. Countless figures, gaunt and drained, crawled up the base of the alabaster tower like so many insects. Shadows wrapped around the faces.

  Blood trickled from He Yu’s nose. Even from within the formation, he wasn’t fully protected from the sheer spiritual weight of the battle over the sect. The barrier itself shone under the strain of the battle above. Somehow, he managed to push himself to a seated position.

  “Get out of here,” Zhang Lifen said. She’d regained her feet, and looked like she was in about as bad as He Yu felt.

  “What about you?” he asked. She reached out and helped him stand. Her eyes were black, but still.

  “I’ll be fine,” she said.

  He Yu couldn’t decide whether he believed her. “I need to find my friends.”

  “Then do it.” She turned to the battle in the sky. To the clash of heaven and the red setting sun. “Once you do, find a way out. Go anywhere but here.”

  Still struggling under the combined weight of the two massive presences, He Yu took his place next to her. “Can she be defeated?” he asked, watching the struggle unfold.

  “I don’t know.” Zhang Lifen’s voice was somber. All her usual playfulness, blasé attitude—gone. “You’ll know the outcome either way, I suppose.”

  “I’ll see you again?” His throat was tight, and it was all he could do to ask.

  “Go,” she said, not looking at him. “And be safe.”

  He Yu went. How could he not? There was nothing he could do here. Nothing he could contribute. To even try would be to throw his life away. Zhang Lifen was right—he’d know the outcome when it came. He was fairly certain he already knew how it would end, but he didn’t let himself dwell on that.

  Once outside the formation barrier, the spiritual presence of Elder Cai and Jin Xifeng’s clash crashed over him once again. He struggled to move, but after a moment, it became much easier. A glance over his shoulder told him the battle had moved a good distance away from the sect. The presence was still strong, but at least he could stand. For now.

  He made his way through the ruined plazas and gardens of the inner sect. Evidence of the battle lay all around him, and he found only chaos. Cultivators with weaker presences lay dead or critically injured. Their dantians and meridians damaged by the mere proximity to the unleashed spiritual base of the battling Eighth Realm masters.

  Those of at least Golden Core seemed to fare better—at least in their ability to withstand the spiritual pressure. Instead of dying, they fought. They fought each other. They fought those few beasts that had survived the crushing weight of the clash. They fought against those members of the Sunset Court that yet remained.

  He had no idea how to find his friends. He had no idea if they even still lived. Activating the Sky Dragon’s Flight, he hauled himself into the air and began his search in earnest. Occasionally he had to fend off attacks from members of the court, members of the sect driven to frenzy, from a spirit or a beast. From time-to-time he caught flashes of one of the core disciples’ presences as they engaged in battles of their own.

  Yan Shirong was fighting a group of three other cultivators when He Yu found him. Relief crashed over him—out of all his friends, Yan Shirong was the least advanced. Still only at the peak of Body Refining. He Yu had worried about him the most, that he’d not be able to withstand spiritual weight of the combined experts. He Yu landed in the middle of the fight. A quick blast of the Bracing Wind disrupted Yan Shirong’s foes, and the two of them quickly ended the fight.

  “You live. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised,” Yan Shirong said. Fatigue hung off each word. Blood spattered his robes. How much of it was his own, He Yu couldn’t have said. His spirit felt far less pronounced than usual, so he’d been fighting hard regardless, and was probably close to his limit.

  “We need to find the others,” He Yu said, handing him some medicine from his storage.

  Yan Shirong bit down on the pill. Three of his bone and shadow constructs appeared and took flight. Wordlessly, he slumped against the remains of a nearby building. He Yu let him have his rest.

  Then, something inside He Yu broke. Or it felt like it—a spiritual snap. Like a tether had been cut. Something he’d not even known was there, connecting him to a line of experts stretching back to ancient times. He turned to the west even as he struggled to keep standing.

  The alabaster pillar cracked, then crumbled. Giant chunks of white stone rained down, crashing to the earth below. The light of heaven vanished, and the radiance was consumed. In its place, a furious red sun hung over a horizon, casting light over a field of uncountable bodies. Against that sun, He Yu saw her. She stood alone. Her expression calm, satisfied. The hatred and rage were muted for now. In their place—satisfaction.

  “We need to go,” he said, hauling Yan Shirong to his feet.

  For perhaps the first time, He Yu realized just how young they all were as he looked into Yan Shirong’s eyes. He saw a frightened young man, only twenty-two years old and uncertain about the world they’d just entered. They were the same age.

  “What just happened?” he asked. From his tone, he clearly already knew the answer.

  He Yu answered as much of his own sake as for Yan Shirong’s. “Elder Cai is dead. Jin Xifeng has won.”