Eastern Moon Empire, Proudmoon City.
“Sigh… didn’t think it would blow up this far. Even divine magic showed up.”
Eastern Moon Aotian stood atop the Proud Moon Palace, his gaze stretched toward Soulsever Gorge like a lonely hawk over stormy cliffs.
(Proud Moon Palace: the imperial palace where the emperors of the Eastern Moon Empire reside.)
“Yeah. No telling who’ll win over there.”
An old man at his side spoke, his presence heavy like a mountain under thunder. Stronger by far than Holy Peak Gu Aoson—he was a Divine Realm powerhouse.
“Mhm.”
Soulsever Gorge.
“Go, Source of All Evil!”
Gu Aoson, weary-eyed, flicked his wand. An energy sphere, half as vast as the gorge, rolled toward us like a smog-choked moon.
“Purifying Sacred Light!”
Hill roared, her voice a bell over ice. Above the gorge, the colossal magic array blazed with daylight so bright it felt like dawn burning through stone.
Dozens of pillars of light dropped from the array, spears of holiness aimed at the smoke-belching sphere.
Boom!
Light struck darkness, and a world-splitting blast sank the gorge floor by hundreds of meters, like the earth itself exhaled and caved.
Now the canyon held only two colors—black and white. The smoking sphere pushed forward like a tar tide, but the shining pillars barred it like silver walls.
Neither yielded. The stalemate hung in the air like frost between fires.
“Looks like I’ve gotta use that.”
Gu Aoson grit his teeth and pulled a bottle from his robe, glass trembling like a caught star.
Glug-glug.
He uncapped it and poured the liquid down like molten metal into a forge.
“What—!”
In that heartbeat, his Holy Peak aura surged like a rising sun and vaulted into the Divine Realm, pressure hammering the air flat.
“So this is Divine Realm power? Hah—glorious.”
He tossed the bottle away, a brief intoxication clouding his eyes, then smoothed back to calm like still water.
“Source of All Evil, break those pillars!”
He swept his wand, and this time the wand’s flare was Divine Realm bright, a comet born in his grip.
Crack—boom!
The sphere’s energy swelled, a black tide over stones, and shattered the pillars in a breath.
The sky array above split with spiderweb fissures, light fraying like torn silk.
Three seconds later, the pillars and array broke. They scattered as star-dust, fading into the world like snow into rivers.
“Dragonlight of Ruin!”
Seeing her magic broken, Hill flung open her vast dragon jaws and fired a prismatic beam loaded with ruin, a rainbow turned to a blade, straight at the oncoming sphere.
…
It didn’t matter. The beam touched the sphere and vanished into it, swallowed like rain into a pit.
Huff, huff.
Hill drew hard breaths, fatigue clouding her eyes like dusk.
“Hill, you okay?”
My heart tightened like a drawn bow as I looked at her.
“Mm, mm. Don’t worry, Boss, I’m fine! Just a bit tired!”
She shook her massive head, the motion heavy as a bell—more than a bit, if I’m honest.
“Let me try—Sword Qi Dance!”
I faced the closing sphere and swung Shattered Light Sword with all I had, sending arcs of Sword Aura like crescent moons.
“Uh… how?”
They touched the sphere and vanished. Every arc got gulped down like sparks into night.
Shock hit me first, cold and sharp. Then my shout followed.
“It’s nothing much. Servant, your Sword Aura can’t contend with divine magic yet. Being swallowed is only natural.”
Xinuo had come to my side, calm as snow, eyes resting on the sphere like a judge on truth.
“Looks like just you and Hill won’t cut it.”
She stretched, lazy-cat elegant, then offered me her fair, delicate hand. “Servant, give me Shattered Light.”
“Oh—okay.”
My body moved before thought, and I handed her Shattered Light Sword.
“Mm. It’s been a while since I used Shattered Light.”
She took the blade, a trace of nostalgia flickering like old lanterns, then stepped onto Hill’s massive head with cloud-light grace.
“Servant, today I’ll show you the limit of Sword Aura.”
Xinuo turned, spoke soft as wind, and lifted Shattered Light in a motion so natural it felt like water remembering its river.
Rumble!
At the instant her blade rose, the void itself shivered, thunder rolled like caged beasts, and the air thickened as if mountains were trying to breathe.
“Sword melds with Heaven and Earth—All Things Become the Sword!”
The void stilled—then bloomed.
Swords spouted from the emptiness like stars being born, each forged from the world’s energy, each glimmering with a different hue of element.
They kept coming, endless as rain over seas. In a breath, swords filled the entire void—not just the gorge, but the space above and beyond like a sky of blades.
Every sword flared with power that dwarfed the sphere, colors burning like auroras sharpened to points.
The void became a kingdom of swords—millions of blades standing point-down in the air, filling all space like a forest of light.
“This is—”
Hill and I stared, stunned. A million at least. No—definitely a million.
The sight hammered the soul. The void couldn’t bear it; whole slabs of space collapsed, falling into ink-black nothing like night eating sky.
“Fall.”
Xinuo drew Shattered Light downward, her gesture quiet as a petal landing.
Hum—hum—!
The swords sang, clear and bright, then dropped like meteors, tearing the air into ribbons.
“No! This isn’t real!”
The sphere shattered at once under the rain of blades—no resistance, no struggle, cracked like a brittle shell.
Only three hundred swords broke the sphere. For a million blades, that was a single drop in an ocean.
The rest turned, like a storm changing course, and swept toward the Sacred Realm magi clustered around the gorge.
“Ahhh!”
“Don’t—!”
“I don’t want to die—!”
Their defenses crumpled like paper in fire. They screamed once and fell, bodies gone to ash, nothing left to bury under the wind.
Five seconds later, the swords vanished from the void, and not one Sacred Realm mage remained. Ash on air. Silence like winter after snow.
“Alright. Farce over. Let’s go back and sleep.”
Xinuo handed me Shattered Light Sword, yawned like a sleepy cat, and the night felt thin again.
…
