Time trickled like sand through clenched fingers, and fatigue sat on my chest like wet stone. I could still grit my teeth and swing a while, but not for long. Luck flickered like a lantern in fog—only two or three minutes left in this third trial. I drove my Sword Aura like wind across reeds, layered sword arts like scales against Tianyao’s blows. Victory felt close, a shoreline under a storm-gray sky.

With a minute and change remaining, Tianyao stilled her hand, then her presence surged like a thunderhead swelling over the ridge. She was about to cast something monstrous. Panic pricked like sleet—my strength was threadbare, my Sword Domain creaked like ice before a thaw, and the cliff beneath me offered only a shoe-width ledge. Even standing felt like balancing on a reed in a gale.

No way out but forward. I clenched my jaw, heart pounding like drums, and before she loosed the technique, I tried to drink the last drop from a dry well—straining to absorb Sword Aura and energy from the Sword Domain. The answer was dust. Energy was the cracked basin’s flaw; there was nothing left for me to take.

Resigned, I let the Sword Domain disperse like morning mist, its failing shell more burden than shield. My body lightened, a hawk shaking rain from its wings. No time to waste. I reached into the air, gathered lightning essence from the storm-filled sky, and condensed Sword Aura from raw thunder. It was less pure than the Domain’s springwater, but a stream beats sand. Tianyao’s move neared completion, a bowstring singing to its final inch.

One minute remained—then her technique locked into shape. A vast violet orb dragged behind her hand like a small moon, big enough to blanket a mountain. Lightning crawled its skin like silver serpents, and waves of force rolled off it, the peak of a Divine Novice boiling like a cauldron. Blocking it head-on felt impossible; my mind flicked like a sparrow and found another branch. Ah—there.

The idea flashed like a strike of white fire. It was a knife’s edge; one slip meant no path back through ashes. The lightning Sword Aura wrapped around my Shattered Light Sword had swelled to its limit, trembling like reins on a wild stallion.

“Good. This king didn’t expect you to endure this far. Time to write the period at the end of this trial. This is this king’s final move—”

She lifted the mountain-sized thunder orb high, then hurled it down like a falling star.

“Radiant Thunder: World-Ender!”

Nothing stood in its way. The orb plummeted straight at me, a sky-boulder wreathed in lightning. As I was now… no, even at my absolute best, I’d be a moth to a forge. Maybe twenty seconds remained on the clock. Fine. I only needed to slow that falling star for a heartbeat.

Decision hit like a bell. I squeezed every last drop, and swung the Shattered Light Sword with no chains on my arms.

“Heaven-Thunder: Sword Qi Dance!”

Sword Aura streaks shot from the blade, each bolt a shard of ruin, spearing upward to meet the descending orb like arrows against a siege stone.

Boom. Boom. Boom!!

Good. My strikes didn’t scratch it—not even a bruise—but the fall slowed a fraction, a grain in the hourglass caught mid-drop. The gap between us still hung at roughly a hundred meters, a chasm under a black sky. Ten seconds left, the clock a cold drum in my ribs.

I started the count, each number a breath under a storm. Ten… nine… eight… seven… With each heartbeat, more Sword Aura flew from the Shattered Light Sword, piling into the air like a barricade of spears, dragging the orb’s descent through thorned brush.

…Three, two, one! Now. The orb loomed ten meters away, a violet sun about to erase me. I flung the final sword light of Heaven-Thunder: Sword Qi Dance.

A thunderclap split the world. The cliff beneath my feet buckled and fell like rotten timber, and the third trial’s time burned out in the same instant. I didn’t hesitate; I dove into the void like a gull escaping a breaking wave.

“Ah—!!!”

Please, let this play out like the picture in my head. Falling felt like knives skimming my skin; my eyes clenched against needle-wind; breath clawed at my throat like a fish on dry sand. Air thinned, and dizziness spun me like a leaf.

A breath later—there, a stop, soft as moss after rain. My body sank into something gentle and fragrant, a cradle of silk and spice. The touch near my temple was familiar, like a remembered breeze on an old path.

I pried my eyes open, let sight bloom slowly. Tianyao’s handsome face hovered above, wearing a hint of rueful smile. I was in her arms, carried princess-style, like a rescued traveler under a high moon.

“Uh… thanks.”

Saying nothing felt rude; my voice came out small, a reed whistle in a wide valley.

“No need. You really overreached.” Her smile stayed wry, the tone calm as distant rain. “If this king had been a step slower, you would’ve fallen into danger.”

“But I did hold out till the end, didn’t I?”

“Hah?!”

She blinked, then laughed, bright as a crack of sun through cloud. “True! You’ve got spine, kid. Not bad—this king is satisfied. Still, heading to the seventh layer in your current state isn’t wise. Rest. Recover to your peak, then go to the seventh layer. How about it?”

“Mm. I’ll trouble you, then.”

I had no objections; acceptance settled like warm tea in the belly.

Time flew like swallows, and half a day passed in a blink. I was nearly back to full strength. We sat together in a pavilion on a mountain peak, watching the Cliff of Thunder churn below like a silver ocean. No matter how often I looked, it stayed beautiful—storm-light painting stone like ink on rice paper.

“I heard you braved the Nine Cold Labyrinth for the Ice Dream Lotus. There’s Ice Dream Lotus in the Central Continent. Why risk the maze?” Tianyao’s tone held casual curiosity, a pebble dropped into a calm pond.

“Mm… here’s the story.”

I didn’t really want to let Tianyao in on Hill’s situation, but a favor softens the tongue and tightens the hands. She had taken good care of me; speaking the cause and outcome felt right, like returning a kindness with truth.

A few minutes later, I finished.

“I see.” Tianyao nodded, thoughtful, her gaze drifting like mist. “I’ve long heard whispers that the Dark Demon has gods at their back. Seems likely. Otherwise, even with a thousand borrowed guts, they wouldn’t dare tangle with the Mizumi Clan… Well, ‘tangle’ is generous—Dark Demon doesn’t have that standing.”

“Divine race?!”

Shock bit like winter. The divine, demon, dragon, and elf—four pillars that stood just below the Mizumi Clan’s towering shadow. How could the Dark Demon, a troupe of posturing jesters, be tied to them? And that clown who claimed ‘second place’—that was for laughs, not worth a breath.

“This king isn’t sure, and isn’t interested in finding out.” She shook her head and sipped the tea I brewed, the steam rising like a shy cloud.

We chatted a little more, washed the dust off like rain through bamboo, then I napped two or three hours, letting strength knit back like thread through a loom. Once I felt sharp as a new blade, I asked Tianyao to open the path to the seventh layer.

“May your journey be smooth. This king can only send you this far.”

She opened the passage—an iris of light blooming like dawn—and turned to me, voice gentle as a bell in mist.

“Thanks for the care. If fate allows, we’ll meet again.”

“Alright. If fate allows.”

As the words fell like petals, I stepped into the tunnel toward the seventh layer. I’d cleared six layers of the Nine Cold Labyrinth; three remained. The end felt near, a lighthouse blinking beyond the last stretch of night.