Lingxiao’s voice, heavy as a mountain’s shadow, reached Lingsaki: “Do you see anything?”

She asked because Lorelin’s earth shield breathed thick earth law, like clay packed by ancient rivers; any spell without law would scatter like dust before it neared.

“Mm, the earth law is thick as wet loam; ordinary strikes won’t bite,” Lingsaki said, her words calm as dusk wind. “Anything below high-tier Holy magic will be nothing but rain on stone.”

As she spoke, Lingsaki laid buffs on the Emperor, attack and speed like wind under wings, because they needed more than peppering Lorelin—they had to be the river that eases a boulder’s weight.

“Yeah… a heavy drain,” Lingxiao sighed, the breath like smoke in cold air.

Above high-tier Holy, spells are curse-level thunder in a sealed jar; even the sisters wielding the Dual Daynight Tomes can’t toss them like pebbles into a pond.

With Lorelin’s strength a mountain of iron, standard high-tier Holy spells won’t bite; they’ll need a Holy Peak spell, sharp as frost on steel.

Lingsaki and Lingxiao now stand at the Sacred Realm’s peak, like twin pines on a ridge; with the Dual Daynight Tomes they can barely touch Divine Realm magic, but three or four casts would drain them like a lake in drought.

“Also, I think attack spells won’t do much,” Lingsaki said, thoughts flowing like a clear stream. “She’s stronger, and that earth shield rivals our Tomes in grade; we need another road through the forest.”

“Knocking the bell from her hand depends on my elder brother,” she added after a heartbeat, the pause a held breath. “We just harass her, carve breathing space and cracks in the ice for him to strike.”

She had weighed it like arrows in a quiver; Holy Peak attack might work, but how many arrows could they shoot before the bowstring frays?

“True—without that shield it’d be another story,” Lingxiao murmured, eyes like cold stars. “If attack magic won’t do…”

She swept her mind clean like a courtyard at dawn and said, “Then restraints—no harm, but perfect for tripping feet and muddying steps.”

“Agreed,” Lingsaki replied, voice still as a pond at night.

She moved as if moonlight turned pages, flipping the Book of Night to bindings: “Book of Night, page one-fifty—Restraint Spell, Chains of Night.”

“Chains of Light!” Lingxiao’s call sparkled like the first blade of dawn.

At once, two massive chains—one black, one white—burst from the soil like iron serpents, and they wrapped Lorelin’s ankles with earth’s cold embrace.

“Hm?” Lorelin’s motion slowed like a tide at slack water; she looked down to find iron vines coiled tight around her feet.

My heart leaped like a hawk sighting prey—good chance. While she tore at the chains, I cut with the Shattered Light Sword, Sword Aura gathered like stormlight, and loosed Sword Qi Dance.

Boom! Boom! Boom!—blows drummed like thunder on a cliff face.

Dozens of arcs of Sword Aura ripped toward Lorelin like fissures opening in dry ground, and in the same breath I sprinted to her back, a shadow riding wind.

I never believed a few dozen blades of aura would trouble her; they were fireflies to draw her gaze, a veil to mask the blade.

As expected, the earth shield caught every line like a wall of bedrock. In that snap of a heartbeat, I packed new Sword Aura into the Shattered Light Sword and swung at her back like thunder rolling past a ridge.

Clang! The impact rang like steel on an anvil.

“What—!” Her surprise flashed like lightning behind clouds.

Lorelin lifted her left hand, the earth shield’s gauntlet catching my strike like a granite palm; at the same time, her Heavenly Lance swept in a crescent moon arc, shattering the chains like brittle ice and cutting straight for me.

No—her moon blade was aimed at me; the broken chains were driftwood in the wake.

A cold jolt ran through me like winter river water; if I don’t break her attack now, I’ll be hit, because my body can’t twist away in time.

I detonated the Sword Aura on the blade, a sudden flood bursting a dam.

Boom!!

As expected, Lorelin halted and stepped back, her retreat a tide pulling from shore, and I slipped through the gap like smoke.

I had hoped she wouldn’t stop; the blast is a spark on iron to her, but the shock could have shaken the bell from her hand—only if she kept her swing like a storm unchecked.

Thinking it through, it’s a pity, a trade of flesh for a sliver of dawn I didn’t get, though even then I’d have swallowed some pain like bitter wind.