By sweeping with Sword Intent again and again, I finally caught two odd breaths nearby—a nine‑in‑ten chance it was Wilsar and Molor. They were sneaking toward the passage behind us, step by step, like shadows slipping along a wall.

Afraid a loud move would give them away, they crept slow as falling ash. Paired with Wanxin’s unique masking, you’d miss them without razor‑fine senses.

“Lixue, seal the passage. Now.”

We’d found them; we couldn’t let them slip the net. I threw the order, blade‑cold.

“Understood.”

Lixue nodded, quick as a snowflake. She gathered a surge of ice‑aspected Sword Aura. The temperature plunged like dusk on a glacier.

White‑clear mist frothed into being, visible as breath on glass. Frost crept over the stone like pale moss, thick and quiet.

Then a burst of Primordial Source flared—noon sun burning fog. It swept the mist and rime clean, and snapped my Sword Domain like twigs.

My Sword Intent’s senses got crushed to a two‑meter bubble, heavy as wet wool.

“Oh my, I suddenly felt a bit of a chill. Overreacted a little—don’t mind me.”

Before we could speak, Wanxin explained himself, voice light as dust. Every word rang false. “A bit of cold?” Only FrostyLily Dream could make him feel that.

“...”

We could only stare, fists clenched around air. Wanxin was impervious to reason and oil‑slick to grip. We couldn’t beat him, and we couldn’t talk him down.

“Hey, those two are wanted by the Mizumi Clan. Don’t forget Sir Xino stands behind them. Do you really want to offend Sir Xino again?”

Smothered by the stale air, Wansheng finally snapped, his tone sharp as flint.

“Honestly, do youngsters talk to elders like this now? Look at me—like a walking corpse. Death would be kinder than this half‑life. A dead man doesn’t fear boiling water. If Sir Xino got angry enough to finish me, that’d be mercy.”

Wanxin’s reply was all thorn and shrug, his face a mask of indifference.

“...”

We fell silent, words turning to sand. Wanxin is an Origin Realm being, yet sealed here like a moth in amber. Endlessly half‑alive, half‑dead.

That bottomless well of despair, fear, pain, and loneliness—anyone could imagine. For him, death might truly be release.

Because he’d moved, Primordial Source thickened in the air like storm‑swollen sea. The pressure weighed on us like a mountain—standing itself took effort.

Without Shattered Light and Ice Illusion Moon in hand, we’d have been pinned, unable to twitch.

“Wansheng, Wanling, what do we do?”

Wanxin’s attitude was clearly unfriendly. More talk would backfire, and might prick his temper again. Sensing that, Qianji Sister asked the two for counsel.

Lingxiao looked ready to rant. I covered her tempting lips at once, leaned to her ear, and whispered, heart tight before movement: “Don’t. Words birth trouble. One slip, and we rile Wanxin again.”

“Yeah. Let Qianji Sister and Aunt Saintvoice handle it. We watch quietly,” Lingsaki murmured in agreement, voice a petal falling.

“Mmm… fine. I’ll swallow it for now.”

Unhappy, but obedient, Lingxiao tucked her mood away like a blade into a sheath. She knew complaints were wind in a sealed room.

“Truly the Origin Realm. Even like this, his power is terrifying.”

Lixue tried and failed to gather Sword Aura several times. She shook her head, sighed, and let it go like frost melting.

“Maya, looks like we can’t do anything?”

“Don’t overthink it. We keep our place and don’t add chaos for Miss Holy Voice and the others.”

“...”

Celia Maya’s answer left Heartvoice a little deflated. Fair—Origin Realm and Law Realm are sky and abyss apart. Force would be useless. If Wanxin wished, crushing us would be easy.

“There’s no way. Bound by this Primordial Source, we can’t do a thing,” Wansheng sighed, head tilting like a wilting reed.

“No, you can walk back the way you came. At least you still have the strength to walk.”

Wanxin offered ‘kindly,’ prickles under silk. He wanted us gone. What were Molor and Wilsar to him, to shield them like this?

“Senior Wanxin, is there truly no room to talk? Staying hostile to Teac—... to Teacher Xinuo does you no good.”

I drew a deep breath and stepped forward, letting Shattered Light catch his eye like a shard of sun.

“A disciple of Sir Xino?”

For once, Wanxin lifted his head and looked at me. “Hmm. Not bad aptitude. But using Sir Xino to press me now won’t work. I offended her utterly ages ago. Otherwise I wouldn’t be like this.”

“...Nothing will move you?”

I’d thought we could bargain. Not at all.

“What you can offer is useless to me. What I want, you can’t give. Please leave. It’s better for both sides.”

He finished, then ‘closed his eyes to rest,’ and ignored me. If he were alone, we’d trade a few lines and go. But Molor and Wilsar—letting them go was impossible.

Especially Wilsar. On the Northern Abyss Continent, his deeds trampled the Mizumi Clan’s dignity and bottom line. He beat us once; if not now, when?

We couldn’t stall. Drawn‑out time would let Wilsar and Molor slip away like eels into mud.

No choice. To break this cage, I had to rouse Shattered Light’s power. Wansheng and Wanling, strong as they were, were still in the Law Realm. They couldn’t break an Origin shackle.

Only Source counters Source. I could draw only a sliver of Shattered Light’s true power. Success was a coin toss—but without trying, we had none.

With that thought, emotion first, then action—I banished doubt. I focused, flung my all into Sword Intent, and poured it into Shattered Light’s blade, calling the sleeping storm.

In an instant, gold blazed like dawn off a river. My slight figure became a lone skiff in a tsunami, rocking on knives.

One slip, and I’d be swallowed whole. When Shattered Light bled even a little power, my Sword Intent nearly shattered under the weight.

Qianji Sister and Aunt Saintvoice reacted fast, rushing in like pillars in a gale. They steadied my roiling spirit with all they had.

Celia Maya kept weaving healing barriers, soft rain over parched earth, easing the pain by degrees.

“Now!”

Even as a thread, Shattered Light’s Primordial Source was something a weakened Wanxin couldn’t fully suppress. The Origin bind on us thinned, then faded like night fog.

Wansheng and Wanling met eyes. In perfect rhythm, they cast their domains, sealing every path out like nets cast over the sea.

…