“Nesting Phoenix!”

Nana Toki hissed under her breath.

Flames surged around Nesting Phoenix in a tidal wave.

The searing phoenix fire broke like a burst dam, flooding toward the Grand Elder.

“Hmph.”

The Grand Elder met the blaze without haste, tapping his wooden staff on the tiles.

A flame even more tyrannical than Nesting Phoenix’s exploded before him.

The shock of Spirit Energy slammed out like a mountain wind, blanching faces and splitting heads.

“Want to play with fire against me? You still need practice.”

He lifted his staff, and a sea of fire rose from empty air like dawn surf.

Nesting Phoenix couldn’t hold the tide.

She dragged Nana Toki backward, step after step, using phoenix fire to chew away the oncoming blaze.

Cold shock hit first, sharp as spring water.

It was the first time Nana had seen Nesting Phoenix’s flames lose ground.

Maybe it was her nerves, but ever since the South Sea incident, Nesting Phoenix felt diminished.

Her fire used to stride like a storm, not this frail flicker.

Did the System nerf her?

Shattered phoenix fire fell like embers, then crawled across the floor.

In moments, Moonview Peak’s hall was eaten through by flame like termites through wood.

Beams creaked and sang like dying cranes, pillars groaned and swayed.

Disciples and elders scrambled, arms over heads, scattering like frightened sparrows.

“Lo-lo, go!”

Shrine Water seized the opening, stirring her Wood root to carve a path for Nana and Nesting Phoenix.

The Grand Elder didn’t spare her a glance.

His Spirit Energy flexed, and Shrine Water’s conjured timbers sprouted sparks.

In a breath, they turned into roaring fire.

They bolted amid the chaos.

The Grand Elder struck his staff again and snorted coldly.

Sound cracked like sudden thunder right inside Nana’s ear.

Pain stabbed her brow, and strength drained like poured water.

Her legs went slack; only Nesting Phoenix’s quick arm kept her from crumpling to the floor.

“Lo-lo!”

Seeing her disciple’s Spirit Energy shattered and her body topple, Shrine Water’s heart splintered like thin ice.

“A mere Foundation Establishment dares rebel under my watch? Laughable.”

Leaning on his staff, the Grand Elder stepped closer, each stride heavy as a drumbeat.

His sword-bright eyes pinned Nana with a hunter’s chill.

“Nesting Phoenix stays. I said I could spare your life.”

“In your dreams.”

She was the only way Nana could clear the main quest.

Lose her, and it was game over.

Cold rolled in behind her eyes, black as deep water.

Nana wiped the blood at her lip and found no strength anywhere.

Spirit Energy was a blank sky; nothing answered her call.

She knew the blow had shattered her meridians and drained her core.

Now she was a husk with a root, a cultivator who couldn’t cultivate.

“Good eyes, but useless.”

Star-bright and stern, the Grand Elder thrust a withered hand for Nana’s brow.

In that split-second, Spirit Pressure flashed inside Nesting Phoenix like lightning under stormclouds.

It caught the Grand Elder off guard.

He staggered back, blocking on instinct.

By the time he steadied, Nesting Phoenix had fled the hall with Nana in her arms.

“Think you can run? Not so easy.”

Red currents bled from the Grand Elder’s body, then speared upward as a pillar of scarlet.

Power burst from Moonview Peak’s hall like an ancient beast’s roar.

For dozens of miles, people felt a knife-cold chill and trembled without meaning to.

At the mountain’s edge, Yunlan and the others wiped cold sweat.

This was the first time since joining the Cloudpeak Sect that they’d seen the Grand Elder truly move.

Between heartbeats, a bright red stream tore across the sky.

It was the terror of his passing, the Spirit Pressure he left in his wake.

Beyond the Cloudpeak Sect lay a deep, tangled forest.

Ancient trees shouldered the sky, trunks so thick three people couldn’t encircle them.

Fallen leaves carpeted the ground, hiding soil that stank rich and sour.

This was the Beast Forest, home to vicious wild fiends.

Disciples came here to temper their blades and hearts.

Now, Nesting Phoenix sprinted through the forest with Nana in her arms.

Trees whipped past in blurs, their shadows chopped by her speed.

She was a streak more than a figure, a gust that left only falling leaves behind.

But the abyss-deep pressure behind her hunted like flood and beast combined.

Sweat pearled on Nesting Phoenix’s brow; she was running flat out.

No matter how she twisted through trunks, the Grand Elder’s Spirit Energy stuck to her like pitch.

Nana lay pale in those arms, coughing blood whenever Nesting Phoenix jolted.

That pressure behind them was death, a scythe waiting for a misstep.

One touch and she’d exit this plane for the next life, neat and tidy.

But that wasn’t an option.

With her karma debt, failure meant erasure, not reincarnation.

For her own sake, she couldn’t die yet.

Hey, trash System, weren’t you supposed to guide me safely through this plane?

Why are you playing dead at the crucial moment?

H-ho-host, don’t panic. This System is preparing a teleport array for you.

Please hang on just a little longer! >w<

Nana: “...”

Drop the emoticons. I’m about to die here.

She was too weak to drag the System any further.

“Lo-lo…”

“Don’t talk. Focus on running.”

Nana’s vision blurred until even Nesting Phoenix’s features dissolved.

“If we can’t shake him… drop me.”

She lifted a trembling hand and touched the woman’s cheek.

Her smile came crooked, half-mocking, half broken.

“I’m dead weight.”

In this world she was too small, too useless to move the needle.

She didn’t even know why the words came out.

She was the sort to betray the world if it suited her goal, the sort who cut clean and slept fine.

Self-sacrifice wasn’t in her mouth, or her bones.

So why?

The feeling was strange and warm, a coal under snow.

She couldn’t hand the person who’d shielded her from the start to anyone.

“Lo-lo!”

A surge of Spirit Energy rolled in from behind like thunder over ridges.

The backlash shook Nana and brought fresh blood to her lips.

The Grand Elder had closed the gap.

Each step of his pressure chewed away her dwindling time.

Nesting Phoenix looked down at Nana’s draining face, panic and helplessness cutting jagged lines across her own.

“Lo-lo, don’t be scared. We can get away.”

She poured everything into her flames as she spoke, stoking power like bellows to a forge.

All the way he tracked her, the Grand Elder felt the phoenix force thickening ahead.

For once, calm cracked and gravity settled on his face.

This was an ancient beast’s rage, stronger than Nesting Phoenix’s loss of control centuries ago.

Heat crawled over the Beast Forest like noon in midsummer.

Trees she passed burst into fearsome phoenix fire without a spark.

The air itself turned sticky under the furnace.

He couldn’t delay.

Another breath and every beast here would die under her Spirit Pressure.

He surged forward, a red comet, to cut her off.

“The teleport array is ready, Host. Where are we going?”

The System’s voice limped into Nana’s mind at the knife’s edge.

“Anywhere. Just get me out of this cursed place.”

White light bloomed, huge as a rising moon.

The Grand Elder’s step hitched, eyes burning under the glare.

“Hold, junior!”

He forced through the pain, condensed Spirit Energy, and clawed at the void with a grasp that could crush stone.

Nana felt her heart cinch, clutched as if a fist closed around it.

Her blood froze mid-run.

Pain narrowed to a single burning point.

Then—crack.

A shearing jolt ripped through her, a lightning-thread that stabbed every nerve.

“Puh!”

Blood gushed from Nana’s mouth without warning, a dark flower on her lip.

The System had braced for backlash, and so had Nesting Phoenix, but not this much.

Shock and confusion sketched over her fine-boned face.

That splash of scarlet stabbed the eye.

For a heartbeat, Nesting Phoenix lost herself and froze around Nana’s weight.

“Go…”

Light dimmed in Nana’s eyes, breath thinning like mist in dawn.

Seconds later, she sagged in Nesting Phoenix’s arms, quiet as a blown-out candle.

“Lo-lo…”

“Lo-lo…”

Nesting Phoenix’s body shook around the pale, motionless girl.

Silence pooled thick around them, a frozen lake without ripple.

She had never been to this place inside herself.

Rage, hate, sorrow—every dark tide rose at once and crashed in her chest.

She kept calling the name, again and again.

Only silence answered, heavy enough to smother breath.

She’d lived alone so long she could stand any length of dark and quiet.

So why did fear come now, sharp as winter wind?

Phoenix fury wrecked the clearing, leaving ash and ruin.

Nesting Phoenix stared at Nana’s blood-smeared cheek a hand’s breadth from hers.

Even breathing felt hard, like lungs packed with sand.

This was a truth she refused to accept.

There had to be a way.

Her jaw clenched until it ached.

Amid the rubble, her lips trembled.

She lowered her head, inch by inch, toward Nana Toki’s cheek.