“Too bad. I don’t think you’ll live to see it.” Bai Zhi’s smile folded like a paper fan; she brushed off dust like dry snow, and phoenix fire licked away the stains.

“…Oh?” The woman’s laugh was razor-thin, like a blade on ice. She truly believed Bai Zhi was a spent bow, string frayed and useless.

“What’s your name again?”

“…Hah?” Amused, the woman cocked her head like a hunting cat. “Now you want my name? Your Majesty, stalling for time? It’s fine—we can play forever. Nothing outside can touch this place.”

A barrier wrapped Western Garden City like a glass bell. Bai Zhi had known that, as one knows winter by the bite in the air. It changed nothing.

“Which of us is trapped in the bell, you or me? Name first, answer later.”

“My, my… If Your Majesty truly cares, I’ll tell you. Xun Ying.”

“Xun Ying, is it… Then tell me—my ancestral power versus the divinity you were granted. Which wins?” Bai Zhi tilted her head, like a crane listening to wind.

Xun Ying’s mood brightened, like a cat warmed by a brazier. “I’m confident I’ll beat you, Your Majesty. But the power passed down the Kelinveil line isn’t to be trifled with. Call it eighty–twenty.”

“Eighty–twenty?” Bai Zhi blinked, a flicker of surprise across calm water. “I thought I wasn’t even at ten.”

Gold fire blossomed around her like dawn breaking over old mountains. An ancient behemoth’s aura stirred, the smell of thunder and scorched earth.

“Let the rest be said by battle.”

Crimson flame coiled to her will and braided itself into a fire dragon. It roared up with a sky-splitting whoosh. Countless crimson-gold greatswords rained down like a meteor squall, turning Western Garden City into a molten hell. Fireballs boomed; lava surged like a red tide at world’s end. Bai Zhi hovered at the eye of the storm, distance measured like the span of a breath. Xun Ying kept that scornful look, as untouchable as a shadow at noon. Phoenix fire couldn’t mark her; she wasn’t human anymore.

Eerie black fog burst off Xun Ying like tar boiling. It crawled along the flames’ paths and devoured every thread of energy. She spread her arms and drank it in, face soft with stolen warmth.

Bai Zhi didn’t flinch; her gaze was flint. She kept up a mad barrage, strikes falling like summer rain on stone. Weaker in raw power, she used speed like a needle and pinned Xun Ying for a breath, at least to the eye.

“Hah—struggling like a lab mouse, Your Majesty. Ugly sight. Got any mana left?” Xun Ying planted hands on hips, mockery bright as a poisoned flower.

“Plenty. No need to worry.” Bai Zhi’s smile was a candle flame, small but steady. Fire roared up her frame again, a furnace fed with wind.

“I’m out of patience.” Xun Ying’s smile tilted vicious, like a knife. Black fog hardened into a death spear and, in a blink, punched through Bai Zhi’s guard. Blood-holes opened in her flesh like red blossoms after rain.

Teeth clenched, heart iron, Bai Zhi blocked and slid back, body a flicker in storm light. In the instant of impact she used her bloodline blink, slipped behind Xun Ying into the embrace of phoenix fire. Scarlet pinions burst alight; a hail of crimson-gold lances punched through Xun Ying, a sewing of light.

“Well, well. Careless me—I got hit.” Xun Ying’s grin warped, a mask over a beast. “But… does it matter?” She swung black claws for Bai Zhi’s head, a guillotine of night. Two forces crashed, and the shock wave howled; the molten hell shivered and, in an eyeblink, baked into a dead desert.

Bai Zhi answered with a storm of light-swords, a river of blades. Under the endless rain, Xun Ying’s arrogance curdled into anger, like milk turned sour.

“I told you—your attacks do nothing. Are you thick?”

Death’s breath rolled over the wasteland like winter fog. The blast hammered Bai Zhi; stars burst behind her eyes, and darkness tugged like deep water. Pink-tinged skin blanched snow-white; her life-force thinned like blown embers.

“Cough…” She wiped grit from the corner of her mouth, tasted iron and ash, and clawed from the ruins. “Heh… you’ll need more to kill me.”

“…” Xun Ying’s brows knotted like storm cloud; she clenched a fist so hard it bled.

“Looks like that was your all. My turn to press, isn’t it?”

“Ah—yes… not yet!!!”

A black flicker crossed Xun Ying’s eyes, like a crow’s shadow. A monstrous silhouette rose from her back, a thing knitted from grievance and night. The moment it appeared, Bai Zhi saw a beast made of wails and grudges. The shadow stamped down; the world buckled; Bai Zhi was driven into the earth’s heart like a nail.

‘Tch—what is this? A strike at the mind?’ The air around her filled with a weird keening, like ghosts sobbing in a long corridor. Citizens’ complaints hissed, old enemies’ hatred burned, alien malice pressed in. Faces she had faced surged up and flooded her skull like a black tide.

‘…I have no regrets.’ Calm first, like a stone under surf; then motion. In the dark, Bai Zhi opened her eyes, two cold stars. She tore the shadow like old cloth and shot for the light.

“What!?” Xun Ying stared, stunned, as Bai Zhi burst from the earth’s heart like a comet. A sure-kill stamped strike had barely touched her?

“That’s impossible… You should be drowned in grievance! Why aren’t you affected?” Xun Ying’s pupils reddened, gaze drilling like augers.

“You’ll understand soon…” Bai Zhi’s eyes were winter glass. She widened the gap with a single breath, then returned to the same relentless pattern, shaving away Xun Ying’s mana like a whetstone.

One thing was certain: not long ago, Xun Ying had been an ordinary person. No combat sense, only a floodgate of power kicked wide open. The divinity she’d borrowed would run dry. Bai Zhi’s task was simple as a blade—never let her recover.

Unwilling, Xun Ying kept trading blows, her rhythm fraying like old silk. When she finally noticed, this opponent was a briar—clingy, cutting, impossible to shake.

“Damn it!!! Is your mana bottomless?”

“It isn’t bottomless. It just keeps coming back.” Bai Zhi spoke evenly, eyes fixed on Xun Ying like a seasoned hunter boxing in a stag at the cliff’s edge.

“You asked what makes me different from an ordinary person? This.”

“I may not have Xuewei’s breathtaking talent. I can only use my family’s inherited power to shield this nation. But if war comes, I’ll be the first to step out and the last to fall. I’ll promise my people a country that’s safe and strong. That’s the one thing I can do.”

“I won’t let you spread death’s breath to another city. If you want this country’s ruin, step over my corpse first!”

She surged, wild as a brushfire. Those words were for the woman—and for the thing behind her. The Divine Phoenix’s Nirvana strike braided death and rebirth, the strongest blow, a wave that erases shores.

Xun Ying’s eyes went wide as moons. Faced with Bai Zhi’s charge, a death wish burning like a torch, she froze for a heartbeat.

And Western Garden City, already scraped to the bone, met a final, devastating strike, like the sky itself falling.