From the masked Half Dragonkin girl’s first strike to now, two Sixth Rank fighters locked in a grinding deadlock. Barely a dozen minutes had bled away.

With both unleashing their powers at full blast, they fought with fierce, almost joyous clarity, steel meeting storm.

Her power tuned her own pheromones, hurling her into a heightened frenzy—a Berserker state, heartbeat drumming like war.

With every fiber amplified and technique sharp as a blade, she pressed even Spring Tide—long a master of close combat—into retreat like a receding wave.

Forced to yield that edge, Spring Tide drew on a rarely used power: Cangshen, the god who commands time, cold as moonlight.

Time itself bent under that skill, but the cost was brutal; Spring Tide seldom dared to unleash it in full, lamp oil guttering low.

As both fought with everything, their stamina gaps evened out. Keep this up, and Spring Tide knew she’d burn out first, like a candle in wind.

Of Cangshen’s three facets: pausing time for herself costs least, but it only lets her slip past a blow like smoke on wind. She can’t strike in the pause.

Slowing the world’s flow is another. She stays at normal speed while the world drags like honey, so to others she becomes a blur.

That costs tens of times more than a self-pause. Even fresh in body and mana, she could use it only a few times—and only for seconds.

A sharp breath, a hard choice. She played her killing card: slow the world, then push the third facet—accelerating another’s state—to snap the white‑haired Half Dragonkin out of motion.

She blinked time, slipped a side straight past her cheek like a grazing hawk, then unleashed the combo, a string drawn to breaking.

Her speed vaulted past the Half Dragonkin’s enhanced physique. Beneath the black mask, silver pupils pinpricked; danger blew open in her chest like thunder.

Between a dodge and a clash, she chose the latter, blade to blade, storm to tide.

That was Spring Tide’s snare. With body and mana too thin to spam skills, she hunted one perfect heartbeat for the strongest strike, bowstring singing.

And that accelerated state magnified pain by several folds, turning a touch into a hammer blow.

The Half Dragonkin was launched toward a carriage in the Holy Maiden’s convoy, barely a dozen meters from Cerqin, an arrow whistling through dust.

No doubt she’d taken the hit head‑on to steer the crash that way. She just underestimated the strike’s weight, like misreading a river’s pull.

The sting felt like half her body blown apart. Pain surged like a tidal wave through her mind, yet frenzy and dragon blood kept the dark from closing.

Spring Tide knelt half‑down, spent, eyes on the carriage. Its ward had snapped; a small blast bloomed, smoke curling like serpents.

Seconds later, a sharp, unnatural chime rang from within. Spring Tide’s pupils tightened; a chill pricked her face like frost.

It was her first time facing a peer as stubborn as bedrock at the same rank.

She forced herself upright. Both bows were out of draw; the next strike would decide it, arrow or ash.

The Half Dragonkin girl, left arm bent wrong, dragged her battered body from the wreck, embers clinging to breath.

Her silver-white hair hung in a wild spill, streaked with red. The black demon mask cracked and fell in shards, revealing a face carved keen.

“Sil… Silver Luan?”

The startled voice cut in. Cerqin, hiding nearby, stared wide-eyed at the white‑haired girl stepping from another carriage’s ruins, dust haloing her.

A familiar face—the target Cerqin had captured not long ago, memories rising like mist.

Back then, the silver‑haired girl lacked the dragon tail and the two small horns. Her aura wasn’t this terrifying, storm coiling to break.

In an instant, Silver Luan, gauging Spring Tide for the final exchange, cut her gaze to Cerqin, a knife flick of intent.

Spring Tide’s face showed both understanding and doubt, yet she wouldn’t waste the opening. Her legs coiled and sprang with her last thread of strength.

Cerqin, by instinct, stepped forward a pace, voice urgent and bright in the dust. “Wait... don’t fight yet...”

Her words barely left her lips when that elusive thought rushed back, riding a surge of fierce excitement like a river breaking its bank.

Mana jittered inside Cerqin. Her scrambled psyche tried to parse the sudden flood of information, static hissing in a storm.

The jolt stalled her mind. Mid‑step, she pitched forward, a puppet with its string cut.

Silver Luan hadn’t forgotten her aim. As Spring Tide lunged, her dragon tail slammed the ground, dust blooming; riding that burst, she reached for the falling Cerqin.

Anger steered her instincts; she didn’t stop to plan how to carry the target off with her wounded body, lightning choosing ground.

Spring Tide, thinking Silver Luan meant to harm Cerqin, ignored her ripped-up body and spent-out mana. Panic drove her to burn a forbidden rite, candle to blaze.

One grabbed for Cerqin. One burned through everything, rushing to shove her away. Two currents collided, foam and fire.

Their hands touched Cerqin’s shoulders in the same breath, spark meeting tinder.

A sharp crack. Their opposing forces met in her body. Her shoulder bones slipped out of joint under the grab and shove, hinges snapping.

The next heartbeat, pink light rose from Cerqin’s skin, a blossom glow. A vast surge of life, laced with mana, flowed along their hands.

The force clamped onto them. In a single breath, that flood refilled their gutted stamina and mana, empty cups brimming.

Power flooded their limbs and bones. Both let slip a low sound, minds stalling under that sudden, blissful relief, warm tide sweeping cold stone.

But before they could marvel at being whole, a wrong swelling hit—the amplification didn’t stop, balloon skin stretching thin.

The words power runaway flickered in their minds. Then the three forces fused, an alchemical flare in the dark.

Silver Luan’s Dragon Deity ignited excitement through the blend. Spring Tide’s Cangshen sped the state’s effects. Cerqin’s runaway Love God fed it near‑endless duration.

Layered atop each other, fervent desire drowned reason, fire swallowing snow.

Driven by raw instinct, the three let out sounds better left undescribed, low and veiled, drifting across the wild plain like mist.