The two flaming dao-sabers split downward through the air, shrieking with the fury of packed Yang fire. Behind the blades, Protectors Wu and Zhao moved with the timed together, lethal care of veteran combatants who had slaughtered hundreds of rogue fighters and wild beast tribes in the border wars. The twelve-hundred-degree heat waves warped the autumn light, blistering the bark on nearby cedar trunks before the metal even made contact.
Gu Long and the Crimson Flame scouts cheered loudly, their fists raised in bloodthirsty triumph. Young Master Yan Zixuan smiled cruelly, his chin raised in excitement of the little blue jelly ball bursting into scorched steam.
Beside them, Envoy Lu Yunzhi stood with cold calm distance, his frosted sword hovering quietly as if the outcome were already settled by alliance decree.
Then, the world seemed to stop breathing.
Before the flaming sabers could go down five paces, Xiao Hei didn’t retreat, nor did he leap aside. He simply lowered his front shoulders by half an inch, planting his massive black glass claws into the limestone bedrock.
A single, earth-shaking heartbeat echoed through the gorge.
THUMP.
From the depths of Xiao Hei’s chest erupted a sound that was not a bark, nor a growl, but the ancient rumble of an ancient underground avalanche. The silver star-pattern runes along his ribs flared with blinding lunar radiance. He cast stark, knife-sharp shadows across the clearing. The air around him suddenly thickened, turning from a warm mountain draft into an invisible, water-pressure vice of crushing sky thickness.
It was the sovereign domain of a Tier-4 Beast King. Amplified to unthinkable purity through Lin Xiao’s Primordial Soul Circuit!
BOOM!
An invisible pillar of gravity force slammed down from the open sky like an iron hammer the size of a pavilion.
The limestone path shattered into thousands of spiderwebbed fissures. The two flaming dao-sabers were crushed toward the ground as if swatting an invisible mountain. The blazing scarlet fire licking along their edges sputtered, flickered. Then they put out instantly in the choking empty pocket. That left only smoldering copper metal shaking wildly against the rock.
“What—?!” Protector Wu gasped, his eyes bulging so wildly that red tiny blood vessels burst across the whites.
Before the Core Formation elder could circulate his internal spiritual sea, the gravity pressure multiplied tenfold. His knees buckled with a sickening crunch. His heavy layered-scale armor groaned under huge strain as he was driven into the stone, his face slamming directly into the damp moss and gravel.
Beside him, Protector Zhao let out a strangled shriek before suffering the exact same fate. His broad frame flattened against the earth, the breath blasted out of his lungs in a single agonized wheeze. The two proud Core Formation sovereigns lay pinned to the mountain floor like squashed insects under a millstone, unable to lift a single finger, their spiritual spirit veins choked into total stillness by the choking gravity.
The five scouts behind them dropped to their bellies in sheer horror, weeping and clutching their heads as the crushing aura pressed their chests against the stone.
High above the mounting step of the crane carriage, Envoy Lu Yunzhi’s aloof sneer vanished. His face drained of all color, turning as white as winter frost. His hovering sky steel sword gave a wild, shrill screech, its tip wobbling wildly as the envoy struggled with all his spiritual might just to keep the flying blade aloft in the crushing domain.
“Tier-4... Sovereign pressure?!” Envoy Lu stammered, his high-born composure shattering into panicked fragments. “Impossible! A Tier-4 Beast King is equivalent to a human Nascent Soul Patriarch! Why would a mythical beast of the deepest ancient deep pit be standing guard on a border ridge?!”
The four-winged spirit crane shrieked in mortal terror, flattening its belly against the limestone ledge and burying its beak beneath its wings, fully numbed by the apex hunting beast’s scent.
Young Master Yan Zixuan stumbled backward, slamming his spine hard against the carriage wheel. His jade fan slipped from his numb fingers, clattering into the mud beside the shattered tea bowl.
His mind went fully blank. His two unbeatable protectors—the very elders who had protected his father’s estate for sixty years and slaughtered mountain demon clans without breaking a sweat—were lying face-down in the mud, drooling into the moss under the mere presence of a black dog!
And on top of that black dog sat the little blue jelly ball, fully calm, tilting its semi-clear head with mild, curious amusement.
“Master,” Xiao Hei whispered through their telepathic bond, his tail giving a single, satisfied wag that sent small blast waves through the air. “The two loud humans are grounded. Shall I crush their ribcages now, or would you like to use them for field fertilization?”
No crushing, Xiao Hei, Lin Xiao replied casually, his fluid body wobbling gently as he patted the wolf’s crown. We need fertilizer, but not with bad karma attached. Just keep them pinned so they don’t break any more teaware. Though I have to admit, that gravity press technique of yours is extraordinarily neat. It’s like a giant invisible steamroller.
Yan Zixuan heard the little blue blob make a soft, bubbly chuckle.
To the young master’s fractured ego, that quiet chuckle sounded like the mocking laughter of an ancient fiend playing with its food. The realization that he had walked into the territory of a sovereign monster, kicked its tea. Then he demanded its servitude sent a spike of icy terror through his heart.
Humiliation, panic, and wounded vanity collided within his narrow chest like colliding fireballs.
“You... You demonic beasts!” Yan Zixuan shrieked, his voice rising into a shrill, frantic scream. “Do you think you have won?! I’m Yan Zixuan! The bloodline heir of the Crimson Flame Pavilion! My father is an illustrious Nascent Soul Grandmaster! You dare humiliate me before the envoy of Heavenly Sword Manor?!”
With shaking, manic fingers, Yan Zixuan tore open the front of his vermilion silk robes.
From a hidden pocket lined with ice-silk and warding magic charms, he drew out a long, narrow sword sheath carved from pure crimson spirit crystal. The sword sheath was bound with nine golden bands, each etched with ancient draconic sealing glyphs.
Envoy Lu’s eyes widened in sudden recognition. “Junior Brother Yan! No! That’s your father’s life-bound heirloom—!”
“I DON’T CARE!” Yan Zixuan screamed like a cornered beast.
He clamped his teeth down on the tip of his tongue, biting hard until bright, crimson blood-essence pooled in his mouth. With a deep-throated roar of sheer desperation, he spat a mouthful of life-blood straight onto the ruby handle of the weapon!
HUMMMMMMMMM!
The crimson sword sheath shattered into thousands of glowing red shards!
In Yan Zixuan’s trembling hands rested a blade of pure, semi-clear scarlet crystal. It was four feet long, shaped like a soaring fire-dragon, with a central groove pulsing like an exposed, beating main heart artery. This was the Crimson Flame Sword. A Grade-4 High-Tier Spiritual Ancient object, forged three thousand years ago from the molten heart of an extinct volcano and cooled in the blood of an ancient Fire Wyrm!
The moment the blood-essence soaked into the blade, the nine draconic sealing glyphs dissolved into smoke.
ROOOOOOOOAR!
A world-ending shriek of Draconic Yang-fire erupted from the sword, tearing through the gorge!
The heat didn’t merely rise. It blew up. The cool autumn air vanished, replaced by an inferno of raging dragon-fire that soared fifty feet into the sky. The limestone path melted into bubbling, orange melted rock waste under Yan Zixuan’s feet. The surrounding trees burst into violent flames within half a second, the dry pine needles exploding like fireworks.
A wave of crimson heat measuring over twenty-four hundred degrees billowed outward. It pushed back Xiao Hei’s gravity domain through sheer heat-powered violence!
Envoy Lu scrambled behind the carriage, activating his sky steel sword’s defensive ward to shield himself from the blistering backdraft. “He awakened the Fire Wyrm Spirit! The entire gorge will be reduced to a lake of lava!”
Yan Zixuan’s skin turned blistering red. His silk sleeves burned away into cinders as the ancient object devoured sixty percent of his life-force to ignite its core array. His eyes were bloodshot and fully wild, his mouth foaming with bloody spit.
“DIE! DIE! DIE!” Yan Zixuan howled, raising the roaring Crimson Flame Sword with both hands. “TASTE THE WRATH OF HEAVEN! CRIMSON WYRM INFERNO STRIKE!”
With all the strength leftover in his trembling arms, Yan Zixuan slashed the sword forward!
A blinding crescent of roaring dragon-fire, sixty feet wide and burning with white-hot fiery fury, detached from the blade. It hurtled through the gorge like a falling comet. It screamed with the ear-splitting roar of an ancient fire-wyrm, aimed dead-center at Lin Xiao and Xiao Hei, intending to burn up every living cell within half a mile!
A sharp, urgent chime sounded within Lin Xiao’s mind:
“Warning,” the Dao Spirit said with calm, sweet-sounding care. “Incoming heat giant fire contains high concentrations of astral star-iron and ancient reptilian marrow essence. Heat thickness is exceptionally high. Ingestion is strongly recommended before surrounding timber suffers irreparable ecological burn.”
Lin Xiao’s sapphire eyes sparkled with sudden, genuine delight.
Twenty-four hundred degrees? Forged from fiery crystal and star-iron? Lin Xiao thought, a joyful quiver rippling through his jelly mantle. And it’s headed straight for my dinner plate!
As the huge wave of fire closed within ten paces, Lin Xiao didn’t flinch. He crouched his squishy body down against Xiao Hei’s crown, compressing like a coiled rubber spring.