“As expected… an astonishing formation,” Mo Jian murmured, his voice carried away by the high-altitude wind as he hovered tens of li above the so-called “ground.”
Though ground was hardly the right word anymore.
The arena had been reborn. In place of stone and sky stood a vast, unbroken expanse of forested mountains with towering peaks that speared into the heavens, each rising over a dozen kilometers, their jagged silhouettes softened by an endless sea of green. Every surface, stone, slope, and valley floor alike, had been swallowed by dense woodland. Ancient trees stretched skyward in thick clusters, their canopies weaving together into an emerald tapestry that hummed with the suggestion of hidden life. Mist drifted through it all like living silk, coiling between trunks, spilling into valleys, clinging to mountainsides in delicate strands, as though the land itself were exhaling a dream.
It was breathtaking. Vast, untamed, and touched with an almost otherworldly serenity.
"A forested mountain range," Wang Ping had announced when the selection was made.
For Mo Jian, and for Wei Shentong, the illusion was not so complete. Mo Jian could feel the difference plainly, like a thin sheet stretched taut over the world. Poke hard enough, and it would tear. The mountains would shatter like painted glass; the forest dissolve into nothing. They would have to be careful. Neither of them could unleash their full strength here without bringing the arena down around them.
"Enough gawking." Wei Shentong's voice rolled across the sky from half a hundred li away, a distant figure against the vast heavens. "The juniors have had time to flee, as you wished. Now, we duel."
Cold satisfaction threaded through his tone, like a judge finally passing sentence. As though this battle would right some long-standing wrong. Mo Jian almost laughed. If anything, he was the one playing the righteous role this time, though being cast as the demon did carry a certain nostalgic charm. He had made a promise to the ghost, after all.
"By all means," he replied lightly.
With a flick of his will, the Heaven Enshrouding Ding materialized at his side, circling him in slow orbit. Its surface was plain, a dull blue-black metal that betrayed nothing of the force sealed within.
Across the sky, Wei Shentong moved. His qi surged, and the air trembled. Then jade began to form.
At first, it was almost mundane: a simple chair, sculpted from nothingness, hovering beneath him. A throne, austere and elegant. He sat upon it as though it were the most natural thing in the world. But the formation did not stop. Two slender strands of jade extended from either side of the throne, lengthening, thickening as they descended. They swelled, expanded, fingers emerging, then palms-
Hands. Mo Jian’s eyes narrowed, a flicker of surprise crossing his face.
No… surely not-
A vertical column erupted downward from the throne, thick as a tree trunk, then thicker still, growing with each heartbeat. Segments curved outward, vertebrae locking into place. Ribs unfurled like the frame of some colossal beast, each arc of jade snapping into existence with resonant, bone-deep echoes. Above the throne, a skull took shape; delicate, intricate, beautiful as carved crystal, and utterly massive. Piece by piece, jade bone by jade bone, the skeleton assembled itself in the sky.
Then came the armor. Vast slabs of dark, opaque jade slammed into place over the skeletal frame, forming a suit of titanic plate. Each segment fused seamlessly, layering over ribs and limbs until the construct became something more than a skeleton. A giant. It rose – no, it unfolded, into the heavens. Its shoulders pierced the cloud layer, its head vanishing entirely into the white expanse above. From the forest floor to the sky itself, the jade colossus stood complete, an impossible monument of power. Then it shifted its posture, and a nearby mountain crumbled. Stone split. Forests cascaded downward in avalanches of green. The peak collapsed against the giant’s knee like brittle sand, unable to withstand even the echo of that motion.
High above, Mo Jian hovered… and still, he barely reached the construct’s chest. A grin tugged at his lips, unrestrained, and almost boyish in its delight.
So it was going to be this kind of fight.
The jade giant moved. An arm, vast enough to eclipse entire valleys, rose with terrible grace. In its hand, jade flowed and condensed, shaping itself into a colossal weapon: a long shaft capped with a sweeping, crescent blade. It gleamed with a cold, verdant sheen, humming faintly with condensed qi. Then it fell. The halberd carved downward in a single, decisive arc, an executioner’s stroke meant to cleave heaven and earth alike.
Mo Jian was already gone. His body unraveled into lightning, a blinding streak that tore across the sky, crossing half the battlefield in an instant, reappearing a hundred li away in the span of a heartbeat.
The jade blade missed, but the world below paid the price. The weapon tore through empty air with a thunderous howl, its passage generating a storm of violent winds that spiraled outward. It struck a mountain, and the mountain ceased to exist. Stone detonated outward like a fragile shell. The peak burst apart in a geyser of rock and dust, its mass reduced to ruin in a single motion. Boulders the size of houses were hurled through the air before crashing down into the valleys below, crushing everything in their path. Forests flattened. Trees ripped from the earth like weeds. The ground split and scarred as debris gouged massive trenches across the land.
In an instant, the pristine wilderness looked as though an angry god had reached down and shattered it in passing.
Mo Jian reformed high above, lightning coalescing back into flesh. His grin widened despite himself. The jade man – no, the jade automaton – was magnificent. For one absurd, fleeting moment, a thought crossed his mind: Could it fly? Perhaps fire blasting from its palms and feet-
He cut the thought off. Fight first; indulge later. The Heaven Enshrouding Ding, which had followed him like a silent shadow, split in two. One half expanded into a shimmering azure barrier, wrapping around him in a tight, protective cocoon. The other vanished, turning ghostlike. The technique had taken two sleepless nights and countless tries to get right, but once he had managed it, it had come easy. The ding became ghostly and non-existent to everyone save him, swelling in size, until it was proportionate to the jade giant across from him, like a cooking pot sized for gods. Then it surged forward, slicing silently through the sky.
Across the battlefield, Wei Shentong saw none of it. From his perspective, Mo Jian had retreated, choosing defense. So, he escalated. The jade giant raised its other arm. Within its titanic grasp, jade flowed again, forming a massive bow that spanned like a bridge between its fingers. An arrow took shape along the string: longer than rivers and thicker than towers. Qi poured into it, almost flooding it. The sheer density of power gathering there eclipsed everything unleashed in the earlier clash between Bai Ning and Duan Cheng. The arrow drank it all in, glowing with a deep, mossy green; the color of endless forests, of life distilled into raw force.
The giant drew the string back. The world seemed to hold its breath. And then, it loosed.
The arrow vanished. No, it arrived. The distance between them collapsed in an instant, a streak of deep green swallowing Mo Jian’s vision whole – and then, detonation. An arrow of silver lightning erupted to meet it head-on. The collision was apocalyptic.
Light devoured the sky, pure and blinding, swelling outward in a violent bloom as jade and lightning annihilated one another. The shockwave followed a heartbeat later, a concussive roar that hammered the land below and shredded the clouds above into spiraling tatters. Then the explosion fractured. Lightning broke apart into a thousand writhing serpents, lashing downward in chaotic arcs; peaks burst apart on impact, stone vaporized, shards flung skyward in incandescent sprays. Fragments of shattered jade rained from above, glowing dimly as they fell, embedding into the already-ruined earth like meteorites.
For a moment, the world was nothing but ruin and light.
Mo Jian staggered as he reformed, breath hitching. The impact reverberated through him, rattling bone and spirit alike. His qi had dipped sharply. The cost of using the Ding's mirrored interior to reflect the attack back had been steeper than he would have liked.
That stung.
Across the shattered expanse, the jade giant was already raising its arm for another arrow.
However, the ghostly ding had already reached its target. It slipped into the jade giant’s body without resistance, phasing through armor, through bone, through the dense lattice of condensed qi that held the construct together. It sank deep into its core, into what might have passed for its stomach. And then, white fire bloomed, ghostly and silent. From the outside, there was no heat or light visible to the world at large. There was nothing that could be perceived by ordinary senses. Yet the jade melted all the same. A hole simply appeared in the giant's torso, its edges warping and sagging, the pristine jade softening and collapsing inward as though consumed by something unseen.
The damage spread with terrifying speed. The cavity widened, devouring everything in its path. Armor sloughed away. The skeletal frame dissolved beneath it. The immense construct that had stood towering and invincible moments ago was nearly cleaved in two, its upper and lower halves held together by what little structure remained.
Wei Shentong shouted, a sharp burst of alarm, and abandoned the construct at once. He streaked away in a lance of olive light, retreating dozens of li before halting midair. From the distance, he watched his creation come undone, jaw set tight, expression dark, as the jade giant sagged and melted into ruin.
Mo Jian gave him no time to recover. He raised a hand and pointed, and the ghostly Ding answered, substance flooding back in, color blooming across its surface, illusion collapsing into reality. Blue-black steel reasserted itself, heavy and absolute. The lid snapped open with a thunderclap.
Something inside roared.
A beast erupted skyward. Born of lightning and flame, its body a writhing fusion of crackling azure fire and searing electricity; a crocodile, a monstrosity the size of a mountain, tearing into the sky with jaws wide open. Its fangs were jagged spears of condensed lightning, flashing with every snap. Its scales burned with blue fire that rippled like living armor. Its eyes, twin blazing orbs, glowed cold as moons as it devoured the distance between them in an instant.
Wei Shentong reacted without hesitation. His palm slammed downward, and jade surged. From nothingness, a new construct formed beneath him, sleek, elegant, and no less colossal: a crane. Its body was sculpted from dense, luminous green jade, every line refined, every edge sharp with lethal precision. It spread its wings, vast, blade-like spans that shimmered with cutting intent, and lashed out as it dove to meet the oncoming predator. Its cry rang out, a piercing, crystalline shriek that cut through the chaos like shattering glass.
The two titans collided in the sky. Lightning fangs clashed against jade wings. Fire met stone. The crocodile lunged and snapped, its massive tail whipping through the air in arcs that scattered clouds like dust. The crane countered with sweeping strikes and stabbing kicks of its long spear-like legs, each movement precise and devastating. Shockwaves rippled outward with every impact. The sky seemed too small to contain them.
But Wei Shentong had already moved beyond the clash. The green crown – the Unbroken Jade Coronet – blazed to life atop his head, radiant as a captured star, pulsing with command. "Rise," he intoned.
The jade obeyed. Far below, across the scarred battlefield where fragments of the shattered giant lay scattered, something stirred. The earth ruptured. From the debris, from buried shards and splintered remains, immense pillars surged upward, towering flagpoles of solid jade. They rose in a vast circle encasing the entire battlefield, each one as thick as a mountain’s spine and just as tall. One erupted straight through the base of a mountain, pulverizing stone as it forced its way upward, reducing the peak to cascading ruin as though it were nothing but sand.
At their summits, banners unfurled, woven strands of jade, impossibly fine, rippling as though caught in an unseen wind. They shimmered with power, each one inscribed with patterns that pulsed faintly, resonating with the others.
“A formation,” Mo Jian muttered, the last trace of his grin gone, his gaze sharpening. It was not one he recognized, and that alone made it dangerous. His qi surged in response, pouring more deeply into his natal artifact. Around him, the barrier thickened, its azure glow intensifying until it burned like a second sun, layer upon layer of protection stacking into a fortress of light. And still, when the formation activated, it felt as though a mountain had been dropped onto his shoulders. The pressure came from everywhere at once, an all-encompassing force pressing against his qi, against his flesh, against the air itself. Mo Jian held firm, feeding more power into the barrier, and began to analyze.
His gaze swept from one jade flagpole to the next. He was considering splitting a copy of the Ding into a Thousands Array Formation Plate to probe the array when something caught his eye.
Below, the forest was changing. It began as a subtle sheen, a glimmer that didn’t belong, and then it spread. From the base of the jade pillars, like ink bleeding through water, green crept outward in a widening circle. The earth itself began to transmute. Soil hardened. Rock smoothed. Everything it touched turned luminous and cold; turning into jade. The transformation advanced steadily, inexorable. Bark crystallized. Leaves stiffened, their vibrant greens deepening into polished, gleaming surfaces. Branches froze mid-sway, locked into perfect stillness. In seconds, the living forest became a sculpture, an imitation of life rendered in flawless stone.
Mo Jian narrowed his vision, pushing qi into his eyes, forcing his perception beyond the surface. Even the drifting particles caught the light differently now. Dust shimmered faintly green as it passed through his field of view. It wasn't dust anymore. Minute fragments of jade, suspended in the very air.
He let the enhancement fade.
"I see…"
A transmutation formation. Everything within its bounds - earth, air, matter - was being rewritten, converted into jade at a fundamental level. His barrier and qi were holding it back for now, burning away the invasive force as it pressed inward, but that came at a cost. A steep one. The longer he remained inside, the more qi he would have to expend just to exist. And Wei Shentong knew it. Mo Jian’s gaze flicked upward. The man hovered high above, calm and unmoving, bathed in the green radiance of his coronet. He made no move to attack, content to let the formation do its work. Like a hunter who had already set the snare, waiting patiently for the prey to exhaust itself. He would only intervene when necessary; when Mo Jian tried to break out.
“...Tch.”
Targeting the formation would not be simple. He would have to endure its relentless pressure while dismantling it piece by piece, and all the while, Wei Shentong would be there, ready to strike. It was a clean trap, he had to admit it. He had been outplayed. The thought came without bitterness, only clarity. He should have anticipated something like this. Should have been watching more carefully.
But – Mo Jian's lips twitched faintly – he wasn't actually trapped. After all, he still had his ghostly technique. For one brief, absurd moment his thoughts wandered: I really should name it. The Ghostflame Technique? The Netherworld Cauldron? Something grander, perhaps-
He shook the distraction away instantly. There would be time for naming later.
He raised a hand toward the Heaven Enshrouding Ding. A ghostly duplicate peeled free from the blazing barrier surrounding him, intangible, invisible to all but him, belonging entirely to his perception. At his command, it fractured. One became many. Each copy split cleanly from the last, multiplying in silence before expanding rapidly in size, swelling until they rivaled the jade flagpoles that anchored the formation. Then, with a single thought, they surged outward in perfect synchronization.
From the outside, Mo Jian appeared motionless. A man withdrawn behind layers of glowing defense, offering no sign of action.
His counterattack was already in motion. The ghostly Dings reached their targets almost simultaneously, descending to the base of each pillar where it had erupted from the earth. Without resistance, they phased inward, sinking into the jade until the full girth of each pillar was encompassed within their unseen forms. Then they ignited. Ghostly white fire flickered to life, without heat or light discernible to the outside world, yet the effect was immediate and catastrophic. Just as with the jade giant before, the flagpoles began to fail. Their bases warped and softened, the pristine jade distorting as though reality itself had begun to reject it. The material sloughed away, collapsing inward, dissolving into uneven, misshapen remnants.
The destruction spread incredibly fast. First, one pillar groaned, and fell. The sound was immense, like an ancient tree tearing free from the earth, magnified a thousandfold. It crashed downward, its vast length smashing into a nearby mountain, nearly splitting the peak in two. Then, another toppled into a valley, its impact sending up roiling clouds of dust and shattered foliage, the echo of its fall rolling outward like distant thunder.
One after another they collapsed, until the formation unraveled entirely, its jade banners crumpling, their power dissipating into the empty air. The ground trembled in the aftermath. Mo Jian allowed himself a small, satisfied smile as he dismissed the ghostly constructs, their forms dissolving back into nothingness.
There, it was handled. Now-
Wei Shentong moved. His palm struck upward, pressing against the sky itself, and jade answered his command once more. It bloomed and twisted in the air, rapidly coalescing into a new weapon; vast, and brutal, and unrefined compared to the elegance of his earlier constructs. An axe. Its haft was immense, rivaling the fallen pillars in size, while its blade was a colossal crescent capable of cleaving a mountain cleanly in two. Olive-green qi surged through it, saturating the weapon with destructive force as it descended in a merciless arc toward Mo Jian.
Mo Jian refused to evade. He met it head-on.
The Heaven Enshrouding Ding surged forward, his barrier falling away as it transformed from blazing qi back into solid blue-black metal, expanding as it moved until it matched the axe's enormous scale. The two collided, and the impact rang out like the cracking of the world. A shockwave blasted across the sky, scattering clouds and shaking the air for miles. A hastily reformed qi barrier flared around Mo Jian, absorbing the backlash and anchoring him in place.
The axe shattered. It broke apart instantly, fragments of jade exploding outward like glass meeting an unyielding wall. The Ding, by contrast, remained utterly unmoved. Its surface was unmarred, its presence absolute.
Mo Jian's smile deepened slightly. He had suspected as much, but confirmation was always satisfying. The Unbroken Jade Coronet was versatile, adaptive, capable of shaping countless constructs at will, but in terms of raw durability, it could not compare. The jade it created, no matter how vast or intricate, lacked the fundamental resilience of a true natal artifact. In a direct clash, the outcome was never in question.
Steel against glass.
“Time to end this,” Mo Jian said quietly, more to himself than his opponent, not willing to give Wei Shentong any more initiative. Seeing the formation had given him an idea, and now, it was time to put it into action.
With a subtle gesture, the Heaven Enshrouding Ding dissolved once more into its ghostly state, rising silently into the sky, imperceptible to all but him. Then, without warning, Mo Jian dropped his defenses entirely. The blazing barrier vanished. For one deliberate moment he hung exposed in the open air. He turned his head slightly, a mocking grin flashing across his face toward Wei Shentong. Then he fled. His body unraveled into lightning, a brilliant arc tearing across the sky at full speed.
Take the bait.
Wei Shentong hesitated, just for an instant. Then he moved. The Unbroken Jade Coronet flared with verdant light, and jade coalesced around him once more. A sleek boat formed beneath his feet, its body smooth and elegant, its sides adorned with delicate wings like those of a cicada, thin, translucent, and humming with power. They beat once, and the boat vanished forward. It surged after Mo Jian in a streak of green, nearly matching the speed of the fleeing lightning. But Wei Shentong did not stop there. Behind him, jade gathered again, shaping itself into a massive crossbow mounted along the length of the vessel. Its limbs stretched wide, its structure dense and refined, gleaming with a deeper, richer hue than his previous constructs.
An arrow formed, long, heavy, and lethal. Wei Shentong placed a hand upon its shaft. Qi poured into it in a relentless torrent, flooding the weapon until it turned translucent, like glass straining to contain a raging green storm within. The air around it trembled under the pressure. Then it fired. The arrow screamed through the sky. Mo Jian veered aside instantly, his lightning form bending sharply, the projectile tearing past him by mere meters before plunging into the heart of a distant mountain. The peak shuddered, and then ruptured from within.
Another arrow followed. Then another. The sky filled with streaking jade death, each projectile as large as a grown man, each one guided with lethal precision. Mo Jian did not slow. He did not defend. He relied solely on speed; on the fluid, unpredictable motion of the Divine Water Lightning Technique, twisting, diving, and snapping through the air in impossible angles. A bolt of lightning fleeing annihilation. Behind him, Wei Shentong pursued relentlessly, his jade vessel carving a straight, furious line through the heavens. Green light chased silver, predator and prey locked in a deadly chase.
But beneath it all, unseen and unnoticed, the ghostly Heaven Enshrouding Ding drifted into place. It descended in silence, phasing through space itself, until it came to rest directly above Wei Shentong's head. Then it lowered, slowly and inevitably, enveloping the Unbroken Jade Coronet completely within its intangible form.
To Mo Jian's eyes, the image was almost comic: Wei Shentong wearing a translucent cooking pot and not knowing it.
The next arrow began to form. Qi gathered, structure took shape… and then it failed. The jade trembled, cracked, and collapsed into dust before it could even solidify.
Wei Shentong jerked in shock, his hand snapping forward to try again. Another arrow began to coalesce, only to crumble mid-formation, disintegrating like brittle sand slipping through invisible fingers. It wasn’t just the weapon. The jade boat beneath him groaned. Hairline cracks spread across its surface, multiplying in an instant, racing along its length like fractures through glass. The delicate wings faltered, and the entire construct shattered. Fragments of jade scattered into the air, dissolving as they fell.
Wei Shentong cursed and leapt free, abandoning the collapsing vessel as he took to the sky on his own power. Above his head, his natal artifact burned with furious intensity, the Unbroken Jade Coronet blazing so brightly that its olive radiance cut through the air like a blade. Even from a distance, Mo Jian could feel the force of it, sharp and searing against his senses. He reformed into flesh, halting a dozen li away.
Jade gathered again around Wei Shentong… and once more, it crumbled. This time, there was no mistaking it.
Wei Shentong’s eyes widened, disbelief cracking through his composure. “You… what did you do?”
Mo Jian understood that look. If his own natal artifact had suddenly turned against him, if its power had been severed by something he could neither perceive nor resist, he would feel the same. But understanding did not mean hesitation. This was the opening. He moved. Lightning tore across the sky once more, a blinding streak that bridged the distance between them in less than a heartbeat. Wei Shentong turned, alarm flaring openly now. Instinct took over; his qi surged, forming a barrier of dense, leafy green light around him.
Mo Jian reached out and placed a hand against it, gently. For a fleeting moment, nothing happened. Then, ghostly white flames flickered to life around his palm, pale and insubstantial, like echoes of fire rather than flame itself. The barrier melted. A hole opened where his hand rested, the jade-like qi dissolving in silence, unable to resist whatever force was eating through it from within.
Wei Shentong stared, shock overtaking reason. "Wh-what…?"
"I promised," Mo Jian said.
Then he committed. Every trace of qi within him surged, pouring into his arm in a reckless, all-or-nothing flood. Against an opponent of equal standing, it was an unguarded gamble. He didn't hesitate. His hand clenched into a fist, and he struck, cleanly, fully, with the whole weight of his power behind it.
The punch landed square in Wei Shentong's face.
................................................................................
AN: Next chapter, we shift to Wang Ping’s POV, who is the poor arena manager. Remember how Bai Ning felt watching the Nascent Soul cultivators of the Thousand Shattered Islands fight?
Well, Wang Ping has it both better and worse. There are only two combatants this time, and both are holding back significantly… but they’re also fighting right in front of him. Poor arena manager, indeed.
Let me know what you thought about the fight. Thanks!