The difference between Zhou Shiwei before and after he removed his limiters was like heaven and earth. Previously, the four of them had managed to fight him at a slight advantage, but now, he was completely owning them.
Wu Jian had somehow managed to activate Body of the Celestial White Tiger and was fighting Zhou Shiwei alongside the others, but none of their attacks hit. Most dissipated like a gust of wind before they could even reach him. When they realized their long-range techniques wouldn’t work, they tried for close range, but he froze them in time with little more than a wave of his hand before sending them flying back.
This wasn’t a battle anymore. It was a one-sided slaughter. And he and his companions were the ones on the chopping block.
Even so, Wu Jian tried his best. He fought with everything he had. He fought tooth and tail despite how even the smallest fraction of movement felt like wading through thick mud. Zhou Shiwei’s domain had re-activated and slowed them all down. The fact that they could fight at all was a miracle unto itself.
But no matter how hard they fought, they could not win, and it wasn’t long before he had them beaten.
Wu Jian could barely even move. His body was covered in cuts, all the bones in his left arm had shattered, his right leg was bent at an angle it was not supposed to bend, and his blood was creating a pool underneath him. To make matters worse, the aura this man was releasing was so far beyond him that it was like his brain couldn’t process what he should do. The others were in similar straits.
All except one of them.
Hou Jingshu had pushed herself to her feet. Like him, she was bleeding in multiple places. Her collarbone had been shattered at some point, but it had healed up. Dragons had fast regeneration, and hers was on par with the best of them. Yet even her vaunted healing could not fully keep up with the wounds their enemy had inflicted on them. Despite this, she now stood between Zhou Shiwei and them, her glaive out, held in a shaky grasp.
The all-powerful man blinked.
“I am surprised,” he said after a moment. “Even Perfection Realm experts can do little but bow before me. You have not even reached the peak of the Nine Mortal Realms, yet still you stand before me. You have my respect.”
“Save your respect for someone who wants it,” Hou Jingshu spat, breathing heavily. It was clear that just standing there was taking all of her effort. Yet despite how hard she must have been struggling…
… the woman was smiling.
It was a broad smile. Viscous too. He had seen similar smiles on her before. It was the one she wore when faced with overwhelming odds, when death was more of a certainty than possibility. This was the smile she only wore when she was enjoying a life or death struggle.
The man looked at her and snorted. “I see you take after your progenitor. Qinlong was much like you. That creature was a right terror. I’m glad he ascended. Had he remained on this small world, I would have had a lot more trouble controlling the humans.”
He took a deep breath, then spread his feet apart. The ground around him was breaking, but it wasn’t the same as the earth shattering from a powerful force. It was more like time and space were fraying at the edges. He didn’t have long to remain on this world.
“Break the Firmament of Time.”
Zhou Shiwei moved… and then it was over.
Several thin white lines appeared all over Hou Jingshu’s body. Time seemed to freeze. Then it started in a gushing spray of crimson as Hou Jingshu collapsed to the ground. It all happened so fast that Wu Jian couldn’t even fathom what was going on.
“Jingshu!”
Then Zhou Shiwei appeared before him. The man stared down at him, and Wu Jian felt… insignificant. Small. It had been a long time since he’d felt this weak and powerless, and he did not like it.
“You should have taken my offer. Now you will die. And I will take Wu Meiying back to the Nine Heavens with me.”
This moment…
Wu Meiying had seen this moment. Back when they were children, she had seen an image of him lying in his own blood as someone stole her away from him. He had always assumed that what she had seen was the destruction of the Wu Clan. Now he understood. What she had seen was this very moment in time.
“Not… on… my… watch,” Wu Jian growled as he gathered his courage and tried to stand up.
Yet before either of them could move, his chest began glowing with a brilliant silvery-blue hue. Both he and Zhou Shiwei looked down. The jade pendant that sat against his chest was something Hou Jingshu had gifted him a long time ago. Back when they were still young and she needed to return to the imperial capital to care for her father, she had given him this necklace. Now it was glowing.
“Blade of the Frost Moon.”
A voice that Wu Jian had become intimately familiar with echoed all around them, but it seemed to come from the pendant. His eyes bulged as several powerful waves of ice swept out from the pendant and slammed into Zhou Shiwei. The attacks came so fast that neither of them had time to react. Zhou Shiwei received several massive gashes that tore through his body. Blood splattered through the air, then froze in midair, as ice covered the wounds and quickly began to spread.
Zhou Shiwei’s eyes were like two saucers.
“NOOOOO!” he shouted.
The aura that had so intimidated Wu Jian was gone, and he seized the opportunity. He didn’t know how Hua Xue managed to use his pendant as a medium, but he was not about to look a gift horse in the mouth.
“Body of the Celestial White Tiger!”
Power erupted from his body as he transformed, doubling, tripling, and then quadrupling his strength. He stood, raised his sword above his head, and compressed all of the qi he possibly could into the blade. The world around him was shattering. The addition of his spatial abilities and Zhou Shiwei’s own cultivation level was causing the entire area to destabilize, but Wu Jian kept his focus. He compressed as much as he dared, until Pale Moon creaked ominously like it was going to break from the strain.
Then he swung.
“Cleaving Through the Heavens in a Single Stroke.”
A thin line appeared where he swung. It went right down the middle of Zhou Shiwei. Nothing else happened at first, but then the world before Wu Jian was cut in two, and Zhou Shiwei’s body was similarly split into two.
What happened after was not something he had anticipated. All of the power that had been in this area had nowhere to go, so it erupted. The explosion threw him off his feet as qi rampaged like an angry child kicking up a tantrum. Wu Jian could see nothing but white as pain seared into every fiber of his body. Then he struck something hard and the world briefly went dark.
When Wu Jian woke again, the world had changed. He was lying in a crater so immense that it could have housed a large city.
“Oooowch,” he muttered as he sat up with a groan. Moving hurt. He looked down at himself to see that his entire front was marred with burns. He grimaced as he slowly climbed to his feet.
He studied the crater in more detail. Coiling mist swirled around him and several areas had spatial distortions that revealed a vast, starry sky beyond.
Zhou Shiwei was gone.
“He’s dead, right?”
Wu Jian asked of no one. He had split the man cleanly in two. He remembered that much. He didn’t know a lot about the Seven Divine Realms, but he doubted anyone could survive being cut in half.
“Where are the others…?” Wu Jian wondered. A moment of panic seized him as he remembered what happened to Hou Jingshu. He began stumbling around, calling out for them. “Mei! Jingshu! Lili! Is anyone there?”
He called their names over and over again. No one answered at first, and his heart quickly began to sink.
“Jian…!”
A voice made him stop. He cocked his head to the side.
“Mei! Mei, is that you?!”
“Jian! We are over here!”
Wu Jian turned toward the source of the voice. There was some debris littering the area. He rushed over and listened some more.
“Where are you?” he asked again.
“Down here!” Wu Meiying shouted.
He heard where she was and began digging, pulling up large boulders from the ground, until he found three people huddled inside. Wu Meiying knelt protectively before Zhou Lihua and Hou Jingshu. There was some kind of thin film surrounding them, a barrier of sorts, but it dissipated the moment Wu Meiying saw his face.
Her eyes lit up in a smile, and he felt bad, but he had to interrupt her before she said anything.
“How is she?” he asked.
Her face fell, but now was not the time. Hou Jingshu had been critically injured if not killed by Zhou Shiwei. He needed to prioritize her safety over Wu Meiying’s feelings.
“Jingshu is…”
Wu Meiying trailed off and looked at Zhou Lihua, who bit her lip as they stared at each other.
“She will live, though she will be extremely weak for a while. That attack did serious damage to her dantian and meridians. The only pill that will fully heal her is a tier 9 pill… that I don’t have the ingredients for. But she is stable, at least, and not in danger of dying.”
Wu Jian nodded as he gestured and Hou Jingshu was lifted into the air. He flinched only slightly at the straight of using the Dao of Space. He was so low on qi that his legs threatened to buckle just from this simple application of it. He released his space manipulation when Hou Jingshu was safely in his arms. Glancing at the other two, he gestured with his head.
“Come on. We need to leave here and inform everyone that Zhou Shiwei is dead. I’d like to bring this battle to a close.”