The Royal Guard leader pointed Little Chaos in Kaito's direction and flickered forward.
Kaito was the closest. He was a second too late to react fully. He sidestepped, the crude, direct thrust of the spear passing by his ribs. He tensed, preparing to swing his Walking Star fist into the leader's exposed side in a punishing counter.
But something strange happened.
The spear had clearly missed him. Its trajectory was too crude, too direct. Yet the residual sparks of dark, chaotic Qi licking from its blade *touched* Kaito's face.
It was not an impact. It was an **un-making**.
He felt as if he had been set on fire by ice. The entire left side of his face, from temple to jaw, turned into shimmering particles of dark light. It happened before his **Jingdao of the Walking Star** could even register the threat and reinforce the area.
Kaito blinked once. A silent, searing void existed where his left eye had been. A choked gasp was all he could manage before the real blow came.
He heard the shouts—Lorel's cry of alarm, Gen's roared warning—from a distance.
Infinity spread out from Gen. Beams of annihilating light lanced from all directions. Lorel summoned the **Starry Sky**, casting a cascading avalanche of flaming meteors from the manifested heavens in a desperate attempt to slow the Royal Guard down.
It was too late. Too far.
The Royal Guard leader spun, a phantom of grey flesh and dark energy. Little Chaos, now an extension of his own disintegrating will, landed squarely on Kaito's undefended side.
***THUD-CRUNCH.***
The sound was sickeningly wet. Kaito was driven into the ground, carving a new furrow in the debris. He did not get up.
The leader moved with an ease that was chilling. He was fast, but not faster than infinity itself. Several beams from Gen's formation descended on him. But the sparks of dark light bleeding from Little Chaos touched the beams of infinite energy. Where they met, the beams didn't shatter; they **ceased**. They turned into nothingness, unraveled before they could strike.
The Royal Guard leader was completely unharmed. He fixed his single, burning eye on Lorel. His next target.
He shot toward her, not like a man, but like a beam of corrupted light himself. As he moved, onlookers could see the horrifying cost. His entire left side, not just his arm, had turned the same dead, ashen grey as the hand holding the spear. Unlike Buqu, who was supremely powerful and could wield Forged Destiny while still fighting properly, the Royal Guard leader did not have that level of attainment. Holding a weapon like Little Chaos—even this incomplete version—was consuming him, cell by cell.
He beamed forward, using the chaotic energy to propel himself faster, stepping on the void like a staircase of broken physics, thrusting Little Chaos toward Lorel's heart.
She summoned the **Starry Sky** to its fullest. The **Star Oblivion** bloomed. From the tapestry of night, a dozen meteors of condensed pink flame emerged, falling in a precise avalanche to intercept his path.
He ignored them. He zipped through the gaps in the falling fire, a ghost of negation. Little Chaos thrust forward, its tip disintegrating the very air, leaving a scar of pure void in its wake aimed at Lorel's chest.
A faint flash of panic spread across Lorel's face.
For Gen, the world slowed to a crawl.
Kaito, agonizing in a crater. Lorel, trying and failing to master a Jingdao she was never meant for, her defense crumbling. Juo Si's smile, slowly growing on the throne. Every detail was a shard of glass in his mind.
His heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic drum about to break. He was about to lose everything—everything he had fought for, bled for, grown for—in a single moment.
His body reacted before his mind could form the thought.
The **Eternal Body, Second Door** softened. The dense, golden vapor surrounding him vanished, receding inward. Then, a faint, almost imperceptible halo enveloped his body. It was less impressive than a basic student's Jingdao glow. Yet something fundamental in the air changed. A profound silence emanated from him.
The **Eternal Body, Third Door** was not the reinforcement of flesh, bone, or even energy.
It was the reinforcement of the **soul**.
His body flickered. He moved with an ease that felt disorienting, wrong, to the onlookers. He didn't cross the distance; the distance seemed to fold for him.
By the time Little Chaos was a hand's breadth from Lorel's robes, Gen was there.
This time, he did not try to counter it. He did not try to block it with force.
He stretched out his arms and **caught** Little Chaos.
The sight felt suicidal, impossible. The collective breath of the arena hitched.
Gen's hands, sheathed in that faint, soul-deep halo, clasped the shaft of the spear, just behind the searing, chaotic tip. The dark energy fought ferociously against the neutral, profound light of the Third Door. It screeched, a sound of rending principles. Yet, it could not fully penetrate. It could not disintegrate what was no longer just physical.
"Impossible," Juo Si muttered, the word escaping almost loudly. This aura... he could feel it. Was it the legendary technique of Immortal Jiang? The onlookers froze in awe and dread. For a Jingdao master, this was a display of a lifetime—the understanding of the most basic Wheel pushed to its absolute, paradoxical zenith.
Behind Gen, Lorel didn't wait for an invitation. Armed and terrified *for* him, her emotions a wild storm in her chest, she acted.
They had just reunited moments before Buqu. The idea of Gen being torn apart by Little Chaos like Kaito was unbearable.
She cast her arms forward, and let the **Star Oblivion** shine not as an attack, but as a **seal**.
Just as Gen, muscles trembling, began to be pushed back by the relentless, soul-sucking force of Little Chaos, a black point of energy began swirling in the space between Gen and the Royal Guard leader.
It was like a vortex was being born from nothing.
Lorel was not creating a black hole of force. She was creating **Oblivion**.
Using her supreme mastery of **Fendow**, she was **separating the space** that was locked in the violent communion between Gen's soul-reinforcement and the conceptual Chaos of the spear. She was defining a "here" and a "not-here" at the point of conflict, and annihilating the "not-here" utterly.
In a matter of seconds, the swirling black point expanded, silent and absolute. The Royal Guard leader, his expression one of final, furious disbelief, and the screaming form of Little Chaos were absorbed into the perfect darkness.
They vanished out of existence.
The black point winked out.
Gen stumbled forward slightly, the immense pressure he'd been holding suddenly gone.
The entire crowd fell into a silence so deep it was a physical presence. All murmuring died. All gossip faded into a stunned background hum.
The leader of the Doom College delegation blinked twice, his eyes wide open. "This... is it," he breathed, only to himself. At his level, how could he not know of the legends of the ancients? Starli, the Jade Emperor, the Golden Touch... all who had sought immortality and left traces of their failed, world-altering techniques. He knew of them.
By separating the space locked in the cosmic struggle, she had created Oblivion. One of the most potent sealing techniques ever theorized. Starli had hidden its principles within an offensive formation. Only a true master of Fendow could ever decipher and wield it.
On his throne, Juo Si could not hold his composure any longer. For the first time, something akin to doubt flickered in his mind.
Gen's mastery of Heidow and Infinity. The Eternal Body, now revealing depths he hadn't imagined. And now *this*.
*A year from now*, he thought, clinging to his long-held calculation, *I could still crush them. Lorel, Gen, all their friends mixed together in one swoop.*
But today... the thought was wild, uncertain. A cold thread of fear, thin as a razor, traced his spine.
*Could I escape Oblivion if it was directed at me?*
Gen floated back to Lorel's level. His replenished figure, calm and steady, gently tipped a strand of her long black hair away from her shoulder with a finger.
"Guess I'll have to be careful around you with something like that," he said, half-joking, his voice a little rough.
Lorel only flashed a placid smile, letting out a long-held breath. Her shoulders finally relaxed, the tense expression she'd worn since her capture softening. A radiant, relieved smile bloomed on her face, brighter than any Supremacy Sword.
"Did you really have to brag that way?" she said, her voice trembling slightly despite her smile. "Trying to hold Chaos in your hand..." She refused to look him directly in the eyes, a faint blush on her cheeks.
Gen's smile was softer, more genuine than any he'd worn in a long time. "I knew you had my back."
As he spoke, he turned to face Juo Si once more.
Lorel felt a rush of warmth in her chest. Although she now had his back in view, it felt different this time. It wasn't just about being partners in a fight. It was about a trust that transcended any form of fear. He had acted, literally placing his soul in the path of annihilation, trusting completely that she would be there to shield him.
Gen moved to the edge of the crater, picking up his friend. Kaito was grievously injured, unconscious, but alive. Biting his lip through the surge of relief, Gen muttered, "Unfortunately, he won't be able to take part in the last show. What a shame."
Lorel floated down beside him. "It's not shameful. Not at all. How many people can claim to have fought against a perfect weapon? You held Forged Destiny against Buqu, and now even Little Chaos. You can be proud of yourself."
Kaito, semi-conscious, managed a pained, exhaling smile, the spirit in him still defiant.
All around the devastated arena, every eye now turned from the miracle on the battlefield to the man on the jade throne.
Now that his trump card had been utterly destroyed, what would he do?
Juo Si waited for a long minute, observing with keen, chilling interest all the faces present—the muttering cursers, the lamenters who called him afraid, the pragmatists who said it was smart to flee, and the vultures who just watched, waiting for the kill.
Despite the chatter, he stood. A monarch reclaiming his rightful space. His mere presence spread out, silencing the crowd as effectively as Lorel's Oblivion had silenced Chaos.
"Gen Jiang," he said, his voice amplified, calm, and utterly controlled. "Your demise has come."
Gen and Lorel tensed, ready for the king's final, personal onslaught.
But Juo Si did not launch himself at them.
Instead, he looked up into the sky.
Everyone followed his gaze.
High above, descending on a riding platform of condensed shadow, a figure stood at the forefront.
Xian.
The Crowned Shadow had arrived.
Liang stood directly behind him, his expression unreadable, accompanied by a severe-looking woman and over twenty other figures in featureless black.
He was here. The architect of the Bliss Palace, the poison in the world's heart. The final piece on the board had just landed.