The air trembled.
Baihu stepped forward, blade at the ready.
Yan's eyes locked on his. Her smile widened.
Ryu didn't move. But behind him, reality stretched, just a little.
The next clash wasn't just about pride.
Across the chamber, Yan's battle had shifted.
The knife-wielder, quick, erratic, his elemental Qi pulsing wildly, lunged low, aiming for her side with deadly speed. His eyes were sharp, but his strikes were desperate.
She didn't move. Not at first.
At the last possible second, she pivoted with fluid grace, letting the blade skim past her robe. Her free hand snapped out,
WHAM!
Her boot struck him clean in the ribs.
He didn't fly, he launched, his body rag-dolling through the air.
He smashed into the far wall with a bone-rattling crunch, the impact spiderwebbing the stone behind him. Dust rained down in soft trickles.
He didn't get back up.
Gasps rang out.
The elemental cultivators nearby stopped dead in their tracks, all blood draining from their faces. Baihu's second-in-command, a spear-wielding Ascension Stage Four cultivator, tightened his grip.
And then… it began.
The air around Yan started to shimmer. Waves of compressed Qi pulsed out from her body in slow, measured bursts. Her flame didn't ignite, it breathed, slow and deadly. The pressure in the room doubled, then tripled.
Her cultivation… began to rise.
Stage Three… Four… Five…
And then it settled.
Ascension Stage Six.
The spear-wielder took a cautious step back. Baihu's eyes widened slightly, but he didn't flinch.
"Oh," Yan said softly. "That surprised you? You haven't seen anything yet."
Without another word, she vanished.
BOOM.
Her blade met the spear in a horizontal slash, the impact forcing the second-in-command back five full paces. The man barely blocked the blow, but she was already moving again.
Flames burst to life at her heels as she spun mid-air, her sabre carving a clean arc through space. Phoenix fire roared around her, forcing the spear wielder into retreat as she danced between strikes, her movements more art than war.
But before she could finish him off,
BZZZZZKRAK!
A bolt of lightning carved through the air. It crashed into the floor between them, splitting the stone with a shriek of power.
Baihu entered the fray.
His white blade hummed with pure power, the Skyfallen Blade hissing with caged thunder. The purple gem at its guard throbbed with stored Qi, ancient, wrathful.
"You should have stayed quiet," Baihu snarled. "Now you'll die knowing you were second best."
Yan laughed, low, amused, unafraid.
"Second? Oh sweetheart," she said, fire blooming along her shoulders, "I haven't even warmed up."
Their swords clashed.
Steel rang against steel, but Baihu's blade wasn't just metal. It pulsed with lightning, the force of each swing laced with electric backlash.
Yan gritted her teeth as sparks grazed her skin. Static danced across her arms, one arc slicing her cheek and leaving a thin, glowing wound.
Her smile vanished.
Baihu pressed in. His blade blurred with precision and savagery, each strike meant to cleave through flesh and melt bone. He was fast. Controlled. Brutal.
But Yan… wasn't losing.
She weaved between his strikes, her phoenix fire catching every bolt of lightning that lashed toward her, forcing them to curl away in plumes of flame. The heat and static filled the air like a storm fighting itself.
Then,
CRACK!
A direct hit.
Lightning streaked across her face, hissing through her flame and cutting across her jaw. Blood ran down her neck.
For a moment, everything went still.
Ryu stood at the far end of the room, eyes suddenly sharp. "Everyone," he said calmly, "get behind me. Now."
Akari, Himari, Veris, even the injured, all of them moved without hesitation.
Ryu began drawing space around them like a second skin, a protective veil humming into existence.
Back at the centre of the room, Yan didn't flinch. Her hand lifted, fingers brushing the side of her bleeding face. The blood sizzled.
And then her eyes met Baihu's.
"You shouldn't have done that."
Her voice dropped. No longer playful.
No longer warm.
Dead calm.
She raised her sabre high, fire coiling around it like a sleeping dragon stirring.
"I've never used this blade released," she said.
"But now…"
She stepped forward.
"You've angered me."
The ground beneath her cracked.
A scream, no, a cry, rippled through the room.
It wasn't human.
It was avian and It was divine.
The Phoenix Sword awakened.
The walls trembled. Flames exploded outward in a spiralling wave as the blade pulsed with life for the first time in over 35,000 years. The red and white patterns woven into her robe ignited, flickering like feathers on fire.
The shriek of the phoenix echoed off every surface in the obelisk chamber, cracking stone and scattering those nearby like leaves in a storm.
The temperature skyrocketed.
Ryu roared. "Everyone I don't care who you're with get behind me, now!"
He extended both arms, his Qi exploding to Rank Nine Ascension. A dome of space curved into place, shielding the elemental cultivators and those below Ascension. The air behind it warped, heat and pressure funnelling past them like a solar wind.
Ronan dove behind the barrier, ice melting off his blade before he could speak.
Veris shielded Himari, eyes wide with awe. The others cowered behind Ryu's domain of space, trembling.
The Rank Four Ascension cultivator, Yan's earlier opponent, didn't make it.
He was still on one knee when the wave hit.
A single breath later, and he was gone. Vaporized. No scream. No trace.
Baihu stood his ground.
But his expression had shifted.
He wasn't smirking now.
He wasn't taunting.
He was afraid.
Yan walked toward him slowly. Her blade no longer crackled, it seared. A plume of heat followed her like a cloak. Her presence bore down like a falling star.
"You think borrowed power makes you sovereign?" she said quietly.
The Phoenix Sword flared again.
"I am Phoenix blood. This blade chose me. You are nothing but an echo of your master's shadow."
Baihu gritted his teeth and roared. His own blade, the Skyfallen Edge, surged with lightning. Sparks exploded across its white surface, the purple gem in the hilt glowing like a storm's eye.
Their blades clashed.
The room split in two.
Lightning arced in all directions, warping against Yan's flames. Their Qi collided like warring storms, one wild, jagged, electric. The other pure, incandescent, divine.
Yan ducked under his first swing and slashed upward. Baihu blocked, barely. Sparks flew, but not from her blade. From his.
The phoenix flame hissed against the ancient metal of the Skyfallen Blade.
He thrust forward again, a jab of condensed lightning aimed at her ribs.
She spun, dodged, and slammed her knee into his chest. He grunted and stumbled back, coughing.
Yan didn't stop.
She flicked her blade up. The phoenix screamed again, and fire burst upward in a pillar.
Baihu jumped back just in time, his robes smoking.
He growled. "I'll kill you!"
"You can try," Yan whispered.
They clashed again.
And again.
Each strike left new burns in the floor. Each scream of the phoenix shook the minds of those watching.
And for the first time in his life, Baihu began to doubt.
She was faster.
Stronger.
And the weapon she carried… was alive.
The last blow sent him skidding across the chamber, his boots tearing grooves in the floor.
He looked up, trembling.
Yan didn't move to strike again.
She let her blade rest at her side, still alight.
"You're still alive," she said calmly. "That's mercy. It won't last."
Baihu spat blood.
The room was silent, no one dared speak.
Not even Ronan.
Not even Ryu.
The Phoenix Sword burned in the quiet. Its shriek still echoed in the walls.
And Yan stood tall at its centre, undisputed.
Unmatched.
Baihu stumbled to his feet, chest heaving, robes scorched and torn at the edges. His aura flickered like a guttering torch, still fierce, still fuelled by rage and pride, but no longer stable.
Yan exhaled slowly.
Then, she unleashed everything.
Her Qi surged through the Phoenix Sword in a blinding rush. The flames didn't ignite, they erupted.
The sword drank in her power like a starving beast. Fire pulsed across its length, and from her back, two enormous wings of flame unfurled with a crackling woosh. They spread wide, majestic and terrible, casting a searing glow across the entire chamber.
The wings weren't feathers.
They were plumes of concentrated phoenix Qi, their edges trailing embers that curled and danced through the air like ribbons of living light.
Ryu's eyes widened. She's letting the sword devour her Qi freely… she's merging her flame with its core.
Yan didn't speak.
She didn't need to.
With a blur of movement, she rushed Baihu again, faster than before. Each strike forced him backward, every swing of her blade ringing with power. But she didn't use its full force. Not yet.
She struck with her fists, her knees, the heel of her boot.
A blow to the ribs sent Baihu staggering. He retaliated with a roar, lightning crackling down his blade in desperation.
She sidestepped.
Let the attack sail past.
Then drove her knee into his gut with enough force to dent steel.
Baihu gasped, blood spattering from his mouth as he flew backward.
And Yan stopped chasing.
She stood tall.
Raised the Phoenix Sword high above her head.
The air warped around it.
Qi thickened, turning molten.
And then,
She brought it down.
The sword cut through the air like a falling star, flame trailing its arc in a blinding slash.
A streak of fire surged forward, a blade of flame that stretched from her feet to the far end of the chamber. It carved through the stone floor like butter, the heat cracking and blistering the walls, scorching a line of obliteration across everything in its path.
Baihu didn't scream.
There was no time.
The fire consumed him, armour and pride and flesh.
By the time the flames died down, there was nothing left but a blackened groove in the floor, and a silence so deep it pressed against the soul and the ring he wore from his master.
The fight was over.
Yan exhaled, steady and controlled, as the flames curled away from her shoulders. The wings folded inward, flickered once, then vanished in a slow dispersal of ash and golden light.
The Phoenix Sword, satisfied, dimmed.
The radiant blade cooled, heat receding as the metal absorbed what was left of the burning Qi. Yan let the tip rest against the stone, then returned it to her sheath with one smooth motion.
Even with the fire gone, her aura didn't retreat all the way. The pressure in the room still lingered, powerful. Commanding.
A Rank Nine Ascension cultivator stood before them.
Breathing evenly.
Not a single hair out of place.
Her gaze swept across the chamber, landing on no one in particular.
But everyone, every single person present, felt it.
This wasn't just a cultivator.
This was a sovereign in the making.