The sky had turned the color of old blood. Lightning coiled across the torn heavens in crooked lines. The wind had died. Time itself seemed to hold its breath.
And in the eye of that stillness, Kai and Yin faced the Immortal Paragon of the Pure Path.
She no longer wore the illusion of Jiang Xue's face.
She stood in her true form—plain, unadorned, and yet somehow more terrifying. Her robes no longer shimmered with divine silk, but draped like shadow-wrought cloth woven from forgotten oaths. There was nothing beautiful about her now—only the terrible power of someone who had torn apart everything that had once restrained her.
Kai Feng and Yin Shuang stood side by side, weapons drawn. The earth beneath their feet had already begun to fracture from the sheer force of the Paragon's presence.
They had faced death.
They had stood against demons and void beasts and ancient corruptions.
But this… this was something else entirely.
This was immortality.
"You should have walked away," the Paragon said quietly. "You could have lived quiet, insignificant lives. A child of a dead woman. A librarian pretending to be a cultivator. You should have faded quietly."
Yin raised the Peerless Sword. "We do not hide when the Realm is in danger."
Kai stepped forward, the Celestial Eclipse Manual glowing at his back like a phantom sun.
"You'll answer for what you've done."
The Immortal Paragon didn't speak again.
She simply raised a hand.
And the sky fell.
A blast of force ripped across the caldera, a wave of pressure so dense it crushed air into stone. Kai's shield of Chaos-Eclipse shattered instantly. He flew backward, slammed into a cliff wall, leaving a crater in his wake.
Yin dodged left, barely escaping the brunt of the blow—but the shockwave still sent her skidding across the ground. She rolled, found her feet, and launched forward in a blur of white and silver.
She slashed low—then high—then spun into a blooming lotus formation of sword arcs. Each strike shimmered with Sword Qi refined to purity, the culmination of both her own cultivation and the technique memory of Jiang Xue.
The Paragon blocked every blow.
Not with effort.
But with disdain.
Each strike halted inches from her body, stopped by invisible barriers woven from immortal-grade Qi. They rippled like heat on stone. The Peerless Sword screamed in protest, but could not break through.
Yin darted back. Kai rejoined her, blood at the corner of his mouth.
"Her body's shielded with immortal will," he gasped.
"She's not even trying," Yin said.
The Paragon raised one eyebrow. "Why would I try? Mortal Qi has no effect on me. Your little arts… they're quaint. Pretty, even. But this is the difference between candlelight and a sun."
Kai gritted his teeth. "Let's burn brighter."
They moved in tandem.
It had taken months of training—and a war—to refine their dual style. Now, their movements flowed as one. Yin was speed, slicing shadows, flashing blades. Kai was power—weight, timing, control. He wove Celestial techniques in complex formations, slowing space and bending angles.
They struck from two sides, over and over, pressure building in perfect rhythm.
A flurry of slashes.
A focused Chaos burst.
A lunar blade throw followed by a collapsing field.
They coordinated through breath, through trust, through the bond forged by fire and grief.
And still… she stood.
The Paragon didn't block or try to evade.
She let their attacks land and then dissipate into nothing.
"Your techniques are clever," she said. "But you're still far beneath the ceiling."
She raised both hands—and the battlefield exploded.
Massive energy blasts bloomed around them, carved into the very fabric of the world.
Kai's instincts screamed.
"Move!"
The ground became smoke. The sky became fire. Yin was blown back, slammed into the crumbled ruins of a sect tower, the breath knocked from her lungs.
Kai took a full glyph to the chest.
He hit the ground in a heap, ribs broken, vision swimming.
The Paragon walked slowly forward.
"Foolish mortals," she said again, voice calm. "You wield power as though it grants you equality. But you are insects trying to pierce the sky."
She pointed at Kai.
"You," she said. "Were always an error. You weren't supposed to survive this long, Han Long should have killed you. You weren't supposed to find the Seal and stop the Blood Demon."
She turned to Yin.
"And you… were supposed to die tragically in your mother's shadow."
Yin forced herself up. "You… used her face. Lied to everyone and poisoned everything."
"Yes," the Paragon said. "And look at what I have achieved."
She lifted one hand.
A blast of immortal Qi surged forward—pure, undiluted, the kind that once reshaped continents.
Yin screamed and slashed upward, her blade flaring to life.
Kai, bleeding, crawled into the spell radius and poured the last of his Chaos Qi into a temporal field.
Together—they blocked it.
Barely.
They were hurled back again.
Smoke.
Stone.
Ash.
Stillness.
Kai coughed blood. His vision doubled.
He looked over, Yin wasn't moving.
He crawled toward her, hand trembling. "Yin…?"
She groaned. Her eyes fluttered open. She pushed herself to her knees.
"She's too strong," Yin muttered. "We're not her match."
Kai looked up at the towering figure of the Paragon. She was watching them with the cold pity of an untouchable immortal.
And she was right.
Nothing they had done had left a mark.
Not their combined techniques. Not Sword Qi. Not Chaos energy.
They were losing.
The gap between mortal and immortal was simply too wide.