The instant the four of them crossed fully beneath the intertwined roots of the Ambrosial Arbor, the world seemed to exhale.
The ambient light dimmed into a deep jade twilight. The vast trunks above coiled and layered upon one another like petrified serpents, their bark etched with veins of sickly gold that pulsed faintly, as though some colossal heart beat within the wood. The ground was no longer stone but a lattice of roots fused with mineral and salt, polished smooth by centuries of submersion. Each step carried a subtle tremor upward through bone and muscle, an alien rhythm that did not belong to the natural world.
Then Sunny saw her.
A ghostly green flame hovered several dozen paces ahead, suspended above a lotus that had blossomed directly from the Arbor's largest root. The lotus was enormous, its petals translucent and veined with amber light, each edge gleaming as if carved from polished jade. It rotated slowly in the stagnant air, unbound by wind or gravity.
Within the hovering flame, a silhouette flickered. Her presence pressed against the mind like an invasive fragrance.
She whispered to herself, tone hushed in genuine wonder.
"Now I see why the Disciples of Sanctus Medicus hold themselves in such high regard... the Arbor's traces really do possess the power of metamorphosis and resurrection."
Her words were not addressed to them. They were the private musings of a scholar examining a relic.
Jing Yuan's golden eyes narrowed slightly, though the faint curve of his lips remained. Fu Xuan lifted her chin, eyes now opened and gaze piercing, calculations flowing through her mind like the rotation of celestial bodies. Dan Heng stepped half a pace forward, sea-light glinting along the edges of his horns as the parted waters trembled faintly behind them.
Sunny felt the pressure build.
It was subtle at first, like humidity before a storm. The ghostly flame quivered once, then descended, dissolving into the lotus beneath it.
The lotus responded.
Its rotation accelerated, petals unfurling wider, light spilling outward in concentric rings. The roots around it writhed faintly, responding to the Arbor's will. The lotus began to rise, ascending into the air with deliberate grace.
Then the light detonated.
It did not explode outward violently; it expanded with unstoppable inevitability, filling the chamber with blinding radiance. For a fleeting instant, the four figures were reduced to silhouettes etched in gold.
When the light receded, a colossal form stood before them.
She was immense, easily rivaling the height of the surrounding roots, her body sculpted from living Abundance. Green and gold armor-like growths curved across pale, luminous skin. A crown of branching gold extended from her head like a radiant halo, and vast lotus-petal wings unfurled behind her, each leaf veined with shifting patterns of vitality. Her hair cascaded in dark waves, interwoven with threads of light.
Her eyes opened, twin stars burning with delighted cruelty.
Phantylia laughed, and the sound reverberated through the Arbor's roots.
"The very powers that the Xianzhou used to gain long lives… I will use to bring it to Destruction!"
As if in answer, a pressure descended.
It did not simply press downward; it declared authority. It resembled the aura of a Saint, yet surpassed it in something less tangible and more absolute. The world acknowledged her existence as superior. The roots bent slightly toward her. The air thickened.
Sunny's instincts screamed.
Without hesitation, he tore away the talismans that covered the Celestial Jade board beneath his arm. The paper charms fluttered to the ground, dissolving into sparks of script as the board's surface flared with inner light.
A voice echoed from it, bright and curiously petulant.
"Duel protocol initiated. Who would you like to challenge?"
Sunny did not hesitate.
"That woman."
Silence.
Then, dryly:
"There are multiple women present. What is her most defining trait?"
Sunny froze.
His Flaw activated without mercy.
His mouth moved before his mind could restrain it.
"Big… big tits?"
The words echoed across the chamber with humiliating clarity.
Dan Heng's hand rose immediately to his face in a precise, silent facepalm. Jing Yuan, infuriatingly, offered Sunny a subtle thumbs-up without losing composure. Fu Xuan turned slowly toward him, her glare sharp enough to bisect mountains.
"There is no possibility that the board can distinguish that—"
The Celestial Jade board hummed thoughtfully.
"Target found. Damn, that lady looks spicy. Don't fumble, you lucky bastard."
Fu Xuan lost all composure, gaping with an almost offended look in her eyes.
Phantylia's eyes narrowed.
Before she could respond, space fractured.
Reality folded inward like paper caught in invisible hands. The Arbor, the roots, the Saints — all vanished in a blink. The colossal body of Abundance was severed from its environment.
Sunny and Phantylia stood facing one another across a vast expanse of something that resembled a board game exploded into infinity.
Tiles floated beneath their feet, layered in intricate patterns of bamboo, dragons, winds, and characters. Cards drifted like falling leaves in the distance. Above them hung a singular, radiant core — a Supreme Soul Core suspended in the sky like a pale sun, its surface etched with countless shifting runes.
It was a Soul Sea.
Phantylia understood immediately.
Her lips curved into a thin smile.
"So, you intend to entertain me."
Without hesitation, she exerted control, reaching into Sunny's nervous system to disrupt the electrical impulses governing muscle and mind.
Nothing happened.
She intensified her focus, attempting to fracture synapses, to sever command from action.
Nothing.
She shifted tactics, moving to manifest physical force.
Her arm did not move.
A pressure bound her, gentle but absolute.
Her gaze sharpened.
Information flooded her mind.
Rules.
Conditions.
Rewards and punishments.
If she lost, she would be inflicted with an effect determined by a random Celestial Jade tile. Bamboo would drain her Soul Essence. Winds would inflict soul damage. Dragons would tear at physical form. Characters would erode vitality or distort perception.
If she won, she would receive the opposite — regeneration, restoration, amplification.
However, there was balance embedded within cruelty. With each loss, the loser's luck would increase in the next match. The winner's luck would decrease.
Probability would shift.
Phantylia surveyed the space calmly, eyes flicking toward the Supreme Soul Core overhead.
"So this is a Soul Sea. How quaint."
She turned her gaze upon Sunny.
"Did you truly believe that such a parlor trick could defeat me?"
Sunny tilted his head slightly, expression unreadable.
"No."
She paused.
Confusion rippled faintly beneath her composure. She knew he could not lie; she had combed through his memories before. His Flaw rendered deception impossible.
Before she could exploit that, the board's voice rang out sharply.
"Hostile intent detected. Shut your mouth, lady."
Phantylia's lips sealed.
Not metaphorically, but forcefully.
Her jaw refused to part. Sound died in her throat. Humiliation flickered across her eyes.
The board declared cheerfully:
"Match one."
Tiles formed between them, materializing into neat rows.
Phantylia assessed her hand.
She felt confidence return.
Though she had never dedicated herself to Celestial Jade mastery, she had played several times while masquerading as Tingyun. She had observed strategies, understood scoring patterns, and absorbed the flow of the game. Against someone who had never touched the tiles before, her advantage should be overwhelming.
Sunny examined his tiles silently.
His training with Qingque stirred, not as brute force but as pattern recognition, strategic instinct, and calculation executed at frightening speed. His mind mapped possibilities with mechanical precision.
The first rounds were measured.
Phantylia discarded cautiously, assembling sequences with fluid confidence. She baited, misdirected, concealed.
Sunny responded with minimal expression, discarding without hesitation, drawing with steady rhythm.
Phantylia noted his lack of visible uncertainty.
'Strange…'
Midway through the match, she shifted tactics, accelerating her aggression. She pursued a high-risk hand, calculating that even if she failed, the luck adjustment system would compensate in future rounds.
Sunny adjusted seamlessly.
He disrupted her potential sequences with surgical discards, forcing her to pivot. He constructed a balanced hand that minimized exposure to variance.
Probability curved.
Her final tile failed to complete her hand.
Sunny drew.
Placed.
And declared victory.
The board chimed delightedly.
"Winner: Sunless. Punishment applied."
Phantylia felt it immediately.
Invisible bamboo spears drove into her soul, piercing without physical wound yet draining Soul Essence as though siphoned through countless straws. The sensation was not pain but depletion — a thinning of vitality, a hollowing.
Her regeneration faltered, slowed by half.
Her eyes widened imperceptibly.
This should not have happened.
She had anticipated difficulty. Not this.
The board announced:
"Match two!"
Her luck increased.
She felt it — subtle shifts in draw probability, favorable clustering of tiles. She pressed harder, adopting calculated aggression. Sunny's luck diminished.
And yet, he compensated.
He abandoned greed, embracing conservative structure. He forced Phantylia into overextension. His discards manipulated her reads, baiting her into committing to flawed assumptions.
She declared prematurely.
He countered.
Victory.
Bamboo spears multiplied.
Her Soul Essence dipped further, regeneration dragging like syrup.
Phantylia's calm cracked.
This was Celestial Jade, not warfare. Strategy alone should not produce this level of dominance against improved luck.
Realization dawned.
The Luofu had prepared him.
They had trained him relentlessly, perhaps under supervision of those who specialized in Celestial Jade. Or worse — they had embedded some Path-based enhancement specific to this game.
By the third match, she felt irritation sharpen into anger.
Luck surged to her side again.
She received an extraordinary opening hand. Sunny's was average at best.
She smiled inwardly.
…He still won.
Not through raw probability, but through manipulation. He forced discards that constrained her optimal path. He predicted her adjustments with unsettling accuracy. War God's Divine Lineage allowed him to perceive patterns not as isolated moves but as evolving battlefields.
The board's voice rang out once more.
"Triple victory! Damn, that was smooth."
Phantylia's essence shuddered.
Bamboo spears thickened, draining until half her Soul Essence was gone. Worse still, her natural regeneration was crippled, halved again under compounding effects.
The Soul Sea trembled faintly as they were expelled.
Reality snapped back.
The roots of the Arbor surged into view. The giant body of Abundance reformed, though something within it felt thinner, less stable.
Phantylia staggered half a step in the air, lotus petals fluttering unevenly.
From the outside, the Saints sensed it immediately.
Her aura had diminished. Bamboo pierced her metaphysical core, siphoning vitality continuously.
Rage burned behind her eyes. Without hesitation, she waved her ornate fan.
Lotuses erupted from the ground, dozens blooming in rapid succession, petals slicing through air like blades. Tendrils of Abundance shot outward, seeking to entangle, to infect, to overwhelm.
She had underestimated the Luofu's accumulations.
But she was still a Supreme Titan.
Even with half her Soul Essence and crippled regeneration, her presence dwarfed that of three Saints and a Master. Her artificially constructed vessel was infused directly with the Arbor's authority. The roots answered her will.
The battle resumed with violence.
Jing Yuan stepped forward, lightning coiling around his guan dao as thunder cracked overhead. Fu Xuan's arrays ignited, predicting trajectories and countering with calculated precision. Dan Heng thrust his spear into the earth, waves of compressed water surging forward in controlled torrents that sliced through lotus stems.
Sunny exhaled slowly. He wasn't sure if he had gotten lucky with the punishments or not. He'd prefer to deal direct damage to Phantylia, as he wasn't sure how much decreased Essence would assist them.
***
The moment reality finished reasserting itself after the forced duel, Sunny felt something far stranger than the fading echo of bamboo spears embedded in Phantylia's metaphysical body.
He felt full.
Not physically, but spiritually — violently, oppressively full.
All the Essence that Phantylia had lost through defeat had not vanished. The Celestial Jade board, impartial in its cruelty, had transferred it in its entirety to the victor. Under normal circumstances, that Essence would remain in an external reservoir within the soul, a temporary fund to be drawn upon during subsequent matches or conflicts. It was a safeguard against waste, a mechanism of balance.
However, Sunny was not normal.
His three Shadow Cores were already filled to the brim. They throbbed within his chest like dark stars at the limit of collapse, each one saturated with condensed Shadow Essence. Under ordinary logic, the surplus should have hovered harmlessly in storage, inaccessible but contained.
Instead, it surged inward.
The Nightmare Spell did not hesitate.
[…Your shadow is overflowing with power.]
[…Your shadow is taking shape.]
Sunny's eyes widened, even as lotus petals screamed through the air around him.
Of course.
Shadow Fragments were equivalent to Soul Shards. Soul Shards were crystallized Soul Essence. The Supreme Soul Essence he had stolen from Phantylia was not just energy — it was substance. His Divine Aspect did not recognize 'external storage' as a final state. His soul interpreted excess as potential.
Potential demanded structure.
The foreign Essence, still tinged faintly with Abundance and Destruction, was stripped of its origin and translated by his Aspect into Shadow Essence. It darkened, condensed, and fractured, forming glittering motes within his Soul Sea. Those motes compacted into Shadow Fragments — countless fragments — each one sinking into his existing Cores.
The pressure inside his chest mounted catastrophically.
The three Shadow Cores pulsed in rapid succession, drinking in the Fragments greedily. Their surfaces grew denser, darker, heavier. Cracks of invisible strain began to form along their metaphysical shells, not from damage but from expansion.
They reached their threshold.
They did not shatter.
They overflowed.
The excess Shadow Fragments coalesced at the center of his Soul Sea, swirling into a vortex of unbearable density. A gravitational singularity of darkness began to form, compressing itself with violent inevitability.
Sunny doubled over.
Pain detonated inside his ribcage as though someone had driven a molten spike through his sternum. The agony was blinding, far beyond the slow torment of advancement he had experienced before. This was forceful evolution, a Divine Aspect tearing open space within him to make room.
Dan Heng noticed immediately.
He turned sharply, eyes flashing with alarm as Sunny staggered amidst the battlefield.
"Sunny!"
The Lord Ravager's lotus petals surged toward them in glittering torrents, slicing through the air with lethal precision. Jing Yuan intercepted with spinning arcs of lightning, his guan dao blurring as thunder detonated with each deflection. Fu Xuan stood unmoving, her massive third eye blazing above her head as trajectories bent and curved away from her position. Dan Heng shattered incoming petals into vapor, water flowing at his command.
Yet Sunny barely perceived any of it.
He laughed.
The sound was breathless, raw, threaded with pain and exhilaration.
"Don't… worry about me,"
He forced out, clutching his chest as the vortex inside him condensed further:
"This is… the ideal outcome."
Another pulse of agony tore through him as the vortex collapsed inward, compressing into a seed of absolute darkness. It beat once.
Twice.
Then it ignited.
A fourth Shadow Core formed within his chest, hanging with the others like a newly born eclipse joining a malignant constellation. Its gravity stabilized instantly, anchoring the storm of Fragments and absorbing the last of the excess Essence.
The pain did not vanish; it stabilized into a brutal, manageable throb.
Sunny inhaled sharply and straightened, eyes shining with something unhinged.
Phantylia had not been idle.
Her lotus petals intensified, forming a swirling storm of razor-edged fragments that tore through stone and root alike. Jing Yuan moved at the speed of lightning, his guan dao — an exquisite masterpiece far beyond the quality of his other Memories — spinning in fluid arcs that blurred into gold. Behind him, additional Memories materialized: a slender jian, a long spear, and a bow forged entirely of metal, including its taut string.
They hovered around him, guided by electromagnetism, intercepting attacks and launching counterstrikes with mechanical precision.
Sunny's eyes flicked toward the General's primary weapon.
The guan dao was extraordinary.
Its balance, its spiritual density, its faint resonance with The Hunt — every detail marked it as something beyond ordinary craftsmanship. Even amidst the chaos, Sunny recognized the difference between it and the conjured Memories. That blade was a legacy.
However, the strange negativity he felt from it was similar to Hail Sorrow.
Fu Xuan remained centered, hands folded as lotus petals veered around her in impossible curves. The massive eye above her pulsed with astral geometry, redirecting trajectories before they could fully manifest. Meanwhile, Dan Heng wove water into shields and spears, petals dissolving into liquid the instant they touched his domain.
Phantylia did not neglect Sunny.
A concentrated torrent of petals broke away from the storm and screamed toward him, a hundred blades converging at once.
He could not dodge in time.
He activated the Silent Mist's enchantment.
Black vapor erupted around him in a tight sphere, intercepting the incoming petals. Each blade halted midair as though striking an invisible wall, their edges grinding against condensed darkness. Essence drained rapidly from his Soul Sea as the enchantment strained against the sheer number of impacts.
The barrier began to fracture.
Cracks of gray light splintered through the mist.
Right then, the fourth Core finished stabilizing.
Sunny felt the shift like a lock clicking into place.
He released the enchantment and invoked Shadow Step simultaneously, his form dissolving into darkness an instant before the petals broke through. He reappeared several dozen paces away in a relatively clear zone, lungs burning.
Hail Sorrow materialized in his hand.
His gaze shifted to the lotus flowers surrounding Phantylia's towering form. They were not ornamental. Each bloom pulsed with Abundance, releasing fresh torrents of razor petals in synchronized bursts. They were the true engines of her offense.
If those fell, her storm would falter.
The problem was proximity.
He was still only an Ascended Devil, even with four Cores. Phantylia remained a Supreme Titan, her vessel anchored directly to the Ambrosial Arbor's authority. Charging blindly would be suicide.
Jing Yuan raised his guan dao high.
"Lightning Lord!"
The world answered.
Behind him, a gargantuan avatar of pure lightning manifested, dwarfing even Phantylia's immense frame. The Lightning Lord's form mirrored the General's stance, its own colossal guan dao crackling with unbearable voltage. When Jing Yuan swung, the avatar swung in perfect synchrony.
A torrent of lightning descended.
The lotus storm disintegrated in a violent cascade of vaporized petals, roots scorched black by the strike.
Sunny recognized the structure of the avatar immediately.
It was not merely energy.
It was aligned to The Hunt, a manifestation of Path authority given shape, much like the Lance of Preservation was.
Phantylia responded instantly.
Instead of reconstituting the petal storm, her lotus blooms shifted function. Their centers opened, releasing clouds of shimmering spores that drifted outward in slow, insidious waves.
Every Saint retreated a half-step.
A mind attack, or perhaps an insidious poison.
The spores carried invasive vitality, seeking to infiltrate through breath and pore alike.
Sunny observed the Saints maneuver carefully, avoiding inhalation zones. Dan Heng generated gusts of controlled wind to redirect clusters, while Fu Xuan's calculations predicted safe paths through the drifting haze.
He scowled.
He was still outside the decisive clash.
Despite wanting Phantylia's Destruction more than any of them, his rational mind screamed caution. She was not merely powerful; she was conceptually entrenched in Abundance. Recklessness would serve her.
His gaze dropped to his sole shadow.
The others were still augmenting him, reinforcing muscle, nerve, and perception. But the one that lingered slightly apart — the Creepy shadow — stared back with its eerie, hollow gaze.
It had been destroyed during the Second Nightmare alongside his previous fourth Core.
Now, it had returned.
The moment the new Core formed, the shadow had reconstituted itself as though it had never been gone, its outline flickering at the edges of his vision.
It slipped onto him.
Strength flooded his limbs.
With Creepy augmenting him, he now possessed the cumulative force of five Ascended Devils. It was no small power.
It was still insufficient.
He thought rapidly, analyzing angles, assessing weaknesses, mapping Phantylia's patterns and considering his options.
And yet—
Something hotter burned beneath logic.
The Flame of Desire.
It roared within him, drowning caution in incandescent defiance.
He was tired of calculating survival.
He wanted her dead.
Against every rule he had forged to preserve himself, he turned toward the drifting spores and sprinted straight into them.
The Haughty shadow, completely unprompted, slipped off his body, looking upon him with its arrogant gaze.
For a brief moment, its hollow eyes glowed amber.
Sunny inhaled contaminated air without hesitation. The spores slammed into his mental defenses like tiny battering rams, but compared to Phantylia's direct psychic violation from before, they were insignificant irritants.
His lips moved without conscious command.
"Set the skies ablaze…"
The rest dissolved into something incomprehensible even to him, a fragment of a greater declaration buried within his Flame.
Far beyond the material world, something noticed.
Qlipoth.
The amber body of the Preservation did not bestow a blessing.
Sunny took.
His Flame of Desire refused to be extinguished or directed. It reached outward and tore at the Path's authority, stealing a portion by force, bending it to his ego rather than surrendering to it.
Amber light detonated around him.
The spores incinerated instantly.
When the radiance receded, the Lance of Preservation stood in his right hand. An inky gauntlet encased his arm, shadow hardened into carapace. Glowing amber lines streaked across the black surface, climbing his neck and tracing over the right half of his face beneath pale skin. A jagged half-crown of amber rested over one side of his head.
Behind him unfurled a single draconian wing of shadow, immense and angular, amber thrusters embedded along its span humming faintly.
A translucent shield of amber expanded outward, enveloping all four of them.
Sunny instinctively tuned its configuration.
The barrier thickened around their minds, reinforcing thought and identity against invasive Abundance, while maintaining moderate defenses against physical and spiritual assault.
***
Jing Yuan felt the heat of that will and understood.
This phenomenon was rare.
When a Pathstrider's Flame of Desire clashed against the Aeon whose authority they channeled, one of two outcomes emerged. Most were consumed, reduced to vessels, their will extinguished. Mara-struck were tragic examples — souls erased, bodies animated by Abundance's surplus.
But sometimes, the Flame did not dim.
It burned brighter.
So bright that it scorched the Path itself, reshaping borrowed authority into a reflection of their being.
This manifestation required a name.
Among the highest circles of the Xianzhou, it was whispered of as Defiance — the moment when an individual's ego manifested through a Path, incomplete yet undeniable.
Both Sunny and Yanqing had touched this state before.
Neither had completed it.
Their desires lacked final clarity.
Yet the shield now enveloping them was potent beyond expectation.
Sunny did not analyze the transformation. To him, it felt natural, like moving a limb he had always possessed.
He hurled Hail Sorrow with catastrophic force.
The blade tore through spores and struck Phantylia's torso, only to be deflected lazily by her ornate fan. The Memory dissolved and returned to his Soul Sea.
He did not hesitate.
He sprinted directly toward her through the dissipating spore cloud.
The Saints followed, trusting the amber barrier that reinforced their minds.
Phantylia's eyes narrowed at the sight of him.
For the first time since manifesting, something akin to wariness flickered in her gaze.
He had stolen from the Preservation.
And he was coming closer.