Jin Xiyue carried many life-saving means from her father—protective artifacts, Gu worms, and restrictions. They were built to block fatal blows, buy time, and pull her out of danger. But she still died in one move.
It wasn't just strength. It was a kind of move Wang Zhen used.
He didn't only pour all his power into a single strike. At the moment of impact, he also used ten Fragments of Thread of Laws together. That decision is what let his attack slip past the protections that should have saved her.
First, he narrowed the force into a thin line, so nothing scattered on contact. Second, he dulled the strike's "feel" at the surface, so wards didn't fully register it. Third, he shifted timing by a breath, making trigger-based defenses react late. Fourth, he bent the path without moving his fist, avoiding the strongest angle of her shield. Fifth, he kept the outer layer soft and the core hard, so power peaked inside the body. Sixth, he muted the attack's spiritual "noise," keeping reactive Gu asleep until too late. Seventh, he borrowed a harmless signature for a blink, so a minor ward didn't flag it as hostile. Eighth, he cut spatial drag, preventing energy loss between launch and hit. Ninth, he split the strike into shell and core: the shell triggered outer defenses, and the core arrived a moment after. Tenth, he bound all of this to execute as one instant, leaving no gap to interrupt.
Each effect came from an individual Fragment of a Thread of Law, which meant Wang Zhen had activated ten Fragments of Threads of Laws at the same time. That's why Xiyue's treasures failed. They weren't weak or poorly chosen. They were beaten by a strike designed to step past what they could sense and answer.
There's a difference between refining fragments of the threads of laws and using them together. Refining gives access—one tool at a time. Using is coordination under pressure. Even many Ascendants who have refined fifty fragments can only stabilize around ten simultaneously in real combat. Stack too many, and effects clash, slow, or blur. Most fighters pick three to six for a live exchange, eight to ten for a planned kill.
Wang Zhen held ten cleanly. No show. No waste. Just the right effects, in the right order, in the same breath.
Simply put, a Deity Formation cultivator bypassed an Ascendant-level defense not by realm suppression, but by using Fragments of Thread of Laws. He chose one sure move over many good ones, left no second exchange, and made the protections answer too late.
...
Wang Zhen and Jin Shang clashed in midair. The force of their fists tore the sky open, showing a pitch-black void beneath—no stars, no light, just true emptiness. CRACK! The air shook.
As they backed away from each other.
Jin Shang gathered power into his fist. Three fragments of the Law of Suffering lit up on the back of his hand, each line showing in three faint colors. He drove that fist forward.
Wang Zhen stepped in to meet it. An imprint also glowed on the back of his own hand—different lines, different meaning.
BOOM!
Their fists collided. The black void flickered wider for a heartbeat. Both imprints vanished at once. The light from Jin Shang's mark shot into Wang Zhen's hand; the light from Wang Zhen's mark shot into Jin Shang's hand.
They were both thrown back.
Wang Zhen caught himself, but his right hand—where Jin's light entered—went wrong fast. Veins turned black under the skin, crawling up from the knuckles. He let out a low growl. "Old bastard's using the Law of Suffering." Without wasting a breath, he cut off his own forearm at the elbow. Slice. Blood poured in a steady stream, then slowed as he sealed the stump with force.
-
On the other side, Jin Shang's arm shook. The bones in his hand crushed inward with a dull crunch; the palm twisted out of shape. Blood dripped from his fingers. At the same time, his vision blurred and his chest tightened, as if chains were wrapping around his heart.
He breathed out through his nose. "Law of Bodily Restriction… and Law of Strength?" he muttered, eyes narrowing. The Law of Bodily Restriction made his head swim and his chest feel bound. The second had shattered his hand on impact.
Neither moved in for a moment.
Divine energy rose around Jin Shang like a calm tide. His broken hand straightened, bones knitting with soft cracks, flesh smoothing over the damage. He flexed once; the fingers obeyed.
Wang Zhen didn't have the luxury of Divine Energy. He was still a Deity Formation. He pulled a pill from his ring and swallowed it. A pale light spread from the stump, muscle and bone pushing out, skin covering cleanly. In a few breaths, a new hand formed. He clenched it once to test the grip.
They looked at each other across the torn air. No words. Just the sound of their breathing and the quiet ring of a sky that didn't want to split again.
...
A solid halo flared behind Jin Shang's shoulders, streaked with red and black. It didn't glow; it was solid, as if carved from force itself. Above the left side of his head, a second sign formed: a half-halo shaped like a semicircle, green and translucent, a thin crescent hanging in the air.
Jin Shang rolled his wrist once and set his stance. "Wang Zhen, looks like I have to get serious."
Wang Zhen wasn't pushed back by the sight. Behind his own shoulders, a round outline of white and black light turned on—an empty-ring halo, clear in shape but translucent, made of pure radiance rather than substance. It was made of light, like the semi-halo that hung above Jin Shang.
He glanced up once, then back at Jin Shang. "Jin Shang, come if you dare."
The air tightened between them. Jin's solid halo, steady and heavy. Wang Zhen's light-ring breathed in silence, bright at the rim and empty at the heart. And the green half-crescent over Jin Shang shimmered.
Wind skated across the torn ground. WHOOSH!
Neither rushed. Jin's pressure sank into the field like a weight added to a scale. Wang Zhen's presence thinned and sharpened, less a wall and more a line you couldn't step through without bleeding. No more words. Just the halos turning once, slow and clear—red-black solid against white-black light.
...
They met in the air and didn't slow down. Fist to palm. Elbow to forearm. Knee to knee. Each exchange carried a different edge from fragments of laws—force narrowed to a needle, space shaved thin, impact muted then doubled a breath later. BOOM! CRACK! The pitch-black void flashed open in thin seams above them again and again, showing nothing but darkness before stitching shut.
Jin Shang pressed steady and heavy. He layered fragments that weighed movements down, blurred senses, and gnawed at the body—Suffering, Gravity, Silence. Wang Zhen answered with clean, short cuts—Restriction to stall flow, Strength to harden counters, Veil to hide spiritual fluctuations until it landed. WHOOSH! THUD! The air shook and leaked power in waves.
They drifted in a circle without meaning to, hemming each other in. Neither gained a clean step of ground. Jin's divine energy felt like a deep well that would never dry. Wang Zhen's spiritual energy cut fine lines and held him even, but every exchange cost him a little more.
They broke apart for a breath and went in again. Jin's palm curved, added a twist that bent space a finger-width—enough to slide past Wang Zhen's block and graze his side. THUD! Wang Zhen answered with a straight counter layered to peak inside the target, not at the skin. Jin's sleeve tore; the bone under his forearm hummed.
VOID FLICKER! CRACK!
-
"If this keeps going, I'll run out of spiritual energy," Wang Zhen thought, eyes steady. "His divine energy is tiers above my spiritual energy, and he has more of it stored. If I drag this out, I'll die here."
They clashed three more times. On the third, Jin's fist slipped over Wang Zhen's guard and tapped his shoulder hard. Wang Zhen let the hit carry him back, turned his body with it, and dropped distance fast like he'd been pushed clean out.
During that fallback, from the ring on his hand.
He took out two Gu worms.
CRUSH!
Jin's eyes widened.
The first was the Emperor Berserk Gu—a natural rank seven, consumable, one-use Gu. It was crushed to death between Wang Zhen's fingers. Power slammed through his body—strength and spiritual energy spiking fifteenfold in a single breath. His meridians groaned, then steadied.
The second was the King Calm Soul Gu—an artificial rank six, consumable, one-use Gu. A cool stream slid through his mind and sea of consciousness, smoothing the surge, settling his breath and thoughts. The rage and wild heat from the berserk rush pinned down under a clear, even calm.
Wang Zhen's aura climbed hard, but his eyes stayed level.
Across from him, Jin Shang let a small grin show. "It turns out he had such a trump card."
Emperor Berserk Gu and Sovereign Calm Soul Gu could be considered a pair, a one-use setup: the first explodes the body's output, the second steadies the mind to control it. Emperor Berserk Gu floods the user with a surge that multiplies strength and spiritual energy many times over in a single breath, but it drags rage, tunnel vision, and self-injury risk as the body and meridians strain under the load. Sovereign Calm Soul Gu pours a cool, anchoring clarity into the sea of consciousness, keeping thoughts clean, senses precise, and killing intent under control even while power is spiking.
When used together, Berserk provides the raw force and fuel for overwhelming offense, while Calm Soul prevents the usual drawbacks—loss of judgment, wasted movement, and backlash—letting the user aim, pace, and stack law fragments without the surge tripping over itself.
Wind skimmed the broken ground. The thin seam of void above them held, waiting. Wang Zhen flexed his hands once; the surge didn't shake. Calm sat over the blaze like a lid on a boiling pot.
...
They moved at the same moment.
Wang Zhen shot forward, aura burning steadily under the Calm Soul. Jin Shang met him head-on, red-black halo humming low. Their fists crossed. BOOM! The sky split again, a clean tear into pitch-black void. The tear thinned, then widened as they pressed, then sealed with a hiss when they broke apart.
Wang Zhen stacked fragments tight and fast—Restriction to stall Jin's force, Strength to load short counters, Veil to hide the energy fluctuations. Jin layered his own—Suffering to grind nerves and marrow, Gravity to weigh every motion down, Silence to smother qi ripples before they could anchor strikes.
They traded palms. THUD! Wang Zhen slid inside a beat and turned the line of Jin's arm with a timing shave, then sent a needle of force that peaked a handspan past the skin. Jin anchored with a hard pivot, twisted space a finger's width, and bled the needle off to his shoulder. CRACK! CLOTH TORE!
-
They separated, then crashed again. WHOOSH! Wang Zhen cut across Jin's center with a feint that felt empty at the edge and hard at the core. Jin answered by sinking the ground under them for a heartbeat, stealing Wang Zhen's footing in the air as if weight had been hung from his ankles. Wang Zhen leaned into it, used the drop to whip a low kick that dragged a strand of law across Jin's knee. Jin stepped over it and tapped Wang Zhen's guard aside with a half-turn of the wrist.
Void flashed open over their shoulders, starless and cold. Divine and spiritual energies washed out uncontrolled, then snapped back as both reined in at the last blink.
Wang Zhen kept his stack clean: three, then five, never messy. He shifted angles without moving much, letting the fragments do the work—path-bending, noise-muting, inside-peaking. Jin fought like a millstone—nothing wasted, pressure steady, layers grinding will and body in small, sure bites.
Their halos turned once: Jin's solid, Wang's light-ring bright on the rim, and the green semicircle above Jin Shang dipping, little like a mark tracking the flow.
They crossed midair—elbow to forearm, knee to thigh. BOOM! Wang Zhen shaved time by using a Fragment of the Thread of Law of Fractured Time, making a counterland a blink earlier than it should. Jin's Gravity caught it late but caught it, enough to keep the hit from biting bone. Jin's backfist carried Suffering along its edge; Wang Zhen let it brush, then cut the pain thread with a narrow Restriction so it couldn't root.
They reset at ten paces, breath white in the cooling air. Dust hung. Leaves had stopped moving. The tear above them widened, showed that same bare nothing, then narrowed again like a wound deciding not to split further.
-----TO BE CONTINUED-----