Jaquan's blood ignited.
He sprinted, slamming through the chamber doors just as Thomas turned toward the doorway, eyes wide.
"You," Thomas breathed. "How did you manage to—"
Jalen struck.
A single fist wrapped in compressed shadow qi collided with Thomas's chest—sending him flying through the wall, cracking stone, and severing a formation pillar. Thomas dropped, coughing blood, but consciousness held.
Jaquan kicked open the room door.
Raiden stood inside—calm, cruel, unmoved.
Hovering above Lara was a peak star realm cultivator in red robes, palm glowing as he pressed it against her abdomen. Her body thrashed beneath him, locked in qi bindings—her face etched in agony, energy twisting inside her womb. Her lips parted to scream, but the sound was swallowed by force.
Jalen didn't hesitate or ask questions. His eyes just flare black and the red-robed cultivator got devoured by the shadow.
Jalen stepped forward and caught Lara as she collapsed. His spirit sense passed through her gently. Life pulsed—fractured but determined.
Jaquan stumbled beside them. "Lara."
"She's breathing," Jalen said. "And the baby is safe. He's strong. Fighting with his mother to stay alive."
Jaquan clutched her hand, voice cracking. "Thank you."
Then came the roar.
"You lowly peasants." Raiden's voice reverberated through the palace walls. "Not only have you trespassed into my court, but you dare interfere in this king's justice. Die."
His early spirit Fusion Realm pressure, like a winter breeze, surged outward like a tidal quake. Doors rattled. Walls buckled. Imperial formations strained. Guards within a kilometer dropped to their knees.
Jalen raised his right hand calmly.
A wind barrier created from his third Wind Art Technique Gust Dance unfurled—a translucent shroud layered, wrapping Jaquan and Lara in synchronized pulses of protection.
Raiden's gaze narrowed. "You… You're in the Spirit Fusion Realm?"
He took half a step back, disbelief flooding his face. "That's not possible. You're a child."
Jalen didn't waste time explaining.
With Lara and Jaquan secured, there was no reason to linger.
He grabbed both, and used eclipse motion, and appeared twenty feet away from the palace in the courtyard below.
But the moment his boots struck stone, they were surrounded.
Raiden stood tall. Thomas flanked him. Dozens of royal guards formed a perimeter—each one an Imperial Realm cultivator, ranging from early to peak.
"Kill the peasant. Take my daughter," Raiden ordered coldly. "I'll deal with the brat."
Thomas and the guards surged.
And then Jalen moved.
His shadow spilled across the courtyard like ink from a divine pen—unfolding, stretching, bleeding into the very fibers of space.
The courtyard disappeared.
Light fled. Sound crumbled. Reality folded into dusk.
Shadow Domain Compression.
Jalen had unlocked the ability to extend the domain made up of pure shadow qi up to two hundred and fifty feet, but he didn't need that much.
He cast it at fifty feet—tight, controlled, lethal.
And with his current cultivation, he could hold it for ten full minutes.
Enough time to dismantle a kingdom.
Inside the Shadow Domain compression, nothing could be seen. Not a footstep. Not a figure. Not even Jalen.
Weapons grew heavier in the hands of Raiden's guards. Breath felt warped. Qi pulsed weakly, struggling to form coherent channels. Even Thomas, hardened by years in battle, grunted as he stumbled forward—unable to find ground with his spirit.
The guards tried formations. They triggered perimeter glyphs. They launched coordinated strikes based on aura sensing.
None landed.
Some tried to escape—searching for the domain's edge.
But inside, direction collapsed.
The shadows bent space. Their senses twisted.
One guard sprinted toward what he thought was freedom.
But the dusk thickened. His steps slowed. His qi fractured.
And before he reached the boundary, Jalen was there.
A flicker. A blade.
The escape became a memory.
Jalen moved like pressure behind the wind—only sensed when he shifted. A brief flicker. A distortion. Then a scream.
One by one, guards fell.
A sword struck air. Jalen wasn't there.
An arrow launched, split mid-flight—its caster dropping before he knew where the blow came from.
Thomas unleashed his full qi—trying to tear through the domain by brute force.
If he had matched Jalen's realm or spiritual depth, it might have worked.
But he didn't.
And a silent shadow blade created by the domain itself slid across his chest.
Only the absence of resistance.
Thomas collapsed.
Eight guards remained.
Each imperial tier. Each elite in their own right.
They braced.
Then Jalen surged.
He appeared—just for a flicker—at the center of their formation.
No posture. No flourish.
Just movement.
He raised a hand.
Silent Spear Manifestation.
Ten spears condensed from spatial folds. Pure shadow. No elemental trace. They launched without sound.
Each spear struck joints, pressure nodes, and meridian anchors.
Not one was fatal. But each was decisive.
The guards dropped—spiritual cores disrupted, limbs useless.
Only Raiden remained.
He hadn't moved.
But his aura boiled now. Ice qi churned in waves around him, brittle and sharp.
Raiden's Glacier Sovereign Field activated.
Cold slammed into the Shadow Domain, trying to force clarity into chaos.
Frost swirled. Tiles below iced over. Even without sight, the wind snapped with force.
Then came the clash.
Raiden's palm burst forward—ice shards spinning in molecular formation.
Jalen met it mid-motion. His own hand emerged from the dark—no technique announced, only precision delivered.
The domains collided—one suppressive, one elemental. Neither yielded.
Raiden spoke, voice laced with qi static. "You think this field will hold?"
Jalen responded inside Raiden's breath. "No. I know it already has."
Raiden roared and spun—his spiral technique unleashing ice gusts in every direction, sharp enough to flay stone.
Jalen didn't retreat.
He summoned shadow blades—extensions of his will, forged from pure dusk.
Each blade curved mid-motion, intercepting shards and redirecting force.
The ice shattered against them, unable to find purchase.
Jalen moved like a dancer between strikes, his blades flowing with him—not just weapons, but shields of intent.
The fight wasn't dramatic. It was sharp. Surgical.
They struck dozens of times in seconds.
Raiden couldn't see him—only sense him, and only because centuries of battle had honed his instincts.
And even as each of Jalen's blows was repelled, the rhythm never belonged to Raiden. Every movement came half a beat too late.
Raiden staggered once.
He cursed.
The domain trembled—its edges pulsing like a heartbeat under strain.
Time was bleeding out.
Forty seconds remained.
He'd disabled the guards. Crippled Thomas. Repelled Raiden.
But the throne wouldn't fall in time.
He stepped back.
Raiden flared his aura—but couldn't find him.
Jalen spoke one last time, his voice a whisper of dusk against glacial pride:
"I came to retrieve family. Not spill royal blood. But next time I won't be so lenient."
Then—
Nothing.
Jalen vanished. Breath gone. Aura erased. Jaquan and Lara, already cradled deep within the domain's folds, left with him. This was thanks to him chaining Eclipsed Motion—slipping through shadow folds twenty feet at a time until the palace was behind them."
The Shadow Domain compression then dispersed silently—dissolving across the courtyard like memory leaving skin.
And Raiden stood alone.
His palace was torn.
His guard is broken.
His pride was pierced.
By dusk.