A breathless stillness had settled over the shattered atrium, broken only by the drip of water from fractured pipes and the faint, metallic tang of blood hanging in the air. Coradiel's grip tightened around his cooling milk tea, the ceramic mug slick with condensation. He had thought the confrontation would be swift, a mere skirmish—but now, watching the dance of forces unfolding, he realized he had underestimated the storm gathering in their midst.
Three force fields—mirror, gravity, and wind—had merged into a single, seamless entity, a trinity of elemental fury. The mirror realm twisted space, reflecting and distorting every movement; gravity pressed down like an invisible mountain, crushing breath from lungs; and the wind, now a roaring maelstrom, whipped through the chamber with the precision of a blade. Within this tripartite prison, the five elite arcanist—each a master of their craft—struggled like insects trapped in amber.
One of them, a lithe assassin specializing in spatial evasion, had tried to phase through the mirror's surface, only to find his own reflection turning against him. Jagged shards of glass materialized from nothingness, harrying him relentlessly until he was forced back into the open. No sooner had he reappeared than the gravitational field seized him, pulling him earthward as the storm descended. A vortex of air, thick with razor-edged leaves of condensed energy, coiled around him—a dragon of wind and wrath.
So this is what true fusion feels like, Coradiel thought, his mind racing. Not just combination—synthesis.
The assassin, a Level-70 veteran, was no easy prey. With a roar of defiance, he unleashed his own triple-layered Arcane Force Field: space, fire, and lightning. The mirror dimension shuddered as spatial fissures tore through it, flames erupting in geysers of incandescent heat, and thunderbolts arcing like vengeful serpents. For a moment, it seemed the balance would tip—the storm wavered, the mirrors cracked, and gravity loosened its grip.
But the attacker had anticipated this. Her perception was absolute, her vision piercing through every illusion, every layer of reality. She saw not just their movements, but the trajectories of their intent. As the assassin broke free of the storm, wings of ethereal energy bursting from his shoulders to propel him toward escape, he realized too late that he had been herded—like a stag into a hunter's ambush.
Her attack was everywhere and nowhere. It was in the whisper of the wind, the weight of the air, the gleam of the mirrors. And it was relentless.
From the bars of the luminous birdcage—a prison of solidified light that had enclosed the battlefield—thousands of fist-sized birds of radiance began to emerge. Each was a being of pure energy, wings humming with lethal vibration, trailing threads of razor-sharp luminescence. They swarmed the enclosed space in a hypnotic, flowing pattern, a river of light and death.
"Destroy them! Now!" one of the trapped arcanist shouted, his voice frayed with panic. "They're explosive!"
But the birds were already upon them. One by one, they detonated—not with the crude violence of ordinary explosives, but with the precise, annihilating grace of a master sculptor carving marble. Each explosion was a note in a symphony of ruin, a cascade of light that tore through armor, flesh, and spirit. The assassin, his defenses finally overwhelmed, watched in horror as the birds pierced his chestplate. A final, defiant curse died on his lips as his body was shredded into crimson mist.
Eighteen seconds. That was all it had taken. Three dead, two captured—their bodies broken, their will extinguished.
As the birdcage dissolved back into strands of fading light, the witnesses on the balcony of the Golden Lynx Mansion stood frozen, their faces etched with disbelief. The air, once thick with tension, now felt hollow, charged with the aftermath of violence.
Yun Zhuzhu turned to Que Baichen, her voice low and cold. "Whatever you said earlier—I didn't hear it. If your words bring trouble to my door, I'll set my six pets on you. And when they're done, I'll feed what's left to the worms."
Que Baichen swallowed, his earlier arrogance gone.
Nearby, Motoro quietly bit his fingernail, leaning toward Xie Fuyun. "What gift did you prepare? I need ideas."
Wu Xu and the others edged closer, ears pricked. How could a wasteland world produce someone like this?they wondered. A devil of the infinite flow…
Across the balcony, the elites from Dongke Province exchanged uneasy glances. Liu Sanxiang, dean of Hualuo Academy, lifted his communicator with a sigh. "Sang Jiu," he murmured, his tone dripping with false warmth, "so the old dean's research was a success after all. It seems Oakes was your true trump card, and Wei Mingtang merely the decoy. How cunning of you. I'm… disappointed."
The line went dead. Liu Sanxiang's smile tightened.
——
Inside the mall, the aftermath was quieter, more intimate. The restroom was flooded, water gushing from broken pipes, soaking the tiles and pooling around the still form of Lang Hao. Sang Jiu knelt beside her, hands glowing with aqueous energy as she channeled healing currents into the injured woman's body. The baby, nestled within, was fragile—too fragile.
When Yao entered, her footsteps silent on the wet floor, Sang Jiu glanced up, her expression unreadable. "Lang Hao will live," she said quietly, "but the child… there may be complications."
Yao's throat tightened. She knelt, her gaze fixed on Lang Hao's pale face. The woman's eyes were closed, her breathing shallow, blood trickling from her ears. She looked achingly young, her vulnerability a stark contrast to the ferocity she had displayed earlier.
"Thank you," Yao whispered, her voice rough.
Sang Jiu's lips curved faintly. "No need. You've already repaid me by wiping the smirk off that insufferable Liu Sanxiang's face."
Yao almost smiled, but then Lang Hao's eyes fluttered open. They were dark, deep pools of pain and something else—something haunted. Her gaze drifted to Yao's wrist, where a thin cut bled sluggishly.
"Oakes," Lang Hao murmured, her voice a thread of sound. "You're hurt."
Yao glanced down. It was nothing—a scratch. She healed it with a thought, but Lang Hao's concern lingered in the air, tender and unexpected. When Lang Hao began to withdraw her hand, Yao reached out, her fingers gently closing around the other woman's. It was a small gesture, but in that moment, it felt like an anchor in the chaos.
Sang Jiu looked away, her expression uncharacteristically soft. Perhaps even legends have their weaknesses, Yao thought.
Soon, the rest arrived—Fu Jiang, his face ashen with relief; the Fu sisters, weeping as they hurried in, trailed by flustered shop assistants clutching bags of lingerie that spilled across the floor in a riot of silk and lace. One piece landed squarely on Wei Mingtang's shoe. She picked it up, her eyebrows raised, and handed it to Yao without a word.
Yao took it, along with the others, and paid for them all without complaint. If she was going to play the part of the scoundrel, she might as well do it with style.
As she stood there, surrounded by the wreckage of battle and the tangled lives of those caught in its wake, she allowed herself a faint, wry smile.
Sometimes, she thought, it's the broken things that shine the brightest.
And in that moment, covered in blood and holding a bag of expensive lingerie, she understood—perfection was overrated. It was the flaws, the scars, the beautifully imperfect fragments of life, that made it all worth fighting for.