Volume 2, Chapter 49: The Uninvited Guest
The siren was so loud my teeth vibrated.
You ever try to focus while a fire alarm goes off right next to your ear? It is impossible. My spiritual core was already spinning like a runaway wagon wheel. The loud noise just made the pain behind my eyes flare up worse.
I stood on the balcony and watched the courtyard below dissolve into pure chaos. The Centennial Phoenix Gala was over. The orchestra dropped their instruments and ran. I saw a very wealthy minister trip over his own silk robes. He dropped a plate of expensive garlic shrimp into the dirt. A few seconds ago, those people were talking about trade routes and wine vintages. Now, they were just a mob of frightened animals pushing each other toward the exits.
Then, the air above the courtyard cracked.
It wasn't a metaphor. The sky literally tore open. It sounded like someone ripping a thick wet sheet. The smell of old copper and burnt hair washed over the garden, suffocating the scent of the expensive perfumes.
Something dropped from the black tear in the sky. It landed heavily on the marble fountain in the center of the lawn. The stone cracked into powder under its weight.
It was a Vanguard of the Abyss.
It didn't look like a mindless beast. It looked like an assassin. It was tall and painfully thin, resembling a praying mantis carved entirely out of dark glass and wrapped in gray smog. It had six dead, white eyes. It didn't roar at the crowd. It didn't make a single sound. It just tracked the fleeing guests, calculating the most efficient way to kill them.
"Get them out of the courtyard!" Bei Bei shouted. He was already moving. He vaulted over the balcony railing, dropping thirty feet to the grass below. Black lightning crackled around his arms. The Shadow Sentinel Commander was on the clock.
Xiaotao didn't even wait for the order. She jumped right after him. Her deep red dress vanished, replaced by a torrent of actual fire. "Burn!" she yelled, diving straight at the creature.
But the Vanguard was fast. Too fast. It didn't try to block the fire. It simply shifted its body, bending its glass-like joints at impossible angles. Xiaotao's flames scorched the grass where it had just been. The creature jumped over her, completely ignoring the two fighters.
It looked past the nobles and locked its white eyes on the main hall. The younger academy students were hiding in there. It wanted them. It wanted to snap the neck of the Federation's future.
Who invites an assassin to a party?
I stepped off the balcony. I didn't fall; I floated down, drawing the Life Guardian Blade as my boots hit the grass.
I am a Level 72 Soul Sage now. I don't just rely on Ah Tai's raw power to solve my problems anymore. I have fourteen soul rings in total, split evenly between my Spirit Eyes and my artificial martial soul.
I stepped directly into the creature's path. I let the cold out.
"Ba Jiao," I whispered.
The ground beneath my feet turned white. The Eight-Cornered Mysterious Ice Grass bloomed from the soil, massive and beautiful. Thick, jagged walls of blue ice shot up from the lawn, creating a solid barricade between the Vanguard and the main hall doors.
I felt the familiar surge of power in my right leg soul bone. Three years ago, Professor Lakas took me to the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well. He sat on a rock and drank tea while the Dugu family descendants threw poison darts at me to test my worth. I passed. Ba Jiao chose me that day. And right now, the immortal herb gave me absolute control over the frozen battlefield.
The Vanguard slammed into the ice wall. The ice didn't break. The creature bounced off, leaving a scratch on the blue surface.
It turned its head. The six white eyes locked onto me. It raised a scythe-like arm.
Suddenly, my head throbbed. The Vanguard didn't just attack physically. It projected a wave of raw, discordant Silence directly at my mind. The spinning in my upper dantian flared into a blinding ache. My spiritual core was trying to condense, and the Abyssal energy was trying to rip it apart. I stumbled forward, my vision swimming. If I passed out now, the mantis would cut me in half.
Then, a cool, gentle presence washed over my thoughts.
"Rest, Yuhao," Bai Xue whispered.
A phantom of clear, icy water and soft white light manifested right behind my shoulder. Her graceful wings spread slightly, and a soothing melody only I could hear flowed into my mind. The song didn't attack the creature. It flowed inward, smoothing the violent, jagged spinning of my spiritual core. The pain vanished instantly. I felt a deep, calming chill spread from my right arm soul bone. She anchored my mind, keeping the draining force out so I could actually fight.
I had obtained Bai Xue two years ago during a mission to the Extreme North with Professor Lakas. We were investigating strange reports of vanishing soul beasts when we found a dying Ice Jade Swan. She had been gravely wounded protecting her nest from a group of Evil Soul Masters. Professor Lakas could have easily saved her with his power, but he stepped back and let me handle it.
I used the Life Guardian Blade and the Ma marking to stabilize her. In return, she chose to become my soul spirit, merging her essence with my spiritual sea. She was graceful, quiet, and incredibly patient — the perfect counterbalance to Ah Tai's overwhelming presence and Electrolux's sharp, calculating nature. Since then, she had become my anchor whenever my spiritual core started to spiral out of control.
"My turn," a deep, gruff voice echoed through the courtyard.
Xiao Xiong never liked waiting. The Ice Bear King burst from my chest as a massive projection of thick white fur and howling blizzard winds. He slammed his huge front paws into the dirt. The temperature dropped fifty degrees in a single second.
Xiao Xiong wasn't just fighting to protect some rich kids. He was fighting for a ticket to the stars. He wanted to follow the Snow Empress to the Phoenix God Star Realm. He wanted to be a Divine Spirit. And he certainly wasn't going to let anyone stop him from reaching godhood.
The Vanguard tried to jump away. But the moisture in the air froze around its glass joints. Its legs locked to the marble floor. It screeched, a horrible metallic grinding sound, as it tried to pull free.
"Xiaotao! Now!" I yelled.
She came down from the sky like a falling star. Her Phoenix fire was concentrated into a single, blinding point at the tip of her boot. Her Crimson Flame Hawk soul spirit manifested fully behind her, its wings spread wide as it added its own power to the strike. The Evil Fire Phoenix martial soul burned brightly within her, the chaotic flames tamed and compressed under her control.
She hit the frozen Vanguard squarely in the chest.
The clash of extreme heat and extreme cold did the rest. The thermal shock was absolute.
The creature shattered. It didn't explode; it just fell apart into a million pieces of black glass, showering the ruined lawn.
Gray smog immediately started leaking from the broken shards, trying to seep into the soil.
Tang Ya stepped forward calmly. She placed both hands flat against the grass. A wave of pure emerald light swept over the courtyard. The ᜉ (Pa) script glowed brightly on her wrist. The radiant life energy met the smog and purified it on contact, turning the Abyssal rot into harmless white steam.
It was over in less than a minute.
I put away my blade and rubbed my right arm. The courtyard was silent again, except for the distant wailing of the city alarms. The perfect sync of our team felt good. Five years apart, and we hadn't missed a beat.
Bei Bei walked over and kicked a piece of the black glass. It crumbled into dust.
"That was just a scout," he said quietly. His usual smile was entirely gone. "It bypassed the border checkpoints completely. They didn't march here. They just opened a door."
I looked up at the sky. The tear above the courtyard was slowly stitching itself closed, but the sky to the north was still bleeding red.
The border defenses were useless if the enemy could just drop an assassin directly into our living room. Chen Feng wasn't playing by the old rules of war. He was using some kind of shortcut to cheat distance.
I looked at the scattered shrimp on the grass.
The war wasn't coming. It was already here.
End of Volume 2, Chapter 49