Gen's smile only grew. He was right. The Little Chaos *could* be countered. But knowing and doing were two sides of the same, very sharp coin. He had no clear plan for it, nor any idea how the Royal Guard would react.
The leader of the Royal Guard cast another look—at Lorel, then at Gen, then at Kaito. An experienced fighter assessing the threat level of each opponent, determining his winning conditions. He moved forward, and the remaining Royal Guard spread sideways, flanking him. The Little Chaos in his hand pulsed.
Without a word, the leader thrust. The chaotic energy did not explode outwards in a blast; it *spilled* from the tip in a focused, rushing torrent, a directed river of annihilation aimed at Gen's center.
Gen smirked. "Not smart," he said, his voice calm.
He waved his arm forward. A formless field of Qi spread out from his palm, condensing into a shimmering, translucent orb that hung in the air before him.
The Royal Guard leader felt something shift as his spear approached. His thrust struck the orb—and passed straight through. It was just an image, a phantom. Gen had given form to infinity once more.
**The Swords of Infinity** ignited not from the ground, but from the very air around the clustered guards. Beams of annihilating light erupted from every conceivable angle—above, below, from the sides—a cage of lethal geometry with the guards at its center.
The three remaining guards zipped through the space, their movements a blur of disciplined evasion. But the attacks were endless, infinite, a mathematical certainty of violence. There was no pattern to predict, only a storm to survive.
Kaito shot out from his position. He took advantage of a guard distracted by a beam grazing his shoulder. Kaito's fist, armored with the **Walking Star Jingdao**, landed on the man's chest with the sound of a cracking bell.
***CRUNCH.***
The ornate armor caved inward. A burst of blood misted from the helmet's visor. The guard was driven down, slamming into the arena floor so hard he sank into a crater and did not rise.
The Little Chaos in the leader's hand trembled slightly, its chaotic light flickering as if losing a fraction of its sustaining power. The leader's expression, hidden behind his visor, seemed to sharpen into a grimace of furious focus. His grip on the spear tightened until his armored knuckles creaked.
He barged forward, abandoning subtlety. Swinging Little Chaos in a wide, horizontal arc, he aimed to bisect Kaito.
Already aware of its power, Kaito was fast. He dropped into a low slide, the chaotic energy of the spear's wake passing inches above his head, severing a few strands of his hair. The smell of ozone and nullification filled the air where it passed.
As the leader recovered from his swing, Lorel acted. The **Supremacy Swords** fell not as individual strikes, but as an array—a descending cage of pink light meant to seal him in place. Seven blades stabbed down in a perfect circle around him.
The leader spun Little Chaos in his hand. The spear became a furious, chaotic disk. He didn't parry each sword; he created a vortex of disintegrating energy around himself. The Supremacy Swords struck the whirling chaos and screeched, their pink light chipping and fracturing against the relentless negation. Sparks of pink and grey exploded from the contact, creating miniature cyclones of conflicting intent.
Then, with a decisive, flowing motion, the leader reversed his spin and swept Little Chaos in a wider arc. The chaos moved like a coiling dragon, its tail of nullifying energy lashing outward. It didn't just block; it *erased*. The remaining blades of infinite Qi from Gen's formation and Lorel's Supremacy Swords dissolved where the chaotic energy touched them, vanishing into harmless motes of light.
In the opening, the leader kicked forward. His armored boot, reinforced by the same bloody Jingdao that powered his king, landed square on Kaito's crossed arms. The impact was a solid ***THUMP*** that echoed with bone-deep force. Kaito grunted, the white light of his Walking Star flickering violently as he was shoved back, skidding across the ruined stone.
Gen, observing from a higher vantage alongside Lorel, felt a flash of inspiration. A new strategy crystallized.
*We don't need to defeat the general. Just the minions holding the Little Chaos together.*
Lorel glanced at him. A flicker of understanding passed between their eyes, wordless and immediate.
They floated closer to each other, settling side-by-side in the air above the devastation. Then they moved in mirrored harmony.
Gen lifted his left hand. A new orb of shimmering potential bloomed before him—not the lethal infinity of swords, but a **sphere of contained possibility**, a bubble where reality was undefined.
Lorel lifted her right hand. From her palm, the **Unbound Lantern** manifested, but instead of releasing a wave, she condensed it. She formed a **sphere of serene oblivion**, a perfect orb of pink light that held the principle of absolute, gentle ending.
A pressure of stray energy spread out from the two orbs as they were held side-by-side. The Sphere of Infinity and the Sphere of Oblivion. Two opposing forces of completely different nature, humming with power that made the air between them crackle with unreality.
It was at this moment Gen crafted the impossible. He unleashed his **Heidow**—the Wheel of Combination, which had naturally opened as he'd grown, just as he'd expected.
The two spheres did not collide. They **fused**.
Where they touched, space itself seemed to hiccup. A new zone of energy bloomed into existence, a shifting, iridescent sphere that was neither white nor pink, neither real nor unreal. It was a paradox given form.
The Royal Guard leader, having forced Kaito into a retreat with another shattering blow from Little Chaos that cracked the bones in Kaito's forearms, glanced upward.
He saw something coming for him.
A beam of light lanced down from the fused sphere. It looked both white and black. It seemed to be moving with infinite speed yet was also perfectly still. It was a contradiction in motion.
The leader's expression darkened behind his shattered visor. He planted his feet, raised Little Chaos above his head, and *pushed*. He didn't thrust; he unleashed the chaotic energy in a continuous, roaring wave upward, a vertical river of nullification meant to drown the paradoxical beam.
They clashed.
The impact had no single sound. It was a **sonic boom that unfolded**, a wave of sheer pressure and wrongness that exploded outward from the point of contact. The strongest cultivators in the observing stands flared their Qi, reinforcing barriers around their pavilions. The weakest spectators turned and fled, blood trickling from their ears.
The arena floor did not crack. It **disintegrated**. The ancient, magically reinforced stone turned into a million fine particles that erupted upward, then hung in the air like a frozen, grey-brown rain.
In the center of the silent, suspended chaos stood the Royal Guard leader.
His magnificent armor was gone, obliterated, leaving only tattered under-robes. His body was covered in fine, bleeding cuts. But he still stood, trembling violently from strain. Little Chaos trembled in his hand, its light guttering like a dying candle. He had survived. But the attack had been meant for him alone.
He glanced left and right, his breath ragged. Of his ten brothers, only three others remained standing, plus him. Four out of ten. His expression turned sour, aggravated, then settled into a cold, volcanic anger.
He looked up at Lorel and Gen, floating together amidst the falling dust. "Well," he coughed, blood flecking his lips. "Well done." His voice was rough but carried a grudging respect. "Using Fendow to separate the explosion into miniature particles… coupled with the infinity of Gen's formation… you could hit all of them without even giving them a second to react. What impressive mastery of the Wheels of Destiny."
As the elite observers processed the fight, they could not help but take a closer, more wary look at Gen and Lorel. The dazzling duo stood side-by-side, displaying a prowess that made even seasoned elders feel a pang of ashamed awe.
Where Gen had showcased incredible, fluid application of **Heidow** (Combination), Lorel's ability to separate the explosive force into countless, precise orbs was perhaps the most impressive feat. Her mastery of **Fendow** (Separation) was probably the deepest, most surgical they had witnessed in a generation.
In the Li Family pavilion, Li Zhi bit his lip until he tasted copper. *What had these people eaten in his absence?* He still vividly remembered the Jiang Mountain. This girl had spent all her time crying, flinching, begging for a scrap of Gen's attention. How had she turned into *this* level of genius? What crucial years had he missed, festering in his family's shadows?
On the ruined field, the Royal Guard leader called out to his three remaining men. "To me! Final formation!"
The three guards, battered but unbroken, moved without hesitation. They fell into a tight triangle behind their leader, placing their hands on his back and shoulders.
"I hope you will forgive me for this," the leader said, his voice thick.
The three men simply nodded. As if their individual wills, their very lives, had no value beyond this moment.
Then, they began to dissolve.
Not into light, but into a liquid stream of pure, silver-grey Qi. Using **Fendow** with a horrifying, sacrificial precision, the leader was not combining with them—he was *un-knitting* their beings and weaving the threads directly into the fabric of **Little Chaos** itself. He was turning his loyal brothers into a living vessel for the weapon, fusing their vengeance, their loyalty, their final spark of will into the spear's core.
He had mastered all the first five Wheels. In his long years of service, he had learned one immutable truth: the more potent the will of the master, the more potent the Wheel became. By fusing the collective, vengeful will of his comrades into Little Chaos, he was giving it a new, perfect form. For the first time in its existence, he was manifesting not just an imitation of chaos, but a fragment of **Chaos Itself**.
Little Chaos in his hand coiled and roared. The dragon markings along its length grew denser, darker, alive with swirling hatred. The entire arm holding the spear turned grey, then numb, deadened by the terrifying, soul-sucking force of the weapon he had birthed.
When Gen saw that, understanding lanced through him like ice. "KAITO! RETREAT! NOW!"
He could feel it. The Royal Guard leader had done the same thing as Buqu with Forged Destiny. He had given **perfect, conceptual form** to an energy. It was this act that had allowed Buqu's final technique to remain untangled even long after his death. And now, the Royal Guard leader had created a potent, albeit incomplete, version of the same horrifying effect.
Before them no longer stood a man with a weapon. Before them stood **Chaos Given a Spear**.