In a lull between fierce exchanges with Durandal, a faint gleam flashed in Vita's all-seeing Heavenly Wisdom Eyes.
The corner of her mouth curved knowingly, tinged with playfulness.
Mind-link channel—Masked Fool internal encrypted line—connected.
Sparkle: "Ding-dong~ Your order of 'just a teeny bit' of fireworks has been delivered to the marked spots! Dear big sis, navigation online yet? The fun over here can't wait! (≧▽≦)/"
While elegantly directing Lone Planetfarer to block Durandal's charge, Vita replied calmly in her mind.
"Heh… So impatient, my 'dear little sister.' Coordinates are long calculated. Thanks to a certain anonymous pioneer, the spacetime node to that parallel world stands out like a ripped pocket."
Sparkle: "Awesome! Then let's start the party—turn all this boring hatred and destruction into fireworks for a new Elysium!"
Vita: "Agreed. Divert a fixed fate's endpoint onto a path none can predict… that itself is the pinnacle of wisdom and joy, no? Coordinates sent. The rest is yours, 'mischief-maker.'"
Sparkle: "Roger~ Watch me! ()"
The link cut off, silent.
Vita stayed focused on the fight, even sparing Durandal a meaningful smile.
"Splitting your focus in battle is ill-advised, Valkyrie. Though perhaps, very soon, we'll have a grander 'stage.'"
Durandal's fine brows knitted. Her powerful intuition screamed warnings: this elegant foe was plotting something extremely troublesome—perhaps dangerous.
She hesitated no longer, gripping Abyss Flower with both hands. Radiance condensed to a peak, the spear's shaft humming—Saint Lance about to be truly unleashed.
Seeing this, Vita's poise withdrew a shade; seriousness entered her eyes.
The long-awaited fun was about to begin. She had no wish to be prematurely retired due to carelessness at the final moment—that would offend her aesthetics and vex her for quite some time.
Lone Planetfarer's floating sword-light wings fully unfurled. Electromagnetic waves formed layered green concentric rings, pulsing hard. Vast energy gathered at its chest; several searing green destruction beams roared out to meet Durandal's Saint Lance release.
The beams met midair, colliding into ring-shaped shockwaves that tore the void.
"Only dodging? Is that your so-called wisdom?"
Durandal barked coldly. The Saint Lance shone brighter, a thrust ripping the sky.
Vita vaulted lightly back. Lone Planetfarer's arm deflected the lethal spearpoint at just the right instant, throwing a trail of dazzling sparks.
A subtle, unreadable smile remained on her face as her voice came through the mech's hum.
"Patience is a virtue. True wisdom lies in waiting for the best moment—not venting strength blindly. A greater 'drama' is about to debut. Why rush to settle this minute?"
She truly wasn't in a hurry to decide victory. She was waiting—waiting for Sparkle to locate that spacetime node; waiting for the big fireworks.
Compared to this, Jingliu's battlefield was far fiercer.
Sword light gathered like cold moonlight; the icy sword aura seemed to freeze and slice space itself.
Jingliu's offense matched her nature—icy, pure, ruthlessly efficient, without the slightest unnecessary motion.
Each stroke cut straight at the Sea God Tang San's divine-sense avatar's weakest points.
Tang San's avatar was already battered.
The Sea God Trident's glow dimmed. The gathered divinity was cleaved and nullified again and again by those seemingly simple strikes that contained ultimate sword intent.
His vaunted divine skills felt strained and paltry before Jingliu's swordsmanship, as if it could sever causality and freeze time.
"God-King—only this?"
Jingliu's cool voice sounded, carrying the faintest hint of… disappointment?
"Your struggle is meaningless."
Just as she was about to strike the finishing blow and sever this wisp of divine sense—
"Jingliu—!!!"
A roar crammed with centuries of hatred and humiliation exploded like thunder.
A figure wreathed in raging blood-qi hurled into the field at supersonic speed, a war blade cleaving down at Jingliu's back with mountain-cracking force.
It was Hoolay. He had finally reached the battlefield. In his eyes, there was only the figure who had defeated him and imprisoned him in the Shackling Prison for centuries.
Jingliu seemed to have eyes in her back. Without turning, she flicked a reverse slash.
CLANG—!!!
A deafening clash of metal.
Her sword-tip tapped precisely at the weakest point of the blade's force. It looked light, yet held irresistible might, batting aside Hoolay's wrathful blow.
The shockwave plowed the ground three more feet lower all around.
Jingliu turned. Her blood-red eyes swept over Hoolay's rage-twisted face with indifference.
"So, it's you."
Her tone was flat, as if recognizing a negligible insect.
"Warhead of the Borisin. Centuries of imprisonment seem not to have taught you prudence."
The offhand remark was the sharpest needle, piercing Hoolay's heart and detonating all his humiliation at once.
"Shut up. I'll kill you!"
Hoolay snapped, burning his origin without restraint. Blood-qi surged wildly. He lunged again, bent on mutual destruction.
Jingliu's brows tightened a hair, faintly annoyed by the intruder.
But her sword did not slow. Cold moonlight flashed—precise and efficient—meeting Hoolay's do-or-die assault.
"Your fury is but idle noise."
At that moment, a dazzling silver radiance descended, imperial dragon's might blanketing the battlefield.
A breathtaking figure appeared—silver hair, violet eyes, breathtaking beauty—the Silver Dragon King, Gu Yuena's true body.
Gu Yuena, who had been watching from the side, did not hesitate. She turned to a stream of light and merged into her body in an instant.
Her aura grew smoother and stronger. Her icy purple dragon eyes locked first upon Tang San's divine-sense avatar, who had snatched a brief respite from Hoolay's interference.
Without a word, Gu Yuena raised her hand and unleashed an element torrent condensed to the extreme—earth, fire, water, wind, light, dark, space—many elements perfectly fused into a destructive seven-colored beam, roaring at Tang San.
"Silver Dragon King?! You—how are you here?!"
Tang San's avatar showed utter shock.
Of all his calculations, he had never foreseen the soul beasts' leader, the Silver Dragon King hiding on Douluo Continent, would appear here and now—and strike at him directly.
His face darkened just as he'd drawn a breath of relief.
He'd thought Hoolay's arrival brought a sliver of a turn—but the Silver Dragon King immediately took Jingliu's place to relentlessly hound him.
Hoolay's roar shook the sky. His brutish Blood Moon twin blades sang, dark-red bloodlight writhing like living things along the edges.
Lightning no longer crackled—it detonated, spilling into raging serpents coiling around him. His already-burly frame swelled with corded muscle, veins bulging—like a beast awakening within.
The Borisin's unique Moonfrenzy state fully ignited, reason drowned by pure bloodlust and berserk power.
"Jingliu! The centuries disgrace—today I wash them in your blood!"
Hoolay's voice rasped with oppressive force. The Borisin's monstrous vitality and regeneration showed in full. The thin cuts from her sword aura sealed almost as they appeared, leaving only faint traces of frost.
He stomped—ground exploded—and his figure became a trailing afterimage of blood and thunder. His blades tore the air, keening like wraiths, coming in from vicious, uncanny angles in a storm of strikes.
Relentless. Endless.
Yet Jingliu grew only more ethereal in the gale—as if a snowflake in the eye of a blizzard that would never fall.
Her footwork was arcane. Each minuscule shift left behind a lingering afterimage nearly indistinguishable from the true body, deflecting and misleading his lethal blows.
Her real body slipped in at the blind angle of Hoolay's offensive. Her sword flashed like a winter star and thrust—Flowing-Shadow, Square-Brilliance.
Ssst!
The frigid edge slashed precisely under Hoolay's ribs, drawing a spray of blood—and crystallizing ice within the wound.
Extreme cold flooded in, trying to freeze his flesh and stall his energy flow.
But bloodlight blazed across his body. The Borisin's brutal physique and undying trait ramped to their peak.
The wound writhed as if alive, forcing out the invading cold. The gash, deep to the bone, shrank in a breath, leaving only a filigree of white frost at the skin.
"Useless, Jingliu. You failed to kill me last time—you'll fail again. Your ice can't seal my boiling war-blood!"
Hoolay laughed and whirled, his blades not merely swung but worked through an ancient war-dance, churning the air into a blood-edged storm tens of meters wide.
Countless scarlet edges formed a wall of wind with terrifying cutting power, carrying a foul aura that disturbed the mind and eroded energy, sealing off all of Jingliu's evasion and forcing a head-on clash.
"The Shackling Prison failed to grind away your mania. Pitiful."
Jingliu's voice remained cool and ethereal, without a ripple.
Her swordwork shifted—no longer just the swift thrusts of Flowing-Shadow. Her blade moved like cold springwater under the moon, flowing into every seam.
Each strike pinpointed the storm's weakest nodes. The icy sword-qi, like a living thing, threaded through the gaps, carving deeper, more lethal wounds on Hoolay, adding layer upon layer of frost.
Stymied and repeatedly injured, Hoolay's fury blazed higher.
He leapt back and slammed his blades into the earth.
"Rumble—!"
A muffled boom, like a war drum struck.
From that point, a giant, complex blood-reeking array spread across the ground.
"Blood-Thunder Upwelling!"
Next, twisted tendrils of blood-qi and raging lightning surged from the array, swarming to seize Jingliu.
At the same time, Hoolay's blood-qi ignited like powder. His skin flushed red. His speed and power spiked again.
He no longer closed—he slashed from range, sending condensed, crescent-shaped Blood-Moon blades shrieking through the air like a locust swarm, joining the tendrils to form a killing grid.
"Let's see how long you can dodge!"
Hoolay's laugh echoed amid the thunder.
Yet at that seeming dead-end, the air around Jingliu froze. The extreme cold no longer radiated outward—it collapsed inward, densifying.
A stranger, deeper blood-glow lit her eyes—Mara state engaged.
Her silver-white hair whipped in a windless gale, tips touched with frost.
Strength, speed, and mastery of frost surged to a new apex.
She no longer dodged.
Facing the sky-darkening tendrils and the rain of Blood-Moon blades, she surged upstream.
"Cold-River… Mirrors the Moon."
In her cool murmur, her long sword vanished—replaced by an eruption of countless cold moon-arcs.
These were not mere sword-qi. Like living sprites, they traced elegant, deadly curves through the air, shattering every Blood-Moon blade and scything through every tendril lunging her way.
Some arc-lights slipped through the killing grid, flickering as if teleporting, to slice into Hoolay again.
It was a feast of high-speed slashes—speed and lethality perfected in the Mara state.
Hoolay, relying on his undying trait, endured with roars. His wounds healed—but visibly slower.
Each time the moon-arcs struck, a deeper cold dug in—an affliction clinging to bone, devouring vitality and soul, suppressing even his vaunted regeneration.
He countered with a mountain-crushing overhead smash.
Jingliu did not retreat. In Mara, her movement outstripped the eye.
"Frost-Soul… First Turn."
She slipped past by a hair's breadth, perfect body-angle nullifying the blow's edge. Her sword-tip—waiting there as if preordained—tapped lightly.
A thread of condensed, ultimate frost-qi, aimed not to destroy but to operate like a surgeon's scalpel, cut into the node of his power circulation, forcibly breaking his offense—and freezing him for an instant.