The wave of absolute darkness, a physical manifestation of the Void, hurtled towards Wei Chen. His mind, still reeling from a decade of lies shattering in a single, horrifying moment, was a frozen, silent battlefield of its own. He couldn't move, couldn't think, could only watch his own death approach.
But he was not the Void's target.
Lan Yue moved like a silver comet. In the space between heartbeats, she was on her feet, her celestial sword, Nightfall Crescent, appearing in her hand as if from thin air. She unleashed the 'First Form: Celestial Mirror,' creating a shield of condensed moonlight that met the Void blast head on. The impact was a silent, violent collision of absolute existence and absolute nothingness. Eardrum shattering silence filled the cistern for a horrifying second before the mirror exploded in a shower of glittering fragments. Lan Yue cried out as the corrupting energy shocked her to the core, the raw anti life force a brutal violation of her celestial spirit. The force of the blow threw her backward, crashing into Wei Chen and sending them both sprawling to the stone floor.
The Memory Weaver, clutched in Xue Lian's hand, glowed faintly, having recorded every damning word. They had their proof, but survival had just become the more pressing concern.
"You should have stayed a ghost, Saint Yue," Elder Feng snarled, his face a mask of madness. His plan was in ruins, his treason exposed. He had only one option left: eliminate all witnesses. He raised the Void artifact again, its dark power gathering, sucking the light and warmth from the air.
Before he could unleash it, two figures dropped from the rafters, their impact cracking the flagstones. Jax landed like a meteor, his demonic power a crushing physical presence. Ren melted into the shadows, and a dozen illusory copies of herself flickered into existence, fanning out and making it impossible to tell where the real threat lay.
"So the Demon Empress shows her face at last," Feng laughed, a wild, unhinged sound. He looked past them at Xue Lian, who stood revealed, her mortal glamour gone, her nine ethereal fox tails now visible, swaying behind her like pale flames. Her amber eyes burned with a cold, imperial fury. "Excellent! I can kill the disease and its symptom all in one night!"
The battle erupted. Feng, empowered by the Heart of the Void, was a maelstrom of destruction. He slammed his palm on the ground, and the very stone beneath them seemed to cry out as dozens of razor sharp Void tendrils erupted, lashing out like whips.
Xue Lian acted instantly. Her hands, held at her waist, wove a series of intricate signs. "Demonic Art: Mantra of the Gilded Cage," she whispered. A wave of imperceptible energy washed through the cistern. The room did not change, but Feng's perception of it did. The floor seemed to ripple like water, the walls appeared to sweat a viscous shadow, and the distances between pillars subtly warped, turning the solid ground into a treacherous, unreliable illusion.
Jax roared, unaffected by the mental trickery, and met the onslaught head on. He ripped a two ton stone pillar from its foundations and swung it like a club, smashing a cluster of tendrils into nothingness. He was pure, brute force, a walking bastion of demonic might. Lan Yue, her senses clear, became the spearhead. Her blade sang as she executed the 'Third Form: Stardust River,' a fluid, impossibly rapid series of strikes that wove through the tendrils, each cut leaving a trail of purifying celestial light.
On the shifting, illusory ground, Feng's movements were a fraction slower, his attacks slightly off kilter. This was all Xue Lian needed. She unleashed the 'Art of the Shattered Mind,' a wave of invisible psionic power that slammed directly into Feng's consciousness. He roared in agony as his own worst fears were made real before his eyes the Void artifact turning on him, the other sect elders laughing at his failure, his own body withering into dust.
The mental assault gave Lan Yue a critical opening. "Now!" Xue Lian's command echoed in her mind. Lan Yue lunged, her sword aimed directly at the artifact in Feng's hand. But the traitor, driven by a madness that was stronger than fear, fought through the illusions. With a scream, he slammed a Void empowered fist into the ground, sending a shockwave of corrupting energy rippling outwards that forced them all back.
For a moment, Wei Chen remained on the ground, his mind shattered. He saw a Void tendril bypass Jax's guard and lash out towards a momentarily exposed Lan Yue. Without thinking, his own blade flared to life. "Azure Dragon's Coil!" he roared, parrying the blow.
"Traitor!" Feng screamed, his attention now split.
"You are the one who has betrayed the righteous path!" Wei Chen roared back, his voice full of the agony of a broken man as he finally, irrevocably, chose a side. He charged, his swordplay a furious, textbook display of the Azure Cloud Sect's might. Feng laughed, easily batting his attacks aside with contemptuous, one handed blows. "You were a useful fool, nothing more!" A casual backhand sent Wei Chen flying into a wall, where he collapsed in a heap.
As Feng was distracted, Xue Lian seized the opportunity. She raised her hand, five wisps of cold, purple black energy coalescing at her fingertips. "Demonic Art: Foxfire Phantasm." The wisps shot forward, not with physical force, but passing through Feng's body like ghosts. He shuddered violently as the ethereal flames attacked his spirit directly, causing a wave of vertigo and draining his concentration.
The battle raged. Lan Yue pressed her attack, her movements a blur of silver and white. Xue Lian continued her assault from the periphery, her illusions becoming more complex, her shadow arts binding and restricting, and her foxfire chipping away at his spirit.
Feng was an avatar of immense, unnatural power, but he was being dismantled. He was fighting not just three warriors, but the very ground he stood on and the thoughts in his own head. Realizing he could not win, he focused his rage on the one he hated most. With a final, desperate scream of fury, he ignored the others and poured all the artifact's remaining power into a single, concentrated, needle thin beam of pure Void energy, aimed directly at the heart of the operation: the Empress.
Jax roared and tried to intercept it, but the beam was too fast. Lan Yue was in the middle of a complex sword form, unable to disengage in time.
Xue Lian's eyes widened. She threw up a shield of pure demonic shadow, weaving nine layers of her own life force into it. It was like paper against a storm. The beam struck her left shoulder.
She did not scream. A choked gasp escaped her lips, and she stumbled back, her arm going limp. A patch of black, corrosive frost instantly spread from the wound, visible veins of darkness spiderwebbing across her skin. The Void's touch was a searing, soul deep agony that began to drink her life force.
The moment she was hit, the entire dynamic of the battle shifted. Lan Yue felt a lance of pure agony through their soul bond, a pain that was not her own but was a thousand times worse.