Kael had no time to think. He had no time to run. He had less than a microsecond. His Vow, his
will, his Path—all of it roared to life.
"[GUARDIAN'S STANCE]!" "[BULWARK]!"
He ripped his sword from its scabbard and held it vertically, planting his feet, pouring every
ounce of his will and Stamina into the single, desperate block. His [Aura of Protection] flared to
its absolute maximum.
[Stamina: 200/200 -> 140/200]
The lightning bolt struck his blade.
The sound was not a clang. It was a sonic boom. The world vanished in a flash of white-gold.
Kael felt... pressure. A force so colossal it was beyond pain. It was a mountain falling on him.
[Guardian's Stance (Active) Lvl 4 - Catastrophic Impact Absorbed!] [Bulwark (Active) Lvl
1 - Qi Construct Shattered!] [Aura of Protection (Passive) Lvl 4 - Overwhelmed! Mitigating
90%...] [HP: 200/200 -> 20/200] [Stamina: 140/200 -> 20/200] [Status Effect: Overcharged
(Severe). Numbness. Stamina Regen Halted.] [Vow Upheld.] [EXP Gained: 200/4000] [Iron
Will (Passive) Lvl 2 -> Lvl 3] [Bulwark (Active) Lvl 1 -> Lvl 2]
The dust cleared. The entire street was a crater. The orphanage wall had collapsed. Kael was
still standing. Barely.
He was on one knee. His sword was glowing a dull, cherry red, the metal warped from the heat.
His clothes were vaporized from the chest up. His hair was smoking. His arm was broken, his
entire body convulsing with electrical spasms. But he was alive. His heart was still beating.
On the rooftop, Yan Fei's arrogant smile was frozen on his face. He stared, utterly
dumbfounded. "He... he blocked it...?"
He had just put down a casual attack that would have crippled a fellow
Foundation-Establishment cultivator. And this... mortal... had lived. The insult was
incomprehensible.
"Impossible!" Yan Fei shrieked, his composure shattering. "You are not a mortal! You are a
demon! A body-cultivating freak! I will KILL YOU!"
He gathered his power, his entire body lighting up with a blinding, golden aura. He was
preparing his ultimate attack, a storm of lightning that would wipe the entire city block—and
Kael—from existence.
"He's a fool," Lin Yue had been thinking, her heart in her throat. "He should have run. He's dead.
He's..." And then she saw him, in the crater, shattered but unbroken, pushing himself back to his
feet, trying to raise his ruined sword with a broken arm. He was a fool. He was weak. He was
stubborn. He was magnificent.
Her promise to "only watch" evaporated. Her sect's rules, her arranged marriage, her entire
philosophy of "efficiency"... it all burned away in a single, icy snap of pure, protective rage.
She made her choice.
"Yan Fei," she said, her voice a deadly whisper.
"Stay out of this, Yue'er!" he snarled, his power gathering. "I am cleansing your shame!" The temperature of the city dropped by fifty degrees. Civilians blocks away felt the air freeze in
their lungs. Lin Yue moved. It was not a "step." She became the ice. She appeared between
Yan Fei and Kael, her flute in her hand, her eyes no longer cold and clinical, but blazing with a
silver-blue light.
"He is under my protection," she declared.
Yan Fei's face went white, then purple. "You... You dare?! You defend this... filth... against me?!"
"He is ten times the man you are," Lin Yue said, her voice shaking with an emotion Kael had
never heard from her. "You are arrogant. You are cruel. And you are weak."
"WEAK?!" Yan Fei screamed. He lost control. The "Thunderclap" technique he'd been gathering
for Kael, he unleashed it all at her. "I'll show you weak! [Golden Thunderstorm]!"
"[Azure-Veil Art: Thousand-Petal Ice Wall]!"
The public, city-shaking duel began. It was a storm of ice and lightning. A golden, crackling
dragon of thunder slammed against a fortress of spinning, silver-blue ice lotuses. The sky above
Lin-An tore open. Buildings crumbled. The sound of their battle was a continuous, deafening
roar.
Kael, his system screaming at him about his [Overcharged] status, could only watch, helpless.
He was a piece of driftwood, and two tsunamis were colliding over his head.
Yan Fei was strong, his attacks wide and devastatingly powerful. But Lin Yue... she was furious.
Her ice was not just defensive. It was vicious. Sharp. Precise. For every ten bolts of lightning
Yan Fei threw, she would counter with one, perfectly-aimed ice-shard that forced him to defend,
breaking his rhythm, freezing his Qi, cutting his skin.
She was better than him. More refined. More controlled. More ruthless.
After a full minute of a battle that felt like a year, Lin Yue found her opening. Yan Fei, in his rage,
over-committed to an attack. She sidestepped, letting the lightning blast harmlessly into the
ocean, and struck. She didn't use a massive technique. She just tapped her flute, covered in a
sheen of black-ice, against his chest.
Tap.
Yan Fei froze. His lightning dissipated. He looked down. A single, black, lotus-shaped patch of
frost was spreading from the contact point. It was sealing his Qi. It was freezing his blood.
"You... you..." he choked, terror in his eyes. "You would cripple me? For him?"
"No," Lin Yue said, her breath pluming in the air. "I will not become a monster. Not like you." She
tapped his chest again. The black frost receded, but the seal remained. He was, for now,
powerless. "Leave," she commanded, her voice the final judgment. "Go back to your sect. Tell
them I broke the arrangement. Tell them if you ever come near him again, I will not be so
merciful."
Yan Fei, humiliated, powerless, and defeated, trembled with a rage so profound it was silent. He
gave Kael one last look of pure, murderous hatred. Then, using a last-ditch escape talisman, he
vanished in a flash of light.
Silence.
The entire district was in ruins. The crowd was silent, staring. Lin Yue stood alone on the
rooftop, the ice-goddess, the victor. Then, she turned. Her power vanished. She was just... Lin
Yue. She leaped down into the crater, landing softly.
Kael was trying, and failing, to stand. His body was a wreck. She rushed to him, for the first time
in her life, her movements clumsy, frantic.
"K_..._ Kael," she stammered, actually touching him, her hands hovering, afraid to break him.
"You... you're... why didn't you run?"
Kael looked at her, his vision blurry. He managed a bloody, broken smile. "My... stance," he
rasped, "doesn't... have a... 'run' function." He then, finally, allowed himself the luxury of passing out, his head falling forward, his body
caught by the shocked, and terrified, arms of the cultivator prodigy who had just thrown her
entire world away for him.