The final second on the System's timer didn't just tick; it resonated through the very fabric of the mountain. As the clock struck zero, the silver light emanating from the Heart of the Moon transitioned from a rhythmic pulse into a blinding, continuous pillar of celestial fire.
[DING! Synchronization Complete!] [Title Awarded: The Eclipse Overlord.] [Relationship Perk: Dual Core Resonance — You and Ye Chen now share a single, infinite Mana pool for the duration of the combat.]
Qin Feng felt it instantly. The exhaustion that had been gnawing at his muscles vanished, replaced by a cold, divine clarity. His Foundation Qi, once a turbulent river, had now become a vast, silent ocean of power. Beside him, Ye Chen let out a sharp intake of breath as her shattered meridians were finally, perfectly sealed by the ancient lunar energy. She stood taller than ever, her Moon-Severing Blade vibrating with a pitch that could shatter glass.
Sect Leader Ling, however, did not wait for the transformation to finish. He was a man of the 9th Layer of Foundation Establishment, a half-step into the legendary Golden Core realm. He knew that if he allowed this momentum to build, his three hundred years of dominance would end in the dirt of this plateau.
"Ignorant ants!" Ling bellowed, his voice amplified by the roar of his Golden Dragon. "You think a light show can bridge the gap of two centuries of cultivation? Dragon Fire: Heaven's Purgatory!"
The Golden Dragon opened its massive maw, unleashing a torrent of white-hot flames that turned the air into a shimmering haze of heat. This wasn't normal fire; it was "Spirit-Seeking Flame," designed to melt the very soul of the target.
"Ye Chen, let's show him what real power looks like," Qin Feng said, his voice eerily calm amidst the roaring inferno.
They moved in perfect unison, their hands meeting for a brief second before they separated to flank the beast.
[COMBINATION SKILL ACTIVATED: Absolute Zero Eclipse.]
Qin Feng didn't retreat. He sprinted directly into the dragon fire. To the horrified disciples watching from the cliffs, it looked like suicide. But as the flames touched him, they didn't burn. A shell of dark, violet frost erupted from Qin Feng's skin, consuming the heat and turning the white flames into harmless flakes of black ash.
He reached the dragon's chest in a heartbeat. He didn't use his pickaxe. He simply punched the dragon's scales with a fist wreathed in Eclipse Overlord Qi.
BOOM!
The sound was like a temple bell being struck by a meteor. The massive Golden Dragon, a beast that had terrified the region for decades, was lifted off the ground. Its golden scales, harder than spirit-iron, shattered like cheap porcelain under Qin Feng's touch. The beast let out a pathetic whimper as a shockwave of cold energy surged through its heart, freezing its internal fires.
"My dragon!" Ling screamed, his composure finally snapping. He leaped from the beast's head, his hands forming a series of complex seals. "Golden Sword Rain: Execution of the Traitor!"
A thousand golden swords materialized in the air, spinning with enough velocity to create a vacuum. They descended like a vertical wall of death.
Ye Chen appeared in the path of the swords, her blade drawn back. "Your swords are loud, Ling. But the moon... the moon is silent."
She swung her blade in a single, horizontal arc. A crescent moon of violet energy, a hundred feet wide, sliced through the air. It didn't clash with the golden swords; it simply passed through them. Everywhere the violet light touched, the golden swords dissolved into nothingness, their Qi stolen and added to Ye Chen's own reservoir.
Ling stumbled back, his eyes wide with a terror he hadn't felt since he was a lowly disciple. "This... this is the power of the Great Ancestors. How? How can a miner carry the heritage of the Eclipse?"
Qin Feng stepped through the settling dust, his ebony pickaxe resting casually on his shoulder. "You keep calling me a miner like it's a slur, Ling. But being a miner taught me one thing you'll never understand: you have to look past the surface to find the real treasure. You looked at me and saw trash. I looked at your sect and saw a pile of rubble waiting to happen."
[SYSTEM: Enemy Mental State: Broken.] [Face-Slapping Multiplier: x50! (Peak of the Region defeated).]
Ling let out a guttural roar of desperation. He reached into his robes and pulled out a glowing, crimson pill, the Burning Soul Elixir. It was a forbidden medicine that would grant him the power of a Golden Core expert for five minutes at the cost of his life.
"If I die, I take you with me!" Ling's body began to swell, his skin turning a grotesque shade of red as his Qi began to boil. He became a sun of unstable, violent energy.
"Husband," Ye Chen said, stepping to Qin Feng's side. She didn't look worried; she looked disgusted. "He intends to self-detonate. He wants to take the ruins and us with him."
"Not on my watch," Qin Feng replied. He reached out and grabbed Ye Chen's hand, their fingers locking. "System, activate Final Resonance: The Eternal Eclipse."
[WARNING: This will consume 100% of available Spirit Stones. Proceed?]
"Proceed," Qin Feng commanded.
The fifty high-grade spirit stones remaining in Qin Feng's storage bag vanished, converted into a raw, primordial force. The sky above the mountain didn't just turn dark; it ceased to exist. A sphere of absolute darkness enveloped the plateau, cutting off all sound, all light, and all heat.
Inside this void, Sect Leader Ling's "Sun" was nothing but a flickering candle.
Qin Feng and Ye Chen moved together, their bodies becoming a single streak of violet-gold light. They passed through Ling's exploding aura like it was a summer breeze. Qin Feng's pickaxe struck Ling's chest at the exact same moment Ye Chen's blade pierced his dantian.
The silence that followed was more deafening than any explosion.
The darkness shattered, and the twin moons reappeared in the sky. Sect Leader Ling was pinned to the central pillar of the Altar. His red, swollen skin had returned to a sickly pale grey. His Golden Core seed had been shattered, and his meridians were frozen solid. He wasn't dead, but he was worse than dead, he was a mortal again.
Qin Feng stood before him, breathing evenly. He looked at the fallen "God" of the Azure Sky Sect and felt nothing but a cold sense of justice.
"You spent three hundred years building a mountain of corpses to reach the sky," Qin Feng said, his voice carrying to every surviving disciple on the cliffs. "But you forgot one thing, Ling. The higher you climb, the harder the fall."
[DING! Main Quest: 'The Fall of the Azure Sky' — COMPLETED!] [EXP Gained: 200,000!] [Level Up: 5th Layer Foundation Establishment!] [World Announcement: The Eclipse Overlord has risen!]
The surviving disciples dropped their weapons in unison. There was no more fight in them. Their "invincible" leader was a broken old man, and the "trash" miner was now a figure of divine power.
Ye Chen walked up to Ling and took the Sect Leader's signet ring from his trembling finger. She didn't say a word to him; he wasn't worth her breath. She turned to Qin Feng, the moonlight reflecting in her eyes.
"It is over," she said.
"No," Qin Feng replied, looking toward the horizon, where even greater mountain ranges beckoned. "The Azure Sky Sect was just a small pond. The real world is out there, Ye Chen. And I think it's time they met the new neighbors."