The halo-ring Senior's knee sank deeper into the fractured earth, veins bulging across his forehead like coiled vipers as he resisted the crushing weight of Old Lady Shen's Heaven Seal Palm. The crater beneath him spread in jagged rings for hundreds of meters, turning bedrock into fine powder.
"Is this… all?" he rasped, his voice a jagged tremor.
Old Lady Shen's gaze sharpened, her eyes glowing with an ancient, unforgiving light.
"Kneel."
BOOM!
Her palm-force doubled. The air howled, and the sky dimmed for a heartbeat, as if the sun itself were being crushed.
CRACK!
The Senior's second knee slammed into the ground. He let out a low, ragged breath, then began to laugh, a cold, inhuman sound.
"You are undoubtedly strong and experienced," he said, his crimson eyes lifting slowly. "But there is a vast difference in our True Qi."
In an instant, the serpent halo behind him spun wildly, accelerating until it became a blur of black light. A sinister aura erupted, coiling around his body like living chains of shadow.
"Did you truly think…" he growled, lifting his head inch by inch against her pressure, "…that I came unprepared?"
Old Lady Shen felt a jolt of surprise. She knew she held the advantage in technique and combat experience, her moves were surgical, his were feral. But he was fighting like a beast possessed. His Qi wasn't just energy; it was a concentrated, refined darkness that sought to devour everything it touched.
BOOM!
The Senior's Qi exploded, a physical wave of shadow that tore the crater apart and blasted Old Lady Shen back. She slid across the air, her feet carving ripples into the very fabric of space before she stabilized her form.
Below, the villagers screamed as the barrier flickered like a dying candle. Doctor Lu Cheng's body trembled; he could barely focus his mind to stabilize the formation.
What on earth is this? This dark Qi… it's wrong, he thought, his face ashen.
Then the Senior rose slowly from the dust. A phantom serpent—vast, shadowy, and mountainous—loomed behind him, its eyes glowing with abyssal malice.
"This is a disaster," Han Yue whispered from the distance, his heart hammering. "My sect must never anger these people. We should be seeking an alliance, but not to fight."
The Senior spread his arms and laughed. "Behold… my cultivation art!"
The phantom serpent opened its jaws, and a roar tore through the sky that sounded like the world breaking in half. Every one in the village dropped to they're knees coughing blood, but Old Lady Shen remained calm, her blue Qi condensing, no longer vast like the sea, but sharp and dense like a divine blade.
"So this is your card," she said, her voice steady. "Truly magnificent. I can feel the destructive power within it. But I still have cards of my own. Since you are no longer holding back… I will do the same."
She raised her hand. The giant phantom sword behind her shattered into countless shards of light, each one humming with lethal intent and a sharpness that could cut through dimensions.
For a frozen heartbeat, a massive wind died down between them. Then, in a flicker of movement, the Senior launched the phantom serpent.
"GO!"
Old Lady Shen swept her hand forward, launching the sword shards. They began to spin, twisting space itself as they screamed through the air.
Nobody in the valley knew what happened when two Peak Core Formation masters fought at full strength, until now.
It was like dropping a nuclear bomb into the heart of the region.
BOOM!
The attacks collided. In the first microsecond, they did not explode; they devoured each other, compressing into a small, terrifyingly calm orbit of white and black Qi.
Doctor Lu Cheng's pupils shrank. "It… it's not doing anything?"
Then, the orbit collapsed.
BOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!
The explosion erupted like a falling star. A ring of pure annihilation tore across the heavens, erasing clouds and distorting the sky. The shockwave expanded for a hundred kilometers, vaporizing the forest, the solid ground and grinding the mountain ridges into pebbles. The beasts of the region were extinguished in an instant.
The force slammed into the peaks of the Forbidden Mountain, causing the ancient stone to groan and tremble under the divine wrath of the impact.
The world went white, and for a moment, time itself seemed to stop