Kirin's command was a silent thought that became reality. The churning, shrieking sea of **Despair Flames** overhead rippled. Then, they fell. Not as a wave, but as a rain of meteoric death—dozens of blazing, soul-screaming green fireballs plummeting towards the scattered group.
Gen became a ghost in the chaos. He didn't try to block. He **zipped**, a silver-and-gold blur using **Shidow**-boosted leaps and air-steps, leaving afterimages that were consumed by the impacts. Each meteor that struck the ground didn't explode; it *splashed*, spreading a pool of clinging, mind-numbing chill.
Lorel moved with a new, desperate grace. She summoned her **Supremacy Sword**, the single blade of pink light humming in her grip. But she didn't just hold it. She used **Shidow** on herself, weaving the air around her body into currents that let her **float**, pivot, and accelerate with unnatural agility. She became a dancer in a lethal storm, weaving between the falling fire, her sword a precise needle threading the chaos.
Chubbs, having secured Liang's body behind a shattered pillar of rock, returned to the fight. He didn't fly. He **powered** his movement. His **Jingdao** was a deep, thrumming bass note beneath the shrieking flames. He jumped, not with finesse, but with raw, reinforced leg strength, landing on the trunk of a shattered tree, using it as a springboard to launch himself forward like a human catapult.
Yuan, seeing them all begin to move in a ragged, unspoken coordination around Kirin, snarled. He was being ignored, relegated to a side-show. His corrupted aura crackled with violent power. He shot forward to intercept, his target clear: Gen.
They met in a blur. Yuan's right hand, wreathed in the devouring darkness of the **Marojav's Palm**, lashed out in a grip meant to seize Gen's face and annihilate it.
Gen, his heart still aching from the memory of his poisoned **Jingdao**, knew he could not meet it head-on. He sidestepped, twisting his body in a sharp, evasive burst.
But Kirin was already there. From above, he dove, not attacking Gen, but **sculpting the battlefield**. A wave of **Fendow**-infused flame washed down, not to burn Gen, but to **devour the space** where Gen was about to land. It was a wall of un-making, a mouth of nothingness blocking his path.
Lorel saw it. Without a shouted warning, she acted. A dazzling, sweeping arc of her **Supremacy Sword** cut through the air, not at Kirin, but at the wall of devouring flame. The pink blade didn't extinguish it, but it **cleaved** it, splitting the unnatural fire for a single, critical second—just long enough for Gen to slip through the gap and evade.
In that same instant, Chubbs arrived. He had used their clash as cover. He landed directly in front of Yuan, his trajectory a perfect, punishing line. There was no technique, no finesse. It was a street brawler's move, powered by a foundation of pure, stubborn **Jingdao**. His palm, calloused and broad, slammed directly into Yuan's chest.
Yuan, arrogant to the last, sneered. "What can *you* do?"
***THWUMP.***
The impact wasn't flashy. It was profoundly solid. Chubbs's **Jingdao** wasn't about sharp force or penetration; it was about **immovable mass transferred**. It was the weight of a mountain condensed into a shove. Yuan's corrupted aura flared in protest, but his body was physically forced back several stumbling steps, the air driven from his lungs in a shocked grunt. The dark energy around the impact point sizzled and recoiled, as if repelled by something simple and honest.
Chubbs laughed, a short, hard bark. "That's what you get for underestimating the foundation, you flashy bastard."
Seeing the opening, Gen, Lorel, and Chubbs moved as one. They didn't plan it; it was born of shared desperation. They cornered Yuan from three sides—Gen with his humming bamboo cane, Lorel with her levitating sword, Chubbs with his rooted stance.
That's when Kirin, orchestrating the chaos from above, acted. His palm struck downward. A single, dense bolt of **Despair Flame** lanced into the ground, not at them, but at the center of their forming triangle.
Just as they converged on Yuan, the flame erupted.
It didn't attack them. It **bloomed** upward in a perfect, circular wall of screaming green fire, sealing Yuan inside with them, but also cutting off their angles of attack, disrupting their coordination. It was a prison and a shield in one.
The group was forced to evade backward, their momentum shattered.
Inside the ring of fire, Yuan gasped, his pride wounded. "I don't need help! I can handle all of them!" he roared at Kirin. Cursing loudly, he forced his Qi. The corrupted energy around him flared violently, becoming a visible, crackling storm of dark-purple lightning. The ground at his feet didn't crack; it **disintegrated** into fine, black sand. His skin darkened further, the strange marks on his face and neck glowing a feverish violet, bleeding fresh, dark fluid. His hair stood on end. He was consuming himself, burning his life and sanity for a surge of power.
"Yuan, be careful! You do not have mastery of that power yet!" Kirin's warning was sharp, but Yuan was mindless with rage.
He moved. It was a sprinter's explosion, but twisted. He shot towards Lorel, so fast her eyes barely tracked him. His corrupted palm, wreathed in static and devouring wind, aimed straight for her face.
Her world narrowed to that approaching hand. Fear turned to ice in her veins. But beneath the ice, a spark ignited—not despair, but an **intense, burning desire**. *Not a burden. I will not be the weak link. NOT AGAIN.*
She didn't just summon her sword. She summoned her **will**.
Behind her back, the air *crystallized*. Not one, but **seven** blades of solidified pink light fanned into existence, forming a radiant, spinning circle like a halo of deadly petals. Her aura shifted, shedding its timid pink for a brilliant, unwavering **rose-gold**. For a moment, she didn't look like a cultivator; she looked like a wrathful, descending fairy. Her hair floated as if underwater.
She didn't wave a sword. She **thought**, and the seven **Supremacy Swords** moved as one, guided by a torrent of **Shidow** so precise it was as if they were extensions of her soul.
They met Yuan's charge not with a single clash, but with a **concert**. One parried his wrist, another sliced at his elbow, a third stabbed for his knee. It was a seamless, defensive symphony of light.
***SCRITCH-SHING!***
A deep, burning cut opened across Yuan's chest. He hissed, stumbling back several paces, shock cutting through his rage.
From the side, using a tree as a launchpad, Chubbs descended like a falling star, his fist aimed at Yuan's temple. "You forgot about me!"
Annoyed, Yuan spun with feral speed. His hand shot up and **caught** Chubbs by the thick neck in mid-air. The impact choked off Chubbs's roar.
"You are getting *annoying*, you foul!" Yuan spat, his fingers pressing inward with bone-crushing force reinforced by dark energy. Chubbs's face began to purple, his own **Jingdao** straining against the corrupting, crushing grip.
Lorel screamed, ordering all seven swords to converge on Yuan to free him.
Kirin appeared before her in a whisper of displaced air. "Your dance is lovely," he said softly, and unleashed a torrent of **Despair Flames** from his palm. The seven pink swords met the river of green agony in a dazzling, screaming clash of opposing wills and energies. The force of the collision threw both Lorel and Kirin back several steps, breaking her concentration on the swords, which flickered.
Gen, pouring every ounce of his **Shidow** into speed, tried to close the distance to Yuan, but he was a fraction too slow, the lingering poison in his channels from the earlier touch a lead weight.
Chubbs's vision began to darken at the edges. Yuan leaned in, his breath hot and foul. "Tell me now, fatty. How does it feel? You will die for no good reason. Big and stupid. That is all you are."
From the sidelines, Madame Su bit her lip hard enough to draw blood. She was pushing herself up, but her body was a collection of screams. She was powerless. The protector was helpless.
Both Gen and Lorel screamed in unison, their voices raw with identical terror.
Yuan raised his left hand, the **Marojav's Palm** coiling with its annihilating darkness, aimed at Chubbs's held, exposed head.
"This ends your nuisance."