Chapter 79: The Blow That Flattened the World
The Iniquitous Baptist's pupils shrank to pinpricks. A primal, suffocating sense of dread clawed at its throat, making the hairs on its neck stand rigid. Instinct took over before rational thought could form. Dark energy flared, activating its Warp. The creature tore through the spatial fabric, instantly reappearing dozens of meters away.
"Retreat!" it shrieked, its voice cracking with unmatched panic.
The three Abyss Heralds engaged in the vanguard felt it too—a terrifying, razor-sharp pressure pressing down on their very souls. Abandoning their offensive stances without a second thought, they blurred into shadows, hastily falling back to flank the Iniquitous Baptist.
A heavy, suffocating silence descended upon the battlefield. The chaotic din of combat vanished, leaving only the eerie crackle of dying embers.
In the center of the scorched earth stood Stelle. Her eyes were shut tight. Her grip on the Liuli Sword was absolute, the gleaming tip angled downward toward the cracked soil.
An invisible, razor-sharp momentum began to coil around her. It rose slowly, a physical weight that pressed against the atmosphere. The surrounding air shimmered, heating up as if ignited by her sheer will. Even the suffocating, pervasive miasma of the Abyss was violently pushed back, sliced to ribbons by this terrifyingly pure sword intent.
Stelle no longer looked like a mere Trailblazer; she had become a living blade, drawn back into its scabbard, vibrating with the catastrophic promise of an unsheathing that would sever the world itself.
The Iniquitous Baptist's grotesque features twisted in absolute horror. The brewing energy across the field was apocalyptic. If that strike fell, there would be nothing left.
"Stop her!" it screeched, throwing its hands forward to channel the darkest depths of its Abyss energy. Beside it, the three Abyss Heralds roared, simultaneously unleashing the absolute pinnacle of their elemental malice.
Frost, lightning, and hellfire erupted. Driven by the corrupting integration of the Abyss, these three conflicting elements were violently forced together. They twisted and warped into a chaotic, dark-purple torrent of annihilation. The energy pulsed with destructive shockwaves, taking the shape of a roaring, multi-headed abyssal dragon. It tore across the plain, devouring the earth in its wake, surging directly toward the unmoving, gray-haired girl.
Iansan did not hesitate. She lunged forward, planting her boots firmly into the dirt right in front of Stelle. She swung her spear horizontally, her knuckles white as she fully ignited her Electro vision. Violet lightning crackled furiously around her small frame, forming a desperate defensive barrier. She knew, deep down in her bones, that she could not stop that apocalyptic dragon of energy. But she had to buy time. Even a fraction of a second could be enough.
The dark-purple maw of the elemental torrent opened wide, mere inches from engulfing Iansan in absolute destruction.
Then, Stelle opened her eyes.
The usual chaotic, raccoon-like playfulness was entirely gone. In its place burned a solemn, penetratingly sharp light that mirrored the edge of a divine blade.
"Golden Light Demon-Subduing!"
Her clear, cold voice shattered the heavy air, echoing across the desolate plain. There was no chaotic explosion of power, no devastating shockwave. There was only a single, blinding arc of golden light. It was condensed to the absolute extreme, terrifyingly pure, bursting forth from the tip of the Liuli Sword with the brilliance of a newborn sun.
The strike launched after the enemy's assault, yet it arrived first, moving at a velocity that defied visual perception.
Whoosh—!
A soft, whispering hum filled the air. Like a searing hot knife gliding through soft butter, the terrifying, dark-purple torrent of Abyss energy was silently, effortlessly split down the middle the exact millisecond it met the golden light.
The golden arc did not slow. It carried an absolute, obvious resolve to sever all that stood before it. In a fraction of a heartbeat, it pierced straight through the horrified Iniquitous Baptist and the three Abyss Heralds. It continued its merciless trajectory, carving through the shrieking horde of monsters behind them, before finally slamming with apocalyptic force into the towering rock wall at the edge of the basin.
Rumble—!!!
A deafening, catastrophic explosion finally tore through the earth. The severed halves of the abyssal torrent lost their stability, detonating violently outward and blasting two massive, smoking craters into the plain.
But the true devastation lay ahead. Where the golden sword light had struck, the impenetrable black rock of the basin wall had been sliced open like fragile tofu. A gigantic, bottomless fissure now split the earth, its interior walls sheared so perfectly they reflected the sky like polished mirrors.
The spot where the Iniquitous Baptist and its vanguard had stood just moments ago was entirely empty. The monsters, the dark energy, the very soil beneath their feet—all of it had been erased from existence the moment the light swept past.
Only the lingering, skin-prickling sword intent hanging in the air and the hideous, gaping canyon at the edge of the basin served as proof that the strike had ever happened.
Dead silence.
The plain was enveloped in absolute stillness.
Iansan remained frozen in her defensive stance, her spear still held horizontally. She stared blankly at the charred, utterly empty expanse of ground right in front of her face. Slowly, stiffly, she turned her head to trace the path of destruction, her eyes locking onto the massive canyon extending into the distant basin. Her jaw went slack. Her mind completely short-circuited.
That apocalyptic dragon of energy... that single golden arc that seemed capable of cleaving the heavens and the earth apart... it was entirely beyond the world of her comprehension.
Beside her, March 7th stood frozen with her mouth hanging wide open. Her grip on her Six-Phased Ice bow was so loose it nearly slipped from her fingers and clattered into the dirt.
She knew Stelle had been practicing some weird new skill from that mysterious chat group, but... this level of destructive power was completely absurd! Was this genuinely the same trash-can-diving, perpetually goofing-around Stelle she traveled the stars with?!
Stelle herself looked equally stunned. She blinked slowly, looking down at the Liuli Sword in her hand. The blade was glowing faintly, radiating an astonishing, pulsating heat. She looked from the sword to the catastrophic canyon she had just carved into the landscape.
A wide, chaotic grin suddenly split across her face.
"...Wah-hoo!" she cheered, pumping her fist. "The chat group totally didn't lie to me! This move... is absolutely cracked!"
"...Uh..." March 7th finally managed to find her voice. She let out a long, exhausted sigh and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Stelle... do you think maybe you could give us a tiny little heads-up next time you decide to casually unleash a world-ending ultimate attack? You almost scared Iansan and me into an early grave..."
"Ahem..." Stelle coughed, awkwardly scratching the back of her gray hair. That hyper-focused, sword-intent state had felt incredibly deep and mysterious, and to be perfectly honest, it was her very first time actually testing it out outside of her imagination.
Iansan finally snapped out of her paralyzed shock. She turned to look at the Trailblazer, her gaze now swimming with deep awe and utter disbelief.
"Miss Stelle..." she breathed out, her voice trembling with reverence. "Is this... is this the legendary Adeptal Sword Art of Liyue? Such catastrophic power... it is simply... simply divine!"
She offered her praise with complete sincerity, entirely convinced that this world-shattering display was the result of Liyue's mysterious immortal arts.
"Hehe!" Hearing the sheer reverence in the Natlan warrior's voice, Stelle instantly tossed her own lingering shock into the nearest metaphorical trash can. She puffed out her chest, proudly planting both hands on her hips. If she had a tail, it would be wagging furiously toward the sky.
"Of course! Yours truly is a once-in-a-million martial arts prodigy! Mere Abyssal pests can be extinguished with a mere flick of my wrist! Wahahaha!"
The sudden, jarring whiplash—from a solemn, peerless swordmaster to a fiercely bragging, chaotic young girl—made Iansan blink rapidly. She suddenly felt as if that heaven-cleaving strike had just been a collective hallucination.
March 7th, meanwhile, watched her best friend instantly revert to her usual smug, raccoon-like self and let out a long, helpless groan, rolling her eyes toward the heavens.
"Yes, yes, yes, you're a once-in-a-million prodigy, we get it. Now please put away your divine world-ending abilities before you accidentally slice the continent in half!" March scolded playfully. "Don't forget we still have a mission here! We need to rescue Kachina!"
"Oh, right, right, right!" Stelle nodded rapidly. With a flick of her wrist, the glowing Liuli Sword vanished into her inventory, and she casually re-shouldered her heavy Flame Lance. "Iansan, quickly, do your sensing thing! Let's keep moving! This young hero is feeling incredibly buffed right now!"
Iansan stared at the gray-haired girl. Watching her bounce on her heels with absolutely zero trace of a grandmaster's dignity, Iansan's expression grew deeply complicated. She mentally replayed the image of that golden light erasing the landscape, shook her head to clear the cognitive dissonance, and composed herself.
Closing her eyes, she reached out with her elemental awareness, locking onto that faint, lingering connection.
"This way!" she declared, pointing her spear toward a distant stretch of the plain.
Wasting no more time, the trio surged forward, resuming their urgent hunt for Kachina's whereabouts. On the scorched plain behind them, only the gaping, mirror-smooth canyon and the faint, stinging hum of residual sword intent remained, silently bearing witness to the day a Trailblazer decided to casually cleave the world in two.
...........
Meanwhile, miles away from the canyon of destruction, the second search party was making their descent. Dan Heng, Paimon, Chasca, and Ling carefully handled their way down from the peak of a mist-shrouded mountain.
Unlike Lumine's group, who were currently trapped handling a jagged, rugged labyrinth, or Stelle's group, who had waded through nauseating swamps of abyssal mud, this team had lucked out. The terrain sloping down from the summit was relatively flat and stable. Their descent was only occasionally interrupted by scattered, beast-like monsters—wretched creatures heavily mutated by the Abyss's corrupting miasma. To this seasoned group, they posed barely any threat at all.
"Freeze!" Ling shouted, her voice cutting through the thick mountain mist.
A violent gale of absolute zero temperatures gushed from her outstretched palms. The blast caught a leaping, black-crystal-covered hound mid-air, instantly flash-freezing the grotesque beast into a solid, suspended sculpture of ice.
"Break," a calm voice followed.
Dan Heng's figure blurred, slipping past Ling like a phantom. His Cloud-Piercer spear spun in his grip, trailing a razor-sharp ribbon of green wind. With clinical precision, the spear thrust forward, striking the exact dead center of the frozen monster's core.
Crack!
The ice sculpture violently detonated. The frozen crystals and the beast's corrupted flesh shattered into a million pieces, instantly dissolving into harmless black mist that faded into the wind.
The entire execution was brutally clean and perfectly efficient, a display of flawless, unspoken cooperation.
"Well done, Ling! Nice hit, Dan Heng!" Paimon cheered, floating safely at the rear of the formation. She pumped her tiny fists enthusiastically in the air. While she absolutely refused to float anywhere near the actual danger zone, she was more than happy to serve as the team's dedicated cheerleader while her companions effortlessly swept the path clear.
Chasca offered a slight, approving nod. She hadn't even needed to draw her bow. Her sharp eyes continuously scanned the swirling mist, her senses hyper-focused on tracking the surrounding environment and pinpointing Kachina's exact direction.
Her brow furrowed slightly as she peered down the mountain path. "Just ahead..." she murmured, her voice tight with caution. "The terrain opens up, but the atmospheric pressure is changing. The Abyss pollution down there... it's far more intense."
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