Zun Gon lay sprawled on the ground, fragments of the shattered gate strewn around him. His robes were torn and bloodied. He was unconscious. The only reason he wasn’t dead was because the other guy hadn’t gone all out. But he hadn’t exactly held back either as a raw, burning gash tore across Zun Gon’s chest. Potentially fatal.

I didn’t let my gaze linger on him for long.

Instead, I looked up toward the figure still hovering atop the darkened sun. Without Zun Gon’s bright sun, the world dimmed together with our hopes. The massive sphere of shadow above us devoured every trace of light around it. Just looking in its direction made my vision strain.

Dark Ruler raised his green hand and pointed it at Zun Gon’s crumpled body. That ever-present grin split across his face. Then he fired a beam of condensed darkness, aimed straight at the unconscious man.

Song Song glanced at me.

There was no time to speak, but her eyes said it all.

She wasn’t afraid. In fact, she looked weirdly... confident. It wasn’t arrogance; she had simply figured something out. And I understood what she was thinking.

Since her father was watching, then she’d live. He’d intervene if her life was in danger. We were quite sure of that. That was a calculated risk based on logic of what he had done so far.

She’d realized the same thing I had, and knew she could manipulate the situation.

In her mind, sacrificing someone to gain a strategic advantage was unacceptable. Song Song had always been that way and would never accept the notion of giving up something smaller for something bigger in the future. She would rather have both.

Song Song wanted to manufacture an outcome where both of us could survive. Even if it meant gambling with her life.

And how would she do that? Simple. Make the two Nascent Soul cultivators fight.

To make that happen, she had to draw attention to herself and force her father to act.

This all happened in a second. I saw the decision flash in her eyes.

I opened my mouth, tried to stop her. Really did. But I already knew it was useless. She was going to do it anyway, despite my disagreeing glare.

She spun her hand once, and her crimson axe appeared in a flash of light. Then, without hesitation, she leapt forward and swung.

She poured her Qi into the weapon until it pulsed like a living heart. Her aura flared around her, blindingly intense, then compressed inward as she channeled it all into the strike.

The moment her axe met the beam of darkness, the sound was deafening, like glass breaking inside your soul. Her weapon shattered on impact, exploding into dozens of pieces that scattered across the battlefield like burning embers.

But it had worked.

The trajectory of the beam shifted. Instead of blasting straight through Zun Gon’s chest and turning him into a smoking hole in the dirt, the beam veered slightly off-course, obliterating only the left side of his stomach.

Still... that was bad. Really bad. He was probably going to die from that.

That was a shame. Zun Gon was one of the few responsible cultivators I actually respected. In another situation, I might’ve gone out of my way to save him. But this wasn’t that situation. The outcome had been certain either way. This just prolonged it.

Honestly, the only people I’d abandon all logic for, the only ones I’d rush into death to protect, were Speedy, Song Song, and Wu Yan.

Dark Ruler turned toward Song Song, his twisted smile widening, with rows of jagged, yellow teeth glistening beneath his wet lips.

“Impressive. You exploited the darkness element’s greatest flaw. For all its mystery, it’s notoriously brittle,” he said.

He was bullshitting. Just toying with us. That’s why he hadn’t wiped us out with one overwhelming strike.

I expected him to get bored and blast us all to smithereens. Instead, he rubbed his chin, eyeing Song Song like a merchant inspecting his wares.

“You’re from the Song Clan, aren’t you?” he asked.

“Yes,” Song Song replied.

“I knew one of your ancestors, a Song Clan Leader from a couple of thousand years ago. He’s the one who gave me this.” Dark Ruler tapped the stitched face on his chest, which was growling and frothing with rage. “He and some guy from the Void Piercing Sect were working on something together.”

The Dark Ruler stopped using his core technique. The black sun dissipated, and normal light returned. The stars and half-moon reappeared in the sky.

One moment, he was floating high above. Next, he was standing beside Song Song and less than six feet from me. I hadn’t seen him move. I hadn’t even felt it.

Chills rippled through my body. I was terrified. I hadn’t even sensed his presence despite the show of power he’d just put on.

“He peeled my skin and chopped my liver like I was some pig,” he said, laughing lightheartedly, like he was sharing a funny story.

“Do you hold any grudge against us?” Song Song asked calmly. She hadn’t even flinched despite him suddenly appearing next to her. I doubted she had any easier time tracking his movements than I did.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“No,” the monster shook his head. “After all, I killed the guy with my own two hands. Though sometimes, I still recall his cold eyes as he watched my hand burst through his chest.”

“I understand. So, is this story going somewhere?” Song Song asked, rather rudely.

I tried to signal her to tone it down, but she didn’t spare me a glance.

“Yes. I was wondering if you would make the same expression… if I ripped your heart out and you saw it beat a few last times,” he said.

Shit! This had just gone in the worst direction possible!

I glanced at the Song Clan Leader. But he was watching the situation with a nonchalant expression.

Was he not going to help his daughter?

Damn it! Wasn’t the Blazing Sun Immortal supposed to intervene in threats involving Nascent Soul cultivators? He promised. Sure, I never fully trusted his word as he didn’t seem very reliable, but… fuck!

“I’m only jesting with you,” the monster said, smiling. “Despite how I look, I used to be human, and some gentlemanly habits have endured through the millennia. But sadly, I need to draw out your Immortal… so I’ll have to blow the entire sect sky-high.”

He moved again, so fast it was indistinguishable from teleportation. One moment he stood on the ground; the next, he hovered above the sect’s mountain, suspended in the sky like a god passing judgment.

He raised a clawed index finger, pointing it toward the heavens.

A tiny black wisp of energy, no larger than a grain of rice, shimmered into existence at his fingertip.

And then… it grew.

In seconds, the wisp ballooned into a massive sphere of darkness, far larger than the mountain itself. It blotted out the moon, devoured the stars, and shoved the clouds aside like an expanding tide.

Then came the pressure.

The moment he released his Qi, a monstrous force fell upon all of us.

Crushing. Absolute.

It wasn’t just physical weight pressing down; it was as if the very heavens had rejected our right to exist.

Now I was starting to worry.

Was the Blazing Sun Immortal actually going to flunk on his end of the deal? He had promised that Nascent Soul cultivators wouldn't be allowed to intervene on sect grounds, and this guy was very much on sect grounds.

The goblin-like monster’s grin broadened, unnaturally wide, until it nearly split his face in two.

Then, with a flick of that clawed finger, he pointed downward.

And the dark sphere followed.

It plummeted like a meteor of annihilation, dragging all light and warmth with it.

I didn’t move. There was no point. I just stared at the descending void and sighed.

So this was it. Was this how I was going to die?

I’d had a similar experience once, being forced to look death in the eye, but this time felt different. And I definitely wasn’t okay with dying. Not that I ever was. But now… even less so. I had more regrets now than ever before.

Speedy. Wu Yan. Fu Yating. They were all here because of me. And now… they were all going to die.

But just as the colossal sphere of shadow was about to crash down on the mountain, so close I could feel the Qi in my body starting to freeze, a small figure appeared.

Just like that… the ball of darkness vanished.

It didn’t explode. It didn’t dissipate into harmless mist. It simply ceased to exist, like it had never been there.

The sky was silent.

Even the goblin-like monster stopped grinning.

That small figure floated in the air, bathed in ,moonlight, calm and unmoving. He looked like a teenager. Dark hair. Deep green eyes. Good-looking, but not so handsome as to draw attention in a crowd.

“Ha, so you finally appeared!” the Dark Ruler said, condensing the shadows around him. They twisted, turned, and morphed into a trident of darkness in his hands. “Blazing Sun Immortal!”

The moment that title echoed through the air, every Sect member held their breath. They were entranced and stunned as they stared at the newcomer, as if caught in a daydream.

Fucking finally! What the hell was he doing until now?

Relief washed over me like a cool spring as all the tension left my body. I let out a long breath.

The Dark Ruler fired a beam of darkness from his new trident, which wasn’t anything like the attack Song Song had deflected earlier. This one sizzled with tension as it moved, distorting the air around it, bending space itself as it shot toward the Blazing Sun Immortal.

The Immortal stared at it with a bored gaze and let the attack hit him.

The beam split clean in two the moment it touched him, shearing apart and blasting the clouds behind him just from the backlash. The sky above cleared, leaving only a crisp, quiet night.

The Blazing Sun Immortal sighed, looking genuinely disappointed, like a kid who’d just been told to go do chores.

“Here I was, having tea with my new girlfriend and comforting her after she saw the sun disappear. I kept saying all kinds of excuses about how the Blazing Sun Sect had already won and all that,” he grumbled.

Wait. He was on a date? With a teenager??

“You ruined that youthful passion,” he continued. “I was going through all that trouble, about to confess under the bright sun. The danger added a sense of finality, y’know? But then she freaked out when a dark blob, one bigger than the mountain, appeared.”

Wait. So the only reason he showed up… was because his date got ruined? Please tell me he’s joking. He forgot about all this?

I knew it. I knew I shouldn’t have trusted a thousand-year-old monster to care about anything but his own whims.

“You sure speak a lot for–” the Dark Ruler began.

But he never finished the sentence.

His body was suddenly engulfed in flame. Not the kind that crackled or roared.

This was absolute. Silent. Final.

No scream. No resistance. He simply burned.

And within a single breath, his body turned to ash, disintegrating and scattering into the wind.

“Just because you became the new pet of the heavens, you thought that made you undefeatable?” the Blazing Sun Immortal muttered, shaking his head. “What a moron.”

Then he turned his gaze toward us, toward the sect members.

His tone had been whiny, almost petulant, more fitting for a teenager than an immortal cultivator.

But no one was under any illusion about what had just happened.

So, with that in mind, they bowed. Some in fear. Others out of respect. Most out of gratitude for still being alive.

But they bowed all the same.

Regardless of their reasons, their heads lowered and their knees touched the snow in unison. A silent acknowledgment of undeniable power, the kind that demanded reverence not through titles, not through speeches, but through sheer presence.

Whether out of terror, admiration, or debt… they all understood one truth; in front of an Immortal, even the most prideful must kneel.