Chapter 250: The Last Stand of Cloud Peak

The acrid stench of scorched earth and burnt marrow hung heavy over the outer perimeter of the fallen Cloud Peak Sect. Ash settled like grey snow over the fractured jade flagstones, coating the broken foundation where generations of disciples had once cultivated.

Amidst the smoking timber and scattered debris, a trembling hand pressed into the hot stone.

Xia Lu pushed herself upward inch by agonizing inch. Her emerald robes were shredded, saturated in dark, half-dried blood, and soot clung to the deep bruises across her cheekbones. Tears cut clean, pale tracks through the grime on her face as she looked up into the desolate sky, where Liu Tong still hovered with unhurried malice.

Her teeth ground together with a sickening crunch.

"Liu Tong..." Xia Lu’s voice rose, raspy at first, before tearing from her chest in a raw, thunderous scream of absolute hatred. "I care nothing for the rotting delusions poisoning your mind! But even if my bones are ground into dust, I swear to Star Emperor... you will not walk off this mountain alive!"

Xia Lu clamped her teeth down savagely onto her right thumb, tearing through flesh and vein until dark, viscous crimson welled up over her knuckles.

She dragged her torn thumb across her left palm, then rubbed both hands together until her skin was coated in a wet, gleaming layer of fresh blood.

Her bloody fingers moved in a frantic blur.

First, she intertwined her middle and ring fingers, bending them inward against her palms while extending her index fingers and thumbs straight out to form a locked diamond—Bind. A sharp, metallic hum vibrated through the air as thin threads of green qi leaped between her fingertips.

Next, she snapped her hands apart and hooked her pinkies together, crossing her wrists as her remaining fingers splayed open like the fangs of a striking viper—Awaken. The blood on her skin began to boil, turning into wisps of crimson steam that hissed against the cold mountain air.

Finally, she slammed her open palms flat against each other, interlocking all ten bloody fingers into a single, seamless knot and driving them violently downward toward the shattered earth—Manifest.

CRACKLE...

A sickening drain pulled at the core of her chest. From the very roots of her scalp, the midnight black of her long hair faded, a stark, frost-like white bleeding down each strand until it reached her waist. Her sunken cheeks hollowed further, the skin tightening over her cheekbones as wrinkles traced the corners of her eyes, her very lifespan feeding the internal furnace of her dantian like dry tinder thrown onto an open fire.

The fading, broken wisps of her aura suddenly ignited, turning into a roaring pillar of jade flame that tore through her torn robes, forcefully dragging her dying cultivation over the threshold and locking it firmly into the suffocating density of a Spirit Lord Level 1.

Beneath her cloth boots, intricate emerald and ink-black lines carved themselves into the granite flags, rapidly expanding outward into a massive, sixty-foot summoning array. Ancient, serpentine runes spun along the outer circumference, glowing with blinding radiance.

HISSSSSSS—ROOOOOAAAR!

The center of the formation split open like a bottomless subterranean gorge.

Thick, corrosive black sludge erupted into the air, splashing over the fractured flagstones. From the depths of the black void, a colossal, armored head broader than a carriage rose into the ash-filled sky. Heavy, diamond-shaped obsidian scales—each the size of an iron shield—ground against one another with the screech of shifting bedrock as forty feet of serpentine muscle coiled upward.

A pungent, suffocating stench of sulfur and rot washed over the ruins. Two burning, slit-pupiled amber lanterns locked their gaze on the floating figure above, radiating the crushing, primordial dominance of a Spirit Lord Level 2 beast—the Blackscale Pit Serpent.

Liu Tong, floating above, raised a single brow.

He tilted his head sideways, letting out a low, mocking chuckle that rasped against the wind. "Burning your lifespan and marrow just to awaken a sleeping beast from the underworld? How touching. You truly believe a dying snake and a shattered foundation are enough to overturn the heavens?"

Xia Lu wiped the blood leaking from her nostrils with the back of her hand, her eyes blazing with an unholy emerald fire. "I will make it enough!"

The Blackscale Pit Serpent roared, its massive tail slamming into the earth to launch its forty-foot frame forward.

Xia Lu blurred beside it, surging in perfect synchronization with the beast.

Liu Tong rolled his neck with a dull CRACK, his grin turning vicious. He dropped out of the sky like a falling meteor, hurtling directly toward the armored beast.

He met the serpent head-on.

Liu Tong cocked his right fist back and slammed it straight into the serpent’s armored snout.

BOOOOOM!

A concussive shockwave pulverized the ground beneath them. Black scales shattered like brittle glass, dark green beast-blood spraying through the air as the sheer, brute force of the punch hurled the colossal creature violently backward through the rubble.

In the same split second, Xia Lu flanked his blind side, driving her spirit sword in a blinding, horizontal thrust meant to sever his neck.

Liu Tong didn’t even turn. He swept his heavy war-axe across in a brutal counter-cleave.

CLANG!

The screech of colliding steel shrieked across the ruined valley, sharp enough to rattle bone.

Spiderweb fractures raced down the length of Xia Lu’s spiritual blade, glowing white-hot for a fraction of a second before the metal detonated into a storm of screaming shrapnel. Sharp fragments shredded the sleeves of her robes, slicing shallow lines across her forearms as the kinetic rebound numbed both her wrists down to the bone.

Before her boots could skip back to yield ground, Liu Tong’s left arm surged through the shower of flying steel. His calloused fingers snapped shut around her throat like an iron shackle, cutting off her breath in an instant.

With a brutal snap of his hips, Liu Tong wrenched his torso and hurled her across the courtyard like a sack of stones.

Wind roared in Xia Lu’s ears as the shattered stone ground spun beneath her. She gritted her teeth through the blinding dizziness, channeling the lingering dregs of her wind qi into the soles of her cloth boots. Her heels slammed against the cracked granite, carving two smoking trenches across the stone flags as she skidded sixty paces, finally dropping onto one trembling knee.

Her chest heaved violently. A wet, ragged choke tore through her throat, and she coughed up a thick glob of blackish-red blood that hissed against the hot stone between her knees.

Inside her core, the sensation was pure agony. Her dantian felt like cracked porcelain being roasted over open coals, spiritual veins tearing and fraying under the unnatural strain of her burning lifespan. Dark spots swam across her blurred vision, and the frantic pounding of her heartbeat rang in her ears like a dying war drum.

Thirty breaths, the realization settled in with chilling clarity. Even if his axe never touches my flesh, this burning marrow will reduce my foundation to cinder in less than thirty breaths.

Xia Lu forced her chin upward.

Her bloodshot eyes swept across the desolate perimeter. The shattered jade archways where outer disciples used to gather at dawn for morning drills lay crushed beneath scorched boulders. The soaring script pavilions where elders shared tea were reduced to smoldering heaps of ash and fractured roof tiles. Lifeless bodies in emerald robes lay half-buried under fallen pillars, their blood soaking silently into the cracks of the ancestral mountain.

A strange, profound calm washed over her bruised face.

She closed her eyes, drawing the cold mountain air deep into her searing lungs. Her trembling fingers slowly uncurled, letting the jagged, broken hilt slip from her grasp. The useless remnant of metal clattered against the stone flags, rolling away into the ash.

Her eyes snapped open.

The dark irises vanished entirely, replaced by two blazing orbs of unyielding, incandescent jade fire.

Beside her, a low, guttural hiss vibrated through the flagstones. The wounded Blackscale Pit Serpent slithered forward, its colossal, forty-foot body coiling defensively around her frame. Deep cracks ran along its obsidian armor, green beast-blood dripping steadily from between its torn scales, yet it lowered its massive, diamond-shaped head until its snout brushed her shoulder.

Beast and master locked their glowing eyes upon the blood-soaked figure pacing slowly out from the smoke ahead.

"Wait for me, Huo Ling..." Xia Lu whispered, her voice barely carrying past her lips as a faint, bitter smile touched her blood-stained mouth. "Wait for me, my disciples."

"KILL!"

Her voice tore through the silence in a piercing shriek of pure defiance.

Xia Lu threw herself forward, her boots shattering the stone beneath her as she sprinted straight for Liu Tong. Beside her, the Blackscale Pit Serpent surged with earth-shaking momentum, its heavy underbelly ripping up crushed jade and splintered timber in its wake.

Liu Tong’s lips curled into a cold, contemptuous sneer. He planted his back foot, twisting his thick waist as he swept the double-handed war-axe in a vicious, horizontal arc.

A roaring crescent of compressed crimson qi tore free from the blade, slicing through the air with a deafening screech that split the ground open along its path.

Just as the red crescent bore down on Xia Lu, the serpent surged ahead. It threw its thick, armored torso straight into the trajectory of the flying energy blade, shielding its master with its own flesh.

SHCK!

The crimson crescent ripped through the obsidian scales like a hot blade through leather, carving a massive, jagged chasm across the serpent’s midsection. A geyser of dark green blood sprayed into the air, sizzling as it splattered against the rubble.

The serpent let out an ear-splitting screech of agony, but its coiled momentum never broke.

Snapping its jaws wide open, the beast contracted its gullet and exhaled a dense, billowing torrent of dark purple venomous fog. The corrosive cloud expanded with terrifying speed, washing over the courtyard and instantly swallowing Liu Tong’s vision, scent, and surroundings in a suffocating, pitch-black shroud.

"A pathetic parlor trick!" Liu Tong’s mocking roar thundered from the dead center of the swirling purple miasma, his spiritual aura flaring to repel the corrosive acid eating at his clothes. "You think a mouthful of snake spit can blind the spiritual senses of Liu Tong?!"

Silently, without a whisper of displaced air, the mist behind his head parted.

Xia Lu materialized from the shadows, her white-streaked hair whipping wildly in the draft. Floating above her right hand was a three-foot blade forged from pure, condensed emerald spirit qi, its razor-sharp tip whistling as it drove straight toward the base of his unprotected neck.

Without turning, Liu Tong raised his right index finger.

PING.

The razor-sharp spiritual blade sliced silently through the poisonous fog, aiming straight for the tender flesh at the base of his neck.

Liu Tong did not even shift his stance. He raised his right index finger, letting the calloused tip meet the thrust.

CLINK.

The green blade froze cold, hovering less than a finger-breadth from his throat, completely halted by the dark purple qi coating his skin.

"Predictable," Liu Tong sneered, his lips curling back over stained teeth.

His calloused fingers snapped shut over the blade. The compressed emerald energy groaned under his grip, fracturing into hairline cracks before shattering like thin ice, dissolving into wisps of green smoke.

In the same fluid motion, Liu Tong stepped through the clearing mist. His thick left arm surged forward, his iron-hard fingers clamping around Xia Lu’s blood-smeared throat like an executioner’s collar.

With a brutal heave, he hoisted her off the flagstones.

Xia Lu choked, her fingers clawing at the immovable vice around her windpipe as her cloth boots kicked uselessly in the empty air. Fresh blood dripped from her lips, pattering against the back of his hand, but her watering eyes held no trace of fear.

"Worthless insects," Liu Tong growled, his crimson pupils narrowing into slit-like embers of cold disgust. "The only reason your pathetic sects breathed this long was the shelter of the Alliance. Today, your entire lineage ends with you."

Xia Lu’s chest heaved under the suffocating pressure. Her fingers stopped clawing at his grip, relaxing against his arm. Slowly, through the crimson froth bubbling at the corners of her mouth, her lips pulled back into a wide, ragged smile.

"Is that... so...?" she rasped, her voice barely a whisper against the wind.

SWISH!

The air behind Liu Tong violently displaced.

From the swirling purple fog, the Blackscale Pit Serpent burst into the open. The forty-foot beast did not strike with its fangs; instead, it threw its massive, bleeding obsidian bulk forward, its thick coils whipping around Liu Tong and Xia Lu in a terrifying, spiraling blur.

CRACK! GROAN!

The iron scales locked tight. The coils contracted with the crushing momentum of two mountains slamming together, pinning Liu Tong’s arms rigidly against his ribs and binding Xia Lu flush against his chest.

Liu Tong’s jaw tightened. The veins across his forehead and temples bulged into thick, throbbing cords as he flexed his terrifying physical frame, his back muscles bunching to force the constriction apart.

"Get off me, you oversized worm!" Liu Tong roared, his toxic purple aura detonating outward to burn through the beast’s hide.

The serpent shrieked in agony as its flesh charred, but its muscular coils only squeezed harder. The ancient black scales along its entire forty-foot length ignited, blazing with blinding, blood-fed emerald runes that seared directly into Liu Tong’s flesh, anchoring him to the stone.

"No matter how monstrous your strength is..." Xia Lu coughed, a thick river of dark crimson spilling over his wrist, "...a Blackscale Pit Serpent’s innate ancestral death-lock... will bind even a peak spirit lord for three full breaths."

Liu Tong’s muscles strained against the glowing runes, his bones grinding audibly against the scales. But as his crimson eyes met Xia Lu’s face, he felt the ambient temperature between their chests skyrocket into searing, volcanic heat.

The spiritual qi around them was not circulating—it was imploding.

"And what can a dying corpse accomplish in three breaths?!" Liu Tong barked, his voice carrying the first sharp edge of fury.

Xia Lu did not answer with words.

Her dantian cracked. Her meridians tore open, spilling centuries of accumulated spiritual cultivation directly into her bloodline. Her pale skin turned luminous, glowing with the blinding, translucent radiance of a living emerald furnace. The green light spread into the serpent, fusing their life essences, souls, and dantians into a singular, unstable mass of pure destruction.

"Enough to drag you straight to hell with us," Xia Lu whispered, her eyes shining like twin green stars.

Liu Tong’s pupils contracted to pinpricks. The color drained from his face as pure, unadulterated alarm broke through his unhinged grin. "You lunatic—! STOP!"

Trapped within the crushing constriction of the Blackscale Pit Serpent, Liu Tong’s muscles bulged until the veins along his forearms looked ready to burst. The serpent’s obsidian scales dug into his ribcage, their emerald runes hissing as they seared deep into his skin.

Liu Tong threw his head forward with brutal momentum, driving his forehead straight toward Xia Lu’s face to crush her skull and shatter her consciousness.

CLANG!

His skull struck not bone, but a dense, impenetrable dome of condensed jade qi radiating from her skin. The impact rattled his vision, but Xia Lu didn’t flinch. Her eyelids fluttered shut, her bleeding lips parting with a slow, utterly peaceful exhale.

"Burn," she whispered.

Behind her, the Blackscale Pit Serpent threw its bleeding, scale-shattered head toward the sky. Its throat swelled with blinding green fire before it unleashed a final, earth-shaking roar that shook the very foundation of the mountain.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

The simultaneous detonation of two Spirit Lord cores, their burning vessels, and the entirety of their soul essence tore through the atmosphere.

A monstrous pillar of emerald and pitch-black destruction erupted from the epicenter, punching clean through the clouds and reaching ten thousand feet into the upper sky.

The earth beneath them did not simply fracture—the ancient bedrock instantly liquefied, vaporizing into a boiling, white-hot mist within a microsecond. The concussive shockwave ripped outward in expanding rings of raw kinetic fury, shredding outer pavilions into splintered kindling, shearing off three surrounding mountain peaks, and launching thousand-ton granite slabs through the air like dry leaves. A blinding, deafening dome of pure, incinerating light swallowed the entire horizon, drowning out all sound and reducing the dying world to a void of absolute white.

Long, suffocating minutes passed before the apocalyptic roar finally faded into the distance.

The towering plume of black smoke, billowing ash, and floating green embers slowly parted in the freezing mountain gale, unveiling the sheer scale of the devastation.

The entire outer perimeter, the mountain crags, and the ancestral pavilions had completely vanished from existence. In their place sat a monstrous, smoldering abyss—a colossal crater stretching twelve kilometers wide and plunging ten kilometers deep into the molten core of the earth. Its glassy rock walls dripped with liquid slag and crackled with residual sparks of emerald lightning.

Near the bottom of the glowing chasm, hovering barely two feet above the cooling magma, suspended a lone figure.

Liu Tong hung in mid-air, his chest rising and falling in violent, jagged gasps.

His dark robes were reduced to charred, blood-soaked rags clinging to torn flesh. Deep lacerations crossed his chest and arms, exposing purple, bruised muscle and bone underneath. His right eye was swollen completely shut behind a crust of dried gore, and thick crimson drops fell steadily from his trembling fingertips, sizzling as they struck the hot rock below.

His heavy war-axe slipped slightly in his grasp, the metal shaft slick with his own blood.

Slowly, Liu Tong lowered his boots to the scorched stone. The moment his weight pressed into the rock, his knees buckled. He pitched forward onto one hand, violently hacking up a thick pool of dark, clotted blood that splattered across his boots.

"Mad... bitch..." Liu Tong spat through gritted teeth, wiping a trembling forearm across his mouth, smearing the crimson deeper into his beard. "Blowing her own soul into nothingness just to drag me with her... but she forgot who she was trying to bury. I am the Mighty Liu Tong!"

He tried to force a laugh, but the sound caught in his throat, triggering a violent fit of coughing that sent sharp, burning pain through his cracked ribs.

He braced his axe against the stone, forcing his trembling legs straight.

Slowly, the bloodthirsty madness in his remaining eye began to recede, replaced by a strange, freezing silence.

His knuckles turned chalk-white around the dark iron shaft.

He looked around the twelve-kilometer expanse of dead, hollow stone.

There was nothing left.

The entire Cloud Peak Sect was erased. Every disciple, every elder, elder hang, Huo Ling, and Xia Lu had died before his eyes. Xia Lu had willingly pulverized her own physical body and soul into ashes... yet not a single one of them had yielded. Not one had begged. Not one had revealed where Xu Ren was hidden.

Would an entire sect truly choose total extermination just to protect a single elder?

The thought settled like an iron weight in his chest. A cold, prickling sensation crept down the back of his neck, cutting straight through his battle high.

Was I... played?

Liu Tong stood frozen in the center of the smoking chasm, the wind whistling through the hollow abyss. His mind raced back to the ambush, the shattered remains of the spiritual vessel, and the documents he had personally seized.

No. Impossible. Who would have the guts to set a trap for me? I examined the wreck myself—the celestial sword insignia was authentic. The spiritual signature lingering on the debris carried the pure sword qi of the Celestial Sword Sect. The registry matched to the letter. There is no such thing as an undetectable forgery.

A vein throbbed on his temple as he forcefully shoved the doubt down into the dark corners of his mind, his expression hardening into cold, ruthless certainty.

The masterminds who backed that dog are already dead in this pit. Xu Ren is a rat without a hole now—I will dig him out and peel his skin off sooner or later. But first... the Sanatan Flame Sect.

Liu Tong’s jaw locked tight.

I need their destruction. Wiping them off the continent will give the Alliance the victory they demanded, and it will bury any questions about this mountain.

A sharp pain lanced through his chest, forcing another mouthful of dark blood past his lips.

Liu Tong sank onto the charred stone, crossing his legs with measured care. He reached into his spatial ring with trembling fingers, pulling out a translucent, crimson restoration pill radiating pure medicinal fragrance. He tossed it into his mouth, swallowing it whole as he closed his single open eye, circulating his violent qi to mend his shattered meridians.

Thousands of miles away, within the grand, sunlit expanse of the Sanatan Flame Sect.

The interior of the Main Hall was peaceful and quiet, the distant sounds of disciples shouting during their morning drills filtering softly through the high windows.

Shaurya sat reclined sideways on his grand throne, one leg casually draped over the armrest. In his hands, he held a bound scripture titled The Divine Agent’s Last Life, turning a page with a flick of his thumb.

At the base of the marble steps stood Elder Wu, his hands clasped respectfully within his wide sleeves, his expression grim.

Shaurya didn’t look up from the page. "Report."

"Sect Master," Elder Wu began in a low, measured voice. "Intelligence from the eastern border has been confirmed. The Cloud Peak Sect has been wiped off the map. The Celestial Sword Sect forces who marched to reinforce them have been entirely eradicated. Not a single soul survived."

Shaurya paused, his thumb resting against the corner of the paper. A calm, razor-sharp smile slowly spread across his lips.

"So the mad dog cleared out his own allies," Shaurya murmured, his golden pupils glancing over the top of the book toward Elder Wu. "Which means his next stop is naturally our front gate."

Elder Wu nodded solemnly. "It appears so, Sect Master."

Shaurya closed the book with a crisp snap.

"Send word to King Tian Long immediately," Shaurya instructed, his tone cool, authoritative, and direct. "Place the border cities on maximum alert and evacuate the approaching transit corridors. When a rabid beast arrives, collateral damage is inevitable. But we can ensure innocent people aren’t caught beneath his boots."

"Understood, Sect Master." Elder Wu bowed deeply, turning on his heel and exiting the grand hall with swift, purposeful strides.

Shaurya watched him leave, then smoothly slipped the book into his spatial ring.

He rose from the throne, straightening his dark, gold-trimmed coat.

BOOM!

With a sudden, thunderous displacement of air, Shaurya vanished from the throne room.

A fraction of a second later, he descended gracefully onto the stone pavilion outside the reinforced iron blast-doors of the Subterranean Gravity Training Chamber.

DING!

A semi-transparent, golden system interface flickered into existence right before his eyes:

[What is the Host’s plan now?]

Shaurya rolled his shoulders, a satisfying string of cracks echoing along his spine. His golden pupils gleamed with cold, razor-sharp anticipation under the morning light.

"Preparation," Shaurya said simply.

He placed his palm against the massive iron door. The heavy locking mechanisms disengaged with a deep, grinding screech, and Shaurya stepped calmly into the crushing dark as the two-ton slabs slammed shut behind him.

To Be Continued...