Chapter 1345: One White Sword, Many Blood Blades

Vaelor didn’t struggle.

He hung there quietly inside the ice pillar, not even moving his claws. Only a ring of scarlet aura kept leaking out of him, pushing through the frozen layers of water and seeping, little by little, into the surrounding sea.

That crimson seep spread outward, riding the ocean current into the depths.

Down in the undersea palace, Thalvyr lifted his head.

He felt a familiar power being consumed at a frightening rate, and the calm finally slipped off his face.

"How did my son die this fast?" Thalvyr stared upward through the palace ceiling, voice flat with irritation. "In a hurry to reincarnate?"

He slammed his palm onto the throne’s armrest. The dull bang rolled through the hall. Thalvyr closed his eyes, pressed two fingers to his temple, and rubbed slowly.

"You really don’t know how to give me a moment of peace."

He opened his eyes and issued an order toward the entrance.

"You two, go again. Success is the only option. Failure isn’t."

Currents swirled below the throne as the mantis shrimp and the small shark rushed into the hall. They bowed to Thalvyr, then turned and vanished into the dark water outside.

On the surface, Vaelor was sealed in the frozen sky-pillar.

Now he started twisting hard. His shoulders and wings hammered the inner wall again and again, sending dull booms through the solid ice. More than half his tail stuck out beyond the pillar, whipping back and forth—its tip smashing the outer surface.

Ice chips sprayed. Fine cracks crawled outward from every strike.

But the pillar still didn’t fall.

Andona arrived first.

She raised her blade. Golden light streamed along the spine to the tip. The instant Vaelor rammed the ice again and stalled for that breath of a pause, Andona lunged. Her sword punched through the outer ice and drove for Vaelor’s body.

Steel sank in. Gold flared through the wound.

Andona didn’t stay to watch. She ripped the blade free and retreated, narrowly slipping past Vaelor’s tail as it swept in from the side. Almost the instant she cleared, Namyanna’s thrown trident reached the pillar.

The trident point speared straight through Vaelor’s chest, bursting out his back.

Two weapons, one after the other, into the same target—yet the ice casing around him stayed intact. The outer shell didn’t even suffer a major collapse.

The one who truly shattered it was Seraphina.

Midair, she shifted back into her full dragon form. Her broad wings tucked, and her entire body dove down the length of the pillar like a falling mountain. Her claws opened wide, talons locking onto Vaelor’s position.

Boom!

Her dragon claw slammed the frozen pillar head-on.

The impact surged through the entire column. Every existing crack was forced open at once. The towering pillar exploded outward, massive slabs tumbling into the sea as Vaelor was swatted away with the same strike.

His body skimmed along the surface, smashing through several chunks of drifting ice before he finally dropped into the water. The sea depressed into a long trough under his weight—until his back slammed into a reef outcropping below and he stopped.

The mantis shrimp and the small shark, just arriving nearby, saw it and both halted.

The mantis shrimp lay flat on the shark’s back. Its gun barrel lifted a fraction... then slowly lowered again.

Help, or don’t help?

They were mobile snipers. Their whole advantage was staying hidden and shooting from long range. If they exposed themselves now, their situation wouldn’t be much better than Vaelor’s.

The mantis shrimp tapped the shark’s back lightly. The small shark didn’t approach Vaelor. It turned instead, carrying it toward a farther reef—still hunting for a clean firing angle.

Only after Andona and Seraphina pulled back did Vaelor, slumped among the rocks, slowly open his eyes.

A red glow lit from deep in his pupils.

He flexed his fingers once, then braced and pushed himself up, lifting his head to stare at the ice sheet above. Broken ice chunks drifted down around him, refracted light sliding across his face and making those red eyes look even sharper.

"You attacked while I was vulnerable!"

Vaelor ground his teeth and stood up from the shattered reef.

"You should be killed for that."

He opened his right hand. A longsword of pure snow-white appeared in his grip. The blade shone with a cold, pale luster—an almost cruel contrast against his blood-red body.

Then the seawater around him began to ripple.

One sword. Two. Three...

Several blood swords rose out of the water, each radiating a thick, heavy crimson aura. They rotated slowly around Vaelor, all their edges angled toward the surface.

Vaelor tightened his grip on the white sword, kicked off the seabed hard, and shot upward—dragging the blood swords after him.

Elsewhere, the mantis shrimp and shark kept searching for a shot.

The shark was fast enough to cross a wide stretch of sea in no time, but sniping targets in the air from the seafloor was a nightmare. The muzzle had to be aimed almost perfectly vertical—and the target above was moving. Miss by a hair, and the compressed air round would skim past and vanish into the sky.

The mantis shrimp changed reefs again and again, still failing to find a stable angle.

By then, Vaelor had already burst out of the water.

His head had barely cleared the surface when a streak of cold light came in from the side. Namyanna’s trident punched clean through him. The tip tore out the other side with a thin spray of blood, then kept flying.

Vaelor rocked backward from the force.

The hole in his chest sealed at a visible pace. Flesh wriggled inward, broken scales sliding back into place. By the time the trident curved and returned to Namyanna’s hand, the wound had already faded into a shallow mark.

Vaelor glanced down once, then lifted the snow-white sword.

"Was that supposed to tickle?"

Namyanna didn’t answer.

In her left hand, she raised a water-blue sphere. The sea surface dipped in response. Inside the sphere, currents spun faster and faster, and the ocean around them was tugged along with it—countless water columns blasting up through the ice edge.

Water spouts rose one after another.

They formed around Vaelor, their rotating currents constantly shifting direction, sealing off his escape routes. The moment Vaelor tried to break left, a new spout surged up in front of him, forcing him back toward the center.

At the same time, a crystalline snowflake formed in Namyanna’s other hand.

It started no bigger than her fingernail, but its six sharp points were perfectly defined. Frost energy spread along its veins, and the moisture in the sky began to condense.

Snow drifted down.

It wasn’t heavy—but it was focused, falling almost entirely over Vaelor’s head. The ice crystals melted the instant they landed on his scales, and cold slipped through the seams into his body. Vaelor’s movements quickly began to lag. Even his sword hand stiffened.

The water spouts around him tightened, compressing his space even further.

Vaelor raised the white sword and leveled its tip at Namyanna.

The blood swords circling him turned as one.

With a sideways snap of his wrist, all the blood swords launched. They fanned out in a wide arc, blades slicing through the damp air, rushing at Namyanna from multiple angles.

Namyanna spun her trident with both hands.

The rotating blades formed an ice-blue ring in front of her, knocking the first blood sword aside. Each collision burst into shards of crimson and icy blue light, the impact driving her backward step by step.

Every time she stepped back, a small ice lotus bloomed beneath her foot.

Petals unfurled against her sole, supporting her balance so she never slipped.

Vaelor seized the opening and charged through a gap between the water spouts. He gripped his white sword with both hands and thrust upward from low to high, aiming straight for Namyanna’s chest. The blood swords that had been batted away curved around behind her, closing in again to seal her off.

In front: Vaelor’s blade.

Behind: a wall of blood swords.

Her retreat was cut off from both sides.

Just as the attacks were about to clamp shut—

a water column erupted behind her, surging straight into the sky. The thick flow wedged itself between Namyanna and the incoming blood swords, and the heavy resistance immediately dragged their speed down.