Five Against One—How Could They Lose?

En En Shixiong's words fell, and the air seemed to freeze for an instant.

There was only one chance.

Xue Zhong Yi Jian Xia said nothing more. He held the Long Blade horizontally before his chest, its blade humming.

The azure wind blades that had been spreading wildly were now all compressed back onto the edge of his blade.

The hundred-meter blade aura vanished, replaced by an almost invisible, razor-sharp line along the blade's edge, composed purely of divinity.

To gather this strike, he abandoned all defense and wagered every ounce of his strength on the ultimate piercing power of this slash.

"Holy Light, grant me the power of judgment!"

Xu Changqing raised both hands. The golden barrier behind him no longer expanded, but contracted and condensed.

All the sacred runes and all the divine power of the God of Light gathered into a golden holy spear that hovered above his head.

There were no ornate patterns on the spear's surface, only pure destructive power capable of purifying all evil.

Water God bared his teeth, the relaxed look on his face vanishing completely.

"Let's go big."

He brought his hands together in front of him.

The countless water-mirror illusions spread throughout the space shattered all at once.

All of Thousand-Faced Phantom Tide's divinity transformed into a primordial torrent of water elements, which he forcibly compressed into a fist-sized sphere of water, dark blue and nearly black.

The water sphere's surface was perfectly smooth, yet it contained a terrifying mass capable of crushing an entire mountain range.

Xiao remained the quietest of the five.

He leaned slightly forward and aimed the tip of the Mekong Jaw Blade upward.

There was no sign of energy leaking from his body.

All his speed and all his Kinetic Energy were gathered at that single point, waiting for the moment to erupt.

"You think I'll give you that chance?"

Sylvia's piercing shriek echoed through the entire space.

The Bone Vortex overhead began spinning madly at an unprecedented speed.

Wooo—

Countless blades formed from pure mental power, mixed with wails capable of tearing souls apart, turned into an impenetrable downpour that poured down upon the five below.

She was going to interrupt their charge-up at any cost.

"Hold on!"

Xu Changqing roared.

He could no longer spare any divinity for defense. He could only rely on his will to endure the mental assault head-on.

His body shook violently, and golden Divine Blood seeped from all seven orifices.

Xue Zhong Yi Jian Xia gritted his teeth, allowing the mental blades to carve into his body and leave deep wounds that exposed bone.

The hand gripping his blade remained as steady as a rock.

Water God groaned. A faint, unstable ripple appeared on the surface of the water sphere compressed to its limit.

Xiao's figure swayed slightly where he stood, as though the Mental Storm would tear him apart the next second.

The four of them had become living targets.

They had placed all their hopes on En En Shixiong.

En En Shixiong's expression did not change in the slightest.

Ignoring every attack, he merely looked calmly at the Bone Vortex above.

At that moment, the four wings behind him burst forth with unprecedented silver radiance.

Within that radiance, countless Space Runes smaller than dust arranged and combined at a speed beyond the limits of calculation.

"Open."

He softly uttered a single word.

There was no earth-shaking roar, nor any dazzling effect of torn space.

Yet in everyone's perception, including Sylvia's, an absolute "nothingness" appeared.

A cylindrical passage three meters wide formed out of thin air, piercing through the entire Bone Vortex and extending straight toward that faint glimmer at its core.

Inside the passage, there were no bones, no Mental Storm, no light, no energy—not even space itself.

It was a path of nothingness that existed beyond "reality."

Every attack from the Bone Vortex was utterly erased the instant it touched the edge of that passage, vanishing without a trace.

En En Shixiong's face instantly turned pale as paper, and the light of his four wings dimmed at a visible rate.

"Go!"

Using every last bit of strength, he roared out the second word.

Now!

Xue Zhong Yi Jian Xia moved first.

His body did not move. Only the blade in his hand swung forward.

That razor-sharp line containing all his divinity left the blade without making a sound and shot directly into the void passage.

Immediately after that—

Xiao vanished.

A point of pure black entered the passage.

It was neither light nor shadow, but pure Kinetic Energy itself, created by pushing Flash Shadow divinity to its absolute limit.

"Judgment!"

The golden holy spear above Xu Changqing's head became a streak of light and shot into the passage.

"Blow the hell up!"

Water God violently thrust the dark-blue water sphere forward.

Four attacks, representing four entirely different kinds of Law Power, rushed into that absolute vacuum passage one after another in less than a thousandth of a second.

Their speed encountered no resistance within that passage.

Almost at the same moment they entered, they reached the other end.

The deepest part of the Bone Vortex.

That faint point of light representing the core of Sylvia's divine kingdom.

Xue Zhong Yi Jian Xia's attack arrived first, effortlessly slicing through the last Mental Barrier surrounding the light.

Xiao's Kinetic Energy followed close behind, slamming viciously into the light's physical core.

The light did not shatter. Instead, it contracted violently inward.

At the instant the light contracted to its limit, Xu Changqing's holy spear precisely pierced into it.

Finally, Water God's water sphere, containing terrifying mass, struck the core already purified by holy light.

There was no explosion.

No sound.

After enduring four attacks, that point of light merely flickered softly once.

Then it went out.

As though it had never existed.

At that moment, time resumed its flow.

The vacuum passage created by En En Shixiong vanished instantly along with the extinguished core.

Unable to hold on any longer, he fell from the air, only for Water God to catch him in time.

Above them, the massive Bone Vortex stopped spinning.

Crack... crack...

Countless fissures spread outward from within the vortex.

The next second, the entire vortex silently collapsed.

The countless bones that formed it lost every trace of evil aura, turning into ordinary bones that rained down from the sky.

The fear and malice filling the entire space also dissipated with it.

"D-Done..."

"I told you. Five against one—how could we possibly lose?"

Water God panted heavily as he laid the weakened En En Shixiong on the ground.

Covered in blood, Xu Changqing dropped onto the ground and gasped for breath.

Xue Zhong Yi Jian Xia sheathed his blade. The right hand that had held it was still trembling faintly.

Of the five, only Xiao, who was in the best condition, remained standing, vigilantly watching their surroundings.

The walls of the exhibition room were peeling away, exposing the rock layers deep beneath the European continent outside.

This Demiplane was collapsing.

They had won.

Just as Water God was about to crack a joke to ease the mood—

The bones falling from the sky, which should have shattered on impact, all stopped a meter above the ground.

They hung motionless in the air, as if supported by an invisible hand.

An aged, dry, unfamiliar voice echoed through the cavern.

The voice belonged neither to Sylvia nor to any enemy they knew.

"Truly... I have you to thank."

"You finally helped me deal with that noisy guard."

As the words fell, every bone floating in the air ignited with a layer of ghostly green flame.

They began to assemble themselves.

Not into another vortex, but into a massive, magnificent throne made of countless white bones in the center of the cavern.