Target: Lin Xiaowan

The light and shadows before them shifted abruptly. A violent torrent of energy, deafening thunder, the roar of the world's natural forces boiling over, and the suffocating sight of ten Space Rifts like scars across the world, alongside the dark-red evil array, swallowed Lin Hao and Xuanyu in an instant. They were high above the heart of Huaxia, with familiar mountains and cities beneath their feet. But the air was no longer filled with the warmth of everyday life. Instead, it reeked of blood and char, and carried the mournful weight of a world on the brink of collapse.

Golden light shimmered across the dragon scales covering the left half of Lin Hao's body, while Zixiao Thunder Armor flickered into view on his right. The power of the Golden Sacred Dragon surged through him, and his dragon wings traced golden arcs through the air behind him, keeping him suspended amid the violently churning gale. His face was deathly pale, but his eyes burned with a fire more intense than the sun's core as he stared at the ten Demonic Shadows on the distant horizon—and farther below, at the familiar soul fluctuation he could clearly sense, that of someone like a younger sister, suffering under crushing pain and pressure: Lin Xiaowan!

"There!" Xuanyu's voice had lost its usual languor, taking on the cold, hard ring of clashing metal.

His moon-white robes snapped in the raging winds of energy, his hair and beard bristling. He was like a peerless, bloodthirsty sword newly drawn from its sheath. His sword intent soared into the heavens, briefly forcing aside the chaotic currents of energy around him. He, too, had locked onto the target at once, but before Lin Hao, he noticed the core of the ten dark-red arrays—the source deep in the Pacific, throbbing with