Bloody Slaughter

The instant the palm pressed down, chaos was torn apart.

The dark crimson mist was scattered by the force of the palm, like smoke blown away by the wind.

The giant pythons, jackals, and twisted human shapes roaming through the chaos were crushed at the edge of the palm's force, breaking into smaller fragments before being ground into powder.

Time was distorted.

Not the "stretching" or "shortening" of a time domain, but a "pause."

Within the area covered by the palm, all flow of time came to a halt.

The scattered mist hung motionless in midair. The crushed fragments remained where they were. Even the shards of time surging from the chaos stood still, like a frozen painting.

Space was compressed.

The palm descended from the chaos. Though it had clearly been a thousand zhang away, once space was compressed, Chu Ming felt that palm directly above his head. It was not a visual illusion, but a true perception born of warped spatial laws.

The space around him was contracting toward the center of the palm, like a crumpled sheet of paper folding inward from its edges.

Chu Ming did not dodge.

He slashed with his sword.

The Sword of Order condensed in his hand.

The blade was four chi long and two fingers wide, gray-gold in color, yet within that gray-gold flowed one hundred and eight different kinds of light.

Crimson, emerald, deep blue, silver-white, earthy yellow, violet-black, golden yellow, and rainbow hues.

Every color flowed across the blade like rivers of color.

The ancient runes on the blade lit up all at once, their rhythm pulsing like a heartbeat—once, once, and once again.

The projections of one hundred and eight star domains slowly revolved across the blade.

The stars spun along the surface of the sword like a