In that instant, time across the entire arena seemed to freeze for half a heartbeat.
Then the ancient runes on the shield began to fracture where the sword tip touched it.
The first rune exploded into golden fragments that filled the sky. The second burst right after it, then the third, the fourth...
All the runes shattered in swaths, like a line of falling dominoes.
A crack split the shield of laws from end to end, its edges curling with shattered fragments of law.
The short sword pierced the shield, pierced Wu Yan's palms crossed before his chest, and drove straight through him, entering at the center of his chest and emerging from his back.
Wu Yan went rigid.
He looked down at the wound running through his chest. There was no blood around its edges.
Only countless fine fragments of law poured out like quicksand, drifted away, and vanished into the world.
His primordial body of laws was beginning to disintegrate from the wound outward.
Its channels of law snapped and went dark one by one, like the Star River fading from the horizon before dawn.
He raised his head and looked at Liu Qingran.
On his pale face, his final smile was so serene that the hand Liu Qingran held her sword with trembled slightly.
"Your sword..."
His voice was barely louder than a mosquito's hum.
"Of all the laws I've seen... yours comes closest to the source."
"What a shame. I couldn't beat you."
Liu Qingran looked at him.
Her figure, too, was growing faint.
The price of forging her foundation of law into a sword had begun to strip away her existence, starting at her fingertips.
Her right forearm was already translucent. Particles of law streamed from her skin like flecks of gold.
"You can go