Angel's Blood

Chen Feng threw that punch, and the air did not even have time to whistle. All that remained was a deep hum as space was crushed by overwhelming force.

As his fist cut through the air, even the light bent, hurtling straight toward Vados's calm face.

Vados's silver hair fluttered, while her body slid gracefully to the left like a willow leaf drifting in the wind.

But Chen Feng's fist moved nothing like an ordinary person's attack. It suddenly changed direction midair, golden-red aura trailing behind it like a comet's tail as it locked onto the spot where she had just landed like a venomous snake pursuing its prey.

Bang!!!

A muffled impact erupted, making hearts clench.

The fist did not hit Vados, but it struck the emerald-green staff she had raised before her with full force.

The staff shook violently, letting out a teeth-grinding wail as the ancient runes along its shaft flashed frantically.

The immense force traveled through the staff, numbing Vados's arms. The void beneath her feet seemed to turn solid, rippling outward in circles of energy where she stepped.

She drifted back several steps, each one leaving a silver imprint in the air.

The calmness usually in her eyes had turned entirely into shock.

Even the gem atop her staff dimmed for an instant.

"This punch," Chen Feng said calmly, still holding his striking pose as the golden-red aura around him slowly withdrew, flowing over his skin like a living thing, "is only the beginning."

Before he had finished speaking, a blast of air erupted where he stood, and his figure lunged forward.

This time, he was no longer simply charging ahead.

Chen Feng's figure completely dissolved across the vast battlefield of the void. Hundreds, thousands of golden afterimages—some distinct, some blurred—bloomed all at once like deadly flowers, surrounding Vados from every direction.

Every afterimage moved, every one attacked: the image before her drove a fist into her centerline, the one to her left swept out with a whip kick that tore out a crescent-shaped blade of air, the one above smashed down with a bent elbow like a falling meteor, and the one behind her silently pointed at the vital point along her spine...

Fists, feet, elbows, knees, fingers—even his flying hair and fluttering clothes. Every part of his body had become a deadly weapon, a flawless net of destruction descending over her as though it intended to swallow Vados whole.

Vados took a deep breath, and silver light burst from her emerald eyes.

She pushed "Ultra Instinct" to its limit. Her entire body seemed to lose all weight and inertia, becoming a feather truly tossed about by the wind, a snowflake drifting wildly through a thunderstorm.

She spun lightly through the gaps between fists and kicking legs, sometimes like a fish swimming around reefs, sometimes like a fallen leaf avoiding raging currents.

Her staff tapped, deflected, lifted, and blocked, turning into a wheel of emerald light that collided with countless golden attacks. The crisp clashes fell as densely as torrential rain, scattering energy sparks in every direction.

But she knew perfectly well that the pressure was still skyrocketing.

Chen Feng was becoming faster and faster, so fast that even her "pre-reading" and "automatic reactions" were beginning to lag.

Those afterimages were no bluff. Each one carried real force capable of splitting mountains and seas. Her room to dodge was being compressed step by step, as though she had fallen into a metal cage that was closing around her.

"Too slow."

A cold voice suddenly sounded beside her ear, carrying a trace of regret.

Every hair on Vados's body stood on end. Silver light flashed as she twisted around at maximum speed, sweeping her staff behind her with purifying light.

But she was still a step too late.

A palm wrapped in restrained yet terrifying golden-red aura had already gently pressed against the center of her unguarded back.

There was no deafening collision, no dazzling explosion—only an icy, profound, absolute power that seemed capable of devouring everything, piercing through her body from that palm.

"This palm strike," Chen Feng said in a low, calm voice, yet it sent invisible ripples through the void, "is serious."

As his words fell, his palm suddenly pressed down.

There was no brilliant light, no energy storm. Only an incomparably pure physical force, compressed to the absolute limit, was silently released from his palm.

In that instant, space seemed to be viciously clenched by an invisible giant hand, twisted, then abruptly released.

Before Vados could even react, an indescribable force slammed brutally into her chest.

The supple divine light of an angel around her body shattered inch by inch like fragile glass.

Boom—!

It was not an explosion, but the muffled thunder of force piercing space and crushing matter.

Vados's figure became a blurred streak of light as she flew backward at an unimaginable speed.

The void behind her was dragged into a twisted trail. Any stardust or small meteorites floating along the way that touched the residual shockwave instantly turned into their most basic particles.

Her vision filled with stretched light spots and shattered colors, while all she could hear was the piercing shriek of high-speed friction against the thin cosmic medium.

Her body endured enormous tearing forces as it tumbled out of control. Even with the toughness of an angel's body, she could hear the faint creak of bones pushed beyond their limit.

Thousands of kilometers passed in an instant. Only when her back violently crashed into the thin gravitational field of a desolate asteroid was the raging kinetic energy barely dissipated.

Rock fragments and dust exploded across the asteroid's surface in a circular shockwave.

Vados dropped to one knee, one hand braced tightly against the scorching, rough rock. Before her breathing had even settled, tearing pain flared from her shoulder, along with an unprecedented weakness—the backlash left behind after her divine power had been forcibly shattered.

Her long silver-white hair was slightly disheveled, several strands stained with stardust.

But the sense of danger had not faded in the slightest. Instead, it was like a bucket of ice water dumped over her head.

The light above her suddenly dimmed.

She had no time to look up. Relying entirely on battle instincts honed over countless years, her body twisted to its limit.

Almost simultaneously, a foot wreathed in golden-red flames came crashing down with the force to shatter the stars!

Bang—!

The foot grazed her shoulder and slammed into the rocky stratum.

There was no direct contact, yet that utterly condensed impact force, like the sharpest invisible blade, effortlessly tore through the angelic robe woven from divine power around her shoulder—a garment capable of withstanding stellar heat.

The sound of tearing fabric was crisp and piercing. A long, narrow wound appeared on her smooth shoulder, deep enough to expose bone.

Golden blood, radiant with sacred brilliance, flowed from the wound.

It did not drip. Instead, under the effects of the cosmic vacuum and the lingering energy field, it swiftly condensed into round golden beads of blood. They floated around her as though alive, slowly revolving as they reflected the cold light of distant stars—and the fleeting, nearly frozen shock in her eyes.

She was injured.

Since becoming an angel, serving the God of Destruction Beerus, and witnessing countless cosmic eras, the birth and demise of stars... in all those billions of years, this was the first time pure power had breached her sacred defenses and left a wound upon this perfect body.

Her fingertips lightly brushed the edge of the wound. Feeling the lingering, blazing and tyrannical energy, Vados slowly raised her head.

Those violet eyes, always so calm and wise, now churned with extraordinarily complex emotions: shock, gravity, and a trace of long-buried fighting spirit that had been utterly ignited.

Chen Feng floated in the void not far ahead of her.

The golden-red aura around him burned even more fiercely and violently than before, like solar prominences spewing from a supernova, roasting the surrounding space until it warped slightly.

Dark-red lightning constantly spawned, spread, and burst at the edges of his aura, crackling sharply.

His hair drifted gently within the energy field. His eyes had completely turned a profound molten gold, and within their pupils seemed to burn two eternal stellar flames.

That blazing battle intent had almost taken tangible form. Simply meeting his gaze made one's heart shudder violently.