Deathmatch in the Endless Night

A blazing sword came down on Tania's head, tearing through the swirling mist, cleaving the Source Energy she had yet to gather, then splitting open her neck, chest, and abdomen.

No blood flowed from the horrific wounds. Only flames burned within them, as though Tania's body had become smoldering wood.

Terror filled Tania's eyes. She raised her mangled hand to stop Xilian's advance, but he severed it with a single stroke.

The arm fell to the ground, unable to spill another drop of blood.

Xilian stepped forward to finish Tania, but the flames in her wounds went out.

The charred flesh vanished. In its place, dense crimson filaments grew wildly, like masses of granulation tissue, slowly stitching Tania's wounds shut.

"Haha! I knew you wouldn't let me die here."

Noticing the change in her body, Tania cried out in a frenzy, "Mother, I've recorded the power of the Crimson Sun! We'll—"

Something was coming.

A hideous, malevolent power descended, one much like the Crimson Sun.

A great hand woven from countless filaments reached out of the Grey Fog. It seized Tania, dragged her into the darkness, and vanished.

Xilian tried to pursue her, but the reappearing Demons blocked his path. By the time he had killed them all, nothing remained but the arm he had severed.

On Tania's severed limb, that pale arm, Xilian saw a tattoo.

A black claw drawn in jagged lines.

Another stream of fire came racing from afar. It sped through the darkness and circled the survivors, tracing a vast ring that enclosed them all.

Xilian turned. Through the raging sea of fire, a familiar figure strode toward them.

"Teacher!"

Xilian's voice rang with excitement.

Nuen's return gave them a desperately needed surge of hope.

Xilian hurried toward Nuen, then gradually slowed to a stop.

The firelight illuminated Nuen fully, letting everyone see the state he was in.

His injuries were appalling.

A long, narrow gash split Nuen's head, peeling back his scalp. One eye was blind. Another thin wound ran from his neck to his chest; had it landed slightly differently, it would have taken his head off.

He held his sword in his right hand. His left hung limp, several fingers missing. Honeycomb-like wounds riddled his forearm, the crowded holes deep enough to expose bone, festering and oozing pus.

The wounds were horrifying, yet not a trace of blood seeped from them. Only a faint, ashen glow flickered within, lending them the eerie air of smoldering wood.

Xilian looked down. Blood had soaked through Nuen's clothes.

A razor-sharp dagger was buried in Nuen's abdomen. Where its blade had struck, his flesh had neither turned to blazing fire nor kindled with the faint glow of ash.

The dagger's power had forcibly suppressed Nuen's transformation into Source Energy, inflicting real damage on his body.

It remained buried deep in his flesh. Blood dripped slowly down its keen edge, each dull, distinct plink echoing through the silence like death's countdown.

"Teacher..."

"There's no need to pursue that Starwatcher. She's gone."

Nuen spoke quietly. "Deathbird's master is a newly born Abomination with no known records. As for the Abomination Tania serves, from what little I sensed, it should be the Fungal Mother, who went mad long ago."

"The evils of Chaos are hardly united. They often attack and kill one another... The Fungal Mother's followers appeared to be helping Deathbird seize the Torchbearer Sacred Blood, but their real aim was probably to learn more about the Crimson Sun."

Nuen fell silent mid-speech. He glanced at the survivors, his weary face unreadable.

"Is this all that's left?"

Xilian took a deep breath. "Yes... I'm sorry. I..."

"You did well, Xilian."

Nuen cut him off. "This disaster came because of me. I'm the one who should blame himself."

"Teacher, we still have a chance."

Xilian laid out his plan. "Don't we still have plenty of Soul Marrow in reserve? It should be enough to get us through the night."

Nuen shook his head and pointed the Boiling Sword at the burning wreckage.

"Didn't you notice? None of the Soul Marrow left inside the Torchlight Lighthouse caught fire."

He sighed. "It's all been contaminated."

The Abomination's power summoned by Deathbird had destroyed White Cliff Town's Torchlight Lighthouse in a single stroke.

Through Tania's sacrifice, each time a townsfolk died and mutated into a horrific Demon, the evils of Chaos gave a satisfied laugh, and the power of Chaos seeped deeper into the earth.

"This attack was planned long ago. Chaos has corrupted everything it could reach."

Xilian froze.

Looking down, he finally noticed how utterly the ground had changed. It had taken on a strange gray-white cast. He scraped away the soil with his sword and found rotting roots and lifeless insects curled beneath it.

Had anyone opened the storehouse then, they would have found it filled with dense Grey Fog. The stored Soul Marrow had long since lost its original properties to Chaos's contamination.

"Only by burning can Soul Marrow ward off the power of Chaos."

Nuen swung the Boiling Sword and severed his useless left arm. Before the stunned onlookers, he threw the limb into the burning wreckage.

His voice was weak. "This hand's no use anymore. It might as well burn one last time."

The limb sizzled in the flames. Then pure white light rose steadily from it, pushing back the encroaching Grey Fog.

Tim watched Nuen's dying form, his eyes growing wet. But he knew there was no time to grieve.

"Everyone, over here!"

Tim called the survivors toward the remains of the Torchlight Lighthouse.

Nuen had arrived just in time. As soon as Tim led the group into the firelight, the torch in his hand went out completely.

Mick stayed beside the survivors, ready with Tim for whatever crisis came next. Xilian went to Nuen and supported his battered, aging body.

"As I thought, keeping White Cliff Town alive by myself was too much," Nuen murmured. "Perhaps I should have stayed there with Commander Frey and the others. Perhaps someone else could have restored the Sunflower Clan..."

"No, Teacher," Xilian said, grief and anger in his voice. "You've already done more than enough."

Without Nuen, White Cliff Town might have perished in a Source-Energy Tide decades ago. Throughout history, countless places like it had vanished into the darkness.

Clarity returned to Nuen's clouded eyes. His confusion and unease fell away, replaced by a hardness and chill like steel.

"That dagger carries the power of Chaos. It got into my head."

Nuen pulled himself free of his tangled, self-reproaching thoughts and became the man Xilian knew again.

"I lost my composure."

Gritting his teeth, he pulled the dagger from his abdomen, bringing a gush of blackened blood with it.

The dagger clattered to the ground. Its power spent, it was now nothing more than an ordinary blade.

"Teacher, your wound!" Xilian cried.

"It's fine. A little Chaos contamination is interfering with my power, that's all."

Nuen glanced at his abdomen. The flesh was black and festering, marked by the same honeycomb-like corrosion as his severed arm.

He pulled away from Xilian's support and warned him.

"Hold your sword tight!"

With that, Nuen swung the Boiling Sword again. A scorching wind roared outward, driving back the Grey Fog and sweeping through the Demons. They burst into flame where they stood, then crumbled one by one into clouds of ash.

But when the burning wind reached the edge of the darkness, it struck what seemed to be an invisible wall and shattered.

Footsteps sounded.

Deathbird emerged slowly from the darkness. Like Nuen, he was gravely wounded.

A gash ran from the left corner of Deathbird's mouth to his ear, nearly tearing his jaw apart. His right shoulder had collapsed, and the joints of his entire right arm were twisted out of shape.

A deep sword wound crossed his chest, left by Nuen's killing blow. Nuen had come within a hair's breadth of piercing his heart.

Without warning, they drew their swords against each other once more.

Both were at the end of their strength. They moved far more slowly than before—slowly enough for Xilian to follow their movements with his eyes.

Deathbird summoned boundless Grey Fog. It battered Nuen again and again like a freezing wind, but no matter how fiercely it assailed him, the fire on Nuen's body never went out.

The tide of fog suddenly veered toward the survivors. Nuen turned at once and swept out a wave of flame to intercept it.

At that moment, Deathbird lunged. His hand warped, bone proliferating until all five fingers became sharpened spikes.

As the wave of flame split the fog, the two figures collided.

"How much longer can you last, old man?"

Deathbird laughed loudly. "If you'd abandoned these people from the start, I might truly have died by your hand. But you're too weak for that!"

"Torchbearers came into being to light the way for others," Nuen shot back. "Becoming oathbreakers like you—that's true weakness!"

The bone spikes were still short of Nuen when the Boiling Sword sheared them clean off.

"Came into being? That was a whole age ago." Deathbird sounded unconcerned. "Only old fossils like you still cling to the oaths of the past."

Deathbird abruptly raised a hand. Frost spread across the ground, and every drifting speck of ash froze in midair.

Xilian could not see the path of that power. He could only judge its direction and speed by the spreading frost.

He was about to dodge when he saw Nuen standing motionless. Xilian opened his mouth to urge him aside, then realized the burning wreckage and the survivors were directly behind Nuen.

If Nuen gave ground, the flames would be extinguished. The Grey Fog would devour everyone. No one would survive.

Nuen raised the Boiling Sword. Surging Source Energy and Soul Marrow met the invisible cold current. The forces tangled and gave rise to a storm that spread rapidly, flattening everything nearby.

Xilian stood outside the clash of powers, but the storm still battered him. He had to drive his sword into the ground to keep his footing.

Dozens of seconds later, calm returned. Nuen still stood like a high wall before the survivors, keeping Deathbird at bay.

The sight of him moved Xilian to the core. Then blood began to well from Nuen's abdomen. Every counterattack burned through what little life he had left.

"Teacher, you..."

Before Xilian could finish, Nuen said calmly, "If even one person survives, that's enough."

Nuen had witnessed the destruction of the Sunflower Clan and failed to restore it. For nearly a century, the guilt of being its last survivor had threatened to crush him.

The people of White Cliff Town were his reason to keep going, and his chance to redeem himself.

Nuen could die, but he could not lose.

Raging fire poured from his blackened wounds. Nuen became a wrathful fire demon once more. Heat warped the air wherever he passed, and burning footprints marked the ground behind him.

The Boiling Sword blazed, brilliant and terrible!

Deathbird refused to yield. Endless Grey Fog wound around him, wrapping him in a cocoon.

Sensing the sudden surge of Chaos, Nuen said in disbelief, "How is that possible? I thought this art had been forgotten."

"Why would it be? Nothing in this world is ever forgotten completely. Not even the Giant God Sleeping Lord could make that happen."

"Besides, you've been moldering here too long! You have no idea how the world has changed!"

The roiling Grey Fog abruptly contracted, drawing entirely into Deathbird's body. His power of Chaos multiplied, and an immense torrent of Source Energy erupted with it.

The fog cleared. At last, Nuen saw what Deathbird had become.

Deathbird's body had undergone a horrifying mutation. His human outline was barely recognizable. His skin looked as though it had been burned and remade, crisscrossed with black markings. Bone had grown wildly, thrusting cold, gleaming spikes from his shoulders and back. His limbs bent at grotesque angles, their joints swollen like tumors and coated in slick mucus.

Forbidden Art: Threshold Liberation.

This forbidden art had existed since the Giant Gods first appeared. By gathering vast amounts of Source Energy, Transcendents of that age could briefly pierce the barrier between the real world and the Spirit Realm, even reaching the Origin Sea.

Through that opening, they could draw great quantities of Source Energy directly from the Spirit Realm and the Origin Sea to fuel their battles in the real world.

But there was a price. If the "opening" a Transcendent tore into reality did not close immediately, the excess Source Energy spilling through would indiscriminately destroy everything nearby and drag it into the Spirit Realm.

After the Noonday Calamity, the forbidden art became even more dangerous.

Now, Transcendents drew not only immense Source Energy through the opening, but also the turbulent power of Chaos. They might lose themselves in its illusions before defeating their foes.

Because of this dreadful cost, the forbidden art had long been lost in the Civilized World. To Chaos Followers, however, Forbidden Art: Threshold Liberation was perfectly suited. Alongside vast Source Energy, it raised a surge of Chaos, briefly creating an Interstice Gray Domain in the real world.

Nuen took a deep breath. Wisps of fire rose from his wounds, and his flesh transformed in the heat into a spectral form.

Flames roared around Nuen, making him look like a wrathful fire demon.

Deathbird raised his dagger in both hands. His voice rang hollow. "Nuen, you can't save anyone. You couldn't save the Sunflower Clan, either."

In an instant, it was as though an unseen, icy hand had seized the battlefield. The temperature plunged with savage speed, and bone-piercing cold swept over everything like a raging wave.

A thick layer of crystalline frost enveloped the ground in the blink of an eye. Even the ash drifting freely through the air stopped dead, hanging motionless in midair.

At the same time, every sound seemed to be snatched away by an invisible hand, fading into the distance.

The strange cold engulfed Nuen. In that instant, he felt more than a chill.

Stagnation? Slowness?

Nuen could not name the sensation. He only felt his heartbeat slowing and his flames dwindling, as though everything were drawing toward stillness.

A bone blade swept toward Nuen's throat. Another sword thrust forcefully into its path.

"I'm still here!"

Xilian growled as he blocked the blow.

Tremendous force slammed through his blade. Notches burst along its edge, cracks spread across its length, and the web of skin between his thumb and forefinger split. His entire arm went numb.

"Well done!"

At Nuen's low shout, the Boiling Sword swept across and cut through most of Deathbird's abdomen.

A shrill hissing rose from the torn wound, as though the blade's terrible heat had vaporized Deathbird's flesh and blood in an instant.

"Do you think that will change your fate?"

Deathbird remained in the state of Forbidden Art: Threshold Liberation. His body had become a passage between reality and the Spirit Realm, pouring an unending stream of Chaos into the world.

Nuen had split open his abdomen—and with it, the boundary between the two realms.

Grey Fog billowed from Deathbird's wound, surging into a vast black wave. Even the flames on Nuen's body struggled against such concentrated Chaos.

Frost crawled over Nuen, encasing him in heavy armor and making every step a struggle.

Xilian's thoughts blurred. Chaos seized the opening, and disordered whispers reveled in his mind.

"It's all right, Xilian!" Nuen pressed forward under the weight, still shouting encouragement. "Even if it's only the two of us, we can protect everyone!"

For a moment, he sounded no longer like an old man, but a young one shouting with abandon.

"That's right! With the blood of Sofluowa united, nothing can stop us! We'll return victorious!"

Deathbird drew a blood-drenched bone sword from the viscous darkness. Deep, cold flames kindled along it.

It came down on Nuen's head!

Nuen shattered the ice encasing him and swung the Boiling Sword with all his strength, shouting until his voice broke.

"Only we can do it!"

In days past, Nuen's strike would have been as swift as lightning. Now, under the influence of Chaos, his blade moved painfully slowly, like an old man spending every last ounce of strength on a single attack.

And this stroke was no attempt to block. It was aimed straight at Deathbird's head.

This was a strike made with his life on the line. Deathbird's bone sword would pierce Nuen's chest, but Nuen would have a chance to take Deathbird's head with a single slash.

Yet it was no reckless gamble. With Nuen so badly wounded, it might be his only chance of victory.

Just before the two blades crossed, a pair of daggers emerged from the darkness and slashed together toward Deathbird's throat.

Whether the attacker was too weak or Deathbird's body too strong, the daggers pierced only flesh. They failed to cut all the way through.

In the murky darkness, a face appeared, smeared with filthy blood yet still carrying a trace of boyish delicacy.

Mick gripped the daggers tight, but no matter how hard he pushed, he could drive them no deeper.

"Mick!"

Xilian cried out.

Mick was an ordinary human. He had no business being here. He should have been with Tim and the others, protecting the survivors beneath the shelter of the Soul Marrow Flame.

But he had come anyway, a surprise attacker marching to his death.

Mick looked at Xilian. He said nothing, only struggled to smile as ice crystals crept across his face, freezing the blood along with them.

"Bastard!"

Deathbird roared the curse. A sharp tail spike burst from his back and swept across without mercy.

The slight figure flew into the air, severed in two, then fell to earth. Filthy blood and entrails struck the ground with the sound of a wet rag hitting the floor.

It happened so fast. There were no last words, no time to prepare. Mick died before Xilian's eyes, light as a feather, his death too sudden to feel real.

But the fight to the death went on.

Mick's surprise attack had bought Nuen time. The Boiling Sword struck beneath Deathbird's neck first, cutting down along the earlier wound and nearly cleaving his body in half.

At the same moment, the bone sword pierced Nuen's chest and jutted out through his back.

The two figures looked as though they were locked in a standoff—or holding each other up.

Xilian strode forward, trying to deliver the final blow to Deathbird. To his horror, though he knew what he had to do, his body could not react in time.

It was that strange sluggishness. It could even affect his thoughts.

Thick darkness swallowed Xilian's vision in an instant. An immense silence surged in like a tide, shutting out every sound around him—the explosive roar of flames, the demons' shrill howls, and the ringing clash of blades in the fight to the death. It was as if the entire world had been muted.

All was still. Only Xilian's faint, labored breathing dragged through the silence, slowly fading toward a halt.

A series of fine, crisp sounds arose as frost spread across Xilian's skin, layer after layer.

Strangely, the suffocating sluggishness kept Xilian from feeling the cold at all. Even his sense of time quietly blurred in the silence.

But Xilian knew he was gradually freezing into a statue. Deathbird would only have to give him a gentle push, and he would shatter against the hard ground like fragile porcelain.

Perhaps Xilian would die of suffocation before Deathbird could push him over. Perhaps even before that, his consciousness would perish in the stillness.

The darkness extinguished every flame and devoured the last of the light.

An aged voice rang out, shattering a corner of the darkness.

"Xilian!"

Amid the surging darkness, a glimmer flared and spread, then blazed free of all restraint.

"Remember these words! They're the legion's oath—the epitaph we die for!"

Nuen ignored the bone sword through his chest. He cared nothing for the life draining from him.

He let go of the Boiling Sword and allowed it to sink into the ground, then raised both hands and clamped them around Deathbird's head.

"Grey realms know no dawn; ashes blanket the land!"

Nuen bellowed the oath the world should have forgotten.

"Torchbearers stand; the deep quakes in fear."

The oath seemed to wield the power of spoken magic. The dense Grey Fog boiled as though rapidly evaporating, releasing shrill, piercing cries.

"The Fated Path gnaws bone; Outer Gods devour light."

Deathbird gripped his bone sword and struggled with all his might, but he was too close to Nuen to bring his strength to bear. Worse, boundless flames streamed from Nuen along the blood and caught on his body.

As roaring fire engulfed them both, Nuen spoke the final lines of the oath.

"Burn this broken flesh; swear to end the endless night!"

The moment the oath ended, a distant, furious cry sounded from the Origin Sea. Strange mutters and whispers followed, as if countless ghosts were murmuring to one another in the dark.

As if compelled, Xilian raised his head. Though darkness had consumed every trace of light, he could just make out something taking shape above the sky.

The vision he had seen when Nuen bestowed a bloodline upon him returned. Three giants blotted out the sky and looked down upon the earth like the supreme rulers of the world.

After centuries, the legion's oath had been spoken on earth once more. It drove Them into a furious frenzy, and They vowed to erase it.

But Xilian refused to yield to despair.

Overwhelming emotion erupted within him. He had never felt such rage. Even the Soul Marrow frozen inside him began to burn again.

Hatred for Chaos, fury at the slaughter, loathing for every tragedy it had brought...

The madness was intoxicating. It pleased the Ouroboros Mark perfectly, and at that moment, the blessing it had nurtured for so long finally took shape.

The blessing was Cultivation of Ten Thousand Forms.

And so, all forms changed.

It became... Wrathful Abomination!

In the darkness, Xilian opened his eyes. Molten-gold light shone in his pupils.

The world was absurd. Mad.

Not long ago, White Cliff Town had been holding a celebration. The townspeople had congratulated him on becoming a Torchbearer and brought food and wine from their homes.

Xilian had danced with Ava, attraction growing between them in the charged air. Perhaps he would have kissed her. Perhaps she would have embraced him.

Yes, tonight should have been filled with laughter. Instead, Deathbird's scheme had turned it into a nightmare...

The townspeople had died beneath the claws of Chaos. Tim had fought drenched in blood. Ava had watched her father die. Mick had fallen into a spreading pool of blood...

One familiar face after another was stained with blood, then vanished into the darkness without a trace.

Even Nuen had been reduced to dragging his broken body along before sinking to one knee, as if he had submitted to Chaos.

That was his teacher. His father. How could Xilian let it end this way?

Xilian surged forward in fury, wielding the swordsmanship Nuen had taught him with a skill he had never possessed before. He had to reach Nuen's side, whatever it took.

Even when his Soul Marrow burned out and his blazing blood cooled, Xilian stubbornly pressed on until he stood beside Nuen.

"Xilian..."

Nuen struggled to raise his head and look at the battered Xilian.

Xilian wept, but the lingering heat of his body evaporated the tears at once. All Nuen saw was a face twisted with rage.

"Teacher, you asked me what my dream was?"

Xilian reached for the Boiling Sword planted in the ground. His fingers tightened around it, and in the red mist rising from the blade, he saw his molten-gold eyes burn.

"Now I finally see it..."

Deathbird's scream caught in his throat.

He had seen those molten-gold eyes before—upon the Supreme Throne, amid millions of kneeling skeletons, in the sacred being he served.

"Blessed—"

Deathbird's words were crushed beneath a roar like a collapsing mountain. Xilian's vocal cords tore out a sound like metal scraping against stone.

"I will become—"

A spark rippled across the blade and swelled into a sea of fire.

"—a righteous man who punishes evil!"

As the sword's light split the darkness, Xilian's arm completed the arc Nuen had begun.

"A judge who passes sentence!"

The flaming sword pierced Deathbird's ribs. Foul blood mist boiled into steam along its groove, melting his dying body into translucent amber.

"A blade of fire that drives back the dark!"

His roar came in wave after furious wave.

Deathbird's claws locked around the blade, his finger bones cracking as death closed in. Xilian pressed his whole palm against its edge, his fingers digging into the spine like nails driven into his enemy's heart.

Xilian gritted his teeth, his face contorted with savage fury.

"A torch that will... burn away the endless night!"

The instant the sword tip pierced Deathbird's rotting heart, flames burst from the wound. Fire spilled through the gaps in his bones, as if a thousand suns had awakened inside him.

Flames soared, sweeping away the darkness!