Above Meishan, the wind had changed.
Not its direction, but its "nature."
Smoke and blood were no longer the only things in the air. Something subtler flowed through it, as though the breathing rhythm of space itself had been readjusted.
Qi Wu stood in midair. The white blade of laws in his hand had lost its edge, but the lingering effect of being "defined as unable to advance" had yet to fade completely.
Di Tian stood over a thousand feet away, his Demon Emperor Sword held across his body. The reverse runes on its blade were slowly recovering, like a wounded creature repairing itself.
Neither struck immediately.
The battlefield fell silent for three seconds.
During those three seconds, both armies withdrew at once, leaving an empty zone dozens of miles in radius, as though clearing a stage for gods.
At the very front of the Northern Expedition Army's formation, Jiang Qingyue stared up at the figure in white, lost in a daze. Even her Demon God Curse Mark emitted a trembling glimmer.
She sensed that Qi Wu's aura had changed.
It had not grown stronger, but "thinner."
Like a membrane that might be pierced at any moment-yet behind that membrane lay an ocean she could not measure.
Gale crouched on a rock that had been sheared flat, her long saber resting across her knees. Her eyes never left Di Tian.
She said nothing, but the knuckles of her sword hand whitened slightly.
She had never truly faced a being so close to god-level.
She knew she could not help, but she had to know exactly where the limits of her helplessness lay.
Lilith stood on the army's flank, her crimson eyes narrowing slightly.
Her projection of the Blood God Kingdom remained in place. Her demigod-level perception allowed her to faintly