Divine might filled the heavens and crushed the world; the vast sky lay as silent as ten thousand years of death.
The Earth Divine Tree Clone's angry complaints, laden with exhaustion and resentment, echoed for a long time through the shattered airspace.
She blamed Shiheng for slacking, for coasting, for leaving her to shoulder the crushing pressure alone.
Yet from beginning to end, she knew nothing.
By now, Shiheng was utterly spent. He had no strength left to hold anything back, much less coast.
No one knew the truth of this year of bitter fighting.
No one saw the formation's most remote, equally perilous blind spot at the rear.
From the very first day of this lethal standoff against an Overgod.
Shiheng had made the most insane, most forbearing choice, one no one knew about.
He had forcibly split apart the two portions of Paragon Willpower Might he relied on to suppress powerful foes.
One entire portion of that complete, pure, wholly undiminished Willpower Might.
He had drawn it all out of his body, condensed it layer upon layer, and maintained it day and night.
He had not used this supremely precious might to resist the crushing palm on the left.
Nor had he used it to reinforce the Defensive Barrier before him.
Instead, he had silently enveloped Kailin's entire body with all of it.
It became an invisible, substantial shield that constantly consumed his essence.
For an entire year, over three hundred days, it had never ceased, day or night.
Outwardly, he stood motionless in the void on the left, single-handedly resisting half the destructive force of the Overgod's enormous palm.
In secret, he alone held the rear position with a single portion of Willpower Might.
He silently protected Kailin, whose reserves were the weakest among them and who