"Kill the girl," Kaelen commanded, his voice cold and detached. "Keep the boy's limbs intact until I am ready to peel the truth from his skull. I will not soil my hands with their common blood until they have learned the weight of their sins."
The General stepped back, crossing his arms as his elite disciples closed in. They didn't charge blindly; they moved with the rhythmic, suffocating flow of the Great River Spear Formation.
"Back to back!" Seraphina cried, her rapier a blur of silver frost.
The first wave of underlings struck with a coordinated thrust. Ten spears, glowing with pressurized water Qi, lunged simultaneously. Seraphina parried three, her "Cold Truth" turning the water-tips into brittle ice, but the sheer momentum of the others forced her back.
Vincy swung the Void-Cutter in a wide, desperate arc. The blade was so heavy it dragged him through the air, but the gravity-well it generated pulled the attackers off-balance. One disciple stumbled, his spear-tip dipping into the dirt, and Vincy didn't hesitate. He slammed the flat of the black blade into the man's chest, the sound of ribs snapping like dry kindling echoing through the clearing.
But for every disciple that fell, two more took their place. The formation was a meat-grinder. Every time Vincy or Seraphina tried to break through, the azure barrier rippled, absorbing their impact and reflecting a portion of the force back at them.
"They're draining us!" Seraphina gasped, her shoulder bleeding from a shallow graze. "Every time we strike the barrier, it eats our Qi!"
The battle became a blur of steel and blood. Vincy's muscles screamed under the weight of the sword, and the "Shell" around his internal fire was beginning to hairline-fracture from the sheer physical strain. He saw Seraphina drop to one knee, her silver-rime fading as three spears hovered inches from her throat.
"Now, Vincy!" Piet's voice was a thunderclap in his mind. "The seal is brittle! If you don't release it, the General will execute her while you're still catching your breath!"
Vincy let out a roar that was less human and more like the growl of a dying star. He didn't just swing the sword; he shattered the "Shell" in his dantian and shoved every drop of the Primeval Earth Fire into the violet vein of the Void-Cutter.
The matte-black blade didn't just emit heat; it created a localized collapse of space. The ground beneath the Great River disciples imploded, pulling them into a central point of crushing pressure. The ochre fire followed, a horizontal ring of flame that incinerated the water-spears and sent a shockwave through the forest that leveled trees for fifty yards.
Kaelen's eyes widened, his calm facade finally cracking as he was forced to deploy his own Qi shield to avoid being knocked back. The formation was shattered, the disciples scattered like autumn leaves in a hurricane.
Vincy collapsed, using the heavy sword as a crutch, his palms scorched and his breath coming in ragged gasps. Seraphina stared at him, her eyes wide with terror and awe.
But as the dust settled and Kaelen prepared to step forward with his own blade unsheathed, none of them noticed the shift in the sky.
High above the Whispering Woods, hidden behind a veil of distorted light in the Firmament, two figures stood upon a platform of solidified clouds. One was a woman in robes of shifting starlight; the other was a man whose very presence seemed to mute the sound of the world below.
"The Star-Core has resonated," the woman whispered, her gaze fixed on the boy with the black sword. "And he carries the Earth-Fire of the Old Sage. Olin has been busy."
"He is reckless," the man replied, his voice a deep, resonant chime. "He has revealed the Archive's signature before he is ready to defend it. Should we descend?"
"No," the woman said, a small, enigmatic smile playing on her lips. "Let the General test him further. If he cannot survive a provincial arbitrator, he is not the one the Prophecy spoke of."
Below them, Kaelen raised his hand, a massive spear of solidified river-water forming in the air, aimed directly at Vincy's heart.