The skies above the Reign Continent did not simply darken—they recoiled.
As Jalen crossed the final threshold into the territory of the Waveweave Temple, the heavens themselves seemed to hesitate. For two days, he had flown without pause, his aura sealed, his qi suppressed, but his intent bled into the wind like ink into water. The clouds parted for him. The beasts fled from him. The world bent around him.
He didn't descend like a cultivator.
He descended like a storm.
The outer ridges of the Waveweave Temple shimmered with supreme-level formations—barriers etched with ancient glyphs, reinforced by elemental cores, designed to repel even Sage Realm cultivators. In other words Breath like dusk while at his current realm would not be enough for him to bypass the temple's defenses without triggering alarms. In fact. even if he was at Sage Realm it still wouldn't be enough to get inside quietly.
But that was fine. The silent Blade Jalen for once didn't want quiet. He wanted noise. He wanted chaos. He wanted every sect and royal family spies watching to know: this is what will happened when you touched those he cared about.
He landed at the front gate.
Not with ceremony. Not with warning.
Just presence.
The guards stationed at the entrance—Peak Moon Realm cultivators wrapped in armor laced with spirit-thread steel—reacted instantly. They surged forward, weapons drawn, as their qi rattled the atmosphere.
Jalen didn't flinch.
His eyes glowed blue, and Blizzard Coil erupted.
Then cyclones of frost qi swallowed the guards in a vortex of biting wind and condensed snow. Their armor cracked. Their limbs froze mid-motion. Their screams were brief—cut off by silence as their bodies turned to statues of ice, then shattered.
The disciples nearby—some early Moon Realm and Star Realm guards cultivators—froze in place. Not from technique. From fear.
Many were even curious to know who this monstrous cultivator was who dared to invade their powerful clan, but none were brave enough to ask.
Jalen stepped forward, robes fluttering in the windless air. His eyes glowed faintly—light and shadow coiling together. Behind him floated Jael, arms loosely wrapped around his father's neck, his draconic aura subdued but unmistakable. The boy didn't speak. He didn't need to. His presence alone made the air ripple.
The temple's outer formations activated. Glyphs flared. Alarm bells rang. Defensive arrays surged to life, casting barriers across the sky. Elders appeared—around twelve of them, and dozens of elite warriors from all imperial realms from early to peak stage—hovering above the courtyard, their expressions grim.
At their center stood Elder Kyle, a peak spirit fusion realm cultivator—the one who had accused the Tenison family of collusion with Jalen that time at the Renin mountain.
His eyes narrowed.
"So it's you," he sneered. "We thought you were too scared to show up. Did you come to apologize and kill yourself to appease the souls of those you murdered from my sect?"
Jalen didn't answer. He didn't need to.
His gaze locked onto Kyle—he recognized him from the memories he extracted from the cultivator a few nights ago at the Hewitt family. He's a key figure here. He's also one of those who led the charge against the Flare family and ordered the attack on the Hewitt estate.
If anyone should know where his father is being held, it should be this guy.
Of course, these people with him might also be able to help him locate his father. But Kyle had led the charge. His soul was stained with command. And that made him the clearest thread to pull.
Kyle gestured sharply. "Kill him!"
The elite guards move.
Formation beasts surged from glyph circles—serpents of flame, wolves of lightning, and falcons of wind. Spirit tools activated—swords, spears, and talismans, all aimed at Jalen.
Jalen's eyes glowed blue, causing the beasts to freeze mid-charge, weapons to slow, and elders to falter.
Ice Age activated. A half-mile frost domain expanded outward, freezing terrain and suppressing elemental qi; for those below the imperial realm, it nullified their elemental qi completely and strengthened every ice-based attack.
The temperature plummeted instantly.
Disciples below the Imperial Realm fled in panic, scrambling to escape the domain's reach. Those too slow—those too close—were caught mid-step.
Their bodies froze solid.
Statues of ice, shattered seconds later by the expanding frost.
All the Imperial Realm cultivators staggered and were forced to erect their strongest barriers just to breathe. The air itself had turned hostile.
Jalen stood at the center, untouched—like a sovereign of winter.
Kyle's breath hitched.
He felt it—raw, undeniable.
The pressure radiating from Jalen was that of a Mid Immortal Realm cultivator.
That should be impossible. The last time Kyle had a brief encounter with the boy—months ago on Renin Mountain—he was already at Mid Spirit Fusion Realm, another impossibility.
Now this?
A realm that should have taken centuries to reach. A realm that placed Jalen not just above the elders but leagues beyond them.
How did he manage to grow this fast?
Amid the frozen courtyard, only the elders and Imperial Realm Guards remained upright, their qi flaring just to resist the cold.
One elder's voice broke the silence, low and stunned:
"That kid… Immortal Realm?"
Another shook his head, eyes wide. "Mid stage? That's impossible…"
Above them, the sect's formation arrays flickered, pulses of light stuttering as if unsure whether to resist or collapse.
Even the sky seemed to hesitate.
Kyle's fear surged—but pride refused to yield.
His face twisted into a snarl. "What are you all waiting for get rid of the intruder."
He roared, summoning his full peak Spirit Fusion Realm power. Lightning surged around him, forming a barrier of crackling energy that danced across his blade and armor. The ground beneath him trembled, scorched by arcs of unstable qi.
He charged—high grade level spirit blade drawn, eyes wild—not with confidence, but desperation.
Not to win.
But to prove he wasn't already defeated.
He wasn't the only one who moved—the elven elders, all mid-spirit fusion realm experts, and the elite guards surged forward as well.
Jalen activated Luminous Veil Step.
He shimmered—fracturing into beams of light, slipping between radiant paths, moving not with speed but through sequence. He reappeared behind Kyle, blade already pulsing in his hand.
Luminal Edge whispered through armor and pride.
Kyle screamed.
The blade didn't kill him. Not yet. It carved a deep wound across his back, severing qi threads and destabilizing his core. He stumbled, gasping, trying to turn.
Jalen didn't let him. He pierced Kyle's pressure nodes and meridian anchors.
Then, he raised his hand and unleashed Tundra Scatter—a cone of razor-sharp ice shards that tore through the courtyard, forcing the eleven elders, who were trying to launch a sneak attack on him, to retreat behind qi barriers.
As for the elite guards who surged forward, Jalen's fingers flicked—Winter Rend activated. Three crescent blades of frost qi spiraled from his fingertips, slicing through armor and flesh with chilling precision. Each cut froze blood mid-flight, leaving trails of ice where warmth once flowed.
The guards collapsed, disabled but alive—barely.
He then set his focus back on his prime target, Kyle, who was bloodied and staggering.
Kyle channels his remaining qi into a Lightning Arc Pulse—a wide, sweeping blast of violet energy meant to force Jalen back.
Even within the frost domain, Kyle's lightning surged—but it was slower, less stable, its arcs flickering like dying stars.
But Jalen doesn't retreat.
He moves—a silent burst of displacement via Motion Eclipse, appearing behind Kyle in less than a breath.
The frost-saturated air doesn't slow him. It bends around him.
Jalen's hand glows with condensed frost qi. He strikes Kyle's back with surgical precision, sending him crashing into a frozen slab of stone. Cracks spiderweb across the courtyard.
Kyle groans but rises again.
Kyle, panting, summons a final compressed lightning blade, his hands trembling from qi exhaustion. He lunges, aiming for Jalen's throat.
Jalen doesn't flinch.
He lifts his right arm with Luminal Edge activated—the thin, radiant blade that hums with lethal intent.
Their weapons clash.
Kyle's lightning blade shatters instantly. The force of Luminal Edge slices through the residual energy and carves a shallow gash across Kyle's chest.
He collapses, unable to rise.
And just as Jalen was preparing to extract information out of Kyle before cutting him off from the land of the living, a dark feeling swept over him.
He turned—Luminal Edge raised—just in time to block a blade aimed at his back.
A young man with blond hair, Mid Immortal Realm, hovered before him.
In the same instant, another cultivator—early Immortal Realm—struck from the side.
Jalen escaped using Eclipse Motion, repositioning instantly.
These two were not ordinary enemies.
They were the patriarch of the Waveweave Temple and his right-hand man.
And they had come to kill him.