The clash of blades had barely faded when the air split again.
The patriarch of the Waveweave Temple, Thomas, hovered above the courtyard, robes billowing with spiritual pressure. His eyes—silver and cold—locked onto Jalen with the weight of centuries. Beside him floated his right-hand man, Terrence, lean and sharp-eyed, his aura coiled like a serpent ready to strike.
They didn't speak.
They didn't need to.
Their presence alone shifted the battlefield. The remaining elders retreated instinctively, forming a perimeter. Even the defensive arrays dimmed, as if deferring to the true masters of the temple.
Jalen's frost domain pulsed outward, but the patriarch's qi bent it back—not with force, but with authority. The temperature around him remained cold but stable. Controlled.
Thomas finally spoke, his voice like distant thunder. "This is where it ends for you, boy."
Jalen didn't answer. He stepped forward, luminal edge glowing, eyes unreadable.
Terrence moved first—flickering through space with a technique that mirrored Eclipse Motion but twisted. His blade, curved like a crescent moon, was aimed at Jalen's ribs.
Jalen parried, but the force behind the strike sent shockwaves through the frost domain. Thomas followed instantly, summoning a storm of compressed wind blades that tore through the courtyard like razors.
Jalen didn't flinch. He raised his hand, and Ice Age pulsed outward—not as a domain, but as a concentrated shell. The frost qi condensed into a curved barrier, absorbing the wind blades and redirecting their momentum outward. The courtyard cracked further, and the sky above flickered with unstable formation light.
The battle escalated.
Jalen danced between light, shadow, and frost, his techniques weaving together like a tapestry of winter wrath. But these two were different. They didn't just resist Ice Age—they unraveled it, thread by thread, until it bent to their rhythm.
Thomas' strikes grew colder and sharper. Terrence's movements became more erratic and harder to predict. They weren't just fighting—they were learning.
Jalen narrowed his eyes.
They were adjusting too quickly. That meant they'd trained together—not just in technique, but in synergy. Their movements weren't just coordinated. They were fused.
Thomas raised both arms. Wind qi surged upward, forming a vortex of slicing currents that spun like a cyclone. Terrence followed, his spatial qi fracturing the air into mirrored shards—each one a gateway, each one a blade.
Jalen felt the shift.
The courtyard trembled as Thomas and Terrence raised their hands in unison. Wind and space surged outward—two domains unfurling like divine banners. The sky warped. The ground split. Spiritual pressure blanketed the battlefield, thick enough to crush bone.
Thomas's wind domain roared to life, a cyclone of slicing currents that spun like a living storm. Terrence's spatial domain fractured the air into mirrored shards, each one a gateway, each one a blade. Together, they formed a fused battlefield—Wind Severance and Spatial Fracture—designed not to suppress, but to annihilate.
Jalen's frost domain pulsed in response, Ice Age expanding outward in defiance. But the pressure from the dual domains cracked it like glass under strain. The edges of his frost qi splintered, the temperature destabilizing as wind and space tore through its structure.
The pressure from Wind Severance and Spatial Fracture didn't just crack Ice Age—it tore through it like divine judgment. Frost qi splintered, the temperature fluctuated violently, and the edges of Jalen's domain began to collapse inward. A jagged fissure opened beneath his feet, and the sky above dimmed as formation glyphs overloaded.
He clenched his fist.
Ice Age didn't shatter.
He diffused it—forcefully, painfully. The qi recoiled into his core, burning through his meridians like frozen lightning. Blood welled in his throat, but he swallowed it.
The backlash was real. But he remained standing.
The battlefield shifted.
Wind blades tore through the air; spatial rifts opened and closed with lethal precision. Each step Jalen took was met with a barrage of attacks designed to erase him from existence.
But he didn't falter.
He danced between destruction, his body weaving through the chaos with luminous agility. Luminous Veil Step folded him through beams and shadows, slipping him between attacks that could tear mountains apart. However, he was not unscathed.
Terrence teleported behind him, blade flashing, but Jalen twisted mid-air, parrying with radiant force.
Thomas and Terrence's combined techniques came fast and brutal:
Cyclone Rift Barrage: Wind blades spun through spatial gates, striking from impossible angles.
Mirror Collapse: Terrence fractured space into mirrored shards that exploded on contact.
Vacuum Spiral Fang: A vortex of wind and spatial distortion aimed to crush Jalen from all sides.
Jalen countered with precision. He redirected attacks using Refraction Field Bloom, bending light and force to reflect their own power back at them. Wind blades curved mid-flight, slashing toward their casters. Spatial spears shattered against redirected qi barriers.
The clash became a blur of motion—agility and swordplay at its peak. Jalen's Luminal Edge carved through the air like a comet, each strike humming with radiant destruction. Terrence flickered across the battlefield, teleporting between folds of space, while Thomas summoned cyclones that howled with elemental fury.
Jalen's blade met Terrence's crescent arc with a burst of radiant sparks. The impact sent both cultivators skidding backward, feet carving trenches into the stone.
Thomas followed with a wind vortex that spiraled like a dragon's breath, but Jalen twisted mid-air, using Luminous Veil Step to vanish into a beam of light. He reappeared behind Terrence in the sky, blade already descending.