The One Who Cannot Die
The Ansha stood before them, calm as ever.
His blue robe was pristine—untouched by battle, unstained by blood, unwrinkled by the chaos that had swallowed worlds. Not a trace of strain marked his face. Not a flicker of instability touched his aura.
The land itself seemed to bow to him.
The pale ground beneath his feet did not crack. It did not resist. It simply… accepted.
"Ansha!" LuQi shouted, forcing strength into his voice despite the invisible restraints binding him. "If you intend to kill us, then do it now!"
His defiance rang out sharply.
But fear still spread through the group like cold water through cloth. Even the demons lowered their gazes instinctively. Saints swallowed hard. Disciples trembled.
The Ansha chuckled softly.
"Even at the brink of death," he said, adjusting the sleeve of his robe with slow elegance, "you remain bold."
His voice did not echo here.
It simply existed.
As he finished speaking, his gaze shifted—lingering briefly on Nem.
Just a heartbeat.
Enough to be noticed.
Then his eyes moved to Xiao Yan.
They locked.
Xiao Yan did not look away.
"How did you survive?" Xiao Yan asked steadily.
The Ansha did not answer. Instead, his gaze drifted past him toward the weakened Saints seated in rigid positions.
"What makes you believe," he said calmly, "I owe you answers?"
The question settled heavily in the hollow air.
Xiao Yan smiled faintly.
Despite everything.
"I just feel…" he said slowly, "you're special."
A ripple of confusion passed through those bound around him.
The Ansha laughed openly this time, the sound neither warm nor cruel—simply amused.
"You think sweet words will lower my guard?"
"You got me," Xiao Yan admitted lightly. "But I doubt you expected this."
And then—
In an instant, Xiao Yan's body shimmered.
His form dissolved into particles of light.
Where he had been seated, a butterfly emerged—delicate, radiant, its wings etched with faint spiritual markings. It fluttered upward effortlessly, slipping through the invisible restraints as though they had never existed.
Gasps erupted across the bound group.
The butterfly passed through the barrier confining them without resistance, then reformed into Xiao Yan's human shape behind it.
Power surged from him immediately.
Lightning cracked violently through the pale sky, jagged and furious, racing straight toward the Ansha with blinding speed.
The land trembled.
But the Ansha stepped aside.
Not hurried.
Not alarmed.
Simply precise.
The lightning tore through empty space where he had stood a fraction of a second earlier.
And in that same moment—
Xiao Yan moved.
He surged forward, aura blazing, and drove straight toward the Ansha's chest—
But he did not collide.
He passed through him.
Like mist through air.
Like memory through a dream.
The sensation was wrong.
There was no resistance. No impact. No flesh. No energy barrier.
Just… emptiness.
The world twisted violently around him.
The pale land fractured into spirals of light and shadow. The sky folded inward. The ground beneath dissolved into spiraling currents. Xiao Yan felt himself pulled—not forward, not backward—but inward.
Sound vanished.
Sight warped.
Time stretched thin.
For a brief, terrifying instant, he felt as though he were falling again—
Falling from that cliff.
The dragon's roar echoing in the distance.
Then everything snapped still.
Xiao Yan stood alone.
The others were gone.
The hollow land was gone.
Before him stood the Ansha once more.
Unmoved.
Untouched.
"You still do not understand," the Ansha said quietly.
And this time—
His voice echoed