Chapter 22: The Spear Beneath the Heart
"Balwisyall nescell Gungnir tron."
The words did not sound like Renyu.
They came out low, steady, and far too certain for a boy who, a breath earlier, had merely taken one step toward the Twin-Chorus Mirror Moth.
Then the red converter crystal flared.
Crimson light burst from his chest like a second heartbeat breaking through skin. It spread fast—faster than Ame no Habakiri's blue crystalline sequence, faster than any of the others had yet seen from him—gold-white lines racing down his arms, across his shoulders, into his legs, wrapping him in a harder, more aggressive form. The armor that took shape did not flow like a swordsman's shell.
It struck into place.
A white gauntlets. A black-gold greaves. A tighter torso frame built for impact rather than elegance. A spear-form suggestion in the lines of the armor—but not a spearman's stance. Almost the same as Hibiki but slight different as it more toward a guy form.
This different can be seen where vernier thruster of Hibiki at the hip while his on at the back.
No weapon appeared in his hand.
Instead, both fists clenched.
Ning Rongrong would have called it beautiful.
No one here had breath for beauty.
Qin Ming expression changed first.
Not because of the transformation alone.
Because the pressure coming from the moth changed with it.
The Twin-Chorus Mirror Moth wings vibrated once—true body and false body together—and the air in the clearing tightened so suddenly that every leaf nearby shivered.
Then the aura hit.
It rolled outward without warning, cold and deep and wrong in a way the earlier signs had only hinted at. Not the pressure of a one-thousand-year beast. Not the threat of a five-thousand-year one either.
This—
This was far worse.
Yu Tianheng face hardened. Dugu Yan pupils shrank. Ye Lingling hand moved instantly to her pouch, then stopped halfway because even she seemed unsure what she was preparing for. Lin Su, for the first time since entering Sunset Forest, no longer looked like a quiet scout. He looked ready to move.
Qin Ming voice cut across the clearing.
"Get back!"
No one moved.
Because Renyu had already vanished.
Not literally.
But the first step of his Gungnir charge struck the ground hard enough that it burst beneath his foot, dirt and stones exploding backward in a fan-shaped spray. His body lowered into the line of attack in a way that had nothing to do with swordsmanship. No elegant angle. No testing cut. No patient measure of distance.
This was entry.
Violent, direct, and trained.
Qian Renxue palace instructors had hammered that into him from childhood with close the distance, break the center, make the next breath belong to you.
Then the forest itself answered the charge.
The false moth split left. The true moth rose. Both wings sang.
The sound did not resemble any ordinary insect hum. It was too fine for that, too layered. String over string, like harp wires plucked by invisible hands. The nearest trunk split with a sharp whispering crack. A line opened across a rock face. Three leaves became six pieces before they touched the ground.
"Sound blades," Ye Lingling said quietly.
"Not only that," Qin Ming said.
He was staring at the aura around the true moth now, and for the first time since Renyu had met him, Qin Ming voice lost some of its easy authority.
"It's close to fifty thousand years."
That finally broke the others' stillness.
Dugu Yan swore softly. Yu Tianheng stepped forward at once, lightning already jumping along his arms. Lin Su moved to the right, weight light on the balls of his feet, eyes locked on Renyu instead of the beast.
Qin Ming raised a hand sharply.
"No one rushes in. Not yet."
Yu Tianheng turned. "Teacher, if that thing is really close to fifty thousand—"
"I heard what I said."
"And Renyu just charged it."
"Yes."
The answer was flat.
Because Qin Ming had already seen the more dangerous truth.
Renyu had not merely charged. He also had stopped hearing them. And he felt that Renyu able to fight this Twin-Chorus Mirror Moth.
Even he felt this thought ridiculous but he want to see whether this kid can pull this off.
Ahead, Renyu voice rose.
"Naze dō shite…"
He continued to sing, the full battle song carrying through the clearing in a way that made the converter crimson pulse fall into time with his steps. It was not loud. It did not need to be. The melody threaded itself through his body and came back out as power.
Phonic Gain Resonance surged.
The Gungnir form answered it greedily.
The first moth-body cut down at him from above.
Renyu did not dodge back.
He drove in harder.
His left foot stamped. The earth caved. His shoulder turned. His right fist came up in a brutal rising strike that smashed through the descending sound blade and into the false moth's center.
The body burst like shattered glass and silver dust.
Illusion.
He did not pause.
'Wow,' Lin Su thought. He reading the resonance by instinct now.
The true moth had already moved.
It flashed from the right side of the branch line to the left, wings vibrating in layered pulses. Five invisible cuts screamed through the air toward Renyu blind side.
He pivoted inside them.
Not fully clear.
One line sliced his sleeve. Another nicked the armor at his ribs with a ringing hiss. The last three missed because he had already closed the distance again.
His style looked nothing like Ame no Habakiri.
That was what shocked Yu Tianheng first.
No sword line. No blade control. No measured spacing.
Just forward pressure so violent that it turned defense into offense.
Renyu stepped through a root, shattered it underfoot, and drove a straight punch toward the moth body. The strike missed by half an inch when the beast created a second echo image and slipped above it.
The punch still landed on the tree behind.
The trunk exploded.
Not cracked.
Exploded.
Wood burst outward in a storm of splinters. The upper half of the tree twisted once and then fell, crashing through two neighboring branches hard enough to shake the whole patch of forest.
Dugu Yan stared.
"…What?"
It was not a sophisticated question.
It was the correct one.
Renyu had not used a finisher. Had not used a ring skill. Had not paused to prepare.
That had been a punch.
Qin Ming eyes narrowed. "His body amplification just spiked again."
"No," Yu Tianheng said, voice low now. "That's not just an amplification."
He knew what power is and what is enhancements of the body. He came from the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan. He had spent years watching what brute force looked like and saw many more soul ring abilities in the clan.
This was different.
This looked like a body built to make shockwaves.
The moth retaliated at once.
Both true and false bodies appeared together again, crossing in opposite directions. Their wings sang. This time the sound blades came not in a straight volley, but from layered angles—front, left, upper right, then low.
It was hunting him the same way it had hunted everything else in this territory.
That is make the predator strike the wrong body, then cut the real flesh from somewhere else.
Renyu answered with violence.
"Dareka no tame ni nara…"
He continued to sing, and the rest of the melody carried under the clash. Gungnir red-gold light flared brighter. He dropped his center, burst forward, and slammed his heel into the ground.
The impact boomed.
Cracks shot out through the clearing floor in a web pattern. A shallow crater formed under him. The nearest two sound blades broke against the upward burst of force. The other three still came in—
One cut the side of his arm. One grazed his thigh. One carved a long line across the bark of a tree behind him.
He ignored them.
That, more than anything else, chilled Qin Ming.
"He's ignoring that damage," he said.
Ye Lingling voice stayed calm. "Look like he knows he can take some of it."
Seeing this, Qin Ming then said, "Lingling ready your martial spirit. If something happen use it."
"Yes."
The simple answer hung there.
No. He could not.
And yet he kept going.
The moth true body flashed upward, trying to widen the fight and force him into chasing. The false body dipped low, drawing his eye.
Renyu head turned toward the false body—
Then snapped back to the real one.
He jumped.
He launched himself using the piston attached to his leg. This move using a function call Power Jack. It can be use for sudden acceleration or changing direction midair or increasing the power of the kick.
The takeoff shattered another patch of ground. His body cut upward through falling leaves like a bolt driven from below, and the air around his gauntlets warped under the weight of the force behind them as the piston on along his hand form.
The true moth finally made a mistake.
Not because it was weak.
Because it had never fought anything like this.
Its instincts were built for predators that watched, stalked, then struck.
Renyu did not stalk. He entered. He endured. He broke rhythm.
His fist caught the lower edge of one wing together with air blast that form after the piston on his hand released.
The sound that came out of the moth then was the first truly ugly thing about it. Not musical. Not delicate. A sharp tearing shriek of resonance gone wrong.
Silver threads snapped. Dust burst outward. And the beast was thrown sideways hard enough to plow through three branches before vanishing into deeper shadow.
The false body flickered.
Wavered.
Then reappeared again from another angle.
Lin Su eyes sharpened. "It's still sustaining the clone."
"Of course it is," Dugu Yan snapped. "It's not dead."
Yu Tianheng looked at Qin Ming. "We cannot leave him in there alone."
Qin Ming did not answer immediately.
Because he knew Lin Su would move if Renyu life crossed the line into immediate danger. Because he knew Renyu current state would make interference dangerous unless timed perfectly. And because—
He could not stop looking at the damage.
Three trees down. Two half-split. Ground cratered in four places. Cracks radiating through the clearing as though artillery had struck it. And this destruction in still continuing to spread.
This was one student.
A level-forty bottleneck student.
Qin Ming had expected talent. Had expected hidden cards. He had not expected Sunset Forest to start looking like it being bombarded after less than a minute of combat.
This power of destruction exceed normal Soul Elder even closing to limit of Soul Emperor and that if we place a martial spirit that specialist causing wide spread destruction. It must be known that Renyu only at the bottleneck of Soul Elder into Soul Ancestor.
Dugu Yan saw his expression and went still.
Yu Tianheng followed her gaze.
Then all three of them looked back toward the clearing in the same instant.
Renyu had hit the ground again.
Hard.
The landing broke another section of earth open, throwing mud and stone in a ring around him. He was breathing harder now, shoulders rising and falling under the Gungnir armor, but the song had not stopped. His voice carried on, steady and relentless, and the pressure of it made the moth wing vibration seem less like ambush and more like challenge.
The Twin-Chorus Mirror Moth reappeared above him.
One body. Then two. Then the real body split the air between them and launched a full arc of sound blades downward in a crossing fan meant to cut off every possible forward path.
Renyu smiled.
It was not a pleasant sight.
Not because he looked cruel.
Because he looked too calm.
Like he had finally found the thing he was meant to punch.
"Watashi to iu oto…"
He continued to sing.
Then he drove straight into the barrage.
The first blade cut his shoulder. The second carved sparks from his gauntlet. The third and fourth burst apart when his fists crossed in front of him and the shock of his movement tore their line open. The fifth went wide because he was already inside them.
'Too fast,' Yu Tianheng thought.
No—wrong.
'Too direct.'
The moth tried to retreat again.
This time Renyu did not let it go.
He caught the branch beneath it with both hands, ripped the entire thing free from the tree, and swung himself upward before slamming it down. The branch shattered under the force. The tree leaned, groaned, and then crashed sideways into two more, bringing half the upper canopy down with it.
The false body dissolved.
The true body finally had nowhere left to hide.
Qin Ming breath caught.
There.
Now it was visible.
Not beautiful anymore. Not haunting. Wounded wing vibrating unevenly, one side of its silver harp-strings broken, body trembling with injured resonance.
And still—
Still the aura pressing from it was enough to make the air feel old and hostile.
"Teacher," Yu Tianheng said, voice tighter now, "he's driving it deeper."
"I see that."
"Then say something."
Qin Ming did.
"Renyu!"
The shout cracked through the trees. But Renyu did not answer.
He did not even turn or even blink.
That frightened Qin Ming more than the beast.
Lin Su shifted his footing.
Qin Ming caught the movement. "Not yet."
Lin Su voice was flat. "If he in danger, I will move."
"Yes."
No argument. No emotion. Just threshold.
Renyu and the moth collided again.
This time the impact did not sound like flesh or wing or armor.
It sounded like a siege hammer striking a bell.
The ground under them split in a jagged line. Two more trees came down. A crater opened where Renyu shoulder strike drove the moth into the earth, and the burst of force around the impact threw bark, stone, and silver dust across the clearing.
For one stunned instant, no one in the team moved to help.
Not because they did not care.
Because they had forgotten to.
Qin Ming stared. Yu Tianheng stared. Dugu Yan stared. Even Ye Lingling, that calm Ye Lingling, had gone still.
The forest around them looked less like a hunting ground and more like a battlefield after bombardment.
And in the center of it, still singing, still moving, still half-lost to whatever had taken hold of him when Gungnir answered the moth call—
Renyu fought on.