Squelch.
A sickening, muffled sound tore through the chaos of battle.
Without the slightest hesitation, Jingliu twisted aside. Her right hand shot forward like a claw, slicing the air with a vicious whistle as it punched straight through the Borisin's chest.
Scalding wolf blood instantly drenched her entire arm, yet it could not touch the frozen steel in the depths of her eyes.
The Borisin roared in agony and lashed out wildly with its claws. Jingliu's left hand blurred, seizing its forelimb and snapping the bone with a brutal yank.
In the next heartbeat, a sight unfolded that turned the surrounding wolf pack to stone.
With explosive force, Jingliu hurled the massive Borisin — a creature many times her own weight — high into the air.
Her fingers then clamped down like a vice around its sternum and flesh.
Rip!
The wet crunch of muscle fibers tearing apart mixed with the sharp crack of bones separating. A crimson rain showered the ground, and the thick, metallic stench of blood sent the wolves into a maddened frenzy.
The Moon-Eater Borisin, feared across the battlefield for their savage close-quarters dominance, had just been ripped in half by her bare hands.
Pale shards of broken bone gleamed in the open air while dark red organs and shredded meat splattered across the dirt.
The surrounding Borisin, who had been ready to pounce, froze where they stood. They stared at the blood-drenched figure standing calmly amid the wreckage of their comrade, and for the first time their bloodthirsty instincts gave way to raw fear. They took unconscious steps backward.
Jingliu flicked the clinging bits of flesh from her fingertips with casual indifference. Her ice-colored hair, now heavy and dark with blood, clung to her cheeks.
She slowly raised her face, sticky crimson stains coating her skin. Her pupils burned a terrifying shade of red, radiating an aura even more brutal than that of the Wolf Soldiers themselves.
So what if I have no sword?
Killing intent that fear could never extinguish. Fighting spirit that death itself could never break.
In that moment, Jingliu finally understood the full weight of the words Kanzaki had spoken to her years ago.
Every warrior would one day face a desperate situation. On the battlefield, life and death hinged on a single instant and a single thought.
The moment fear claimed your heart, only death remained.
The Cloud Knights were trained never to let their weapons leave their hands. Yet the battlefield shifted in the blink of an eye, and no one could swear they would never lose their blade.
In those moments, the only thing left to rely on was one's own will.
As long as killing intent burned and fighting spirit held firm, anything could become a sword to pierce the enemy's body.
But the awe she inspired lasted only a fleeting breath.
For these bloodthirsty abominations, the gruesome death of one of their own did not quench their rage. Instead, the heavy, inescapable scent of blood pushed them into absolute frenzy.
Howls split the air. Dozens of Borisin entered a state of lunar madness and charged toward Jingliu and the remaining Cloud Knights with no regard for their lives.
The slaughter began anew.
There was no testing of defenses, no probing strikes — only a relentless fight to the death.
Without their full equipment, the Cloud Knights struggled beneath the crushing weight of the beast tide. Their defensive line teetered on the edge of total collapse.
Only the small circle around Jingliu remained an untouchable zone of death in this blood-soaked purgatory.
She could no longer hear the battle cries, the roars, or even the screams of her comrades.
At this moment, she had become far more crazed than the Borisin she faced.
Claws and fangs came from every direction. Jingliu dodged what she could. What she could not dodge, she met head-on, trading injury for injury and life for life.
The Borisin that sank its teeth into her shoulder had its skull shattered in the very next heartbeat.
Claws tore open her abdomen, yet she did not even flinch. She reached back, seized the attacker's arm, ripped it free along with skin and bone, and drove the severed limb straight into its vital point.
No one could have expected that the ghastly wounds covering her body — some deep enough to expose bone — would stop bleeding, scab over, and begin healing at a visible pace.
Her stamina was draining away at terrifying speed. Beneath the layer of blood her face grew steadily paler, yet her movements barely slowed.
Tear.
Another sharp, wet sound rang out.
Jingliu tore a Wolf Soldier attempting a sneak attack in half while it was still airborne, her entire body now completely drenched in gore.
Countless severed limbs and broken corpses had piled beneath her feet into a small mountain of carnage.
She stood atop that mountain like a blood-soaked goddess of war. Any enemy that stepped into her range was instantly ripped apart.
One person had single-handedly held half of the entire flank.
But even the strongest mortal body had its limits.
Flesh and blood could not sustain such frenzied combat forever.
That unnatural healing came at a terrible price — it was burning through her life force itself.
Amid the endless slaughter, time lost all meaning.
It might have been an hour. It might have been only the time it took for a single stick of incense to burn down.
Jingliu's limbs grew heavier with every passing second. Her lungs felt as though they had been filled with molten iron; each breath brought searing pain.
In the crimson haze before her eyes, the enemies began to blur and overlap into bloody afterimages.
Her foot slipped on the slick pile of corpses. Her combat stance faltered for a single, fatal heartbeat.
A Borisin that had been patiently waiting for exactly this moment lunged forward. Its foul maw yawned wide, fangs capable of crushing alloy aimed straight for her slender neck.
Too close. Too fast.
Jingliu instinctively tried to raise her hand, but her body could no longer obey her mind's command. Her arm felt impossibly heavy.
The shadow of death swallowed her completely in that instant… Was this how it would end?
As the hideous wolf maw rapidly filled her vision, a flash of deep unwillingness burned in her eyes.
She did not fear dying in battle. She only regretted that she would never earn her Master's true recognition. She hated her own weakness, knowing she could never fully repay the kindness he had shown her by accepting her as his student.
Yet the death she awaited never arrived.
A blazing streak of light plummeted from the sky, ripping through the dense green canopy and the thick blood mist that hung over the battlefield.
A powerful figure slammed down directly in front of her. A terrifying shockwave erupted outward from the point of impact.
The Borisin an instant away from tearing out her throat did not even have time to scream before it was obliterated into a fine red mist by the overwhelming force.
Violent air currents rolled outward, hurling every Borisin within dozens of meters through the air.
Jingliu's eyes snapped open.
A familiar, cold aura instantly swept away the nauseating stench of blood that had filled her senses.
In her blurred vision, she saw a steady, reassuring back standing protectively before her.
"Mas… ter…"
Jingliu's voice was barely a whisper. Her legs gave out, and she sank halfway to her knees on the blood-soaked ground.
Kanzaki did not turn around. He drove his fist straight into the mountain of flesh and corpses choking the battlefield.
In that instant, the earth itself trembled.
An invisible wave surged outward at terrifying speed, covering a radius of a hundred miles.
Within that vast area, every corpse, every scrap of abomination flesh, and every living Borisin was instantly reduced to fine ash. Not a single trace of tissue remained.
The battlefield fell into an eerie, absolute silence.
The surviving Cloud Knights stared in stunned bewilderment, unable to comprehend why their enemies had suddenly turned to dust.
Hanya and Xueyi arrived aboard a divine wind ship, following the path that had been torn through the forest. The moment they witnessed the scene, their hearts trembled.
It was not the first time they had seen Kanzaki wield such power, yet never before had they witnessed destructive force on this scale.
They could clearly sense the fury he was barely containing.
"All troops, hear my command," Kanzaki's voice rang across the hills and through the woods, reaching every surviving Cloud Knight. "Retreat and regroup immediately."
Not everyone recognized his face, but that unmistakable Xianzhou aura could never be mistaken.
Finally… reinforcements had arrived.
Kanzaki slowly withdrew his fist, then turned and looked down at Jingliu.
A complex emotion flickered through his eyes for the briefest moment before vanishing completely, replaced by cold resolve.
He reached into empty air. A long sword materialized in his palm, and he tossed it down in front of her.
"Get up."