Xiao Tian looked at Earth Demon Old Ghost, who had already lost all combat ability. The old man's Qi Sea was gone—snuffed out by Xiao Yi Xian's casual finger. His limbs were broken, his chest a collapsed ruin from Medusa's kick. He lay there, a breathing corpse, eyes still wide with disbelief. This was a Seven-Star Dou Zong, a power that had lorded over the Black-Corner Region for decades, now reduced to a heap of twitching flesh.
"Xian'er, seal this entire space. Cai Li has already dealt her justice. Now it is my turn."
Xiao Yi Xian's hands moved in a swift gesture. The air for a hundred meters in every direction thickened like honey, an invisible dome of absolute stillness descending upon them. The space was locked, every possible escape route severed. There would be no last-minute talismans, no spiritual remnants fleeing into the cracks between worlds. The old man's eyes flickered with his final despair—he knew that nothing could break through such a comprehensive spatial seal.
And then Xiao Tian raised his hand.
It began as a tiny golden ember at the center of his palm, no larger than a pearl. But the moment it appeared, the sealed space shuddered. The air did not simply grow hot; it began to scream. A sound like tearing silk filled the dome, and every single person present felt a chill race down their spine that had nothing to do with temperature. It was a soul-deep terror, the kind that ancient beasts must have felt when the first Heavenly Flames fell upon the primordial earth.
Xiao Yi Xian's eyes widened, and despite herself, she took half a step back. Her Dou Zun cultivation, vast and commanding, suddenly felt thin, as if the flame before her was not merely fire but a living emperor gracing lesser beings with its presence. She watched the very threads of reality around Xiao Tian's hand begin to curl and char, invisible space burning away into nothingness. And the flame had not even fully manifested yet.
Medusa felt her breath catch. The snake scales hidden beneath her skin prickled, a primal instinct screaming at her to flee. The Golden Emperor Burning Heaven Flame was not like the Fallen Heart Flame she had heard about in the academy, nor the strange lightning Xiao Tian usually wielded. This was something else entirely. The heat was not a wave but a presence—it pressed against her skin, her soul, her very bloodline. Even the Nine-Colored Sky Swallowing Python within her stirred in unease, and she had to steady herself against a tree.
Wen Yan, the silent and stoic Eight-Star Dou Zong, took a step back. Then another. His face, usually a mask of calm, had gone pale. He had seen countless fires, had fought flame cultivators and Magical Beasts of pure magma, but this—this was beyond comprehension. Space around the flame was not merely distorting; it was liquefying. It ran like molten glass, dripping and pooling, and where those drips fell, the ground sizzled into craters of blackened nothing. He felt his own Dou Qi recoil within his meridians, as if recognizing a supreme ruler.
And then the flame bloomed. It flowed from Xiao Tian's hand in rivulets of liquid gold, impossibly bright, impossibly heavy. The air boiled. The sealed dome Xiao Yi Xian had erected groaned under a pressure it had not been designed to contain. The spatial walls began to fracture, hairline cracks spreading like a spider's web, and from those cracks seeped golden light. Xiao Tian stood at the center, utterly calm, his expression almost serene. The flame was his to command, and command it he did.
With a slow, deliberate motion, he shaped it. The liquid gold flowed and twisted, elongating into a spear. It was flawless, a weapon forged not by hammer and anvil but by pure will and absolute power. The shaft was smooth as polished amber, the blade a leaf of condensed sunlight. But it was not merely beautiful—it was terrifying. Where the spear touched the air, space itself parted like a curtain, edges curling and melting. The temperature within the sealed dome had become a physical weight, threatening to crush them all.
Xiao Tian hefted the spear. Its weight was not of matter but of the reality it burned. He drew his arm back, and everyone watching felt time slow.
Then he threw it.
The spear left his hand with no sound—only a streak of gold that devoured the distance between Xiao Tian and Earth Demon Old Ghost in a fraction of an instant. And where it traveled, space shattered. The cracks from earlier erupted, the spatial walls crashing down like a mirror struck by a hammer. Shards of broken reality rained down, each piece reflecting the golden light, and they melted in the air before they could touch the ground. The path of the spear became a corridor of absolute destruction: space breaking, melting, collapsing into a tunnel of golden annihilation.
Earth Demon Old Ghost could not even scream. The spear struck him before the sound of its passage could reach anyone's ears. His body—already broken, already dying—simply ceased to exist. There was no explosion, no grand conflagration. There was only a silent, holy light that consumed him completely, flesh and bone and soul all rendered into less than ash. And then the spear kept going, piercing through the far side of the spatial seal that Xiao Yi Xian had so carefully constructed, punching a hole that seared the edges into molten nothingness before the seal collapsed entirely. The spear vanished into the horizon, a golden star falling in the wrong direction.
For a long moment, no one spoke.
The sealed space was gone. The ground where Earth Demon Old Ghost had lain was a smooth, blackened crater, glassy and still smoking. The air around them was eerily cool, as if the flame had stolen all the heat from the world before departing. The sky above, which had been clear only minutes before, now swirled with strange, unsettled clouds, painted gold and orange from the residual energy.
Xiao Yi Xian exhaled a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. Her Dou Zun cultivation felt like a paper boat in a hurricane next to that display. She looked at Xiao Tian, who was lowering his hand as if he had just tossed away a twig, and a thousand questions burned in her mind. The Golden Emperor Burning Heaven Flame—she had heard the name before, in old, forbidden scriptures. But seeing it, feeling its might, made her realize how truly monstrous her husband had become. Space melting. Reality breaking like glass. This was not a flame. This was a celestial judgment given physical form.
Medusa's legs, which had just dealt the killing kick, felt weak. She was a queen, a warrior, a Dou Zong in her own right, and she had never, never felt so utterly insignificant. The golden spear had passed not far from her, and even its radiance had made the blood in her veins feel like it was boiling. She watched Xiao Tian, her narrowed eyes hiding a storm of emotions—awe, pride, and a strange, thrilling fear that she would never admit to.
Wen Yan, the silent elder, finally found his voice. It came out hoarse, barely a whisper. "The Golden Emperor Burning Heaven Flame." He knelt. Not from fear, but from reverence. The flame was a myth, a story told to Alchemists and flame cultivators, and it had just seared itself into reality before his very eyes.
Xiao Tian glanced back at them, his expression unreadable. "Let's go home."
He then led the others back to Pure Heaven Divine Palace. Behind them, nothing remained but scorched earth and a massive, blackened crater in the ground.
When they returned, Qing Lin, Yun Yun, and the others immediately gathered around. They had received word of Medusa's danger earlier. One by one, they began inspecting her for injuries.
"Cai Li! Sister! Are you alright?"
Medusa was deeply moved by the genuine concern on the faces before her. "I'm fine. After taking the pill, I've fully recovered."
Once they confirmed she was unharmed and found no lingering abnormalities, everyone breathed a collective sigh of relief. And then the atmosphere shifted.
"Cai Li truly is well-endowed. Her generous chest would rank at least second among us," Ya Fei said with a mischievous smile.
Medusa was utterly bewildered by Ya Fei's words. Weren't they checking her for injuries? How had the topic changed so quickly?
Xiao Yi Xian rolled her eyes at Ya Fei. "You're subtly implying that you're number one, aren't you?"
Before Medusa could react further, they were pulling her toward her palace. Her clothes were still torn and covered in dust.
As for Xiao Tian, they had long since ignored him. With his strength and thick skin, he would never be in any real trouble—especially with Xiao Yi Xian by his side.
As they walked away, Xiao Tian sent a brief soul transmission to Medusa. Then he exited the Pure Heaven Divine Realm and returned to the bottom of the Heavenly Flame Training Pagoda.
The Grand Elder and the two other elders, who had been puzzled by Xiao Tian's sudden disappearance, saw him reappear. "Xiao Tian, where did you go? What is the meaning of your methods?"
"I had some business to attend to earlier. I had to step away for a moment. Also, I've already informed the people from Pure Heaven Divine Palace to come. They should be arriving soon."
Xiao Tian smoothly changed the subject.
"Do we need to send someone to receive them?" Su Qian asked, still thinking about how abruptly Xiao Tian had vanished and reappeared.
"There's no need. They will appear when the moment is right," Xiao Tian replied with a smile.
The few of them then chatted idly for a while.
This time, Xiao Tian planned to deploy three Dou Zongs: Wen Yan, Jin Mo, and Medusa. At present, the high-end combat power of Pure Heaven Divine Palace consisted of Xiao Yi Xian, a One-Star Dou Zun; Wen Yan, an Eight-Star Dou Zong; Medusa, a Two-Star Dou Zong; and Jin Mo, a One-Star Dou Zong. Yun Yun stood at Half-Step Dou Zong. Hai Bodong was a Seven-Star Dou Huang, and Bai Ya had grown to a strength equivalent to an Eight-Star Dou Huang.
---
Two or three hours later, in Xiao Tian's palace within the Eternal Dream Palace, a woman in a tight red dress stepped inside. The dress exposed a generous expanse of fair skin at her waist, revealing a slender form like a water serpent—so narrow it seemed a single hand could encircle it. She moved with light, graceful steps, swaying gently like a crimson flower in full bloom.
Under the lamplight, her beautiful, bewitching face was illuminated. Queen Medusa.
She walked directly to the table in Xiao Tian's private quarters and sat down, wondering what he wanted from her. *Surely he's not planning to try something with me? What nerve!* she murmured inwardly. Yet the blush spreading across her cheeks and the faint smile tugging at the corners of her lips seemed to betray another sentiment altogether.
After a moment's thought, she took out a sound transmission stone and sent a message.
Xiao Tian, seeing that Han Yue and Xiao Yu were stable, received a message through his own transmission stone. He found a secluded spot and returned to the Pure Heaven Divine Realm.
When he arrived, Medusa was already seated in his palace. The soul transmission he had sent her earlier had been to ask her to meet him here.
Xiao Tian materialized opposite her, gazing at the breathtaking, queenly figure before him. "Have you gathered the medicinal ingredients for your Soul Fusion Pill?"
"?" Medusa had conjured a hundred possibilities in her mind. Never, in any of them, had she imagined those would be his first words.
"What? Now that you have powerful subordinates, you find me a burden? You want to be rid of me as quickly as possible?" Her brows furrowed. A strange, inexplicable anger flared in her chest, and a cold gleam flashed in her eyes as she stared intently at Xiao Tian.
Seeing her reaction, Xiao Tian immediately understood she had misunderstood. He reached across the table and took her jade-like hand in his. "How could you think that? I would never drive you away. You may stay here as long as you wish. There will always be a place here for you."
Medusa realized her emotions had flared too intensely, and that she had misjudged him. "Then why did you ask that?"
"I was simply concerned about you," Xiao Tian said with a gentle smile, his thumb tracing idly over her slender hand.
Hearing those words, Medusa understood that he truly was worried about her. The corners of her mouth fought desperately not to lift. She forgot to withdraw her hand, simply letting him hold it. But being who she was—proud, stubborn—how could she possibly let him see her happiness?
"I think you're merely concerned about that little one inside me, aren't you?"
"But I haven't yet gathered enough ingredients. However…" Medusa paused, wanting to tell him that she was fine as she was now. That there was no need to erase the little one's soul. Living and cultivating alongside the other women, she had experienced so much warmth. Her heart was no longer that of the cold Queen Medusa of the past.
"If you haven't gathered enough, then don't. I've recently found a solution—one that will benefit both of your souls."
At Xiao Tian's words, Medusa shot to her feet, her eyes blazing with intensity.