Ash drifted like snowfall across the broken battlefield.
Kai stood at the center of a scorched circle, holding in his palm a miracle wrapped in doom—Immortal Qi retrieved from the Celestial Eclipse Manual's sacrifice, now roiling in his veins. It flickered with unnatural grace, divine and volatile, every pulse carving deeper pain into his mortal body.
The sealing array glowed beneath his feet—twelvefold, inverted, self-anchoring, its glyphs burning not just with power, but meaning. It was an Immortal-level technique, one Mo Xuan himself had woven into the deepest layers of the manual, meant only to be used once, and never by a mortal.
And yet, here Kai stood—bones splintering, blood evaporating through his skin, the last vestiges of his cultivation screaming.
The Immortal Paragon thrashed inside the forming sigil, her limbs wrapped in chains of fractal light, her robes tattered, her hair wild and unbound.
"You dare?" she spat, her voice layered in a dozen echoes. "You think this seal will contain me?"
Kai fell to one knee, coughing blood, forcing his voice through shattering breath.
"You were never beyond consequences."
He raised his arm.
And the sealing completed.
Twelve points of blinding Immortal Qi snapped shut like a divine cage.
The Paragon was bound—suspended in a pillar of light and spiraling glyphs, her form locked mid-scream, her power suppressed by the sheer pressure of the immortal array. But already, cracks whispered along the outer rim.
Kai turned to Yin.
"Yin!" he shouted, his voice trembling. "This won't hold her for long!"
Yin, still bearing the weight of battle, nodded.
Her sword—the Peerless Sword, once her mother's, now hers—vibrated in her hand, no longer a blade but a conduit. It shimmered, and then… it began to dissolve. The steel flaked away like ash in wind, revealing a twisting strand of Immortal Qi coiled like a serpent of moonlight.
She had seen Kai's sacrifice.
Now, it was her turn.
With one final breath, she whispered, "Mother… let your blade bind what it could not destroy."
Then she plunged the dissolving blade into the earth.
The Immortal Qi surged outward—no longer a weapon, but binding essence.
Spiritual chains erupted from the ground, shaped from the pure intent of Jiang Xue's sword: justice, memory, and sacrifice. Each chain sang with ancient resonance as it wrapped around the Paragon's glowing prison, threading into the sealing array's glyphs.
But Kai wasn't done yet.
He looked at the sky—the distorted sky.
The portal behind the Paragon still churned with energy, its tear into the Nether Realm bleeding instability into the land. But Kai saw the layers beneath it. The failed geometry. The signature of distortion. The Void.
He reached into himself—where Chaos still burned.
And with one hand raised, he rewrote the portal.
"I command with Immortal Authority," he whispered. "This shall not be a gateway to the underworld but a path to the Void Realm."
The Nether Portal screamed as its core shifted.
Its crimson light turned violet. Its edges twisted like torn silk. Runes turned backward.
The Void Realm opened.
A hollow wind poured through the battlefield, and even the light seemed to recoil. Far beyond the threshold, a dark cliff loomed, one Kai recognized from his last visit to the Void Realm.
The Cliff of Regrets.
Yin met his gaze.
Kai nodded. "We must bind her there."
She stepped to the edge of the seal, her chains ready. Her eyes burned not with hatred, but duty.
Kai moved his hands in preparation for a technique. His voice cracked as he called upon one last strand of Immortal Qi in his soul. His body shuddered, skin glowing from within like burning paper.
"Banish!"
The Immortal Paragon, still howling, was pulled backward, chains dragging her body and soul into the portal.
"NO!" she shrieked. "You think you can keep me there?! Mortals cannot contain me forever! I will return! I will return and you will beg for death, but it will not come!"
Her voice was torn away as she crossed the threshold.
The chains followed.
Yin raised her hands and with a cry of defiance, she summoned one final lock—a chain not made of Qi or light, but of intent.
The Eternal Brand.
It wrapped the Paragon's neck and fastened her soul to the base of the cliff within the Void Realm. It glowed once.
Then silence.
The portal screamed once more.
And began to close.
The last bridge to the Void Realm collapsed inward, leaving nothing but stillness.
And silence.
And safety.
Kai sagged forward, drained. "It's over…"
Kai fell.
Yin caught him.
"You did it," she whispered.
He could barely speak. "No… we did."
Yin leaned into him.
And for the first time in a long, long time—they were just two people.
Alive and together.
Just silence, and the aftermath of survival.
He looked into her eyes. She touched his cheek, tears tracing down her ash-streaked face.
And then, with nothing left to say, they kissed.
Not out of desperation.
But from the slow, certain realization that they had survived the impossible.