Writer: StarReader

Proofreader: Silavin

“Hands off!” Gu Santong raved as he unleashed all his power as a Qilin.

Que’er and the other three sacred beasts were quick to act, knowing the only way to get Heavenly Sovereign away from Murong Xue is by combining their power. The last time sure left him close to breathing his last.

Heavenly Sovereign glanced at the incoming attacks, fusing just a few meters from him. The previous blank memory revolving around a similar circumstance pointed out that this was very dangerous. He used Child Sovereign’s elusive movement to simply slip out of the way with an infuriating ease to everyone watching.

“Agh!” It wasn’t perfect though, for Murong Xue’s left arm was caught in the attack, only a trace, but enough for the black thunderflame to eat away at her fingers and work its way up her arm with agonizing pain following the disintegrated flesh and bone.

“That gave me such a fright I forgot I had a hostage.” Heavenly Sovereign gasped, writing the dodge as a close call, but they all knew he was just toying with them.

He let Murong Xue get touched on purpose so she would suffer for nothing.

“It would seem your friend is quite apt in his call. That arm does need to come off at least, before we can have a proper conversation.” Heavenly Sovereign held her in place with his aura and overpowering Yuan Qi, while using his sole right arm to squeeze hard on Murong Xue’s left arm just below the shoulder.

“Argh!” She couldn’t help but shout harder at the new pain mixing with the burning one.

“Forgive me, but this is for your own good.” Heavenly Sovereign smirked as he slowly pulled on it.

Zhuo Fan first heard her upper arm bone snap with a resounding crack, followed by a pop as the bone came out of its socket, and ending with splattering sounds as the muscles, sinew, and skin simply tore off in a gruesome display.

Throughout the process, Murong Xue was flailing to get away, the torture too much for her. But to her despair, Heavenly Sovereign couldn’t care less as he flung the burning arm behind him.

“Now that we can have a proper talk without interference, my dear, would you be so kind as to give me your path and I shall spare you of your misery?” His eyes went from her burning hand to her ghastly expression twisted in pain.

“N-never! You’re just going to kill me anyway!” Murong Xue spat.

“Pity, I thought you’d see that humanity’s sin is existing, at least judging from your path.” Heavenly Sovereign plunged his hand in her chest, coming out with her beating heart.

He gave it a look and threw it away like garbage, to the horrified eyes of everyone else.

The others hadn’t been idle while Heavenly Sovereign was torturing Murong Xue, wanting to get him away from her while also aiming to finish him off, but no matter what they tried, he would either just flinch a bit from casual attacks or dodge when they too the time to fuse their attacks.

Zhuo Fan had done a tentative fusion of his path as well, leveraging on the boosted power to smash Heavenly Sovereign out of the way, but the ancient man had no trouble blocking his attacks while also keeping hold of Murong Xue.

As they all watched her crushing to the ground, their hopes plunged with her. The loss of a single path, now when they could damage him, would mean they were robbed of any means of fighting back. Dying was only a matter of time.

A blinding light flashed across the sky, slamming into Heavenly Sovereign, plunging him into the ground so deep a torrent of lava blew out of it. It followed with ten miles around the impact shining brighter and vanishing in a flash.

“Take this, Miss Murong.” A person appeared out of nowhere next to the bleeding and dying girl on the ground. She made no gesture, the fading gaze in her eyes pointing out she was not long for this world.

The man placed a translucent pill with a hint of prismatic in her mouth and watched.

Murong Xue was bathed in prismatic colors as the hole in her chest knitted over under the very eyes of everyone else, with even her arm regrowing like brand new.

She stirred as the power within soared to a peak higher than before she entered this fight, amazed and astounded by the energy coursing through her, but more glad than anything that she was alive. Murong Xue was still out of it, unable to come to terms that she survived all that, but the memory and the pain of the torture left her shivering once more.

“Elder Song, so nice of you to finally join us at this late hour.” Zhuo Fan’s tone dripped with sarcasm. He didn’t know who was it that trigged the absurd prismatic event and almost ruined everything, but he at least hoped they would come out and help against Heavenly Sovereign, even entertained the thought that the extra help would actually beat their mortal enemy.

But as the battle went on, with most of it being his side suffering while Heavenly Sovereign could simply reset the damage, he was beginning to think help was never going to come.

“Steward Zhuo, believe me when I say that I wanted nothing more than to be here with you from the start of the battle, but circumstances have made it so I could not shirk away my duties as a master. Even so, I could not let the fiend take one of us to our deaths.” The air around Elder Song changed, growing heavy and grave as he spoke. The others could feel how torn up he was inside for having delayed his arrival so far.

“Am I to assume, from the shocking event you triggered, that your path, and power, will be enough to defeat Heavenly Sovereign?” Zhuo Fan gazed fixedly into Elder Song’s eyes, awaiting his response on which hinged their very lives, and humanity’s.