I alone am the Honoured One!

Zhao Tian hovered beside Ji Shuang as the lingering echoes of her devastating attack still trembled across the air.

Lightning residue danced in the sky, mingling with violet mist and fragments of shattered clouds.

Below them, the land lay is in ruin, split open and scorched beyond recognition.

Ji Shuang turned her head toward him and a wry smile appeared on her lips "It seems like I really can't kill the Paragon…" she murmured.

With a nod he replied "Hm. Let me take care of it."

Then, he vanished.

BOOM!

The air cracked as a sonic ripple exploded outward, distorting space where he once stood.

Ji Shuang's hair snapped back as the sheer force displaced the sky itself.

Zhao Tian reappeared high above the Paragon's twisted head.

The Paragon bellowed and it lifted its arm, aiming to swat him from the sky like an insect.

Zhao Tian raised his arm and countered, slashing with his sword.

A clean vertical line carved through space, from the skies above to the shattered ground below.

For a moment, everything... cloud, wind, time, and breath stood still.

Ji Shuang's eyes widened, and her pupils contracted into sharp points 'That is not sword intent...'

CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAACKKKKKKKKKK!!!

The sky split apart where Zhao Tian's blade had passed.

Unlike the natural chaos left by Ji Shuang's astral lightning, this rupture carved a gash in the space and from within it, a tide of space energy poured out, devouring the surroundings.

The Paragon's enormous torso was cleaved in half, from the shoulder down to the hip.

No blood emerged. Instead, spiraling runes bled from the wound, screaming and writhing in the air as if in pain.

Zhao Tian's gaze condensed 'I was not sitting idly in the Rupture trapped with Master. I gained even more affinity towards space and time energy...'

From afar, Rui Yuying watched in disbelief and her lips parted slightly.

Below, the Paragon's upper body writhed grotesquely.

The runes began to spin and reweave themselves.

A lattice of glowing symbols formed between the severed halves of its body, and inch by inch, the Paragon began to heal.

"You are stubborn..." Zhao Tian muttered coldly.

Then, he moved again.

SLASH! SLASH! SLASH!

In less than a breath, a hundred cuts traced across the Paragon's body.

The Paragon's body trembled violently.

However, it quickly recovered and began to heal again.

From the remnants of its fragmented torso, spiraling runes surged back together, igniting with a sickening greenish hue.

As they converged, the Paragon's upper form reshaped itself into something even more grotesque.

Arms became elongated, with jointless extensions, and its head twisted unnaturally with eyes opening along its shoulders, chest, and even knees.

And those eyes, each one radiated a different color.

A low, terrible groan crawled from its throat.

Zhao Tian narrowed his gaze, lowering his blade slightly "It's... adapting to space disruption,"

Then the Paragon lunged as Its limbs coiled like whips and struck with enough force to splinter boulders.

Zhao Tian sidestepped, and a claw passed inches from his shoulder, tearing through the air with a shriek of compressed pressure.

In the same breath, he countered.

His sword flicked out and the space between him and the Paragon was severed, compressed into nothing.

His blade struck from five meters away, as if it had never traveled the gap.

A crack sounded across the battlefield.

The Paragon stumbled back as one of its many eyes split open, leaking a strange golden fluid.

It hissed, retaliating with a backhand that swept up dust and debris in a storm.

Without wasting a moment, Zhao Tian stepped forward and teleported in front of the Paragon as he slashed upward.

The sword passed beneath the Paragon's left arm, and as it did, space twisted.

The angle of the cut warped mid-swing and it didn't aim for the arm anymore, it struck the creature's ribcage instead, bypassing its defense.

GRAASSHHHH! A gash opened and the Paragon roared in pain as its ribs warped inward.

Its flesh squirmed, and new runes spun across its skin.

As Zhao Tian teleported again, the creature reacted, and it didn't wait for a strike, but it struck into the space he was moving into.

Clang!

Zhao Tian barely twisted in time, deflecting a spined limb aimed for his throat.

His shoulder jarred with the impact and a dull pulse of pain shot through him.

His pupils narrowed 'Good. You're adapting... but so am I.'

He reversed his grip, then swept his palm across the air.

Lines of blue light carved into the earth around the Paragon.

Each line crackled with restrained force and the space in that zone hardened, locking the Paragon.

The Paragon froze for a half-second and Zhao Tian dashed in, slashing his sword.

SLEESH! SLEESH! SLEESH!

Each cut was shallow but it's okay because he wasn't aiming to kill it in one blow.

He was disabling it, robbing it of its mobility, balance, and perception.

SPLASH! The eye exploded in a black spray and the creature lett out a furious screech.

"RAAARGGGHHHH!"

It retaliated with a lunge from all four limbs.

Zhao Tian raised his left hand and bent the space around the creature's limbs.

The attack missed not because he dodged, but because the creature's trajectory had bent mid-motion.

What was once a straight-line strike now curved two meters to the left, and the Paragon tumbled past him, off balance.

Zhao Tian let out a sigh and cold mist surged forth, and a spiral of freezing energy howled around him as the air crystallized.

Up in the air, Ji Shuang's gaze condensed "He was using those weird spatial attacks til now, but he went back to using his elementals?"

A ring of blue light snapped beneath the Paragon.

In an instant, the ground beneath it exploded in frost and ice crawled up its limbs, racing along its torso, even up into the sockets of its eyes.

Its runes screamed, vibrating violently as the cold invaded their structure.

Crack.

Crack-crack.

CRACK!

The Paragon's entire body froze solid, locked in mid-lunge and black steam hissed from its form as space around it distorted from the extreme cold.

Zhao Tian stepped forward and thrust his palm.

The ice imploded inward.

The Paragon's torso shattered into a thousand shards of jagged, glassy flesh.

But it wasn't enough.

From beneath the broken pieces, runes began to pulse again and the remaining mass started knitting itself back together.

Zhao Tian's lips curled into a frown, and a deep rumble thundered across the battlefield as clouds churned.

Earth energy surged through the ground beneath his feet.

At the same time, flame twisted from his fingertips, feeding off that solid power.

Above, the clouds split open.

From beyond them, a massive meteor burst through the sky and its heat caused the air to ripple and warp.

Ji Shuang raised her head and looked at the meteor "he has combined his earth and flame elemental power..."

The meteor screamed down toward the Paragon, whose shattered body was still reforming with the runes scrambling to complete the process.

KRAAAAAK-BOOOOOOOOOOOM!!

The meteor slammed into the ground with cataclysmic force, sending an inferno blast in all directions.

A pillar of light and flame exploded upward, annihilating everything in its radius.

Mountains in the distance crumbled and the very terrain buckled as flames danced across the sky.

Zhao Tian hovered in the aftermath, robes fluttering against the shockwaves.

A long silence followed and then… the flames parted.

The Paragon still stood with its mangled form warped beyond recognition, but somehow alive.

Its lower body was missing and half of its face was crushed with one arm twitcing uselessly.

Yet its remaining eyes still glowed, and its runes still burned.

Zhao Tian's expression grew dark '…You're clinging to life like a parasite. I really don't want to destroy another star.'

*flick* He disappeared and appeared beside Ji Shuang who was hovering in the air.

Huh? She was taken aback. "Tian? What are you doing here? Try to kill it while it's weakened..."

Looking into her eyes, he replied "I need your help before that."

Sensing teh gravity of the situation, she hurriedly nodded her head "Sure, what is it?"

With a nod, he replied "I want you to create a barrier around the surrounding areas and not let a single speck of energy spill out of that barrier."

Huh? Ji Shuang frowned hearing his weird request but she nodded her head "Containtment barrier? Alright."

She raised her arms, and the thunder rolled from the horizon.

In an instant, lightning surged outward from her hands, fanning across the sky like luminous threads.

They lashed into the ground, into the distant mountains, and into the clouds above, anchoring themselves at every point of the battlefield's perimeter.

A massive dome formed around the entire warzone, and it shimmered with violet light as it locked the entire region in a storm-sealed tomb.

Zhao Tian looked up at the barrier, then slowly closed his eyes.

Ji Shuang exhaled "Done… It'll hold. But this thing's powerful, what's going on?"

Zhao Tian let out a breath, and a black glint flashed through his eyes before he dashed toward the paragon.

HUH? Ji Shuang's eyes shrank in horror 'Dark energy of Elditchfiends? Why... does he have that?'

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I hope you guys liked this chapter!