Chapter 142 - Battle Over
Cale couldn’t retreat. That would be the most foolish choice imaginable. If he retreated to the inner sanctum, his enemies would simply pivot their assault toward his subordinates.
Seeing the devastating force of his first slash, all three enemies stood in retreat for several moments, reassessing the threat level before them.
Cale raised his sword for the second attack.
Diagonal Slash!
The blade descended at an angle, cutting through the air. Yunfeng and Liushen retreated backward, jumping as far as possible to escape the slash’s trajectory. But the giant jiangshi — slower, less agile, still remained.
The slash cut through its massive body, and wherever the blade touched, the wound immediately froze solid, preventing any possibility of healing.
Cale wanted to use the Bone Radiate Intent technique, to incorporate the sword-piercing particles he’d gained from the Bone Fiend Emperor’s inheritance, but he had no time to properly train it. The knowledge was there, but the application remained beyond his current reach.
Yunfeng and the black panther converged on his right and left sides simultaneously, about to unleash a coordinated attack that would crush him between their combined force.
But Cale was faster.
He used the Thorned Lotus and executed the Three Steps Technique, appearing directly at Wang Yunfeng’s side. Before the Vice Patriarch could react, Cale struck him with the hilt of his blade, a solid bone-breaking impact that sent him flying backward.
Then Cale opened his wings.
The massive appendages unfurled from his back, and he flapped them, launching himself high into the sky, beyond the immediate reach of his grounded enemies.
Third move: Spiraled Intent
He raised his sword high, creating a slash that didn’t move straight. Instead, it twisted and turned mid-air, forming into a tornado of sword intent.
All three enemies suffered massive damage as the tornado passed through them. The chaos qi infused within the technique burned them from the inside out.
As the destruction settled, Cale looked down at his three opponents.
The black panther was barely alive, its breathing shallow and irregular.
The giant jiangshi’s status was unclear, it had taken devastating damage from multiple attacks.
Wang Yunfeng was crawling, using a small piece of broken debris to pull himself upright. Half his body was charred from burns, his frame covered in multiple cuts that bled continuously. Blood covered nearly every inch of him, and his essence reserves were nearly completely depleted. One of his forearms had been completely severed, leaving a stump that oozed dark fluid.
Cale flew to a position where all three enemies would come into his vision in one perfectly straight line.
His eyes narrowed.
"Although harsh, you were fun," he said quietly.
Fourth move: Deathspree.
He raised his sword, and a small ball began to form at the very tip of its blade. It grew steadily as energy after energy added itself to the sphere — earth, fire, water, wind, wood, chaos, nihility, all elements and all intents layering upon each other. The ball kept spinning like a vortex of concentrated annihilation, each rotation adding another layer of devastating power.
Then, with a final slash, the orb of nihility shot forward.
It moved through everything as if nothing existed between Cale and his enemies. The sphere erased everything in its path.
First, the giant.
The orb pierced directly through its massive body, creating a hole large enough to drive a carriage through. More importantly, it destroyed the core stone that controlled the jiangshi’s animation, shattering it into fragments.
The giant collapsed, finally dead.
Next, Liushen.
The transformation was undone, he had been attempting to cast a healing technique, desperately trying to restore his lower body. But the orb was faster. It struck his midsection, and his lower half was simply blasted away by the sphere’s passage, leaving him severed and helpless.
The orb’s speed was nearly invisible to the naked eye — only those with enhanced senses could track its trajectory.
Cale had based this technique on studying planetary orbits from his previous life, spheres that moved in curved paths while also spinning on their own axis. But with chaos qi infused into the concept, the effects were exponentially more destructive.
Finally, Wang Yunfeng.
The orb struck his chest directly. But instead of piercing through as it had the others, Cale willed it to burst at the moment of impact.
The explosion was devastating.
Chaos flames erupted outward, spreading indefinitely across a hundred-meter radius.
Everything within that zone burned with the uncontrollable fire of chaos itself.
"Hah! Hahaha! Hahahah! See that, my first Emperor-stage kills! That too was a three against one!" Cale’s voice echoed across the devastated landscape. "Oh, heavens above! How unfair can you be, hahaha!"
But as the relief surged through him, weakness followed immediately.
His eyes became dizzy, his vision spinning.
’H-huh... what is... fuck... am I going unconscious...?’
He didn’t have time to think further. He tore a talisman that would let his subordinates know his location. Then his body simply gave out, collapsing to the ground like a puppet with severed strings.
He fell asleep immediately.
But the Netherworld Prince’s Ring; which hung from a floating pin made from Thorned Lotus, the same pin Cale had used to send a blade to kill the Wang clansmen hours earlier — activated automatically.
The ring absorbed all those souls it had collected during the massacre, channeling their essence into Cale’s sleeping body.
It was his trump card — a last-resort healing mechanism that would restore him even in situations where escape seemed impossible. He hadn’t summoned it earlier because his enemies might have detected the power surge, but now, with victory assured there was no reason to hold back.
The healing flowed into him, mending bones, sealing wounds.
Two hours later, his eyes fluttered open.
’Hmm, where am I...? Oh, right, I fell unconscious... where...?’
He caught a scent, something flowery and elegant, distinctly feminine.
Sniff...
He moved his face slowly and opened his eyes.
Platinum blonde hair fell across his vision like a veil, and behind that cascade of silk, he saw a beautiful and cold gaze staring directly into his soul. Fiora’s expression was serene, almost peaceful, as she looked down at him.
He blushed.
Genuinely, unmistakably blushed.
"P-princess..."
"Hmm," she replied casually, her fingers continuing to stroke his head gently.
’D-damn... this is heaven...’
After composing himself slightly, he spoke again.
"You sure are getting bold. A lap pillow now?" he said, attempting to sound confident despite the warmth flooding through him.
’Heh, you think I’d lose my composure this easily?’
"You were asleep, and everyone else ran inside to check out the artifacts," she explained.
"Hmm, so why didn’t you?" he asked, curious.
"What use would I have of those?"
"R-right..."
’Haah, sometimes I forget the royal family is filthy rich with thousands of artifacts and at least a hundred Divine Tier ones too. What use would she even have...? Although I thought it would be Rexa picking me up. Well, I did send that talisman to Fiora, so maybe she didn’t tell the others about it at all.’
Unable to resist, Cale gave her thigh a light peck, drawing a small squeak from her.
He got up slowly, his body still aching.
"Damn it hurts... sigh, I guess even if restored, the pain stays," he muttered.
But his senses suddenly tingled with warning.
"Huh? Do you sense that?" he asked, his eyes opening sharply.
"Sense what exactly?"
"Hmm, so it’s only I who can sense it," he murmured while getting to his feet despite the lingering pain.
He closed his eyes and concentrated, extending his divine consciousness in the direction of the sensation.
’So that’s where it is.’