Immortal Paladin

[POV: Da Wei]

While the fighting in the arena below escalated, a different kind of battle had been raging above, in the vacuum of space.

Pieces of the Dark Veil floated around me in countless orbs, each one shifting restlessly as I wielded Silver Steel in one hand. Starshroud covered my body, its armor gleaming beneath the faint light of distant stars. Golden flames burned along the edges of my figure, illuminating the darkness around me.

There was nothing in the rules stating that the contestants themselves could not fight.

So, I had been lashing out at the Supreme Heart.

Before me stood the Supreme Heart, clad in blue-and-gold armor and wielding a sword of his own. The two of us had already fought across a vast stretch of space, leaving devastation in our wake. Enormous Void Beasts floated in pieces between shattered moons, asteroids, and countless fragments of celestial debris.

The Supreme Heart rested his sword against his shoulder.

“So, tired yet?” he asked, sounding almost amused. “You do realize that this tantrum of yours will ultimately amount to nothing. You cannot kill me, and I cannot kill you. We are immortal in more ways than one. As long as we breathe the laws of the universe into our lungs, we cannot die. The only way we can truly perish is when we stop breathing. We are vessels of supremacy. Even if we wished to kill ourselves, we could not. The Supremacy Trait within us would prevent it. The Supreme Death was unable to die the same way. You will refuse death, and so will I.”

“You yap too much,” I remarked.

I extended one hand.

The orbs of Dark Veil surrounding me immediately changed.

They stretched, twisted, and condensed into various weapons. Spears, blades, chains, and other instruments of destruction formed in midair, their dangerous edges pointing toward a single target.

The hostage I had claimed in the chaos of our battle.

Athena.

When the Supreme Heart had not been paying attention, I had actually been working toward subduing her rather than fighting him.

A number of Ezekiels had surrounded Athena, their skeletal bodies piling over one another as they bundled her into a grotesque sphere of holy bones. Only her face remained visible through the gaps between their bodies. She was asleep, peacefully. Athena remained completely unconscious beneath the effects of my Divine Word: Rest.

The Supreme Heart's expression finally changed.

“What are you thinking?” His voice carried an edge now, his previous amusement fading. “Do you really think this is wise?”

“I can't say.”

As the arbiter representing the Supreme Fate, Athena was the one who would ultimately declare the victor of this contest.

If I removed her from the board, even temporarily, I could postpone my defeat.

That was enough.

“Are you not afraid of the Supreme Fate's retaliation?” the Supreme Heart asked. “Or the binding power of the contract we both accepted? In the worst-case scenario, you will find yourself fighting two Supreme Beings simultaneously.”

He shook his head.

“You really aren't particularly smart.”

“Why do you think she's asleep now?”

The Supreme Heart fell silent.

I could have killed Athena, but I had deliberately chosen not to. That distinction mattered. The Supreme Heart was good at hiding his emotions, but I could see through him. He was annoyed. And that was good for me.

“I haven't deluded myself into thinking that my enemy is only you,” I said, lowering Silver Steel slightly and feigning a weaker guard. “The rest of the Supreme Beings could be my enemies as well. In that regard, I've always viewed your entire lot as enemies under the most pessimistic circumstances. On the other hand, I suppose it was optimistic of me to assume that you lot aren't particularly friendly with each other.”

The Supreme Heart's eyes narrowed, while I continued with my reasoning.

“If you were truly united, you would have already told your buddies where my Hollowed World was. They would have come here as a single force instead of allowing you to provoke me through this demented little contest.”

“Hah.” The Supreme Heart laughed. “Do I have to remind you that this contest was your idea?”

“An idea you planted in my head.”

“So now I'm a mind controller?” He spread his hands. “That's rather far-fetched.”

“Says the guy whose entire thing is moving people's hearts. Who can say you didn't influence me into creating this shitty situation in the first place?” I continued. “I admit that part of my downfall was caused by my own greed and recklessness. That tower of yours was an eyesore from the beginning. Now that I think about it, that tower was also how you planted the idea into my head. Or, in this case, my heart.”

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I remembered the earlier contest, Snakes and Ladders. A ridiculous game inside that ridiculous Tower, designed to poke at me, make me uncomfortable, and perhaps humiliate me.

The Supreme Heart had done the same thing with this contest. The format might have been straightforward. An arena. Champions. A clear victory condition. Yet nothing about the circumstances had ever been straightforward. “You kept testing my patience,” I said. “You kept poking at me. So now I'm poking back.”

“You started this,” mocked the Supreme Heart.

“But I'm going to finish it.”

“Bravo,” the Supreme Heart said sarcastically. “Except you're forgetting one thing. Think about it. Sure, you can delay your defeat by sealing the poor Athena away. But what about your people?”

He gestured toward the arena below.

“They will remain trapped there forever as corpses if I win. They won't be able to resurrect. Your poor champions may not even qualify for reincarnation.”

His smile widened.

“Are you really fine with that?”

“You really are insufferable.”

I glanced toward Athena, still sleeping peacefully within her prison of Ezekiels.

“Even now, you continue to poke at me.”

The Supreme Heart grinned.

“I'm an excellent poker.”

I stared at him for a moment and flipped him the middle finger.

“Poke you.”

Translation:

Fuck you.

“I can say the same to you,” said the Supreme Heart.

He vanished.

Athena's head exploded. His sword tore through her face, the force of the strike destroying several Ezekiels along with her. The holy skeletons immediately swarmed him, conjuring swords, spears, axes, and countless other weapons as they surged toward him like a tide of bones. Heart cut through them all. He didn't even slow down. His sword flashed repeatedly, reducing the Ezekiels to scattered fragments of holy bones as he rushed toward what remained of Athena.

“Kill her? Take her hostage?” Heart scoffed. “I couldn't give a fuck!”

I swung Silver Steel and caught his next strike. The impact sent a violent shockwave through the vacuum. I twisted my body and drove my foot into his chest, imbuing the kick with War Smite.

The Supreme Heart was blasted backward.

I immediately seized Athena's body.

“Divine Word: Raise.”

The damaged portions of her body were restored in an instant.

“Divine Word: Rest.”

Athena's eyes closed again.

I tossed her toward the Dark Veil covering the entire Hollowed World. The Dark Veil swallowed her, hiding her in the dark shell. The Supreme Heart was already coming for me. I unleashed the Dark Veil shaped into various weapons at him, but he parried them away with ease as he accelerated.

I intercepted him.

Our swords collided.

His swordsmanship was becoming increasingly irritating.

He switched between different styles without warning, shifting from hardness to softness, from overwhelming force to subtle redirection, then into entirely different swordsmanship that I had never seen him use before. Every time I adapted to one style, he abandoned it and adopted another.

Worse, the aura surrounding him was becoming progressively more violent.

And he was laughing.

“Da Wei!”

His sword crashed against mine.

“Oh, Da Wei!”

Another strike.

“It seems you are still underestimating me!”

He slipped beneath my guard. I reacted immediately, but he was already diving toward the Dark Veil. The Supreme Heart plunged into the enormous sphere of darkness, searching for Athena.

I followed.

The inside of the Dark Veil was a monochrome world where its master could exert his full authority. I extended my authority over the Dark Veil and attempted to seize him, but nothing happened. My expression darkened. For some reason, Heart could ignore the authority I possessed over this artifact.

That shouldn't have been possible.

The Dark Veil encapsulated the entire Hollowed World. It was one of the most powerful artifacts I possessed, yet Heart was moving through it without resistance.

I made a decision.

Athena was ejected from the Dark Veil and sent directly into the Hollowed World.

I deliberately left her there.

If Heart wanted her, he could come and get her.

The moment he entered the Hollowed World, his cultivation would be suppressed by the world's laws. And once that happened, every immortal within the Hollowed World would have a chance to jump him.

It wasn't exactly a fair fight.

That was precisely the point.

“So, this is how you want to play it!?” Heart shouted.

He emerged from the Dark Veil.

“Fine!”

His grin returned.

“I like it!”

He suddenly changed direction.

Instead of chasing after Athena, he flew toward the top of the Tower that jutted just above the surface of the Dark Veil. My eyes widened. I immediately understood what he intended to do. I chased after him.

We really did think alike.

Heart stopped just above the Tower and looked back at me.

“Now, what's a good one-liner?”

He paused thoughtfully, and then his grin widened.

“Ah. Rules are meant to be broken!”

He raised his hand.

“See you on the other side!”

“Don't you dare!”

Heart's body vanished. My expression sank. He had done it. The Supreme Heart had used his signature consciousness projection technique. His real body was probably hidden somewhere in the universe, but his consciousness had entered the arena.

That changed everything.

His champions now had access to his strategic thinking directly. More importantly, he could personally interfere with the battle despite the restrictions imposed upon us. I stopped before the Tower.

There was no time to waste.

I closed my eyes.

The Divine Phantasm of Dreams manifested.

A dream of myself was conjured within the arena.

The distance was enormous. The arena and the continent within it were actually part of the Greater Asura Realm, making physical interference through Divine Possession impossible at this range.

Even my Ophanim strained under the distance.

My vision blurred. My eyes burned. Still, I forced the connection through. I appeared before the battlefield. Half of the city had already been completely razed.

The remaining half was quickly following.

A massive barrier surrounded the city, trapping everything inside. Above it, countless floating ships slowly descended into the barrier, their cannons firing volleys of projectiles into the ruined streets.

The destruction continued without pause.

I looked around and found Fan Shi.

Fan Shi was trapped within her own sealing technique. Her body looked like a statue. She could not move. She could not even properly exist within the same dimensional layer as the rest of us. Her entire existence had been isolated inside another dimension by her own spell.

I appeared before her and placed one hand against her forehead.

The Ophanim activated. I could not fight through this dream body. I could not cast my techniques. But I could still use my eyes. The Ophanim unraveled the structure of the seal. Layer by layer, I untangled the dimensional bindings around Fan Shi, separating the technique from her existence until the isolation finally collapsed.

Fan Shi's eyes widened.

“Da Wei?”

Her voice carried disbelief.

“What are you doing here?”

I ignored the question.

My attention shifted toward Zhu Shin. His corpse lay nearby. Blood covered what remained of his body. Unfortunately, there was nothing I could do for him. This was only a dream projection. I couldn't cast Divine Word: Raise through it. I couldn't resurrect him. I looked back at Fan Shi.

“Keep Zhu Shin in your pocket dimension.”

“Understood.”

Fan Shi glanced toward the corpse, covering it with her qi and dragging it to her pocket dimension, entrails, gore, and all.

"Good. Come on. We have a lot of work to do.”