Above Quinlan and Serika, the sky began to heal. The storm of corruption that Venthros had summoned dispersed like mist before morning light. With each passing heartbeat, the heavens cleared, the air stilled, and the world itself seemed to exhale.
Their quiet moment lingered a few precious seconds longer.
Then Serika’s body gave a subtle shudder.
Her fiery aura flickered. It was bright one moment, then dimming like a dying hearth the next. A warning.
“Ah…” she breathed with a sheepish laugh. “That’s my qi saying ‘enough is enough. Let me rest finally.'”
Her cloak of fire that allowed them to hover in the air sputtered out. Gravity returned, once again announcing its dominion over their physical forms. But rather than plummet to the depths below, Serika flared what little remained of her strength, guiding their descent.
Quinlan was deathly tired in Serika’s arms, the final strike of his having drained him worse than that one time when Lucille got her hands on his pecker for eight hours straight without any of the other girls being in the way, letting her drain him to her heart’s contents.
But thanks to Serika’s acute qi manipulation prowess, he could relax as they descended as if using a glider in the wind.
In this manner, they drifted gently downward.
Quinlan’s head lolled sideways, catching a final glimpse of the battlefield they’d utterly ruined. He didn’t doubt that the once beautiful capital city would become a monument of legendary proportions. What went down here today would be the exclusive topic of inns in the whole world.
As he looked around, it was hard to ignore one specific sight. There, looming over the landscape like a desecrated mountain, was the slain corpse of Venthros.
His massive, corruption-forged body was blackened, his obsidian skin cracked and flaming with internal embers. From the severed stump of his neck, his black blood flowed outward in a great stream, seeping into the ruined landscape and sizzling into ash. His severed head now lay still, its hollow eyes void of life. The look of terror he experienced in his final moment was forever frozen in defeat.
There was no twitch. No flicker of revival.
No second boss battle. Just death.
True, final death.
When their feet finally touched the ground, Serika stumbled, her fire aura vanishing in full.
Quinlan, with great effort, pushed against her arms and found his footing. His body was shaky, half-crippled with fatigue, but his soul still burned with clarity. He took one breath—just one—and was immediately cut off by a shrill, joyous cry:
“QUINLAN!”
A streak of motion was visible at the edges of his vision.
Then came the impact.
Feng barreled into him like a thunderbolt wrapped in teenage energy. She leapt straight into his chest, nearly knocking the breath from him, arms wrapping tight around his waist. Her small body trembled, both from adrenaline and sheer joy.
She looked up at him with amazed, sparkly eyes and a face that was lit up like never before.
“That was by far the most badass thing I’ve ever seen in my life!”
Feng’s voice rang out like a firecracker, full of awe and disbelief. Her eyes were practically glowing as she stared at Quinlan. She knew he was amazing already, after all, she was with him even before he became a cultivator.
She still remembered how he saved her chastity and, quite likely, her life as well when he, without knowing what even the word ‘qi’ meant, killed Zhang, her ex-fiance who tried to rape her.
Since then, Feng had been practically glued to the man, witnessing his incredibly swift rise to glory. So, of course, she was already perfectly aware how talented he was. But what he’d just done was beyond her wildest imagination.
As such, she couldn’t help but see Quinlan in a brand new light—cooler than ever before. Her crush-er, this guy was already incredibly badass in the girl’s eyes, but now… She had no words to describe the depth of her feelings.
Quinlan let out a hoarse chuckle. He lifted one hand and gently patted her head. “Thanks,” he said with a weak smirk. “Though… I’m not entirely sure how I pulled off that last strike.”
His voice still had a rasp to it, but his mind was already spinning. He rubbed his chin with his other hand, brows furrowing. “It felt like some kind of superior harmonized elemental fusion… The elements were not just working together but combined to become something more…”
Serika nodded, her gaze just as thoughtful as his. “That’s not surprising. It was your first battle as a Spirit Tempering cultivator. And the first time you wielded the Still Heart in combat. That’s… a huge shift, Quinlan. It changes everything.”
Quinlan tilted his head to the side, curious. He already knew a lot about the phenomenon titled the Still Heart, but he wasn’t all-knowing, so he gestured for her to continue.
Serika obliged without any further delay. “It’s not just about giving you better control over your emotions and how you use them in battle. When the heart and spirit align, when you’re truly centered, it can trigger what we call the ‘flow state,’ which is best described as a zen-like trance that occurs during fights to the death. It doesn’t always manifest, but when it does, we can fight with maximum efficiency, use instinctive movement, and the like. I’m confident you entered the flow state and subconsciously used that strange attack. “
Quinlan blinked. Then let out a quiet whistle. “Huh. That’s one more reason why I must’ve been sent here… That’ll help with melee combat so damn much in my future battles.”
The girls looked at him strangely, but he ignored them, choosing to instead turn his gaze to the horizon. The sky was beginning to pale with the earliest hints of dawn. The ash-filled wind had calmed.
“I guess I should study that feeling,” he murmured, still stroking his chin. “Analyze the mechanics, reflect on what triggered it-“
“NO!”
The shout came like a slap across the face. Feng stomped on the ground with all her might, her hands firmly resting on her hips and eyes bulging in frustration as she glared at the pair.
“You two battle junkies are utterly hopeless!”
Quinlan blinked at the girl, getting caught entirely off guard. Serika looked startled as well, appearing as if she’d been woken from a nap.
Feng pointed at Quinlan with a horribly accusatory finger. “You just defeated THE INVADER! The one from the prophecy! You’re visibly exhausted, on the brink of fainting, yet here you are with your fellow partner in crime…” she stopped briefly to send Serika a fierce glare as if she were a terrible influence on Quinlan before continuing, “…already standing around muttering about ‘flow state’ and whatnot! This isn’t the time for battle analysis, dammit!”
She had the aura of a person who’d been personally wronged. “You’re supposed to be throwing your arms up and screaming your head off! Dancing! Laughing! Breaking things with your joy! That was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen, and you are just… coldly analyzing the battle?! Already?! You just landed from the skies after delivering the finishing blow!”
Quinlan blinked again. Then turned to Serika.
Serika blinked back.
Then they both looked toward the sky, the breeze tugging gently at their ruined clothes.
A long pause came. No one said anything for long seconds.
But then…
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