"Evelyne."No answer."Evelyne!"Still nothing.Kael called her name again and again, his hand supporting his wife's back, trying to feel the energy flow inside her meridians the same way he had healed people all this time. But his hands were trembling in a way he had never allowed to happen in any situation before."Why..." His voice broke in the middle. "Why did you try to protect me, Evelyne? You..."He couldn't finish it. Couldn't find the words for a sentence he wouldn't allow himself to complete, because completing it meant accepting a possibility he couldn't take in.Evelyne's breathing was there. But every time he felt it, the interval between one breath and the next seemed to grow longer and longer.Kael called her name again, louder, the way someone does when they've run out of any other way to make someone open their eyes.But there was no answer.Inside him, something that hadn't moved in a very long time began to stir. Not from the same place as ordinary anger. This was f

The pressure from two points in outer space radiated in every direction without discrimination.On the Earth-side, Xiao Peng, who had still been moving among the remaining soldiers, suddenly stopped. Not because he chose to stop, but because the pressure flowing from the distant fight made the air around him feel like something that had to be actively fought just to take one step forward.Evelyne floated unconscious within Kael's protective energy, still. Xiao Peng stood still. Chen Wuji, Huang Tianlung, Long Tianshi, all of them stopped without needing to communicate with each other.On the Planet Aethon Vel side, the same thing happened.The remaining Galactic Warriors had stopped moving for the past several minutes, not because they received an order but because the pressure radiating from the fight between those two figures was triggering danger warnings in their armor's control systems that couldn't be dismissed.All anyone could do, from both sides that had been killing each oth

Silence.Zetharion Valdris's head floating in outer space with an expression that would never change again was the only reference in that space for explaining what had just happened.The Supreme Ruler of Planet Aethon Vel was dead.The Galactic Warriors didn't move for several seconds, frozen in a way that had no place in their military protocols because their protocols had never needed to account for this possibility.One million years. Hundreds of thousands of planets. Nothing had ever ended Zetharion Valdris.Until today.Vaern Thael stood among the already-scattered ranks, staring at the point where the Supreme Ruler's body floated headless in outer space, and he felt his entire system stop working for a moment that lasted too long.Then his awareness came back.And the only conclusion he could draw was the one he didn't want to draw but had no alternative to.They had to leave.Now.He activated the communication system in his helmet and sent a signal to the entire remaining flee

The cracked ribs were what needed the most time.Kael couldn't mend bone the way he closed a wound on skin. The process had to be slower and more careful, so the bone healing itself wouldn't form in the wrong position. He channeled silver energy in steady pulses, like a heartbeat slowed down, letting that energy signal the tissue around the cracked bone to shift into the correct position before recovery could begin.One by one, all three cracked ribs started to respond.While the process continued inside, he handled the surface wounds differently. The golden-silver remedy he had prepared earlier was applied in a thin coat along each wound, and he let that layer dry into something like a natural bandage closing from the outside while the inside was healed from within.Evelyne's breathing, which had been short and uneven, began to lengthen.Slowly.But with a clear direction.Kael kept working. The meridians in her chest that had been disrupted were mostly restored, but there were two p

The celebration was still in full swing around them, but where they stood, everything felt quieter than it should have in the middle of a crowd that large."From now on," said Kael, his eyes still on the distance, "nothing will dare disturb the peace of Earth. Or the Lower World. Or the Upper World."Evelyne didn't answer right away, waiting for the next sentence."But if that time ever comes..." The corner of his lip rose slightly. "I'll protect it again."Evelyne turned to look at him."I've always believed in you."The way she said it wasn't like a pleasantry coming out because the moment called for it. More like a fact that had existed before this conversation started, said not to reassure Kael but simply because that was how it was.Kael didn't respond with words. He only held his wife's hand a little tighter, while looking out at everything around them.Xiao Peng sat quietly at the end of the table, done eating but not leaving, his eyes sweeping the crowd in that old way that ha