The air at the bottom of the casino's crater seemed to freeze solid.The lethal energy claw of Malachi, the undead Half-Step Martial Saint, was brought to a dead halt. Silas's left hand, now entirely commandeered by Victor's soul, gripped the skeletal wrist with an impossibly unshakable vice.There was no explosion of physical force, no violent hurricane of Qi. There was only an absolute, oppressive silence. The pure golden light radiating from Silas's eyes devoured every ounce of the emerald-green death aura and toxic miasma surrounding them.Malachi's jaw dropped. The hellfire in his eye sockets violently flickered. He tried to wrench his arm back, but the left hand of the black-suited man before him felt like the crushing jaws of an ancient dragon."Victor... You...!" Malachi's raspy voice was laced with a venomous cocktail of hatred and terror that had been buried for a century.Silas, exuding Victor's absolute majesty, merely tilted his head a fraction. Those golden eyes dissecte

BEEEEEEEEEP!The long, piercing scream of the ECG monitor inside the underground medical fortress of Aegis Sanctum sliced through the air. The green line on the screen had flatlined."Partial cardiac arrest! Clear!" Dr. Harrison yelled in a panic, grabbing the defibrillator paddles with trembling hands. "Charge to 200 Joules! We have to shock his heart now!"But before the high-voltage paddles could even graze Jonathan Thorne's chest, a blood-soaked hand clamped onto Dr. Harrison’s wrist like a steel vice.It was Silas Thorne.The black-suited young man, who had just collapsed to the floor, forced himself up on one knee. His face was as pale as parchment, and black blood continuously dripped from the corner of his lips due to the fatal fracture in his Main Heart Meridian."D-Don't touch him..." Silas growled, his voice broken but radiating a tyrannical aura that froze Dr. Harrison in his tracks. "The defibrillator... will obliterate the remaining Qi protecting his heart...""B-But he'

After leaving the border outpost that had been turned into a sea of molten glass, Seraphina's team crossed the desolate expanse of The Barrens for an hour until they spotted the flickering glow of neon lights piercing through the thick dust storm.It was Junk-Town, a lawless slum built from rusted shipping containers and aircraft carcasses. At the dead center of the settlement stood a colossal building made of corroded steel, displaying a flickering red neon sign that read: THE RUSTY NAIL."A Lieutenant of the Kowloon Syndicate, a guy named 'Iron-Jaw' Maddox, uses this bar as his temporary base," Nova reported, her eyes glued to her military tablet. "According to the Sterling satellite data I hijacked, he's the gatekeeper to the intel on the Skull Fortress."Seraphina gave a slow, deliberate nod. "Let's go in. Ghost, stay outside and lock down the exits. Don't let a single fly escape if things get heated.""Command received." The blue steel behemoth stood completely still, like a stat

Time seemed to slow to an absolute crawl.The thick crimson light of the Blood Sun Ginseng illuminated Elder 'Crimson' Vance's arrogant face. The blood cultivator's lips were parted wide, ready to swallow the relic that would grant him Grandmaster strength and end Silas Thorne's life forever.They were fifteen meters apart vertically. A shot from Ghost's plasma cannon was far too risky; the blast radius would vaporize the ginseng into ash.In the middle of the Skull Fortress courtyard, surrounded by hundreds of thugs frozen in shock, Seraphina Sterling made a decision in a fraction of a millisecond.The Ice Queen didn't waste her energy conjuring a blizzard shield or freezing the area. She concentrated the entirety of her Pure Yin Qi into the tip of her right index finger. Freezing vapor violently spiraled, condensing at extreme speed to forge a transparent, meter-long spear of solid ice.The spear didn't radiate any cold into the air, because its entire temperature was locked at abso

The stealth VTOL made an emergency landing on the Aegis Sanctum runway, its landing gear sparking violently against the tarmac.Before the jet engines even fully died down, the cargo ramp dropped. Rex vaulted down, carrying the unconscious Silas over his broad shoulder, followed closely by Seraphina, who tightly gripped the Blood Sun Ginseng ,and flanked by Nova and Ghost.Down in the underground VIP ICU, Dr. Harrison and dozens of elite medical staff were waiting, their faces deathly pale.The moment Silas was laid onto the titanium medical bed, the ECG monitor flatlined with a piercing screech."I-It's impossible..." Dr. Harrison stared at the screen in absolute horror. "Mr. Thorne's Heart Meridian is ninety percent obliterated! His internal organs are flash-freezing from total cardiac failure!"Seraphina shoved the Blood Sun Ginseng, which pulsed with a thick crimson light, into the doctor's hands. "Extract this relic. Pump it into his bloodstream right now!"Dr. Harrison grabbed t