Chapter 136: Breaking the Cage
Mission Update: Allied Unit ’Lu Cang’ at 12% spiritual integrity. Core Destabilization in progress. Containment Array is a ’Siphoning Cage,’ variant three. Primary weakness: disruption of the central control node held by the Crimson Sun female.
Lin Tian’s eyes snapped to the woman with the array disk.
Xueya’s hand settled on his shoulder, her touch cool. "The nexus point—"
"Is a room," Lin Tian cut in, his voice low and final. "He’s a person."
He met Su Lan’s gaze. She gave a short, sharp nod, her fingers already curling as golden heat began to shimmer around them.
Lu Cang was glowing now, a faint, unstable yellow light leaking from his skin. He looked toward the false sky, his expression settling into something like grim satisfaction.
Lin Tian stepped out of the fissure, onto the river of black glass.
The half-second of shock crystallized into a single, clear command. He pulsed it through the bonds, not with words, but with intent—a sharp, focused image of the canyon, the enemies, and a simple plan: Break them.
Then he stepped out of the fissure and dropped.
He didn’t jump down the canyon wall. He simply let himself fall, ten feet, twenty, the black glass a blur beside him. The wind ripped at his robes. The five disciples below, focused on suppressing Lu Cang’s core, only noticed when his shadow fell across the runic circle.
The Crimson Sun woman looked up, her eyes widening. "What—"
Lin Tian landed in the center of their formation, boots cracking the obsidian shards. He didn’t crouch to absorb the impact. He landed straight-legged, like a pillar driven into the earth, and the moment his soles touched ground, he let the Domain go.
It wasn’t an expansion. It was an eruption.
The Ice Flame Divine Domain bloomed from his core, a sphere of silent, conflicting energy. The air didn’t roar. It stilled. To the left of Lin Tian, the world frosted over in an instant, a sheen of perfect, glacial white crawling up the canyon walls. To his right, the air wavered with transparent heat, the shattered glass at his feet beginning to glow a dull, sullen red.
The center, where he stood, was a paradox of both.
The intricate red and violet runes of the trapping array didn’t shatter. They simply... ceased. The threads of draining energy connecting to Lu Cang vaporized with a sound like tearing silk. The array disk in the Crimson Sun woman’s hand cracked down the middle, the light dying in its grooves. She cried out, dropping the broken artifact as if it had burned her.
Lu Cang’s gathered detonation energy stuttered, then collapsed inward. He gasped, slumping forward over his sword, the dangerous pressure in his dantian dissipating into a hollow ache. He stared at Lin Tian’s back, his mouth slightly open.
The five rival disciples stumbled back, their cohesion broken. The sudden, absolute silence of the Domain was more terrifying than any roar. It pressed on their ears, their spirits, a weight that made their own qi feel sluggish and thin.
"It’s him," the Void Whisper man with dead eyes whispered, his voice choked.
"Form up!" the Crimson Sun woman shouted, rallying. She drew a pair of hooked blades from her back, their edges already glowing with orange heat. "It’s just one man! Surround him!"
They moved, a practiced maneuver. Two Void Whisper disciples flanked left, their bodies blurring into faint afterimages. The Crimson Sun woman and her male counterpart came from the front, blades weaving a net of fire. The last Void Whisper disciple hung back, hands moving in a complex seal, preparing a mental assault.
They never got the chance.
From the canyon wall above, two figures descended like falling leaves.
Bai Xueya landed between the two flanking Void Whisper disciples. She didn’t strike them. She just was there, and the temperature around her plummeted. A circle of perfect, smooth ice flashed across the ground, catching their feet. They stumbled, their blurring technique fracturing into clumsy, visible movements. Xueya looked at them, her expression serene and utterly cold. A single, delicate snowflake crystallized in the air between her fingers.
Su Lan touched down behind the Crimson Sun pair. She landed softly, but the ground where her feet met the glass hissed, the obsidian melting into two small, sticky pools. She folded her hands before her, a picture of calm. "You should drop your weapons," she said, her voice mild. "They’re making you sweat. It’s a sign of poor energy control."
The Crimson Sun man snarled, swinging his flame-wreathed sword at her neck. "Shut up, healer!"
Su Lan didn’t move her feet. She lifted a single hand, palm open. The roaring arc of fire hit her palm and... sank into it. There was no explosion, no clash. The fire streamed into her skin like water into sand, vanishing completely. A faint, golden glow traveled up her arm and faded.
The man stared at his sword, then at her unmarked hand. "What?"
His female partner was smarter. She saw the ice on one side, the impossible heat absorption on the other, and the silent, dual-natured monster in the center whose very presence made the air feel wrong. Her face, once cruel with confidence, drained of color. She took a step back, her eyes darting to the canyon’s exits.
Xueya had already glided to block one. Su Lan’s slight shift in posture covered the other.
They were trapped.
"This... this isn’t possible," the Crimson Sun woman stammered. "The reports said the Ice Fairy was frail. The physician was just a support..." Her voice broke. "You’re not... you’re not what you’re supposed to be."
That’s the point, Lin Tian thought, but he didn’t say it. He took a single step forward, the frost and heat patterns on the ground shifting with him.
The Void Whisper disciple at the back finished his seal and thrust his hands forward. "Shatter Mind!"
A invisible spike of psychic force shot toward Lin Tian’s forehead. It was a technique designed to cause instant, debilitating pain, to scramble thoughts and break concentration.
It hit the edge of the Ice Flame Divine Domain and dissolved. The conflicting, harmonized energies surrounding Lin Tian acted like a spiritual grinder. The mental attack unraveled into harmless static before it got within three feet of him.
Lin Tian didn’t even blink. He looked at the disciple. "Was that it?"
The man’s dead eyes finally showed emotion: pure, unadulterated terror. He fumbled for the evacuation token at his belt.
"Don’t let them token out," Lin Tian said, his voice calm.
Xueya moved. The snowflake between her fingers shot forward, not at the man, but at the token in his hand. It passed through the air without a sound and touched the jade token just as his fingers closed around it.
A tiny click echoed in the silent canyon.
The token froze solid, then crumbled into a fine, blue-white powder that sifted through his trembling fingers.
The man stared at his empty hand, then at Xueya. He fell to his knees.
The remaining disciples looked at each other, their will to fight evaporating. The Crimson Sun man lowered his sword, its flames guttering out. The two flanking Void Whisper disciples, still stuck in the ice, raised their hands in surrender.
The leader, the woman, was the last to break. She looked from Lin Tian to Xueya to Su Lan, her mind clearly racing through options and finding none. Her shoulders slumped. She let her hooked blades fall to the glass with a dull clatter. "We yield," she said, the words tasting like ash. "We forfeit our right to the Rift. Just... don’t destroy our cultivation."
Lin Tian ignored her. He turned his back on them, a gesture of such absolute disregard it was more insulting than any threat. He walked toward Lu Cang.
Lu Cang was still on one knee, using his broadsword for support. His face was a mask of blood, sweat, and awe. He watched Lin Tian approach, his eyes tracking every movement. He’d seen the Domain. He’d seen the casual nullification of a core-level suicide technique. He’d seen the two women he’d once thought of in simple terms—genius, healer—unleash a level of controlled power that spoke of profound, hidden depths.
This wasn’t just a strong disciple. This was something else entirely.
Lin Tian stopped before him. "Can you stand?"
Lu Cang swallowed, his throat dry. He tried to push himself up, his injured leg buckling. Lin Tian didn’t offer a hand. He just waited.
Gritting his teeth, Lu Cang forced himself upright, putting his weight on the good leg. He stood, swaying, but he stood. "I can stand," he grunted.
"Good." Lin Tian’s gaze was assessing, not pitying. "They were draining you. How much did you lose?"
"Maybe... twenty percent of my total qi," Lu Cang admitted, shame coloring his voice. "I was careless. Walked into their ambush. They were waiting."
"They were waiting for me," Lin Tian corrected him, his tone matter-of-fact. "You were the bait. The mistake was theirs, not yours. Bait that fights back is problematic."
Lu Cang blinked. That wasn’t the reassurance or the reprimand he expected. It was a cold, tactical assessment. And in its own way, it was a kind of respect.
Lin Tian glanced back at the five defeated disciples. Xueya and Su Lan had them gathered, their evacuation tokens confiscated. They stood in a miserable huddle, all arrogance gone.
"What do you want to do with them?" Su Lan called over, her tone suggesting she already knew the answer.
"They’re out of the contest," Lin Tian said. "Bind them with qi-restricting cords. Leave them here. The Rift will eject them when the time ends." He looked at the Crimson Sun woman. "You can explain to your elders how you lost to a ’sick girl’ and a ’healer.’ I’m sure that will go well."
The woman flinched as if struck.
End of Chapter 136
