Chapter 185: Entropy vs. Harmony
The climb toward the Apex turned into a war the moment they stepped onto the Mid-Canopy.
The Heart-Tree groaned above them, its branches shuddering as the Resonating Spike pulsed faster, sending violet cracks rippling through the bark like veins of disease. The air grew thick, heavy with the scent of decay and something else — something that felt like the forest screaming.
Lin Tian led the group up a spiraling bridge of woven roots, his Domain extended just enough to sense the corruption spreading through the wood around them.
"The Spike is accelerating the Blight," he said, voice tight. "If we don’t reach it soon, the entire Heart-Tree will collapse."
Xueya walked close behind him, her frost aura already spreading across the bridge, freezing the violet cracks in place and slowing their advance.
"Then we move faster."
"Easier said than done," Su Lan muttered, her flames flickering at her fingertips as she kept watch on their flanks.
The bridge shuddered.
Not from the Spike’s pulse. Not from the Blight.
Something heavy landed on the branches above them.
Lin Tian stopped.
The silence that followed was wrong — not the quiet of a forest holding its breath, but the dead stillness of something predatory deciding when to strike.
"Contact," Lu Cang said, his grip tightening on his obsidian spear.
The branches above them tore open.
Void-Ghouls poured through the gap — twisted, humanoid shapes of blackened wood and violet light, their bodies stitched together from corrupted bark and stolen essence. They moved wrong, their limbs jerking in directions that didn’t align with the joints they should have had.
But that wasn’t the worst part.
The worst part was that they weren’t alone.
From the center of the swarm, a figure stepped through the gap. Taller than the others. More intact. Its body was wrapped in shredded robes of black and silver, and its face — what remained of it — was a mask of cracked porcelain and frozen rage.
It carried a sword of crystallised void, its length elegant and terrible, the edge humming with a low, resonant frequency that Lin Tian felt not in his ears but somewhere deeper — in his bones, in the marrow, in the Qi that ran through his meridians like cold water through cracked stone.
The weapon didn’t reflect light so much as consume it, drawing the dim luminescence of the bridge into itself and giving nothing back.
Lin Tian’s blood ran cold.
Every instinct he had was screaming at him. Not the sharpened reflex of a cultivator reading an opponent’s stance, but something older and more primal — the wordless understanding that whatever stood before them was not simply dangerous.
It was wrong in the way the Ghouls were wrong, but refined. Deliberate. Whatever it had once been, whatever name it had carried and life it had lived, had been stripped down and reforged into something singular in its purpose.
"Another Revenant," he said, the words leaving his mouth flat and quiet, stripped of anything but their meaning.
The figure’s cracked porcelain mask tilted toward him, as though it had heard. As though it recognised the word, and hated it.
It raised its sword.
The Void-Ghouls charged.
****
The battle erupted in an instant.
Lin Tian met the first wave head-on, his Ice Flame Qi flaring as he cut through two Ghouls before they could reach Xueya. The corrupted wood crumbled under his blade, but more poured through the gap, their numbers overwhelming, their movements relentless.
"Su Lan, burn the gap!" he shouted.
"On it!"
Su Lan’s flames erupted, a wall of golden-white fire that sealed the breach and turned the next wave into ash before they could cross the threshold. The heat was intense, warping the air, but it bought them room.
"Yue Chan, get the silk around the bridge!" Lin Tian ordered. "If we lose our footing, we’re done."
Yue Chan’s threads shot out, reinforcing the woven roots, anchoring the group to the bridge as it buckled under the weight of the battle.
"Yan Jiao, with me!"
Yan Jiao’s flames joined his, their combined heat driving back the next wave as they fought side by side.
"Linle, can you feel the Spike from here?" Lin Tian asked, his blade never stopping.
Linle’s eyes were closed, her connection to the Heart-Tree deep and strained. "It’s... wrong. The Spike isn’t just corrupting the tree. It’s using it as a weapon. The forest is being forced to attack itself."
"Can you stop it?"
"Not unless we reach the Apex."
"Then we keep moving."
But the Revenant had other plans.
It moved faster than the Ghouls, cutting through Su Lan’s flames with a sweep of its void-sword, the entropic edge tearing through the fire as if it were no more substantial than smoke.
It didn’t charge Lin Tian.
It went for Xueya.
The Revenant’s blade came down in a diagonal arc, aimed directly at Xueya’s exposed back as she channeled frost into the bridge’s foundation.
Lin Tian saw it.
He was too far away to block.
"Xueya!"
She spun, her ice forming a shield in the same motion, but the void-sword cut through it like glass, the entropic energy eating through the frost before it could even solidify.
The blade kept coming.
And then Lu Cang was there.
He stepped between Xueya and the Revenant, his obsidian spear raised to meet the blow. The impact was massive — a shockwave that sent cracks racing across the bridge and knocked the breath from everyone in its radius.
Lu Cang held the line.
But the entropic edge was eating through his spear, the void energy crawling up the obsidian like living rot, reaching for his hands.
"Lu Cang!" Lin Tian shouted.
"Hold your position!" Lu Cang roared back, his voice strained but unbroken. "She’s not finished yet!"
Xueya’s frost surged, the bridge solidifying beneath their feet as she poured more of her energy into it. The Revenant pushed harder, its blade sinking deeper into Lu Cang’s spear.
And then the weapon broke.
The obsidian shattered, sending shards spinning through the air.
The void-sword kept coming.
It struck Lu Cang square in the chest.
Lin Tian’s world stopped.
The blade punched through fabric and flesh, the entropic edge carving deep into Lu Cang’s torso. Blood sprayed across the bridge, dark and hot, and Lu Cang’s body went rigid.
But he didn’t fall.
The void-sword stopped its advance, arrested mid-thrust by something that had nothing to do with Lu Cang’s own strength.
Not because the Revenant had pulled back, not because the blade had lost its momentum — it hadn’t. The entropic edge was still humming, still hungry, still trying to push through.
Because it simply couldn’t go any further.
From somewhere beneath the torn folds of Lu Cang’s robes, a faint golden light began to pulse — soft at first, almost hesitant, then steadily brighter, pushing back against the void’s corruption with a warmth that had no right existing on this bridge of ice and ruin.
The Vanguard Pauldron.
Lin Tian had bought it back at the Sovereign’s Pavilion, spending Harem Points on legacy gear for each member of his team. He’d given the Pauldron to Lu Cang without a second thought — a piece of defensive equipment that could absorb one lethal blow before shattering.
It was meant for emergencies.
This counted.
The golden light flared, the Pauldron absorbing the entropic energy and dispersing it across Lu Cang’s body in a wave of harmless warmth. The void-sword cracked. Then it shattered.
The Revenant staggered back, its weapon gone, its expression — if it could be called that — shifting to something that might have been shock.
Lu Cang dropped to one knee, his hand pressed to his chest. The wound was still there, deep and bleeding, but it wasn’t fatal. Not anymore.
"Lu Cang!" Xueya was at his side in an instant, her frost already sealing the wound, numbing the pain. "Stay still. Don’t move."
"I’m fine," Lu Cang said, his voice hoarse but steady. "The Pauldron took the worst of it. I’ll live."
Lin Tian’s fists clenched.
The Revenant was recovering, its void energy already beginning to reform, drawing on the Resonating Spike’s power to rebuild itself.
It wouldn’t get the chance.
Lin Tian moved.
His Domain expanded, the Ice Flame Qi surging as he crossed the distance between them in a single breath. The Revenant raised its arm to block, but Lin Tian was already past it, his blade cutting through the corrupted wood of its body in a clean, horizontal arc.
The creature froze.
Then it crumbled.
Lin Tian didn’t watch it fall. He turned back to Lu Cang, his expression hard, his voice low.
"Stay alive," he said. "That’s an order."
Lu Cang managed a weak smile.
"Wouldn’t dream of disobeying."
The battle didn’t end there.
More Void-Ghouls poured through gaps in the canopy, drawn by the Resonating Spike’s call. Su Lan’s flames burned through wave after wave, while Yue Chan’s silk reinforced the bridge at every weakened point. Yan Jiao and Linle fought side by side, their connection to the forest and fire keeping the corruption at bay.
And Xueya stayed by Lu Cang’s side, her frost keeping his wound sealed as they pushed forward.
Lin Tian led from the front, his Domain cutting through the darkness, his blade never stopping.
They had to reach the Apex.
They had to destroy the Spike.
And they had to do it before the forest collapsed around them.
The Heart-Tree groaned again, its branches shuddering, its leaves falling like ash.
They were running out of time.
End of Chapter 185
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