"She is Sykarra," Ye An muttered grimly from behind the bush, eyes narrowed. "Lead executioner of the Czaar Army."
Sykarra moved without pause, her grand silver chain trailing past the volcanic rim like an executioner's soul mourning the next kill.
"And the one with the spear… that's Vaelzaar. The Bloodhound Hunter, tracker of tribes. Slayer of seven sect masters. Both are confirmed Commander-Class."
Ye An's tone was calm.
Dead calm.
The kind you hear right before the temple bells stop ringing.
Su Yiran's heart clenched, she'd never heard these names... yet, seeing them here, in flesh and steel, made her breath shallow.
Bloodlust, like a miasma around those two figures.
Just how many lives had they taken?
Commander-class was already nightmare enough. These two? The upper ceiling.
Together, they could crush a Tribulation Realm cultivator like stepping on a glass toad.
And they weren't alone.
Behind them loomed an army of beasts and abominations, their auras pooling like hell's drainage pipe.
"Are they the ones behind the disruption of the tournament?" Su Yiran asked, voice probing but sharp, confirming what her instincts had screamed since yesterday.
Ye An nodded. "Yes. They're led by a Hunter known as Czaar. General-Class. This entire invasion was pre-arranged."
Her eyes remained fixed ahead.
"They intended to storm White Cloud Star from within. But their plan collapsed. So now…"
"…Now instead of retreating," Ye An continued, "they've summoned the remnants. Raised an army. Their goal now is to intercept and slaughter the reinforcements arriving tomorrow."
Su Yiran blinked, "Can they even win…?"
"Against mortals? Easily," Ye An had already considered the question. "Unless Sun Liang himself arrives, there's no one left who can suppress a General-Class Hunter."
She glanced toward the edge of the volcano where Sykarra's chain sparked faint frost against the firelight.
"Our power matches them on paper—that's what the guardians say. But Hunters don't obey paper. When they go into 'Rampage Mode', they ascend past logic."
Ye An's gaze darkened. "Guardian Guang Huan is already dead."
Su Yiran's eyes narrowed.
Guang Huan—the 'The son of the Southern Sea'... Dead?
She had heard whispers of the clash on the western front, but to think it was truly them who brought down an S-Ranked Guardian...
In all the long history of White Cloud Star, S-ranked star guardians are beings of legends carved in stone. Not a single one was meant to fall. S~eaʀᴄh the NovelZone.fun* website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.
But If even he had fallen, then…
Ye An finally turned to her, frowning behind the faint glow of her battle eyes.
"Which clan are you from?"
She wasn't asking for introductions.
She was measuring liability.
If Su Yiran belonged to someone important, she'd send her away. Now. Before the madness began.
Because the next step Ye An planned… would drown the crater in blood.
They hadn't come here by accident.
They'd come to extract something.
Some kind of power source, hidden beneath the volcano. Something Czaar believed would make him strong enough to kill all S-ranked Guardians in a single warpath.
It wasn't retreat.
It was escalation.
This was an extinction move.
And if they succeeded—White Cloud Star would fall.
"I've been cutting down their supply lines for two days straight," Ye An added, her voice cold. "Killed over two thousand abominations myself. But this group…"
Her golden eyes gleamed with a vicious light.
"…is the most dangerous. Two of Czaar's top sub-commanders, personally assigned to secure the source. If I let them take it, tomorrow will be a funeral for the sky."
She turned to Su Yiran again. "Do you have more people with you?"
A long silence.
Su Yiran hesitated.
Technically—yes.
There were others.
But could she say that?
Could she tell Ye An that one of them was Shi Tian, an evil cultivator with more red flags than an auction for cursed artifacts?
That among them was Beibei, a Lightning Crane who currently pecked worms like a confused chicken?
And the rest?
They barely counted as reinforcements—except for Long Yushen, who, at best, could take down a single Integration Realm Marshal and maybe a dozen scouts.
Not to mention, if Ye An knew who was with her… she'd kill Shi Tian on the spot.
Maybe kick Beibei into the crater.
"There are…" Su Yiran's lips quivered, a confession balanced on the edge of her tongue, trembling, terrified, maybe just stupid enough to be honest.
Her one chance to earn Ye An's trust.
But fate, that shameless, crotch-thirsty bitch—had other ideas.
Slap!
A palm descended like a divine decree, no warmth, no courtesy, just the raw confidence of a man slapping ass.
It landed squarely on Ye An's rear.
"Hah…"
A voice followed, rich, amused, with the kind of obscene intimacy one only earned by being cursed across ten provinces and still invited to tea.
"Naughty little minx… hiding in the bushes like a thief. What happened to that virtuous wife act, hmm?"
"Shi Tian?" Su Yiran's pupils constricted.
That voice.
She knew it, knew it in her bones, in her soul mark, in the worst corners of memory.
Both women's eyes flicked, Ye An's furious, Su Yiran's horrified.
After all, only one of them was currently being inspected like a sacred treasure displayed for auction at a lecherous sect fair.
Squeeze. Squeeze~
His hand traced the sacred bulge with the precision of a grandmaster who'd mapped a thousand soulpaths and learned where the Dao dared not speak.
Like a farmer… testing if the divine fruit was ripe enough to harvest under moonlight.
"Tsk, bit firmer than usual... Did your ass level up recently, Ranran?"
"..."
Silence followed.
Not peace, just the breath the world takes before smiting someone stupid.
Ye An's cheeks flushed, not from modesty, but from the rage of a celestial-grade cultivator being groped like a low-realm tavern waitress.
A part of her, small, cursed, and shameful—twitched.
It was buried deep, shackled beneath centuries of composure… but it stirred.
Because a trespasser had just audited her sacred orchard without clearance.
She clenched her jaw, forcing down the murderous impulse rising like wildfire in her dantian.
This was a covert operation.
They were in enemy territory.
She had to stay calm.
But…
Too late.
Whoosh—!
A shockwave burst from her skin, barely leashed, rippling through the underbrush like a divine slap to the face of heaven itself.
"Scree!"
"Scree!"
Two shadow-ravens shrieked and launched skyward, their wings severing the air like alarm bells cast in feathers and panic.
____
Inside the Volcano!
The lava had vanished.
Which, for a volcano, was already a massive red flag.
But what sat at the bottom?
Even worse.
The cavernous throat of the volcano, once a bubbling soup of divine magma, now lay exposed, cracked stone and obsidian bones, steaming like the aftermath of a god's diarrhea.
Glowing magma veins throbbed weakly beneath, like dying arteries, unable to mask the slumbering beast curled within.
A Fire Qilin.
No bigger than a calf, yet it radiated the kind of energy that screamed, "I'll melt your sect from orbit." Its fur, a dark emerald hue, glew like golden embers stitched into velvet. Molten scales flickered between volcanic gold and molten crimson, covered its limbs and claws.
Hiss~!
Two horns curled from its head like burning tree roots, and even as it slept, its breath hissed out like a sexed-up forge.
Eyes shut.
Tail flicking lazily.
Each exhale a wave of heat so intense it would melt the nipples off a Foundation Realm elder.
Then—
Bonk!
A chain smacked it right in the forehead.
"Pi?" it squeaked.
Big, soulful eyes blinked open, eyes that could make a saint cry and a demonic beast swear celibacy.
It looked up.
A tall, violently curvaceous woman stood at the crater's edge, chain coiled in her hands like she was about to leash a phoenix to walk through a demonic dog park.
Sykarra.
The chain tightened.
"PIIIIIII!!"
The Novel will be updated first on this website. Come back and continue reading tomorrow, everyone!