Chapter 69: Guardian
Yue Qianyin watched the Twin Demon Flood Dragons circle above her before looking back at Varkhiel.
"So you can disappear when I touch you, but your attacks remain solid."
She laughed as the silver wand extended and transformed into a slender longsword. "Then let me see how many times you can do it."
Yue vanished. Varkhiel scattered as the blade passed through his neck, but she continued through the soul mist and cut toward the power gathering behind him.
Wuxia dismissed Varkhiel before the attack lande, the Soul Sentinel reappeared beside Xingluo with his greatsword descending toward Yue’s back.
She twisted aside as Lin Xiaotian swept his polearm toward her legs. Yue jumped, but Qiao Xueyi released Ice Release through the branches above her and froze them into a solid ceiling.
Unable to rise farther, Yue blocked Lin’s polearm and kicked against its shaft. The impact sent her toward Xingluo, who thrust toward her chest.
The distance between them bent, causing Xingluo’s sword to pass beside Yue. She landed behind Xingluo and cut toward her neck, but Wuxia struck Xingluo’s back with soul force and forced her beneath the blade.
Xingluo rolled forward and cut upward. Yue shifted away, though the edge still opened a shallow wound along her side.
She looked down at the blood and smiled. "Good."
Silver mana spread from beneath her feet and a translucent boundary rose through the trees and closed above them as everything inside shifted out of place.
[Spatial Domain detected.]
[Crescent Fold.]
The pressure inside it increased immediately, forcing Su Lan and Ruan Mei to brace themselves while Lin and Qiao adjusted their footing, and Xingluo raised her sword again.
Yue rested the silver sword against her shoulder. "Come. Show me what else you can do."
One Flood Dragon rushed from above. Yue changed the sword back into a wand and drew a line through the air. Her crescent earring jingled, and the space around the dragon’s head folded inward.
The Soul Soldier scattered, but parts of its mist were dragged toward different sections of the domain. Wuxia dismissed it before the separation reached its core, then summoned it behind Yue with its claws already condensing.
She teleported away, only for Varkhiel to appear at her destination and swing his greatsword across the path. Yue blocked after changing the wand back into a sword, but the impact pushed her into Lin’s polearm and threw her through a tree.
Yue emerged above Lin and drove the sword toward his chest. The space around the blade shortened past his defence, but Qiao tilted him away with rising ice, turning the attack into a cut across his shoulder.
He caught Yue’s wrist despite the wound. Space twisted around his fingers, but Varkhiel condensed behind her and seized her other arm while Xingluo attacked from the side.
Yue dissolved into silver light before the sword reached her waist and appeared at the centre of the domain, still smiling.
The shifting ground pulled Su Lan and Ruan Mei apart. Ruan Mei caught Su Lan’s hand, but Yue’s earring jingled and a silver arc formed above them.
A Flood Dragon condensed around the girls and took the attack before Wuxia dismissed it. Qiao caught them on a frozen platform as Xingluo ordered them to stay close.
Lin hurled his polearm before Yue could attack again. The weapon entered one distortion and emerged beside her head, cutting several strands of hair as she bent away.
Her smile widened. "You learn quickly."
The wand became a sword as she rushed toward him, but Xingluo intercepted her halfway. Their blades met inside the distorted distance while Yue folded attacks around Xingluo from different directions.
Xingluo blocked two and let her armor absorb another while cutting toward Yue’s arm. Wuxia pushed her wrist with soul force, changing the angle so the blade entered Yue’s distortion and emerged beside her shoulder.
Blood ran down Yue’s arm but she laughed and drove her knee into Xingluo’s stomach, Xingluo slid backwards until an ice wall rose behind her.
Qiao placed one hand against the wall. "I can find its structure."
Cold mana entered every patch of ice she had formed, and the frost bent around seven fixed points inside the domain.
"Seven nodes," Qiao said. "Every shift passes through them."
Yue looked toward her with amusement. "You found them already?"
She sent compressed mana toward Qiao, but Varkhiel stepped into its path, the attack cracked his armor and drove him backwards.
Wuxia dismissed him before the damage spread, then summoned him beside the nearest node. Varkhiel struck it with his greatsword while one Flood Dragon wrapped its tail around a second and Lin drove his polearm into a third.
The domain trembled and Yue rushed toward Qiao before she could expose the others. The distance in front of Xingluo stretched, preventing her from following, so Wuxia summoned the second Flood Dragon beneath her feet.
Xingluo ran across its condensed back and leapt as it scattered, Yue blocked her descending strike, but Lin attacked from behind. She folded the space around herself and redirected his polearm toward Xingluo.
Varkhiel caught the shaft, pulled Lin through the distortion, and drove his shoulder into Yue’s back.
Qiao closed her hands. Ice erupted beneath Yue and wrapped around her ankles and sword arm. She shattered most of it with a mana burst, but frost remained inside every distortion connected to her.
"Five nodes are linked to her," Qiao said. "Break them."
Lin struck the first, Xingluo cut through the second, and Varkhiel shattered the third. The Twin Flood Dragons crushed the remaining two between their jaws.
The contracting domain pulled Su Lan and Ruan Mei from their platform, Su Lan’s talisman cracked around them while Ruan Mei anchored them to a frozen root.
Yue cut through Qiao’s ice path and formed another silver arc, but Wuxia summoned a Flood Dragon into the attack, dismissed it, then called it back beneath the girls and carried them beside Qiao.
Yue watched it vanish and return with delight. "You really are strange creatures."
She raised the wand, and the domain compressed around all three Soul Soldiers, transparent pressure forced them to condense and held their bodies in place.
Wuxia dismissed them together and the restraints closed on empty air, causing the remaining nodes to pull against one another.
He resummoned Varkhiel beside the central node, one Flood Dragon above Yue, and the second beneath the ground.
The dragon shattered the earth beneath her feet, Yue jumped, but Lin met her in the air and drove her toward Xingluo.
She changed the weapon into a wand and released compressed space between them, Qiao froze the mana as it spread, revealing a narrow gap.
Xingluo stepped through and reached Yue before it closed.
Wuxia watched the nodes and warned Xingluo whenever one brightened. She blocked the sword beside her neck, turned, and cut across Yue’s ribs before she fully emerged behind her.
Lin struck the node she had used, Qiao froze the distortion around her legs and Varkhiel attacked from the opposite side.
Yue bent the greatsword away, but a Flood Dragon scattered around its redirected path and condensed behind her. Its claw struck her back and drove her into the ground.
She rolled once and rose with blood running from her mouth, yet another laugh escaped her. "This is much better."
Yue drove the silver sword into the ground and the surviving nodes moved inward and shrank the battlefield, forcing Qiao to raise ice walls around Su Lan and Ruan Mei.
Yue rushed through the centre, but Lin blocked her cut and trapped the silver blade against his polearm long enough for Qiao to freeze it and Xingluo to cut across her back.
Yue released the sword, changed it into a wand in midair and caught it as she turned, her crescent earring jingled and a thin silver line formed across Xingluo’s throat.
Varkhiel scattered between them and condensed his greatsword along the attack’s path. The spatial edge tore through part of the weapon, but its direction changed enough to miss Xingluo.
Wuxia repaired the blade while the Twin Flood Dragons coiled around the final nodes.
Qiao watched the frost bend beneath Yue’s feet. "The core is below her."
Lin struck downward, Yue shifted the ground away from the polearm, but Xingluo stepped onto its shaft and launched herself above her.
At the same moment, Wuxia entered Varkhiel through Descent and the Soul Sentinel stopped attacking Yue and drove his greatsword into the central node.
The domain stopped and for one moment, every distorted distance returned to normal. Qiao released the Ice Mana spread throughout the battlefield, freezing the ground around Yue and locking both legs in place.
Lin swung the polearm across her waist and knocked the wand from her hand, while Xingluo landed behind her and placed her sword against her neck.
The Twin Flood Dragons condensed around Yue’s arms, and Varkhiel’s hand closed over her shoulder.
Yue tried to activate the domain again, but the shattered nodes no longer responded. She looked at the weapons surrounding her and laughed quietly before turning toward Xingluo.
"So you are the Fated Star."
Xingluo’s expression changed. "You know who I am?"
"I have been waiting for you." Yue leaned lightly against the blade near her neck. "Accept me as your guardian and leave me alive. I can guide you through the forest and open the path toward the final legacy."
[Crescent Star Guardian Yue Qianyin has acknowledged the Fated Star.]
[Conditional submission detected.]
[Accept Yue Qianyin as a living guardian?]
[Warning: Independent will and original authority will be retained.]
Xingluo hesitated as Yue smiled despite the blood across her face. "You will need me alive if you wish to reach the—"
Kill her, Wuxia said through their connection. Alive or dead, she will serve us. Claim the experience.
Yue noticed Xingluo’s attention shift and tilted her head. "What are you waiting for?"
"Nothing."
Xingluo pulled the blade across her neck and Yue’s head separated as the domain shattered. Her body dissolved into silver particles before reaching the ground, leaving a small crescent core where she had stood.
[Level 150 Guardian defeated.]
[Experience distributed according to contribution.]
The additional reward from Fate-Bound Challenger pushed Xingluo from Level 86 to Level 89, while Su Lan rose from Level 71 to Level 75. Ruan Mei advanced by two levels, but Lin Xiaotian and Qiao Xueyi remained at their current levels.