As if a dam had burst, the battlefield filled with booming guffaws.
The two n’s knees buckled and they collapsed almost simultaneously, not in weakness, but in relief, rolling onto the broken ground side by side.
"Hah! By the heavens," the Grand Elder wheezed, his chest heaving, "I’ve not had this much fun in thousands of years! Not since I left the Immortal Court!"
Lin Mu spat out a mouthful of blood, then grinned like a wolf. "And this... this was the best fight I’ve had in my entire life. You’ve sharpened more than any trial, Elder."
The sound of their laughter echoed across the valley like thunder, wild and reckless, shocking every witness to their core.
Cattaleya blinked once, then twice, her lips curling upward in disbelief.
ng Bai nearly collapsed, unsure if he should cry, laugh, or scream.
Elyon, Daoist Chu, and the beasts exchanged helpless glances, hearts pounding in their chests.
Only now, as the intensity of battle gave way to the levity of laughter, did they allow themselves to breathe.
The first to move was Daoist Chu.
He appeared in a flicker of light, steadying the Grand Elder before his trembling body gave way.
"Grand Elder, please—your arm!" His voice quivered with unmasked concern.
But Huo Jianying only chuckled, blood dripping from the corner of his mouth. "Bah! Don’t look at like I’m so fragile jade vase.
I’m no greenhorn. I was a general of the Immortal Court, boy!
I’ve crawled back from battlefields where tens of millions of cultivators died in screaming piles of bone. This?" He flexed his broken arm slightly, even as pain contorted his face. "This is nothing but a scratch."
Still, his words did little to comfort those around him.
anwhile ng Bai rushed forward to Lin Mu’s side, half-kneeling as he slipped his shoulder under his master’s heavy weight.
Lin Mu, however, stood tall despite the blood leaking down his arm, the fragnts of his Longgui Bulwark Armor clattering to the ground and dissipating into energy. His golden fist still glowed faintly, trembling from the recoil of his last strike.
The two n looked at one another once more, their expressions softening.
"A good fight," Lin Mu said quietly.
"A good draw," Huo Jianying replied, lips twisting into a rare, genuine smile.
But before they could digest these words, before the companions could even begin to relax, the sky roared with approaching voices.
Dozens... no, hundreds of cultivators were descending upon the valley.
Their figures streaked down from the horizon like falling stars, alard by the blinding clash and the aftershocks that had shaken the land for hundreds of kiloters.
The first to arrive were experts: Immortal guards clad in armor, sect offical’s posted in the city, and even wandering cultivators.
And at their head was none other than the City Lord of Ash Crown City himself, flanked by his strongest guards.
They stopped short at the edge of the valley and froze.
Gasps filled the air.
The Ashfall Plains—an expanse that had stood unchanged for eons, was no longer a plain.
It was a scar upon the world, a valley two kiloters deep, magma rushing into its heart, the air choking with molten dust. The very Dao of the land felt disturbed, as if struggling to heal itself.
But what stunned them most was not the land.
It was the sight of the two figures at its center.
Huo Jianying, Grand Elder of the Xian Sword Sect, the legendary One Eyed Sword Lord, his robes scorched, his arm shattered but his sword still in hand.
And beside him, Lin Mu: the rising star, the anomaly, the monster in human form; his body cracked and bleeding but still upright, aura as sharp as ever.
The gathered experts felt their knees weaken.
Sword intent still lingered in the air, pricking their skins like blades, while traces of lingering gravity and earth Daos pressed against their bones, making their hearts pound with fear.
"This..." one cultivator whispered, voice hoarse, "was this... a heavenly calamity?"
"No." Another swallowed hard. "No calamity leaves behind this kind of sword intent and Dao Traces. This was... a battle ."
Murmurs spread like wildfire.
When the City Lord himself stepped forward, his face was pale, his voice almost trembling despite his cultivation.
"Grand Elder... Sir Lin Mu... what in the heavens happened here? Why are you injured?" He snapped his fingers, summoning healers in a rush.
But before panic could swell, Cattaleya strode forward, smirking as if the entire apocalypse was nothing more than a performance.
"Isn’t it obvious?" She said lightly, her voice cutting through the crowd. "They sparred."
The words landed like thunderclaps.
"Sparred!?"
"A spar did this!?"
The gathered cultivators gawked at the valley, at the molten rivers still bubbling into the scar, at the bleeding titans who sat grinning upon the rubble. Their throats tightened.
If this was a spar... then what would the land be like if they had a true battle?
What would it look like if they truly sought to kill?
The silence broke when one trembling cultivator whispered aloud what everyone else was too afraid to ask:
"If... if this was a spar... who won?"
For a mont, no one breathed. All eyes turned toward Lin Mu and Grand Elder Huo Jianying.
The two n, still leaning on their supporters, glanced at one another. Their lips curled into faint, amused smiles.
And then, in unison, they spoke.
"It was a draw."
The words bood across the scarred valley, leaving everyone dumbfounded.
"A draw?"
The mighty Grand Elder Huo Jianying—a Transcendent Immortal, seasoned general of the Immortal Court, a man whose na shook regions had fought to a draw against Lin Mu... a cultivator still only at the Fifth Tribulation Stage of the Immortal Realm?
Faces turned pale. Mouths hung open. Even the City Lord, a man hardened by decades of rule, found himself swallowing in disbelief.
A draw? Between n three realms apart?
Whispers rippled like a storm.
"Impossible..."
"How could a Fifth Tribulation Immortal..."
"Lin Mu... is he even human anymore?"
And yet, the proof lay before their eyes: the broken land, the shattered heavens, and the two titans who smiled like brothers-in-arms after trying to annihilate each other.
The crowd could not comprehend it. But deep down, a seed of realization sprouted in their hearts.
This was no longer just Lin Mu the prodigy, Lin Mu the upstart, Lin Mu the rising legend of the Silent Lotus World.
This was Lin Mu, the cultivator who had just stood toe-to-toe with a Transcendent Immortal... and had not lost.
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