BaiShe straightened up, facing the seven Demigods who had just broken their respective illusions and were converging toward them with multiplied hatred. He spread his arms, letting his black sleeves float majestically.

"I am the Celestial Demon, do not forget it." he concluded as the Yin-Yang symbol on his forehead began to burn with binary intensity.

The duo of predators prepared to receive the shock of the azure coalition at the heart of this glass prison, while outside, Long Huang screamed her helplessness against the sparkling walls of the mirror that had definitively closed on her lover and her rival.

...

The domain of mirrors, once sparkling with pink and vaporous reflections, was now nothing more than a ruined architecture. The crystalline walls cracked under the titanic pressure of the seven azure domains converging toward the center. Xuan BaiShe was on his knees, his body heavily slumped over Yi Lan whom he held against his chest. The young master was unrecognizable.

His jade face, once of insulting perfection, was bruised by repeated impacts. His left eye was completely closed by a purplish hematoma, and a deep gash crossed his right cheek, revealing the whiteness of the maxillary bone through the torn flesh. Silver blood flowed abundantly from his temple, mixing with the purple blood of the fox that soaked his clothes.

Facing them, the seven Great Ancestors of the Azure Kingdom formed a semicircle. Lord Wu, in the center, displayed an expression of savage triumph.

"Look at yourselves..." spat Lord Wu, his voice vibrating with contempt. "The great Xuan BaiShe, heir of the immortal families, reduced to the state of a bloody carcass in the arms of a beast. The logic of your superiority collapses before the reality of our power. Prepare yourselves for your souls to serve as fertilizer for the World Seed...

However, despite the atrocity of his wounds, BaiShe sketched a movement of his lips. A smile, slow and narcissistic, appeared on his disfigured face. It was no longer the rictus of a predator stalking its prey, but that of a being who had just realized he had failed. He adjusted his monocle with his trembling fingers, ignoring the blood spurting from his crushed knuckles.

Yi Lan, whose head rested on her master’s bloodied knees, raised her sapphire eyes toward him. She was at the end of her strength, her nine tails dragging on the ground, lacerated and deprived of their usual luster. She saw BaiShe interpose himself, using his own body as a carnal shield to absorb the shockwaves of the Ancestors. Each impact broke a new rib, each azure discharge tore his muscles, but he did not retreat.

"Why... Darling?" she stammered in a breath, tears of devotion flowing down her dirt-stained cheeks. "You should leave me... You are the Celestial Demon... Your life is worth more than this sacrifice."

"It is not for you to decide, Lan’er..."

Simultaneously, the seven Demigods joined their hands. An apocalyptic resonance filled the dimension. They channeled the entirety of their original Qi to force a final combined attack. The air began to burn, oxygen molecules disintegrating under the spiritual temperature.

< Combined Law: Azure Judgment Nova >

A blue sun several dozen meters in diameter formed above them, descending with the implacable slowness of a divine sentence. The space around the globe of light twisted, sucking in mirror debris to vaporize them instantly. BaiShe felt his Omega Heart race. The dull and titanic beat resonated in his broken ribcage, pumping waves of Khao of original purity.

Consequently, he released his Khaotic Qi. A purple and black discharge exploded from his pores, colliding with the azure laws. Instead of launching a counterattack, BaiShe used this energy to stabilize the mirror domain. He injected his essence directly into the fissures of Yi Lan’s dimension, welding the glass shards with his own blood and his Executor authority. The mirrors stopped vibrating, solidifying around them like an impenetrable black fortress.

However, the physical price was terrible. Under the pressure of the Azure Nova, BaiShe’s Dantian groaned. His meridians began to smoke, the skin of his arms cracking to release jets of bloody steam. He slumped a little more over Yi Lan, but his violet gaze remained fixed, indomitable.

He brought his face close to the fox’s ear, his warm breath loaded with ozone caressing her porcelain skin.

"Never will I abandon you like in the Era of the Origins, Lan’er... No one, not even the Dao, will tear away from me what belongs to me..."

Yi Lan remained petrified, her heart skipping a beat. She felt BaiShe’s possessiveness envelop her, an emotion so dark and so deep that it became a form of salvation. She realized at that moment that the Demon she had followed through the eons was no longer only an insatiable force of devouring. Something in him had broken to rebuild itself differently.

She looked at him with pure devotion.

"I adore you BaiShe... You cover and protect me from the Dao’s lightning."

The Azure Nova finally struck the mirror dome stabilized by BaiShe. The impact was silent for a microsecond, before a cataclysmic shockwave swept everything away. The 7 Demigods were pushed back by the backlash of their own attack, their blue silk robes torn to shreds as they spat golden blood. The crystalline ground liquefied, transforming the dimension into a hell of molten silica.

At the center of the explosion, BaiShe closed his eyes. The pain faded, replaced by an abyssal calm. At the last moment, as the azure light threatened to erase his consciousness, he thought back to the first time he had met this fox, during the Era of the Origins.

The memory evaporated as the mirror dimension began to collapse for good.

[ Ding! Soul resonance with target Yi Lan: 1500% ]

[ Ding! Evolution of the Law of Devouring detected! ]

[ Fusion of the Laws of Obsession and Authority in progress... ]

A binary light, half violet and half pink, suddenly burst from the center of the crater. The power emanating from it was such that the seven Ancestors of the Azure Kingdom stopped breathing, seized by a primordial terror. The Judge and the Fox were no longer just two fighters in agony. They had become the focal point of a new reality, a duo of predators awakening in the midst of the ashes of their enemies to claim what was theirs.

The smell of silver blood and peach perfume now saturated every molecule of air, announcing the beginning of an abyss banquet of which the 7 Demigods would, in turn, be the main dishes. BaiShe slowly straightened up in the light, his violet eyes shining with a resolution that would make the Dao itself tremble.