The sky was a canvas of violence.
Hundreds of cultivators, hundreds of qi signatures, hundreds of clashing spiritual energies — the battle royal had thinned the herd. Bodies, the defeated and the unconscious, fell from the sky like rain. The formation barriers, the golden nets that the Azure Cloud military had deployed below, caught them. Safety. Elimination. Gone.
The numbers dwindled. From hundreds to dozens. From dozens to tens. From tens to the final cluster.
Six remained.
Shen Mu, the sword sovereign, hovered. His plain blade, the unadorned steel, was slick with spiritual residue. His breath, the controlled, measured breath of a Soul Formation cultivator who had been fighting for two hours, was steady. His robes, the simple dark cloth, were torn at the shoulder. The skin beneath, the pale flesh, was visible. A cut, the shallow wound from a near-miss, was there. The blood, the thin line of red, had dried.
