Chapter 654: Everything Paused

The Divine Lord's fist rose from below and solidly struck the Giant Fox's jaw.

The angle that should have blasted toward the Divine Lord's chest instead sprayed upward.

The Light Pillar shot skyward, and violet‑black energy exploded in the high air like a blooming flower.

That magic spread across the sky, tearing a huge gap in the dim clouds.

Purple‑red fragments fell like raindrops from above.

From afar, San Yue Qi's voice sounded again.

"Waaah! It's coming again! Why again!"

"Dodge! Quickly! Hide behind that wall!"

"Jiaojiao Jiaojiao Jiaojiao—!"

Bai Hang's white hair fluttered in the wind, and her azure eyes fixed on the fragments falling from the sky.

She moved swiftly among the ruins, each toestep covering dozens of meters, speed as fast as a white lightning bolt.

"This way, this way! Follow me!"

She called out to San Yue Qi and then charged in a direction.

San Yue Qi, holding Lin, followed behind; the three of them weaved through the purple‑red fragment rain, like three fish swimming amid a hail of gunfire.

A Xing looked up at the fragments circling her in the sky, then lowered her head, expression unchanged.

Probably just luck.

She didn't think further, and her gaze returned to the girl.

The girl kept watching her, her blue‑purple eyes hollow like bottomless wells; A Xing felt that if she stared at those eyes too long, she might fall in.

She decided not to look.

She turned, faced the ongoing battle in the distance, hands in her pockets, standing there like someone watching scenery from a balcony.

The distant ruins, Giant Fox, Divine Lord, unfolded before her a massive chaotic tableau.

She looked at the tableau, feeling nothing inside.

The girl stood behind her, also watching the tableau.

The two stood like that, one ahead of the other, like two statues placed on a rooftop, quiet as if not in a battlefield.

Then everything changed.

That force arrived without warning.

It wasn't falling from the sky, nor rising from the ground.

It seemed to seep from the air itself.

Everyone paused.

Her gaze involuntarily shifted toward that direction.

That direction was the Giant Fox's.

No, not the Giant Fox.

It was something behind the Giant Fox, mostly hidden by its body.

That thing was glowing, not the Giant Fox's black‑gold Flame, nor the Divine Lord's golden lightning, but a purer light.

That light shone from behind the Giant Fox, falling on A Xing's face.

A Xing's eyes involuntarily narrowed, and a voice echoed in her mind.

The voice was neither human nor instrumental, but something more primal.

The sound was neither loud nor soft, like a singer far, far away, crossing time and space to reach her ears.

A Xing stood there, bathed in that light, filled with that voice, motionless.

In the distance, the rooftop of a fifty‑plus‑story building.

Jiaoshou stood at the edge of the roof, the round Vortex Glasses spinning in the dim light.

Their white coat fluttered in the wind, mouth slightly open, that monkey‑like face expressing an indefinable mix of shock and confusion.

Through the Vortex Glasses, eyes stared at the light emanating from behind the Giant Fox.

"What is this?"

Jing Yuan hovered in midair, the Golden Long Spear held horizontally before him, white hair fluttering in the wind, his robe rippling slightly under the force's impact, like a flag billowing.

His brows furrowed, golden eyes fixed on the Giant Fox before him, on the power surging from it.

His lips moved.

"Harmony?"

"Order?"

Perspective shift.

Gudazi casually smashed the last wall blocking the way.

Broken bricks and dust flew past her, striking the opposite pillar and shattering into smaller fragments.

She stepped through the huge hole she had created, boots creaking on broken glass, each step leaving a shallow imprint on the shards.

The interior of the building was larger than she had imagined.

The corridors twisted and turned, rooms linked one after another; she was too lazy to open the closed doors, opting to kick them open, punch through, or simply breach a wall and pass.

The broken door panels and wall fragments piled behind her like a line drawn by violence, stretching from the building's entrance to where she now stood.

She finally stood in the center of the largest room.

It must be a stage.

Although most of the surroundings had been smashed, the remaining marks still revealed their original form.

This room was larger than all the rooms she had passed, so vast that after circling the center and scanning every corner, she saw no trace of the purple figure.

Gudazi stood in the center of the room, hands on hips, surveyed the shattered surroundings around her, and twitched the corner of her mouth.

"Really good at hiding."

Her voice echoed through the spacious room, bouncing from one wall to the other, then back again, circling the air several times before slowly fading.

That impatient tone was as strong as a cup of black coffee without sugar, bitter enough to make one frown.

"But I no longer have much patience."

When she finished speaking, black currents began to emanate from her body.

They seemed alive, circling around Gudazi, enveloping her entirely in a thin layer of black mist.

Red ripples spread outward from beneath her feet.

Each ripple grew larger than the last, expanding from the room's center to its edges, shrouding the entire space in a dim crimson halo.

When the ripples touched the fragments she had shattered, those pieces began to ignite.

Gudazi lifted her hand, spread her five fingers, palm upward.

The black‑red currents converged onto her palm, surging from all directions as if drawn by something, coalescing above her hand into a slowly rotating light sphere.

The light sphere was small, about a fist larger, yet the pressure it exuded filled the room the instant it appeared, making the air thick and breathing somewhat laborious.

Just as the sphere shifted from dark to bright—

A movement sounded from behind the curtain.

The sound was faint, like something gently tapping the curtain from behind; in this room filled with buzzing it was almost inaudible, yet Gudazi's ears twitched.