A moment after landing, dust still drifting like lazy ghosts...

"Good work," Wang Xiao said, casually patting Ning Xue's head.

"Mm-hmm…"

Ning Xue stiffened, lips twitching, then quietly walked away like someone fleeing a crime scene. Being petted like a family pet in front of others? Absolutely not.

The undead horde was somehow less terrifying.

Wang Xiao watched her stroll off, amused. She moved through the frozen battlefield, golden silica spreading under her steps, like molten sunlight poured onto corpses, freezing them in shimmering sculpture.

He turned to Isabelle.

"Study how undead bodies function without organs," he said, as if he were asking someone to pass him the salt. "See if you can graft regeneration onto them. Add it to the prototype. Plenty of species here for you to play with."

Isabelle adjusted her glasses with frightening enthusiasm.

"I might need that one too…" she pointed toward a distant silhouette, the titanic serpent coiled lazily around the Great Pyramid, its head lost somewhere above the clouds.

Wang Xiao inclined his head and then looked at Yuriko.

"It's up to you."

"…"

Yuriko's brows twitched. That tone, too commanding for her tastes. She let it pass, but not happily.

Wang Xueying, who had been assembling equipment beside Isabelle, paused with a wrench in hand.

"What prototype? Are you two working on something?"

Her eyes narrowed, her brother always sounded suspicious at moments like these.

Isabelle hesitated, glancing at Wang Xiao.

He didn't refuse.

So she spoke.

"Well… originally, I wanted to study god-gene structure, so I… attempted personal extraction."

Wang Xueying blinked.

"Personal… extraction?"

"Body-embedded data retrieval," Isabelle said with scholarly innocence.

(Translation: Strip, spread legs, and pray he cooperates.)

Wang Xiao coughed lightly.

Isabelle continued, skipping the part where she got disappointed.

"But his physical body turned out to be an adjustable construct. The divine traits weren't in the DNA. So he gave me a different genetic code he designed himself, and now I'm developing prototypes."

Wang Xueying stared.

"Are… we creating a new species?"

Wang Xiao corrected, "It's a replacement... A succession."

"Succ—WHAT?!"

Xueying and Isabelle exchanged the exact same expression:

Are we… accidentally participating in species-wide genocide?

Both women forced strained smiles. If he really intended to replace humanity…

they were helping build their own executioners.

And the worst part?

A tiny glimmer in their eyes showed they'd probably still do it... because science.

Wang Xiao watched them like they were two mad scientists who had escaped containment and decided to ignore the moral collapse happening behind him.

A sudden gust rolled across the frozen battlefield.

SWOOSH.

Something tugged at his senses.

"It… it happened on its own…" a soft voice whispered.

He turned.

Yue'er (Yin Yue) stood there, the cleared sky bathing her in silver light. Her white hair spilled down like threads of moonwater, her face glowing with a fragile innocence that didn't belong on a battlefield of bones.

Her jade like hands trembled slightly. She looked up at him, wide-eyed, unsure of her own strength, unsure of the world.

Compared to the original Yin Yue, this side of her was almost painfully pure… as if someone had taken the ferocious demon and pressed reset on her emotions.

Wang Xiao stepped closer... and halted.

Yue'er held a dark dual-sided spear, the weapon humming faintly, fitting into her hands with a familiarity she clearly didn't understand. Her expression was guilt-ridden.

Something twitched at her feet.

Her voice was soft, fragile as drifting ash:

"I didn't mean to break him…"

Wang Xiao looked down.

A fist-sized black-shelled creature lay split open, oozing thick tar-like ichor that steamed on the sand.

He scanned the ground.

Far ahead, Ning Xue was venting her pride on the undead, turning dunes into glassy fields of golden silica, but beneath that molten glow…

something swelled.

Crack!

The silica fractured.

Then... KSHHH!

Dozens of black fist-sized creatures BURST upward like popcorn.

Yuriko reacted instantly. "Blood ticks...!"

Wang Xueying didn't scream, she stepped back, eyes sharp. "What an ugly set of pests… Brother?"

"They burrow under the skin and eat organs," Wang Xiao said calmly. "Stay still."

Xueying exhaled through her nose, "…Lovely disgusting creatures."

The ticks shrieked and lunged.

Wang Xiao snapped his fingers.

FWOOM—!

Blue flames erupted outward in a perfect ring, quiet first, then roaring like a collapsing sun. The ticks ignited instantly.

Not burned.

Vaporized, popping mid-air like black bubbles in a furnace.

Absolute... Effortless and Overkill.

A stray tongue of flame floated past Yuriko's cheek. She stiffened, breath catching, sweat appearing like morning dew.

"…This flame…"

Her voice was thin, even she felt the danger.

The Yang clan woman Yang Yuhuan's sky flame he stole could have terrified a Transcendent, let alone Yuriko.

She stared at him like he wasn't a man but a phenomenon.

Then... BOOM!

Sand shook violently.

Madam K hurtled down like a missile, one fist drawn back, eyes wild with battle hunger. "DON'T IGNORE ME—!"

He didn't even look.

His foot moved lazily.

THWACK!

Her entire torso folded around the kick, organs internally rearranging themselves like someone flipped chapters in the wrong order.

She flew back tens of meters, skidding across the frozen sand.

"—Ugh—?!"

Her fist never landed.

Her sphinx roared in disbelief.

Her mercenaries?

They never stood a chance.

The ticks descended like droplets of oily rain.

One man froze, whispering, "No—"

Then the chewing began.

"GET THEM OFF—!"

"My back—! It's inside—!!"

"My veins—something's crawling—!"

Xueying gritted her teeth, face tightening, not with fear, but with clinical disgust.

In seconds... SHRRRP!

Their blood drained.

Bodies collapsed into brittle skeletons still locked in silent screams.

The crawlers kept moving, kept hunting, until the last of them exploded in Wang Xiao's flames.

Yue'er trembled softly beside him.

"… did I cause this?"

Wang Xiao brushed her silver hair aside with gentle finality.

"No. I did."

A final flame bloomed behind Wang Xiao, stretching his shadow across the sand like the outline of an ancient god.

The woman he had sent flying pushed herself upright.

Athlaea.

She wiped the blood from her lips with two fingers, slow and deliberate, then looked at him, really looked. Her face carried a mixed heritage that didn't belong to any single land: the high cheekbones and warm bronze undertone of South American blood, softened by East-European sharpness around the eyes and jaw.

Her lips were full, naturally tinted, parted just enough to suggest breath still running hot from battle.

Her eyes, deep violet, rimmed with long lashes were steady.

Not shocked.

Not angry.

Just... Interested.

She wore a sleeveless chiton-style garment, pale ivory silk reinforced with fine myth-thread, torn at the hem and darkened where blood and sand had soaked in.

Around her neck hung layered talismans:

a crescent obsidian torque, etched with archaic glyphs; a sun-disk pendant of hammered gold resting just above her cleavage; and beneath it, a thin chain set with a teardrop lapis charm, old Egyptian in design, pulsing faintly with residual power.

Her hair, long, pale-blonde with ash undertones, was braided thickly down one shoulder in a warrior's braid, threaded with small bronze rings and a single turquoise bead near the end.

Loose strands framed her face, catching the moonlight, softening a woman who clearly wasn't.

The blood ticks had crawled over her.

None had pierced her skin.

Yuriko stepped between them. "Athlaea, stop making trouble."

Athlaea didn't look away from Wang Xiao.

She straightened fully, shoulders rolling back, posture unguarded, almost inviting.

Dust slid down the silk over her hips, tracing the line of her thin curvy waist.

Wang Xiao's gaze, not on her face, but her smooth skin stronger than reinforced steel, "…Blood-tick immunity," he said, curious.

Her lips curved slightly.

"Among other things," she replied, her voice charming, like ripe peach in hot sun, still rough with the heat of battle. "Are you done kicking me away… or do you plan to do something more interesting?"

No introductions were needed.

She was the original Guardian of the African Continent.

The moment Athlaea had seen Wang Xiao standing beside Yuriko, she had already understood who he was.

Guardians felt each other.

And something in him had provoked her, stirred the old blood, the need to test, to clash, to measure.

So she struck.

And the result…

…was far beyond her expectations.

Her body was steel, honed, absolute, immune even to the blood ticks that devoured armies... But his?

His felt like nothing.

An impenetrable void.

She had compressed pure kinetic force into a single point of her fist, energy dense enough to flatten a country, to fold mountains like cloth. It was a blow meant to erase, not wound.

Yet the moment it neared him…

…it dissolved.

Not blocked.

Not deflected.

It simply lost the will to exist.

As if the energy itself had recoiled, frightened, dispersing, scared to even touch him.

Athlaea's breath fastened, just slightly.

She had lived for millennia. She had shattered continents, crushed gods, and stood unmoved before extinction-level forces.

But she had never... never... heard of pure kinetic energy being afraid to attack something.

Until today.

Her violet eyes lifted to Wang Xiao again, no longer playful.

This time, they burned with awe…

and something close to worship.