The shadows wrapped themselves around the incandescent flames, and the flames raged to drive them away. Among that, Feu flew in with his long spear, and with a single swing, aimed at Chi’s neck as the sharp dark tendrils of shadows clawed at his skin. The very ground beneath his feet was melting and wasting away, yet the shadows remained as solid as stone, as flexible as flesh, and as cold as ice.

With the mad grin still covering her beautiful and pale face, Chi deflected Feu’s spear with her sword and, without wasting a second, stepped through the shadows, emerged between his legs, and aimed a stab at his guts. That all happened in just a fraction of a second, not enough time for even the nervous signal to travel from the eyes to the brain, but Feu was already operating at a higher level than mere mortals.

Feu bent backward, kicked Chi’s sword aside, and violently erupted into a burst of pure flames, trying to fry her in a single powerful explosion. His flames were already bright white, and their heat had far surpassed what metals could hope to endure. His spear had long since evaporated, and what he carried now was made of his own flames, condensed heat, and passion that radiated with the life force of his own soul.

Chi’s eyes saw the light, but her darkness was far deeper than what Feu’s flames could illuminate. The shadows themselves engulfed her body, and before the flames could lick her hair, she was fully encased in rock-solid shadows. The explosion washed over the shadows, burning and peeling their outer layers one by one. The impact was so heavy that she could feel it rumbling in her own bones, yet, with each burned layer, Chi would create more and more layers like an onion, keeping herself safe from the flames.

A fraction of a second had passed, and the shadows unravelled open. Feu was waiting, and without wasting any time, he jumped in, swinging at Chi’s chest this time. But before he could even reach her, the broken shell of shadows had exploded into an endless swarm of black tentacles that rushed forward, flailing and ripping the ground, trying to slow him down.

Feu cut the tentacles down, blasted them to pieces, and violently tore his way through the barrage. Arad had already told him what to do, and he wasn’t going to waste this chance to free Chi. No one else had noticed but him, who knew her closely, so he had to be the one to act.

For past years, Feu had noticed the shift in Chi’s eyes, the shift in her mood, words, actions, and soul. He knew she wasn’t the same person anymore, and for years, he kept trying to find out what was wrong.

The two of them were engaged, and yet, she just disappeared one morning. At first, Feu had thought he had done something wrong, but eventually he started to realise that Chi wasn’t the kind of person to just leave without saying a word.

Chi, his fiancé, was a spiteful, arrogant, paranoid, and foul-mouthed bitch who would’ve made him live through hell if he had wronged her, and in fact, he would swear on his life that even if she were to leave, she wouldn’t do it before at least killing someone. That was the exact reason her silent withdrawal from his life felt so off and strange.

Even when he found her later, she had completely changed, her foul mouth had finally shut up, and she barely talked, and even when she did, all that came out of her mouth were cold, emotionless, and hard facts or truths that were devoid of all life.

That cold stare that led straight to the abyss, that pale face, and those piercing tenebrious eyes. The goal of all life is death, and her sole mission had become to make that fact a truth. It took Feu many years to understand what happened to her, and when he found it, it was shocking.

All cultivators wanted one thing: immortality. And each one tried to reach it in a different way. Chi had managed to become an Elder and attain her immortality, but the cost was far too great. To attain immortality, she had ended her own life and become one with death and shadows, turning herself into an immortal wraith of darkness and death. But sadly, the price for that immortality was her own sense of self; she had turned into the very thing she cultivated, a cold, murderous shadow.

When Feu found out that Chi had become an Elder, and that was the reason she changed, he too attempted to break through the shackles and attain his immortality, and for that, he burned himself alive until nothing but ashes remained. Then, after a full summer, from those still searing embers, he had been reborn.

What Feu cultivated were the immortal flames of the phoenix, the mystical firebird that rebelled against death and arose from the ashes each time it was struck down. He had become an immortal like Chi, and in this clash between them, the potency of their immortalities would be tested against each other.

As Feu’s spear pierced Chi’s chest and his flames consumed her innards, he couldn’t feel any resistance at all, as if he stabbed through the empty air, through a shadow. At the same time, Chi’s sword flew down and cut Feu’s entire torso open, tearing him apart piece by piece with the endless tentacles of darkness.

Then, Chi’s body turned completely black as she repaired her form with shadows, and Feu’s corpse exploded into flames. He was reborn from those flames. This was the nature of the clash between the immortal Elders, it wasn’t a graceful dance, it wasn’t a fought fight, but a pure, barbaric slaughter where each tries to kill the other the most.

Buried in flames and shadows, the two ripped, tore, and killed each other over and over, thousands and tens of thousands of times. At a point, they already dropped all of their defences and just started hacking at each other, each trying to overpower the other’s immortality first.

No one in the crowd could see what was going on due to how violent, bright, and loud it was, and that was to be expected of a clash of Elders. Even Liana was having a hard time watching the fight, yet... Kali, Eris, and Isabella had no problem looking straight at the arena. Seeing that, she was even more convinced that they were far above what Elders could dream of, yet... Arad was showing a greater feat.

Arad stood at the edge of the arena where shockwaves of the clash washed over his entire body, and he didn’t seem to flinch or move an inch, as if this entire apocalyptic clash was nothing but a breeze brushing against his face.

And then, it happened. Feu managed to shake Chi’s immortal shadow by forcing it into a corner and blasting it with as many incandescent bursts of flame as he could. While powerful, the shadow wasn’t Chi herself, but a mere copy of her own existence, so it didn’t measure up to her skills and control.

The moment the shadow shook, the gates to Chi’s soul opened up, and with a single leap, Feu disappeared into the depths of her shadow, trying to pull her out. For that fraction of a second, all the chaos stopped, and Chi was standing alone in the middle of the arena, looking like a black silhouette of her former self, a humanoid shadow. It such a brief moment that even Liana barely noticed it.

In that time, Feu had jumped into Chi’s shadow, sank into the thick, mud-like darkness, and swam as fast as he could while getting torn and consumed alive by countless tiny maws and tendrils. It was as if acid and piranha somehow had a mystical child, a sea of black goo that digested everything it touches with cold indifference.

But inside that darkness, Feu could see her, Chi curled up like a fetus at the depth of her own shadow. It seems that she had failed to swim out of her own shadow when she became an elder, and that was why her shadow was what came out. Arad was right, and so, Feu only needed to pull her out to perfect her ascendance.

It was easier said than done, and Feu had already lost a lot of power trying to reach this point. Honestly, he didn’t even know if he could escape from the Shadow Sea on his own, let alone while dragging her with him.

But when he was about to get consumed, Arad’s voice rang in his head. "I forgot to tell you. I’m at the edge watching. If you die, I’m pulling her out. But don’t be too happy about it. I’ll be keeping her as one of my wives."

Feu smiled, "You know how to piss a man off, don’t you? She is mine." And with that, Feu forced out the last flash of his soul and violently exploded both himself and Chi out of the shadow. They were both at their limit and about to perish for good, but at least they got out.

The clash suddenly went silent. Chi and Feu were snatched and taken away by something extremely fast, and what remained in the arena made the entire crowd freeze. A titanic bird of pure white flames, a hundred-meter-long shadow serpent of pure darkness, and... Arad.

The phoenix flashed with fire, the serpent hissed as the shadows around it came to life, and Arad stood there, menacingly glaring at them both.

An unexpected three-way clash was about to start.