Xiulan landed beside Yanmei, breathing ragged, muscles screaming from the earlier clash. The ground beneath them cracked under the oppressive weight of Wuying’s spiritual presence. Yet Yanmei’s aura flared in defiance, shards of crystalline frost forming beneath her feet with every deliberate step.

“You returned,” Xiulan whispered, eyes locking onto hers.

Yanmei didn’t spare him a glance. “You were about to die. Again.”

Xiulan grinned through the pain, his bloodied lips curling. “You missed me.”

Wuying’s robes fluttered in the windless air, a calm yet terrifying force. “Foolish sentiment. Neither fire nor ice can defeat me. I was a Sect Master before you were born.”

He raised a palm, summoning a thousand spirit chains that spiraled through the sky like celestial whips, descending with lethal precision.

Xiulan’s flames surged, intercepting the chains midair, melting half into molten droplets. The remainder crashed toward them—but Yanmei raised her hand and whispered, “Glacial Seal.”

A dome of frozen energy erupted instantly, blocking every chain with an audible crackle of frost.

Xiulan’s eyes widened. “Since when can you…?”

“I don’t know what I am,” Yanmei said calmly, voice steady as ice, “but I remember a woman in my trial… she called me the Daughter of the Glacial Sovereign.”

From her palm, a Lotus of Eternal Frost materialized, hovering in the air and glowing with ancient, icy light.

Wuying staggered back, eyes narrowing in disbelief. “Impossible… that technique was lost with the last of the ice clans.”

“I am the last,” Yanmei said, unwavering.

At the battlefield’s edges, other Eternal Sect elders joined the fray. Fire collided with frost, creating explosions of steam and shards of ice, turning the temple city into a chaotic war zone.

But for the first time, Xiulan and Yanmei did not fight separately. They stood united—not as fledgling cultivators, but as rising forces of nature. Fire and ice coiling together, a storm that even the Sect Masters hesitated to confront.

“You hold them off,” Yanmei said, her voice carrying above the elemental chaos. “I’m going after Wuying.”

Xiulan’s hand met hers midair, their powers mingling briefly. “Together,” he said, eyes blazing with determination.

The ground trembled beneath them, flames licking at frost, lightning crackling across the sky. And as they surged forward, the two of them became an unstoppable tempest—ice and flame united against the Eternal Sect’s wrath.