ERA OF DESTINY-Chapter 146: DAY 3: PURGE OF WAR–A FORCED DELUSION– III

The Association’s core members flee into the distance.

Kiaria did not pursue them. He simply observed, eyes steady, as their retreat dissolved into the terrain.

"I don’t understand how people like that were ever allowed into the core," he said at last.

Princess did not bother to look after them. "They chose to run. That alone makes them lighter baggage than those who would’ve stayed and hesitated."

Kiaria exhaled slowly. "Still. Geng was different. If he were the one rescued today, he wouldn’t have fled so cleanly. At least not without weighing the cost."

Fairy Fu Cai smiled faintly. "Their positions were already stripped the moment they turned their backs. Even if they survive, they won’t return as leaders."

Diala nodded. "You altered their fate."

Kiaria turned to her, expression unchanged.

"No. Fate doesn’t bend that easily. We’re only walking the path already laid out. If you limit your understanding to the Association alone, then a long life serves no purpose."

Princess agreed without hesitation. "That’s the correct way to see it."

A deep, resonant blast rolled across the land.

Clarions.

The sound traveled cleanly through open ground and settled into the air between both forces.

"War signal," Princess said. "They’re confident."

Kiaria’s reply was quiet. "Then don’t kill unless it becomes unavoidable."

Diala glanced toward him. "What is the plan?"

Kiaria shifted his stance, attention moving beyond the horizon.

"Fairy and I observed their movements earlier. Their force lacks unified command. Multiple elemental factions–fire, water, earth–operating without true coordination."

He looked at Diala.

"Suppress your dual attribute. Reveal only the Abyssal Flame Phoenix bloodline. Its frost-flame disrupts fire and water channels. Use Sword Intent. No reckless expenditure. You will not take damage."

Then to Princess.

"Big Sister, your chrysanthemum field is already rooted. The vines can resist all extremes. Prioritize suppression and defense."

He finished with Fairy Fu Cai.

"Intervene only if required. Otherwise, observe."

Diala hesitated. "And you?"

Kiaria answered without emphasis.

"I counter all three elemental factions naturally. Crowd attack is my speciality."

The clarion sounded again.

Enemy forces halted at eight hundred meters–a cautious distance, just beyond immediate engagement range.

Kiaria turned slightly. "Fairy Fu Cai. The clarion–your interpretation."

She considered the sound.

"To me, it’s not just a signal. On Fushan Mount, we call it Charion. At home it’s a tool. On patrol, it’s a warning–territorial pride announcing rejection."

"Pride," Kiaria repeated softly. "That explains the timing."

He glanced forward.

"They refuse to enter your chrysanthemum perimeter."

War drums followed.

Heavy. Rhythmic. Coordinated.

Enemy battalions began to reorganize.

"There’s discipline in movement," Kiaria said. "Even desperation can march in order."

–

At the enemy line, Shu Yan turned to his assembled forces.

"We are one step from rewriting history," he said, voice amplified by cultivation. "If we hesitate now, everything we endured becomes meaningless."

He raised his arm.

"Today, we bleed the so-called Gods."

"We strike first," Rong said, stepping forward.

She rose into the air without haste.

"Kin of Roga," she commanded, "ignite the land."

The sky responded.

Cloud cover shifted, heat thickening the atmosphere as orange-red light bled through the upper layers. Behind Rong, thirteen thousand Roga Bull kin moved into formation–concentric circles, rotating in sequence, their steps synchronized like a living mechanism.

Kiaria watched without interruption.

As the formation stabilized, the land beneath them began to fail.

Vegetation dried. Soil cracked. Vitality drained from the surface and collapsed inward. Spiritual magma energy surged upward, funneled through the formation toward its center.

The transfer was violent.

Hair bleached from red to white across the ranks–life force stripped to sustain the ritual. Only Rong remained unchanged.

She completed the final movement.

Within the burning clouds, five luminous cores formed–then merged.

Rong raised her hand.

When it descended, the sky followed.

It was not a meteor strike.

It was a magma manifestation, shaped like a colossal palm, dense enough to crush terrain and living beings alike. The mass fell with controlled inevitability, covering half the borderland beneath it.

Diala’s breath tightened. "How do we stop that?"

Princess didn’t look away. "Watch him."

Kiaria smiled faintly.

One ring from the small Crescent Loop Moon Blades separated and ascended.

The moment it pierced the fire cloud layer, color drained from the battlefield. Heat dulled. Light flattened. The magma palm darkened. Land and sky both turned in monochrome.

The ring descended from sky.

It entered the palm and sliced through the condensed life core sustaining it.

Fractures spread instantly.

The construct collapsed, breaking apart into hardened fragments that began to fall.

"Sister," Kiaria said calmly, "the hand-fan."

Princess placed it in his hand.

Kiaria rose and swept the fan forward.

The chrysanthemum hand-fan released a massive wind wave. The falling magma reversed trajectory, scattering downward into the enemy ranks.

Impact followed.

The residual arc from the Crescent Loop Moon Blade struck Rong’s hand.

Her palm split open.

Blood magma fell from her palm on ground with smoke.

Half the lifespan of the Roga Bull kin had already been consumed.

The battlefield, however, remained unchanged.

Shu Ming took a step forward.

Shu Yan raised his arm.

"Hold."

Shu Ming stopped immediately.

"Let Rong continue," Shu Yan said, eyes fixed on the distant figure who had dismantled their opening strike without urgency.

Rong did not retreat.

Blood magma dripped from her torn palm, sizzling as it struck the air. She lifted that hand and began to write–slowly, deliberately–using her own blood as ink. A single character formed in midair, dense and heavy, radiating suppressed violence.

The magma fragments scattered across the battlefield responded.

They trembled.

Then reshaped.

Shard by shard, they condensed into hardened magma spikes, suspended in the air like a field of execution stakes.

Rong pressed her fingers against the blood-written character.

The spikes descended.

Not chaotically.

In formation.

They fell toward Kiaria’s position like a calculated bombardment.

Kiaria snapped his fingers.

High above, the remaining ring of the Crescent Loop Moon Blade split–once, then again–multiplying into countless identical rings. They descended in silence, like metallic rain.

The battlefield rang with muted impacts.

Ring met spike.

Magma shattered midair, erased before it could reach flesh.

Before the rings could continue their descent–

Kiaria lifted one finger.

They stopped.

Every ring froze in place, suspended just above lethal range.

He twisted his finger upward.

The rings ascended, converging back into the sky, reforming into a single, complete halo.

Kiaria took one step forward.

Space folded.

He appeared in front of the enemy line, levitating calmly above the ground.

"Come together," he said evenly.

"One by one is waste of time."

Shu Yan’s response was immediate.

"Kill them all."

His spear leveled forward.

Kiaria vanished.

–

The Shu tribe advanced.

The Fire Branch surged forward, flames rolling low and wide to suppress movement.

The Water Branch remained stationary, hands raised in unison, chanting synchronized incantations.

The Earth Branch disappeared beneath the ground.

They did not reach their targets.

The ground convulsed.

From below, chrysanthemum stem vines erupted, not wildly, but with terrifying precision. They pierced through soil layers, wrapped around limbs, and penetrated cultivation points.

Ten thousand earth-branch cultivators were seized underground–immobilized before a single earth technique could complete.

The surface remained quiet.

Fire and Roga units closed in rapidly.

Kiaria and his companions did not retreat.

Above them, the water branch completed its formation.

Clouds darkened. Pressure shifted. Rain descended in dense sheets.

But the land refused it.

Water struck the ground and spread unnaturally, failing to seep into the soil–as though the battlefield itself rejected their control.

The Roga Bull kin reached the frontline first.

They drew their lava-forged greatswords and struck.

Diala closed her eyes.

The world narrowed.

Sword Intent expanded outward from her position, bending trajectories, distorting timing. Attacks passed where she had been–not where she stood.

She stepped forward.

Once.

Then again.

The Scarlet Jade Sword manifested in her hand.

Within the intent field, movement slowed. Distance lost meaning.

She passed through the Roga formation.

When her eyes opened, blood magma flowed steadily along the blade’s edge.

Behind her, Roga warriors collapsed–alive, breathing, but stripped of all ability to stand.

–

Elsewhere, Kiaria moved with Rong.

He did not press the attack.

He evaded.

Bare-handed strikes, magma eruptions, close-range detonations–none found him. His movements were minimal, efficient, and deliberate.

He was waiting.

Rong felt it.

Her restraint shattered.

Bull horns erupted from her skull as her body expanded into her Half-Bull Half-Human form. Molten heat poured outward as magma spilled from her hands, threatening to swallow the battlefield.

The land did not burn.

Chrysanthemum stem-vines surfaced again, absorbing heat, isolating damage, preserving terrain integrity.

Rong’s fury escalated.

"If you’re capable," she roared, "fight me properly!"

Kiaria raised his hand.

Rain stopped.

Every droplet near him suspended in midair, converging into a massive sphere of water dense enough to envelop her entire form.

He released it.

The water sphere engulfed Rong completely.

She struggled.

She could not break free.

Across the battlefield, Roga units moved–gathering magma, reinforcing positions.

Then Rong laughed. She stopped struggling.

Stopped her act.

A sharp, confident sound.

"All units–withdraw."

They obeyed instantly.

Except the earth branch.

Her body temperature surged violently.

The water sphere vaporized in a deafening hiss, and Rong emerged unscathed.

The battlefield reset.

Rain ceased.

Remaining droplets hung suspended in the air–motionless, as if time itself had stalled.

The injured Roga warriors–those struck down by Diala–vanished without trace.

Enemy formations reappeared at their original positions.

Pre-war alignment.

Shu Yan smiled.

The smile widened into laughter.

Kiaria remained calm.

Diala frowned, confusion surfacing for the first time.

Princess Lainsa’s eyes gleamed–not with fear, but fascination. Escalation meant experience. And experience meant survival for an empire.

Fairy Fu Cai remained unreadable.

The battlefield had not restarted.

It had been rewritten.

And now, the war truly began.