Soulbound: Dual Cultivation-Chapter 72: Nick of time

Lucas said nothing. He didn’t spare the Master Cultivators another glance, nor did he respond to Commander Alexander’s orders. His feet carried him with growing certainty to the very edge of the wall. The wind tore at his hair and clothes, flinging strands across his face and whipping the hem of his robe like a wild flame, but he stood still, immovable. His hands were at his sides, fingers twitching slightly, pulsing with the storm that was beginning to ripple through his entire body. The energy within him roared for release, and with every passing second it grew more unstable, more uncontainable.

One of the Master Rank cultivators, a tall man with stepped forward. His face was twisted with anger, and his spiritual presence flared as he closed the distance between them. He wasn’t going to watch some arrogant, reckless boy disobey the chain of command and risk the integrity of the defense. In his eyes, Lucas was a liability, and in the middle of a siege, there was no tolerance for that.

"What do you think you’re doing?" the cultivator growled, his voice laced with scorn and disbelief. "Get back into formation before you get people killed!"

Still, Lucas did not speak. He did not flinch or turn his head. His gaze remained fixed on the sea of monstrous bodies surging forward below. His breath was labored, shallow yet controlled, as the vast torrent of Qi continued to circulate violently inside him. The longer he waited, the more dangerous it became. And yet, his mind was as clear as it had ever been. He knew exactly what had to be done.

The cultivator reached for him, perhaps to pull him back or strike him down for defiance. His arm had barely brushed Lucas’s shoulder when it happened.

Without warning, a violent wave of Qi burst from Lucas’s body, radiating outward with such intensity that the air cracked and shimmered around him. The Master Cultivator was flung backward as though struck by a charging beast, his feet skidding across the stone wall before he crashed into the barricades with a grunt of shock. All eyes turned at once.

Silence fell for a brief, surreal moment.

Every soldier, every archer, every cultivator on the wall froze. The pressure was suffocating. The raw force Lucas had just unleashed didn’t belong to someone at the Expert Rank...not even remotely. It wasn’t the power of a steady climb through the tiers. It was something else. Something dense, volatile, and deeply unnatural. The kind of Qi that came from willpower that refused to obey its own limits.

Those standing nearest to him had to brace themselves, staggering a step or two back as the oppressive weight of the energy pressed against them.

The commander turned, his expression unreadable, mouth slightly parted in disbelief. The remaining two Master Rank cultivators narrowed their eyes, their stance shifting, not out of offense this time, but out of wariness.

This wasn’t supposed to be possible, not for someone still bound to the Expert Realm, not like this.

Lucas closed his eyes and drew a deep breath, letting the chaos around him fall away. He reached inward, past the noise of the battle, past the flaring pain in his limbs, past the doubt and shouting voices behind him. His core trembled with the vast sea of energy he had summoned moments ago. Now, he didn’t just hold it, he shaped it.

With razor-sharp focus, Lucas began to direct the flow of the Qi surging through him. It tore through his meridians like wildfire, resisting control, threatening to spiral out of command at any moment, but he held fast. He concentrated on every thread of energy, channeling it with precision and folding it into something more, something explosive, something devastating.

His arms lifted, and the Qi bent to his will, surging through his veins and swirling outward, crackling through the air with a rising hum. He fused it with the kinetic force he had learned to master, combining the raw, unfiltered energy within him with the physical laws he had always understood in a way others didn’t.

Then, without hesitation, he released it all.

A thunderous explosion echoed from the wall as the blast erupted in every direction toward the beasts that had scaled more than halfway up. The force tore through them like a divine storm. Dozens, then hundreds, were obliterated in a single moment. Bodies disintegrated into ash mid-air, claws and limbs flung into the air like ragdolls.

The ones that had reached the upper edges of the wall were incinerated instantly, while more than half of the horde still racing toward the fortifications were caught in the blast radius. The ground below shook from the impact, and a thick, rising cloud of dust and scorched flesh rolled across the battlefield.

For several seconds, nothing moved.

Nyx stood frozen beside Commander Alexander, her mouth parted as she stared at the devastation with wide, stunned eyes. She had seen many battles. She had seen powerful cultivators fight and unleash techniques that scarred the land. But what Lucas had done didn’t resemble any technique she had known. It was raw, desperate, and unlike anything she had ever seen wielded by someone at his level.

All around the wall, silence spread again, broken only by the groans of wind and the low hum of fading Qi. The soldiers looked around in disbelief. Even the Master Rank cultivators stood motionless, as if the very foundation of their understanding had been shaken.

But Lucas had no time to enjoy their shock.

The moment the energy left his body, he felt his knees buckle. His breath came out ragged and broken, and his vision blurred. He tried to stand his ground, but the exhaustion hit him like a collapsing mountain. The Qi he had kept locked away had taken more than he realized. His veins ached, his muscles screamed, and his entire frame trembled violently. His legs gave out beneath him, and before he could regain control, his body tilted over the edge of the wall, the world spun around him.

Down below, past the dust and broken bodies, the remaining half of the monstrous horde still thundered forward. He could hear them, faintly, the snarls and pounding footsteps growing louder as the wind rushed past his ears. For a moment, he felt himself falling into that sea of death.

But just as gravity began to claim him, a firm hand caught his robe. The momentum U him mid-air, and he felt the rough tug of fabric bite into his chest. His fall came to a sudden halt, and then he was being dragged backward with strength and urgency. He blinked, dazed, and found Nyx’s face above him, her eyes fierce and locked onto his.

She had caught him in the nick of time.

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