The fractured bones in Ye Chen’s forearms ground together with a harsh, sickening ache as he forced his weight forward onto the balls of his feet.
Across the shattered terrace, Lord Xue Ying lifted the eight-foot blood scythe one-handed, the crimson blade humming with a high-pitched vibration that made the air itself taste of copper.
Ye Chen knew the math of the mountain better than anyone alive. If he remained planted on this marble landing to trade strikes with a Peak Core cultivator, the shockwaves alone would collapse the maintenance fissure behind the archives, burying Han Ping and young Zhang Yue under twenty tons of falling granite before they ever reached the valley floor.
Ye Chen did not raise the broken broadsword hilt for another clash.
He dropped his center of gravity, plan
