The golden fire filled the courtyard wall to wall.
Not a beam. Not a burst. A wave — total, complete, leaving nowhere to go because Xin had specifically chosen a space with nowhere to go. Three stone walls and a broken gate. The fire hit all of them simultaneously and bounced back, layering on itself, building pressure like a sealed furnace.
Shen Bao's silver shield snapped up instantly.
It held. Of course it held. Seventh Gate against whatever Xin currently was — the shield held and the White Wolf stood inside it like a stone in a river, unmoved.
But he was not moving forward either.
Twenty seconds.
Xin poured more into it. His channels burned. The merged core fed him power faster than he could spend it, which was extraordinary and also felt like standing in front of a waterfall and
