Ling Za turned to look at the huddled scared masses behind them, looking with fresh eyes.

The hope that had been there earlier today in most of her disciples was gone. They were covered in a combination of mud and gore.

Jessica, the elder from the other Sect, had been trying to lecture her. Trying and failing.

Ling Za was strong and she would never back down.

But as she looked at the blooded green cloaks, something changed.

This wasn’t a fight she needed.

She turned, backhanded a rock beast behind herself, and stomped off.

A cloud of shadows stormed around her.

She had a way out.

"To my airship!" She roared over the sounds of battle behind her.

For a woman that had never backed down, the stark reality had affected her in a way Jess had hoped it would never affect anyone.

Behind the fleeing cultivators, a line of fifth-level cultivators pressed back, guarding their retreat.

Jess took a position at the center of the fifth realm cultivators.

Some of the beasts that approached were truly massive.

Jess gulped.

She began cycling through her qi. She found all of the aunties and cold steel cultivators around her and started a circle with the closest one. Mary was there and she felt Mary extending the circle.

While she was the focus, they would be vulnerable, but she would need them, and she had Blue as a backup.

Oh, and Grace wasn’t too bad thus far.

Blue was beating them back right next to Fa Za.

Seeing the man in his element, using his sword, he was an artist in his prime. And they, the forebears of Rahelish, were the canvas.

Blue, by contrast, was doing finger painting. Next to Fa Zas practicing spear thrusts, Blues' hands-on method of impaling beasts one at a time seemed ripped from a different age.

Jess watched both impassively. This would be the most dangerous time for her and her students. They were cycling to her in a large group, pushing her temporarily beyond her limit.

Grace stood sentinel in front of her. Forbidden to take a part in the action because she was one of the best fighters, Jess needed her.

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Ling Za, a powerful cultivator in her own right, was already at the airship getting it up and running.

Jess needed Ling za to stick to her word and stave off the tide.

But first, the cold hard truth faced her.

She needed to buy them more time, even as the mess of qi from Rahelish felt heavier and heavier.

The circle snapped and Jess felt it. Qi unbounded flowed, flowering within her. She was a bottomless pit of it, ready to be the void.

She was far beyond her previous height close to the seventh realm by her estimation, if not the eighth.

For a second, she understood why the previous Sect Leaders felt that they could take on the divine beast. She felt godly just taking all of the qi from her small group.

She could do it. She felt the power flow up over and around her.

Her skin crackled with raw energy, as the air itself distorted around her figure.

Rahelish could bring it, and she could more than take it down.

A small piece of her, perhaps the last piece of a remnant of her powers called her to the task.

You cannot defeat this.

“I can do this,” she yelled back, the air shimmering into a blizzard around her.

This is not for man or woman to defeat. It is a force of nature. It can be avoided only.

“This…” Jess realized that she was arguing with a voice.

The air shimmered as a figure appeared in front of her.

It is good that you act to save this Sect. But you cannot stand against this. No one can. Let my life and the life of those with me be a lesson.

Jess waved her arms through the visage. It wavered and returned to form. Had it appeared only to her? She looked around and her people were still watching the fight play out.

Only to her then, and her eyes betrayed her. The damn fool had gotten himself killed, but she wouldn’t. She couldn’t.

I see the doubt in your eyes, Jessica Kim. You have already risen so high in your defiance of the heavens, and you still have far to go.

On the other hand, there was a lot to be said about leaving the battle with not only her honor and dignity intact but her life.

It wasn’t for her.

“You know what?” She replied, “You’re right.”

She began to channel, her qi was a river meeting an ocean.

“I will defy the heavens another way.”

Around her, the eddies stopped.

Everything slowed as she pushed her energy into forming a solid mass of absolute zero around her, not in front of her.

Blue yelped as the cold started to get to him.

He could see the blue electric energy pulsing around his master and he knew it was time to withdraw.

He knocked one rock beast down and tumbled with it to avoid the next’s blow. Next to him, Fa Za reeled, trying to impale two beasts in one go. His beard was covered in frost.

“Elder! You need to leave! We won’t survive Elder Jessica's next attack!”

Fa Zas's teeth chattered as he nodded to Blue.

You won’t, but I will.

Blue pushed all of the qi he’d just taken from the beasts press against him, struggling to expand somewhere.

He would give them somewhere.

Absolute Zero Nova.

He pressed his circle out, making an aura that intersected with elder Jessicas, pushing back the divine beasts as it slowed those inside.

He looked up to see the impressive globe of stillness he’d created.

“Excellent. Erk!”

A rock beast had its hand around his throat. How had it moved to get there so fast?

Blue looked to Fa Za for help, but the elder wasn’t to be found.

“H…help!”

He tried yelling over the storm as the beast twisted, trying to separate his head from his body. Surely he would pass out at any second and then lose the…

His eyes darkened and he saw a spear tip jut through the beast's chest from the back.

A snowman held massive power as it sucked energy through Sa Kon, the demon spear of the North.

Blue coughed up blood, his neck still sore as the pressure released.

“Elder. How?”

Fa Za vented pure qi out around himself. He looked perfectly warm, even in the nova of zero kelvin, where everything effectively stopped.

The snowman no more, Fa Za stood to his full height, the only warm thing for dozens of meters.

“The cold never bothered me anyway.”