Chapter 164: LIGHT AGAINST ANCHOR

Chapter 164 — LIGHT AGAINST ANCHOR

The pale plane dimmed.

Not because Zehell commanded it.

Because Long Hao did.

His admission had drained him.

Greed.

The word echoed inside him like a tolling bell that refused to fade.

He stood there, hollowed out.

No defiance.

No calculation.

No sovereign arrogance.

Just a man stripped of illusion.

He looked at his hands.

These hands had reached for the chest.

These hands had chosen.

These hands had erased.

The weight pressed down on him until even standing felt dishonest.

“I don’t deserve another chance,” he whispered.

The pale plane responded.

Not with thunder.

With gravity.

His knees buckled.

He did not resist.

He let himself fall backward into the empty expanse.

His mind went quiet.

Dangerously quiet.

He wasn’t fighting Zehell anymore.

He wasn’t arguing.

He wasn’t searching for redemption.

He was surrendering.

And that—

That was what Zehell had been waiting for.

Her expression shifted.

The softness vanished.

The Anchor emerged.

The pale plane cracked beneath her feet as ancient sigils flared into existence around her body. Gold and black patterns wrapped around her arms, crawling across her skin like living inscriptions.

“So this is how it ends?” she said softly.

Long Hao did not answer.

His eyes were unfocused.

His aura—normally sharp and layered—had dimmed to almost nothing.

Hopelessness settled into him like winter frost.

Zehell lifted her hand.

The air changed.

Pressure condensed around Long Hao’s body.

Not visible force.

Not tangible wind.

Authority.

He felt it before he saw it.

His body rose from the ground.

Weightless.

Suspended.

Telekinesis.

But not crude manipulation.

This was structural control.

The air itself bent around her will.

Long Hao floated five meters above the pale plane.

Then ten.

Then twenty.

His arms hung limp.

His head tilted forward.

“You are not dying yet,” Zehell said quietly.

Her voice no longer playful.

No longer emotional.

Pure Anchor.

“You are still incomplete.”

The fragments inside him reacted.

Black-gold light flickered faintly around his chest.

Zehell extended her other hand.

The space between them warped.

A gravitational pull formed—not physical gravity, but spiritual suction.

His soul trembled.

He felt it.

A tearing.

A pulling from deep within his core.

“Your fragment belongs with me,” Zehell said.

“Control must be restored.”

The pale plane began distorting in concentric ripples around her feet.

Long Hao’s body drifted closer to her.

Thirty meters apart.

Then twenty-five.

He tried to move.

His muscles did not respond.

Not because he lacked strength.

Because he lacked will.

“You surrendered,” Zehell said calmly.

“And surrender makes this easier.”

She clenched her fingers slightly.

The fragment within him screamed.

He felt it now—an invisible hook digging into the deepest part of his existence.

His soul-piece.

The part of him that had split from the original Anchor.

It began sliding outward.

Pain unlike physical injury surged through him.

Not sharp.

Existential.

As if the concept of self was being peeled away.

He gasped.

Finally reacting.

His hands twitched.

His eyes widened.

But the pull was stronger.

Zehell’s aura expanded dramatically.

Black and gold sigils formed a massive halo behind her.

“You were always meant to rejoin,” she said.

“You fractured because you feared yourself.”

“But I do not fear you.”

The distance shrank.

Ten meters.

The space between them felt like a collapsing corridor.

His consciousness flickered.

The fragment in his chest partially surfaced—black-gold light spiraling outward like a wounded star.

Zehell’s lips parted slightly.

The merging was seconds away.

And then—

The pale plane tore open.

Not gently.

Not symbolically.

Violently.

A horizontal slash of pure white light split the sky above them.

For half a heartbeat—

Everything froze.

Then—

A blade made of light descended.

It did not swing.

It existed.

Pure.

Condensed.

Sovereign.

It cut across Zehell’s extended arm.

Not flesh.

Authority.

The sigils around her flickered violently.

Her concentration broke.

Long Hao dropped.

Not slowly.

He fell from twenty meters like a discarded object.

The pale plane cracked where he hit.

Air rushed back into his lungs violently.

The suction vanished.

Zehell staggered backward one step.

One.

Her eyes flared.

Annoyed.

Not injured.

From the tear in the sky—

A figure descended calmly.

Robes fluttering in controlled arcs.

White and azure threads woven into ancient fabric.

Eyes steady.

Unmoved.

The Dean of Azure Dragon Academy.

He did not land.

He stood on air.

As if gravity itself respected him.

“You overstep,” the Dean said quietly.

His voice carried across the pale plane without echo.

Zehell straightened.

The sigils around her reformed instantly.

“You,” she said.

The word was neither surprise nor fear.

Recognition.

The Dean raised his hand.

Light condensed along his fingertips.

Then extended.

Forming a blade.

Not metal.

Not flame.

Pure luminescent force shaped into a sword.

Elegant.

Simple.

Terrifying.

He did not charge.

He thrust the blade forward once.

A crescent of light split outward.

Zehell raised her hand casually.

The crescent shattered into fragments against her barrier.

But the Dean did not stop.

He moved his arm slightly.

And behind him—

Thousands of identical blades formed in the sky.

Each one suspended in perfect alignment.

Each one humming with contained destructive force.

The pale plane brightened violently.

Long Hao coughed, rolling onto his side.

He looked up.

His mind struggled to process what he was seeing.

The Dean.

Here.

In this fractured space.

“You should not interfere,” Zehell said.

Her aura surged outward.

The blades trembled slightly under the pressure.

But they did not disperse.

The Dean’s expression did not change.

“I was already here,” he replied calmly.

“You simply did not notice.”

His fingers flicked downward.

And the sky fell.

Thousands of blades descended simultaneously.

Not chaotic.

Not random.

A perfect grid of annihilation.

Zehell extended both arms outward.

Her Anchor aura exploded.

Black and gold energy spiraled upward, forming a colossal vortex around her body.

The first wave of light blades struck.

Explosions of radiant force erupted across the pale plane.

Sound did not exist here.

But the visual impact alone was overwhelming.

Light and shadow collided in violent bursts.

The plane fractured in spiderweb patterns around the impact zones.

Zehell’s barrier flickered under the onslaught.

Not breaking.

But forced to focus entirely on defense.

Her concentration wavered.

The telekinetic control that had suspended Long Hao completely vanished.

He rolled backward, coughing, disoriented.

He pushed himself up unsteadily.

Fifty meters away from the center of collision.

Then more.

He stumbled back until he felt some semblance of stability.

One hundred meters.

The battle between light and Anchor authority intensified.

Zehell’s eyes burned.

“Ninth-tier,” she said coldly.

The Dean’s expression remained serene.

He stepped forward once.

Each step creating a ripple of white energy beneath his feet.

Another wave of blades formed instantly behind him.

“Anchor or not,” he said quietly, “you are not absolute.”

Zehell laughed softly.

Even as thousands of light blades crashed against her aura.

“Even a ninth-tier superhuman is dust before origin.”

Her hands shifted.

The black-gold vortex condensed into a singular beam of compressed authority.

She released it.

The beam tore through the descending blades, vaporizing hundreds instantly.

It struck the Dean directly.

The pale plane shook violently.

Long Hao shielded his eyes.

The beam engulfed the Dean’s position.

Silence.

Then—

Light erupted outward.

The beam split in two.

The Dean stood in its center, his blade extended, dividing the attack with surgical precision.

A thin line of blood traced down from the corner of his lip.

But his posture did not falter.

Zehell’s eyes narrowed.

“You cannot win,” she said.

The Dean’s gaze shifted briefly toward Long Hao.

“Winning was never the objective.”

Another surge of blades materialized.

Not above this time.

Around Zehell.

Encircling her in a rotating formation.

He clasped his hands together.

The blades began spinning.

Faster.

Faster.

Creating a containment lattice of pure light.

Zehell’s aura flared violently against the encirclement.

The pale plane began destabilizing under the pressure.

Long Hao watched, stunned.

He had never seen the Dean fight.

Never seen him release even a fraction of this power during academy days.

This was no instructor.

This was a sovereign in his own right.

Zehell’s voice dropped lower.

“You are buying him time.”

“Yes,” the Dean answered simply.

Zehell’s gaze flicked briefly toward Long Hao.

That was enough.

The Dean thrust his blade downward.

The rotating lattice compressed inward.

Zehell’s concentration faltered just a fraction more.

The vortex destabilized.

A shockwave burst outward.

Long Hao felt the blast even at a hundred meters.

He was thrown backward, rolling across fractured pale terrain.

When he forced himself up again—

Zehell stood at the center.

Unharmed.

But no longer poised to merge.

Her eyes glowed with restrained fury.

The Dean hovered ten meters away.

Blade steady.

Light still humming around him.

“This is not finished,” Zehell said quietly.

“No,” the Dean agreed.

“It is not.”

The pale plane trembled violently.

Reality beyond the plane began bleeding through.

The confrontation had escalated beyond the safe boundary of memory-space.

Zehell’s form flickered.

Not weakened.

Calculating.

She glanced once more at Long Hao.

“You will not escape yourself,” she said softly.

Then—

Her form dissolved into fragments of black-gold light.

The pale plane shattered entirely.

Long Hao collapsed onto solid ground.

Cold stone.

Real.

The cave entrance.

His breathing ragged.

The Dean landed beside him silently.

The light blade vanished.

The pressure lifted.

Long Hao stared up at him.

“You—”

The Dean looked down calmly.

“You are not done yet.”

Behind them—

The cave walls still pulsed faintly with residual Anchor energy.

Long Hao’s hands trembled.

He had nearly surrendered.

Nearly ceased to exist.

The Dean turned his gaze toward the cave interior.

“This,” he said quietly, “is no longer a personal matter.”

The air felt heavier.

Because if even the Anchor required this level of intervention—

Then what was coming next…

Would not be confined to one soul.

[Chapter ENDS]

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