Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

People fought to defend themselves from the many bolts of lightning that fell down from the sky and managed to do so barely at the expense of what little Immortal Qi they had left.

They also protected those who would have otherwise died on the onslaught and fought back against every bolt of lightning that fell from the sky.

The elders and Yan Yating protected Zhou Linfan and Long Huan who had remained behind, the stronger soldiers protected the weaker ones, and the beasts protected the weaker beasts.

Pearl was protected by both his uncle and Senior Yao.

Hannah moved to protect her mother and Alex, fending off every bolt of lightning that rained down from the sky.

By the time the lightning rain came to a stop, every single person who was strong enough to mess with the Dragon Emperor was in shambles.

They were low on their Immortal Qi and without much means to protect even themselves if they needed to.

The Dragon Emperor frowned a little as he saw the situation. He had intended for the attack he did to be weak. Not only was a stronger attack going to force him to use a lot of Intent, but it would also kill a bunch of people, which was not something he wanted to do before he could get to Alex.

Still, he had expected some to die, and seeing everyone alive made him feel unhappy.

'Is this the extent of how powerful attacks can be in this realm?' the Dragon Emperor thought. 'Perhaps there is a limit to how strong I can make the attacks using nothing but Intent and Dao.'

In the end, he had to rely on his own Qi if he wanted strength in this world, it seemed. He felt the Qi inside of him and sighed, knowing that he had no means to get his Immortal Qi back once he spent in on this world.

At that point, he could only leave this world and go on to the new one.

'That's alright,' he thought. 'This is plenty.'

He pointed his spear toward Hannah and launched another attack.

Hannah was beaten and tired from all the previous attacks, but she still fought to defend herself. Because if she fell here, her mother and Alex would die, along with everyone else.

She had to continue fighting.

Hannah poured everything she had remaining into her attacks, going into what to her felt like a long battle ahead.

Attack after attack, Hannah was pushed back during the fight, never truly losing but always coming up short during the battle.

The Dragon Emperor continued without much bother, throwing one attack after another, keeping Hannah on her feet until the moment she could no longer fight.

It had to be said that Hannah was doing much better than he could have imagined her to do. If he wasn't using Dao or Spear Qi in his attacks, she maybe would've had a chance to stand toe to toe with him in this battle, perhaps even overcome him.

Alas, she was too new to battle, too new to cultivation itself. And that was the reason she was going to lose today.

No one else dared come between their fights, so the Dragon Emperor was free to deal with her all on his own.

His target in the end was still Alex. So long as he could get to him and get all the things that he owned, he need not spend a single second more killing anyone else.

None of these people mattered to him in the end.

The Dragon Emperor continued striking back, pushing Hannah right back against Alex. She was bloodied and tattered and on her last leg, and yet she still fought.

He smiled and used a stronger attack.

Hannah enlarged Starweaver, striking at the incoming attack with all the remaining Immortal Qi she had, but that was useless in the end.

The remainder of the lightning attack struck her in the chest, sending her fly past the other two on the ground, as she stumbled through the ground a long time before coming to a stop.

Hannah grunted out in pain, feeling the world grow numb all around her, her mind failing to remain awake. She tried to stand up, to reach for her mother and Alex, but she was too wounded.

All she could do was grunt in pain as she remained on the ground, still.

The Dragon Emperor looked at the people in the sky, a silent crowd staring at him from the distance, none daring to move before him.

Many of them wanted to run toward Hannah, but every single one of them feared his spear. Standing out at the moment, when they were so low on Qi meant death to most of them.

The Dragon Emperor scoffed at their cowardice and moved his eyes toward Alex who still remained on the ground with his eyes closed.

Liz looked at him from behind him, her eyes red with fury as she glared toward him.

The Dragon Emperor remembered her. She was the one who had helped set up the teleportation formation and then was saved by the White Tiger's power.

He hated remembering that. Even after his prophecies had all come and passed, he still hated the White Tigers.

He pointed toward her and let out an attack.

* * * * * *

Liz saw the Dragon Emperor ever so slowly raise his spear and knew he would attack her and Alex at any moment. She looked down at her nephew and saw that he still needed quite some time to finish his cultivation after his breakthrough.

There was no time for that at the moment.

She needed to give him that time.

She wished she knew how to stop time itself, to put the entire world on hold while she alone moved.

But alas, she understood the impossibility of that task. She understood that there was no such thing as stopping time.

What there was, though, was the fact that one could slow down time so much that it would be nigh indistinguishable from stopped time.

And so she acted.

Her mind was put to the test as she burned every single Intent that was in her body, pouring every scrap of mental strength she still held inside of her into this one Dao.

Even as the Dragon Emperor pointed the spear, he seemed to be frozen in time. Everything was frozen in time, all but herself and Alex.

Liz felt her mind melt because of the burden that had come upon her. She had used the Dao of Temporal Stagnation to the most she could, to the most she ever had, and then held it there.

Her mind was a battlefield where the only one winning was pain, but she still held onto her wits. She held onto her wits for just long enough to give Alex the time he needed.

And as Alex opened his eyes, done with his cultivation, she knew she had done what she needed to do.

"Fight…" She wished to say more to him, but her mind gave out on her in the end and she slipped into unconsciousness.

At the same time, the bubble of nearly stopped time came to an end, and the world moved once again.

The Dragon Emperor's attack launched and it came toward Alex.