Eight-Chart Constellation
Every mage who had lived through the Demon-Beast Wars came to understand one hard truth: in a conflict against Demon-Beasts that outnumbered humanity a hundredfold, a thousandfold, humans were almost always the ones on the defensive.
Mages were never more than a small fraction of the human population, and a single mage could rarely match a single Demon-Beast in raw combat power.
That humanity had held its ground for so many years was not merely the result of matching wits against those savage, brutish creatures. It was because humans had learned to harness the gifts of nature itself — forging formations whose destructive power dwarfed anything a single person could produce.
Formations and Barriers. These were what made such lopsided battles possible, what gave even the mightiest Demon-Beast overlords pause — creatures that could raze an entire city on a whim and yet dreaded what those constructs could do.
Enchanted Gear, Magic Weapons, Formations, Barriers — the four great disciplines distilled from humanity's long history, the crystallized wisdom of ages. Enchanted Gear and Magic Weapons spoke for themselves, compensating for the fragile constitutions mages were born with. But Formations stood as the supreme instrument for turning weakness into victory.
Powered by Magic Stones saturated with the essence of heaven and earth, anchored by mages standing at each node—
The principles underlying a formation bore a striking resemblance to the act of tracing Star Trails, Star Charts, and Constellations. If a single mage could be likened to one Star Chart, then the eight High-Level Mages assembled here had collectively built something greater — a vast Constellation woven from eight interlocking Star Charts.
An Eight-Chart Constellation formed its own complete formation system. Though it still ranked as high-level magic, its true destructive force left ordinary high-level magic far behind.
What had begun as goose-feather snowflakes drifting lazily from the sky had become ice crystals the size of cups, and with every passing second another solid wall of ice erupted into being.
The walls rose thick and relentless, converging from all eight directions to seal a perfect octahedron around their quarry. The Flame Enchantress's Tribulation Flame had scorched a hundred-meter radius around her, turning everything in its path to a hellscape of fire — yet as the ice crystals rained down, her flames found themselves encircled. Five of the octahedron's eight faces had already closed.
She turned her head. The nearest ice wall was barely ten meters away — already too thick to simply blast apart.
Her raging Tribulation Flame was now trapped like a fire penned in a tin can, and the ice was freezing faster than she could melt it.
Only then did the Flame Enchantress grasp that this Ice-Snow Demon-Sealing Formation was no trifling matter. Her gaze swept the estate — largely consumed by fire by now — until she found them: in a courtyard at the very center of the grounds, eight Ice Element mages of considerable cultivation stood motionless at their formation nodes.
Star Motes, dense as stars in the night sky, linked themselves into brilliant threads of light around each mage, weaving out radiant Star Charts.
Every mage was a Star Chart in their own right. Eight of them, each a living Star Chart, shining in resonance with one another — Star Trail interlacing with Star Trail — until together they gave form to a three-dimensional Ice Element Constellation composed of eight souls.
The Constellation was a perfect octahedron: a box of starlight with eight gleaming faces.
The moment she understood where the ice walls were coming from, the Flame Enchantress let out a piercing screech.
She thrust both hands toward the art studio beside her — that small, meticulously appointed building tore itself from its foundations and shot into the air.
**Whoooooosh—**
She exhaled a long breath at the entire structure. The floating studio ignited in an instant, becoming a house of roaring fire.
Driven by her Mental Intent, the blazing studio hurtled straight toward the eight mages anchoring the formation.
"Did you think I'd come unprepared?" Zhao Yulin's laughter rang out.
The burning studio crashed toward the formation node — but thirty meters away, it slammed into something invisible. In midair, the entire building detonated into rubble.
Flaming debris scattered in all directions. Whatever had stopped it left faint outlines visible near the eight Ice Element formation mages — a curved Barrier wall, encircling all eight of them, holding back both the spreading sea of fire and every object sent flying their way.
A Barrier.
A protective Barrier had been raised around the formation itself.
Zhao Yulin understood perfectly well that a Barrier over the entire estate was unrealistic — spread that thin, it would be no better than paper. But concentrated down to cover only the formation and the mages within it, they stood in an impregnable position.
The Flame Enchantress had no idea how much stronger the Ice-Snow Demon-Sealing Formation would grow as it neared completion. By the time the thought of attacking the Barrier-protected formation nodes crossed her mind, it was already too late.
**Clang! Clang!**
The ice walls solidified faster and faster, slab after slab of steel conjured from nothing. Wherever she turned, new walls were waiting, locking her in tighter.
Her Tribulation Flame was compressed into barely ten cubic meters of space. The cold began to seep into her body — under ordinary circumstances, the inferno wreathing her would have mocked any chill, but the Cold Iron Phantom Blade had found its mark in her back, and its frost poison was already threading through her. That cold reached deeper now, spreading through her limbs, smothering the very flames that were supposed to be unquenchable.
Rage could mask pain. In the heat of fury, she had barely registered the Cold Iron Phantom Blade's bite. But as the battle ground on and the formation's power multiplied, her fire weakened steadily under the relentless suppression.
**Creak — creak — creak—**
Ice crystals took shape. First, shards like broken glass floated in the air. Then they fused, locked together, rapidly solidifying into a wall of transparent ice.
The last wall.
Cold-wounded and fading, the Flame Enchantress could no longer summon the devastating fire she needed. All she could do was watch as frost crept across the final open face of her prison.
The ice octahedron snapped shut. It contracted now — a transparent cage, cold and unyielding as steel — sealing her in completely. The Tribulation Flame wreathing her body snuffed out all at once.
"We did it!" Zhao Yulin cried out, beside himself with joy.
Shi Gui let out a quiet breath and turned to look at the eight High-Level Ice Element mages he had brought along. His instinct to smile died before it could form.
The moment the seal was complete, the eight formation mages had paid their full price: some had collapsed where they stood, drained to the marrow; others lay unconscious where they'd fallen. They were strewn every which way across the courtyard. Had the Flame Enchantress lasted even a moment longer, they would have been the first to go down.
"The Cold Iron Phantom Blade made all the difference," said Jiang Feng, still swathed in white bandages, barely containing her elation.
Without that earlier ambush, bringing down the Flame Enchantress would not have been a simple matter at all.
"I've done my part. The rest is up to you." Shi Gui looked to the couple — Zhao Yulin and Jiang Feng.
Zhao Yulin's gaze moved immediately to Jiang Feng, wrapped from head to toe in white cloth. He was genuinely curious: just what plan did she have for dealing with the Flame Enchantress's Dark Flame? That terrifying Domain would reduce even a High-Level Mage to ash the instant they drew too close.
"Chenying," Jiang Feng said, turning to the woman beside her, "do you remember the Slash Enchanted Gear I gave you — Scorn-Breaker?"
Chenying nodded.
"Scorn-Breaker can amplify the Cold Iron Phantom Blade's frost poison and turn it lethal. Drive it into her body, and she won't be long for this world."