66: breakthrough

When White Fox Jiu retreated to the edge of the mirror surface, the taste of blood still lingered in her mouth.

She slumped onto the ground, her left hand supporting herself against the mirror surface and her right hand pressing against her chest.

Her blood and Qi were churning violently, and every breath brought a jolt of pain.

Bai Ci supported her, worry written across her face.

"Master, are you alright?"

White Fox Jiu gritted her teeth.

She looked at Yan Qingning and Ao Shuo, who were in the heat of battle, and said in a fierce tone:

"It's about time that bitch... suffered a little."

I was also just watching.

She had certainly learned how formidable Ao Shuo was; this was by no means a mere remnant of a soul's consciousness.

This was the manifestation of Laws.

Even Yan Qingning wouldn't be able to gain an advantage against it.

She wanted to see if Yan Qingning could still maintain her composure once her strength was exhausted.

Bai Ci didn't respond.

She simply watched the two beams of light clashing frantically upon the mirror surface.

One was golden, overbearing and blazing; every collision carried a roar like a dragon's cry.

The other was ice-blue, cold and sharp, freezing the very air into fine ice crystals wherever it passed.

The clash between the two lights lacked any technique; it was a pure contest of power.

With every impact, the mirror surface beneath their feet shuddered.

"Still so strong even after death," Bai Ci murmured. "Ancient Cultivators... are truly terrifying."

"Hmph."

White Fox Jiu spat out a mouthful of bloody saliva. "If she weren't relying on this world, I could crush her with a single hand."

Her words were harsh, but they were the truth.

Ao Shuo's original strength had long since vanished; the reason she could still possess such tyrannical power was entirely due to her absorbing the Origin of this Small World.

"Master," Bai Ci suddenly lowered her voice, "what if Yan Qingning can't defeat her?"

White Fox Jiu remained silent for a moment.

She fished a Talisman out of her Storage Pouch.

The Talisman was azure and about the size of a palm; its surface glowed with a gentle green light, and an extremely complex rune was drawn upon it in cinnabar.

The rune flowed slowly across the paper as if it were alive.

"This is?" Bai Ci asked in confusion.

"This is the Future Clear Sky Talisman," White Fox Jiu said, her fingers lightly stroking the surface of the Talisman.

"It can ignore the restrictions of any Magical Artifact, Formation, or Law, directly tearing open a spatial rift to transport us thousands of miles in an instant."

Her voice turned cold:

"The moment that bitch shows even a hint of failing to hold on..."

"Heh heh!"

"I wouldn't mind helping that Wild Ghost kill Yan Qingning."

She looked up, her gaze falling upon the man standing in the shadow of a rib in the distance.

"Bai Ci, when the time comes, you go and kill that man."

Bai Ci's whole body shuddered.

"We'll flee as soon as he's dead," White Fox Jiu continued. "Yan Qingning will surely be distracted then... I want to ensure she can never escape this death trap."

Bai Ci followed her gaze.

Jiang Xun was still standing there.

He leaned against a massive rib, his entire body almost hidden in the shadows.

The mask on his face flickered in the light and shadow of the battle. He stood very straight with his hands at his sides, showing no sign of tension or fear.

Like an outsider.

Bai Ci swallowed hard and nodded. "Then are we not taking the three lives mirror?"

White Fox Jiu clenched her fingers; she wasn't reconciled to it either, but there was no other way.

This Ao Shuo was too strong.

"It's fine, we already know the method to enter the Cangwu Secret Realm."

White Fox Jiu's golden pupils scanned the surroundings as she said in a low voice:

"Besides, this Small World is on the verge of collapsing, so that Wild Ghost's strength won't last much longer.

Once I Cultivate for another thousand years, as our strengths shift, I don't believe I could still lose to a mere Wild Ghost like her."

White Fox Jiu wrinkled her nose fiercely, looking like a true fox.

Blood dripped from the corner of her mouth.

Since entering the Soul Transformation realm, how long had it been since she had suffered such a severe injury?

Important fragments of memory began to flash involuntarily through her mind.

She suddenly remembered what that scholar had said to her:

"What is a married couple? A couple is two people going from black hair to white, walking hand in hand, sharing a quilt in life and a coffin in death, never betraying one another..."

"Heh!"

White Fox Jiu chuckled lightly, as if mocking herself.

She had already waited a thousand years; was she afraid of waiting another thousand?

And she was willing to wait.

Simply because... this hatred was hard to dispel, hard to end, and impossible to forget.

Jiang Xun did indeed seem like an outsider at this moment.

But internally, he was far from as calm as he appeared on the surface.

He watched the battle in the center of the mirror surface—or rather, he watched Yan Qingning.

This woman... was ridiculously strong.

One must realize that she hadn't even reached the Ascension Realm yet.

According to the cultivation system of this world, the gap between Void Tempering and Immortal Ascension was a natural chasm; countless brilliant Cultivators were stuck there for centuries or millennia, eventually dying with regret.

But what about Yan Qingning?

With only a cultivation at the Peak of Void Tempering, she not only dared to clash head-on with Ao Shuo, who was already in the Ascension Realm, but she wasn't even at a disadvantage?

Jiang Xun narrowed his eyes.

He even felt that she hadn't used her full strength yet.

The specific details of the exchange on the mirror surface were no longer visible.

There were only two beams of light frantically clashing, entangling, separating, and clashing again.

Every collision exploded with a visible shockwave; these shockwaves swept across the mirror surface, plowing new furrows into the already cracked ground.

There were dragon roars.

There were also bird cries.

They were clear, high-pitched cries carrying an icy aura, resembling the legendary sound of a Phoenix.

Jiang Xun knew that those were the sounds emitted by the Ice Phoenix Dao Body when Yan Qingning pushed her Cultivation Technique to the limit.

Suddenly!

Yan Qingning's figure appeared after another collision.

She landed on the mirror surface, about dozens of yards away from Jiang Xun.

The two stood facing each other.

And Ao Shuo stood right between them.

Yan Qingning's robes were torn in several places; the fabric on her left shoulder was ripped open, revealing the snow-white skin beneath.

There was a faint red mark on her skin, healing at a rate visible to the naked eye.

She was panting.

Her breathing was heavy, and her chest rose and fell slightly.

The hand holding her sword trembled slightly; Jiang Xun saw a bit of blood seeping from the web of her thumb and index finger.

He also looked at the same spot on his own hand; it was bleeding too, but the wound was healing rapidly.

It was because Yan Qingning feared he wouldn't be able to endure it, so she had been suppressing the physical damage.

Otherwise, Jiang Xun would have died from the sheer pain.

Yan Qingning spoke, her voice carrying a hint of a smile. "I really did underestimate you."

Ao Shuo also revealed her form.

She hovered in mid-air, her halberd pointing diagonally toward the ground.

There were several ice-blue frost marks on her golden skirt armor; those marks were slowly spreading, but they were quickly dispelled by the golden light surging around her.

"As long as you are still in this Secret Realm," Ao Shuo said coldly, "it is impossible for you to defeat me."

"True," Yan Qingning nodded calmly. "But if I just destroy this Secret Realm... wouldn't that work?"

The moment those words fell.

The aura around her changed.

Like a volcano suppressed for ten million years, it had finally reached the critical point of eruption.

The air around her began to warp, and the mirror surface beneath her feet made an overburdened "crack" sound as fissures spread frantically outward from her!

Ice-blue spiritual light surged from her body.

Like a bursting dam, it instantly swept across the entire mirror surface!

Wherever the spiritual light passed, everything began to freeze.

The air froze into fine ice crystals, the mirror surface froze into thick layers of ice, and even the ashes falling from the sky condensed into ice pellets the moment they touched the spiritual light, clattering down.

Bai Ci felt a chill on her shoulder.

She turned her head and saw a snowflake landing on her shoulder.

The snowflake was hexagonal, pure white and crystalline, glowing softly under the dim sky.

"It's snowing?" she murmured.

She reached out to catch another snowflake, only to discover that the cold aura it emitted was extremely frigid, far beyond what any ordinary snowflake could compare to.

Furthermore, this wasn't snow formed from condensed cold air.

It was real snow falling from the sky.

Was this world responding to Yan Qingning's Law?!

The cold air erupting from Yan Qingning instantly froze the moisture in the air, forming fine ice shards that drifted down from the sky along with the black ash.

But this was limited to her immediate vicinity.

However, the scope of this snowfall was much wider and larger.

White and black.

Ice and ash.

A bizarre and magnificent spectacle.

White Fox Jiu suddenly stood up.

She stared at the figure enveloped in ice-blue spiritual light on the distant mirror surface, her pupils contracting violently.

"She's about to break through."

"Now?" Bai Ci asked in surprise.

"Shouldn't there be a Heavenly Tribulation or something?"

"She's betting that the Heavenly Tribulation won't be able to strike here."

White Fox Jiu said through gritted teeth, her fingers tightly clutching the Future Clear Sky Talisman.

"It looks like I won't have to wait a thousand years."

Yan Qingning looked up toward the sky.

The deep black vault of heaven was now reflected in a shade of ice-blue by the spiritual light erupting from her.

The falling ice shards and ash were rising, ascending into the deep space of the Universe and forming a massive vortex above her head. The vortex rotated slowly, its center growing deeper and darker.

The atmospheric pressure began to increase.

It felt as if something was forming within it, yet it was just a bit short.

Lightning flashed frantically within the vortex.

But it stubbornly refused to fall.

"This place..."

Yan Qingning said softly, her voice carrying a strange sense of satisfaction, "as expected, it is outside the scope of the Heavenly Dao's Laws."

Ao Shuo stared at her, a solemn expression appearing in her blue pupils for the first time.

"Your heart's delusion remains unbroken," she said deeply. "Are you not afraid of... having your mind consumed once you leave?"

"Heart's delusion?" Yan Qingning laughed.

"My heart's delusion is about to run away!"

Her gaze bypassed Ao Shuo and looked straight at Jiang Xun in the distance.

Across a distance of hundreds of feet, through the falling ice and ash, her gaze landed unerringly on the mask on Jiang Xun's face.

His expression was invisible.

Yan Qingning felt bitterness and grievance in her heart.

From the moment Ao Shuo appeared, she had felt a hint of anticipation in her heart.

It was an emotion coming from Jiang Xun.

What was he anticipating?

That I would die here?

"Is this your plan?" she spoke, her voice not loud.

As if talking to herself.

"To use a more powerful existence... to suppress me?"

Jiang Xun stood still.

The face beneath the mask held no expression.

Yan Qingning looked at him.

Then she smiled.

It wasn't a cold laugh or a sneer.

It was a very complex smile, filled with bitterness, self-mockery, and a kind of tenderness that bordered on despair.

"You really..." she said softly, like a murmur, with a hint of dejection, "don't care for me at all."

The moment her voice fell.

She vanished.

It wasn't just speed; she completely disappeared from where she stood. In the next instant, she appeared right above Ao Shuo!

Ao Shuo's pupils shrank suddenly!

She abruptly raised her halberd, blocking horizontally above her head.

*Clang!!!*

The ice-blue longsword slammed heavily against the shaft of the halberd!

The force of this strike was heavier than any before! So heavy that Ao Shuo was forced down onto one knee!

The mirror surface beneath them exploded with a boom, forming a massive crater as cracks spread frantically like a spiderweb!

A blast of air exploded outward with the two of them at the center!

It swept outward like a tsunami!

White Fox Jiu and Bai Ci were knocked off balance by the blast; by the time they managed to steady themselves, their blood and Qi were churning.

As for Jiang Xun... he stood in the shadow of the rib, and when the blast swept past him, it was deflected by an invisible force.

It was Yan Qingning's power.

Even at a time like this, she was still protecting him.

"Why..."

Yan Qingning's voice remained clear amidst the roar of the air blast:

"Why must you always think of leaving me?"

"Am I not beautiful?"

"Do I not obey you?"

"Or is what I give you still not enough?"

Yan Qingning seemed to be venting the pent-up frustration in her heart, each sword strike more piercing and terrifying than the last... Ao Shuo roared, and the golden light around her body surged! She violently threw Yan Qingning off and swept her halberd horizontally.

"Roar!!"

A golden dragon, larger and more solid than before, roared out from the tip of the halberd! The dragon was dozens of yards long, each of its scales gleaming with a metallic luster, its claws tearing through the air as it lunged straight at Yan Qingning!

Yan Qingning didn't dodge.

She simply thrust her sword forward.

The tip of the sword aimed right at the dragon's head.

The golden dragon crashed into her—no, it passed right through.

Starting from the sword's tip, it flowed along the blade, through Yan Qingning's arm, through her body, and erupted from her back!

The entire process was so fast it seemed like an illusion.

Once the golden dragon had completely passed through Yan Qingning's body and reached ten yards away.

Yan Qingning's wrist gave a slight flick.

The blade of the sword shuddered.

*Crack.*

A very soft sound.

Then, the dozens-of-yards-long golden dragon froze solid from head to tail, inch by inch!

The golden dragon's body was instantly covered in a thick layer of ice, which then exploded from within, shattering the entire dragon into countless ice-blue fragments!

The fragments scattered in the air, turning into a fine icy mist before they even hit the ground.

And Yan Qingning... she stood where she was, her sword still pointing forward.

A trickle of blood slowly overflowed from the corner of her mouth.

But she was smiling.

Smiling very happily.

She continued her monologue: "Or... is it that you love someone else?"

The light-blue robes Yan Qingning wore began to gradually dissipate—first the sleeves on her hands, then the collar, and then the hem.

All of it had been blasted into shreds by the terrifying power of the golden dragon.

But for every inch of fabric that shattered, a layer of ice crystals quickly covered her.

By the time she was fully covered, Yan Qingning had changed into a new set of clothes.

It was a wedding robe made of ice and snow.

A Phoenix crown and a ceremonial robe.

But it was white, interspersed with some ice-blue.

Pure and beautiful.

Ao Shuo frowned and spoke, "To advance to the God Realm with such obsession, you will surely fall into the Nine Nether Profound Mysteries."

Yan Qingning paid no heed, merely speaking to herself.

"Brother Jiang, whatever you hope for, I will tear it apart with my own hands."

"I will make you clearly understand that I will never again watch you leave with my eyes wide open."

The hongmeng fish pendant at Yan Qingning's waist began to flash frantically with green light.

The aura of her sword grew even colder.

Ao Shuo was speechless; she didn't know who the person Yan Qingning was talking about was, but she knew this human had become even more troublesome.

If it hadn't been for that person a thousand years ago—who hadn't come just once, but over a dozen times, causing her to drain the Origin of the Cangwu world so severely.

Why would she need to be so cautious and hesitant?

Otherwise, she wouldn't have needed to test her at first and slowly increase her strength.

This world originally could have grown a few trees, but now even grass couldn't grow.

Ao Shuo looked at this savage and desolate world.

She suddenly felt it was pointless.

She looked at Yan Qingning. "Human, do you not want the three lives mirror? I can lend it to you, as long as you promise..."

Before Ao Shuo could finish her sentence, the shuang hua sword appeared before her eyes.

Yan Qingning said coldly, "If I don't kill you, how can he let go of his fantasies and stay by my side obediently?"