"Okay, let's do this!" Feng Luotian announced. The group moved at once, checking the flow of their Theríon and tightening their grips on their weapons as they prepared to carry out the plan.
Luotian turned to Mei Yue'er, his expression uncharacteristically grave. "Yue'er, can I ask you for a favor?"
"What is it?" Yue'er asked. Her voice was steady, but her pulse quickened under the weight of his gaze.
"Let me borrow every monster core you have on you. I'll return them the moment I get the chance—with interest," he said.
Yue'er's brow furrowed in confusion, but she didn't hesitate for more than a second. She reached into her storage and produced a heavy leather bag, the faint, rhythmic pulse of concentrated energy radiating from within. "Don't worry about the interest," she said, her voice softening. "I wouldn't stoop so low as to demand that from you."
Though she never flaunted her status, as the daughter of the Peacock Lord, her personal reserves were staggering. The bag contained hundreds of monster cores, a shimmering hoard ranging from Six Fangs to Nine Fangs. That single bag held enough wealth to buy a district in the city.
"Hehe, thanks," Luotian chuckled, accepting the bag. He didn't look at the riches; he looked at her with a flash of genuine gratitude.
"What are you planning to do with them?" Sun Wuji asked, his eyes darting between the bag and Luotian's face. "Don't tell me you're planning to refine them here and now to boost your strength?"
"Mhm. Pretty much," Luotian replied flatly.
Yue'er and Wuji exchanged glances of pure bewilderment. Refining even a single core usually took hours of focused meditation in a secure room. Attempting it in the middle of a plateau, under the nose of a Three Talons clone, was beyond madness—it was a death wish.
Suddenly, a voice rang out, sharp and clear, inside each party member's mind: "Sound transmission checked!"
Luotian's lips hadn't moved. The message had traveled through the bridge of their linked Theríon, vibrating against their very souls.
Yue'er sent her thought back: "Checked!"
Wuji: "Checked!"
…
He Chen: "Checked!"
The silent roll call finished in heartbeats.
This method was standard in the cultivation world. By linking their Theríon, the party members created a shared energy network that allowed for silent communication. These mental messages bypassed the ears of outsiders, ensuring their plan remained secret from anyone monitoring the exam.
Through the link, each member could also sense the location and presence of their allies. They could coordinate without keeping everyone in sight, an advantage that would help them act together even amid the confusion of battle.
The only drawback was the range. If a member moved too far from the group, the energy thread would snap and break the connection. However, since the battle was taking place within the limits of the plateau, they didn't need to worry about the link failing. With their communication secured, they were ready to move.
"Okay, everyone's ready?" Luotian's mental voice echoed, now vibrating with the cold authority of a commander.
"Ready!" the team replied in unison.
"Alright! Wuji, Lingxi—give us a good distraction," Luotian instructed, the signal for the operation to begin.
"Leave it to us," Wuji affirmed, his muscles bulging as his Blitz Stone Titan Monkey aura flared to life, grounding him like a mountain.
The team split up. Except for Wuji and Tu Lingxi, the members flashed away to their designated spots. Yue'er moved first, her Aurora Treading Step allowing her to flicker through space; she carried the immobile He Chen, teleporting five hundred meters in a single, silent step to a hiding spot behind the shattered ruins on the western edge of the plateau.
* * *
Sun Wuji turned to Tu Lingxi and gestured. "Shall we?"
"Mhm," Tu Lingxi nodded. She retrieved a sakura petal from her bag, placing it on the ground behind Sun Wuji. Then, stepping onto the petal, she hugged him from behind, her arms wrapping firmly around his waist.
"!!" Wuji froze, his heart pounding as his face turned a deep, unmistakable red.
"What?" Lingxi asked, her head tilting in genuine confusion.
"Nothing," Wuji replied, his voice cracking slightly as he tried to act like a seasoned warrior.
Noticing his rigid posture and the heat radiating from his neck, Lingxi realized the intimacy of the position and blushed just as hard. She lowered her head, hiding her face against his back. "We're just following Big Brother Feng's plan… nothing more," she whispered softly.
"I know," Wuji replied, though his thoughts were in disarray. He had never been this close to a woman before. Mei Yue'er didn't count—she was a sister he had grown up with—but this was different. The closeness stirred feelings that made his stomach flip in a way no monster ever could.
Reminding himself of the ten-minute timer and the weight of the mission, Wuji forced the air into his lungs and regained his focus.
Just then, Feng Luotian's voice rang clearly in their minds: "Everyone is in position. Wuji, Lingxi—please begin."
"Understood!" the two replied in unison, their mental voices much more stable than their physical ones.
With the sakura petal beneath her foot, Lingxi bent her knees. There was no explosion of dirt, no roar of energy—only a quiet, ghostly swish. In an instant, Wuji felt the ground vanish. They were airborne, soaring over 200 meters into the sky. The Void Jump was so silent that not even a bird would have been alerted, let alone the clone below.
Luotian watched from his hiding spot, his eyes narrowing in admiration. "Last time, I didn't get a good look, but her abilities together are truly amazing."
As they reached the peak of their arc, Lingxi retrieved another petal from her bag. Still holding onto Wuji, she placed the petal under her foot in mid-air. With a second Void Jump, they ascended even higher, moving directly into the clone's blind spot—the empty air directly above its head.
Lingxi released her grip on Wuji and used a third petal to hover, maintaining her position like a spirit in the sky. Below her, Wuji began his descent.
As he fell, Wuji channeled his Theríon into his arms, activating Stone Transformation. His limbs didn't just turn to rock; they expanded into massive, house-sized stone knuckles that blocked out the sun. By trading all of his speed for raw, crushing power, his attack and defense stats surged by four times their original limit.
To increase the damage, Wuji activated Avalanche, a skill that strengthened his attack and gave it a chance to stun the target.
BOOM!!
The impact was cataclysmic.
Wuji smashed into the clone and the earth with a sound like the world splitting open. Debris, shattered stone, and dirt erupted in every direction like a volcanic blast, and the entire plateau trembled under the force.
The clone was driven into the dirt, crushed beneath the weight of the stone arms. However, because of the massive gap in cultivation, the stun effect and the damage were gutted. The Three Talons defense acted like a cushion of hardened energy, absorbing the worst of the blow.
Wuji, now completely motionless as he waited for his speed stats to reset, began the slow process of shrinking his arms back to normal.
However, the clone didn't just stay down. It recovered from the stun in less than a heartbeat. Its eyes flared with an ominous, cold light as it stood up from the crater. Ignoring the dust, it lunged toward the immobilized Wuji, its movements faster and more vicious than any attack they had seen so far.
Right before the clone could launch its assault, it was distracted by a rain of sakura petals descending like snow from the sky. Raising its head, the clone spotted Tu Lingxi. She was a blur of white and pink, hopping from one floating petal to another with a speed that defied the heavy pull of the earth.
The falling petals were the result of Thousand Sakura, a Skill Lingxi had activated just as Sun Wuji's impact had clouded the area in dust. With her advanced weapon, the Autumn Creek Tonfa, gripped tightly, she darted through the air. She never stayed on a single petal for more than a heartbeat, making her an elusive, ghostly figure that left the clone's eyes darting back and forth without a clear target.
Once she sensed an opening, Lingxi began circling the clone in a tight, high-speed loop, searching for a gap in its Three Talons defense. The moment she spotted a flicker of weakness, she leaped, swinging her tonfa with enough force to crack bones.
But the clone's reaction speed was a wall of cold steel. It dodged the tonfa by a hair's breadth and retaliated instantly. It threw a simple, straight jab aimed directly at the center of Lingxi's forehead—a strike so fast it seemed to teleport.
Lingxi froze in midair. The fist was coming straight for her forehead, and she realized with a surge of dread that she could not move her limbs quickly enough to avoid it.
Then, a calm, steady voice rang inside her mind: "Lingxi, turn your head to the left twenty centimeters and swing your right tonfa at two o'clock, thirty degrees downward."
Without a second to process the command, Lingxi's body moved on pure instinct, following Feng Luotian's instructions to the millimeter. The clone's hand hissed past her ear, missing by a fraction of an inch. In the same motion, her right tonfa connected. CRACK. She landed a clean, heavy hit right across the clone's jaw.
Not wasting the miracle, Lingxi retreated instantly. She put distance between herself and the enemy before it could recover. She had successfully drawn the "aggro," and the clone's cold focus shifted entirely to her. It charged, its feet tearing up the stone, but the falling petals were her safety net. With a series of precise Void Jumps, she soared higher into the sky, leaving the disoriented clone searching the ground below.
Another voice echoed through the sound transmission: "Brother Wei, it's your turn."
"Okey-dokey!" Wei Ci responded cheerfully.
Thanks to the chaos created by Wuji and Lingxi, the rest of the party had managed to creep within striking distance. Luotian himself had moved within forty-five meters, his Momentum Eyes glowing with a blue light as he tracked the clone's every muscle fiber to guide Lingxi earlier.
The clone, frustrated by the flea in the sky, settled into a low, wide stance. Its energy began to hum with a high-pitched whine. It was the same motion that had erased the fifty-man party—it was preparing the Aurora Slash.
"Everyone, get ready!" Luotian warned.
But before the blade of light could manifest, a holy hymn echoed across the plateau. Golden streaks of light erupted from the ground, weaving themselves into a radiant net that lashed around the clone, binding its limbs and torso to the earth.
The disabling Skill, Gold Lock, held the clone in a vice grip. While the Skill dealt no damage, its duration was immense. Even with the Suppressive Principle eating away at its effectiveness, the seven-level gap couldn't stop the golden chains from pinning the clone for several vital seconds. Wei Ci's other three bodies stood in a triangle, their hands glowing as they prepared to chain-cast the lock to keep the beast caged.
"ATTACK!!" Luotian shouted, his mental voice a thunderclap.
The team erupted. Luotian, Yue'er, Wuji, and Lingxi all surged forward at once, their Skills primed to hit the immobilized target. But one figure rushed ahead of the rest, his sword flashing with a wild, hungry energy that ignored the coordination of the group.
The others halted their dash, shifting their weight to support the headlong charge.
The first to strike was Ying Lizhua.