Night had fallen by the time they finally approached their destination. Through the thin mist rising around them, Alexei saw his first major city since arriving in this world. And "major" didn't quite capture it.
The city below was massive, an ocean of lights stretching to the horizon in every direction. Not the multicolored neon of modern cities, but a softer glow: warm yellow lights, with occasional white ones scattered like stars.
From their current altitude, he still couldn't see the city's edges.
"That's Verdantree City," Qingxue said, not waiting for him to ask. "The closest major settlement to our sect. It's one of only two cities in the Aurelon Dynasty where cultivators are openly welcomed. Third largest in the kingdom, actually. Verdantree serves as a hub for countless sects of all sizes. The Aureate Summit Sect is just one of many scattered through these mountains."
"And they let cultivators fly through on swords? No airspace restrictions?"
"None. It's quite convenient." Qingxue smiled slightly. "If we have time later, I could take you down to explore properly. The markets are interesting, if you know where to look."
They continued flying over the city, and Alexei noticed something odd: despite how many sects supposedly operated in the area, they hadn't encountered a single other person on a flying sword. Not one. In fact, now that he thought about it, they hadn't seen any other sword-riders during the entire five-day journey.
Qingxue must've noticed his confused expression. "You're wondering about the lack of traffic."
"Little bit, yeah."
"The Eastern Territories has thin spiritual energy," she explained. "Long-distance sword flight burns through qi faster than most cultivators can replenish it. Plus, good flying swords are expensive. Most people can't afford quality equipment. Technically, any cultivator at Foundation Establishment can learn sword-riding. But maintaining flight for extended periods requires at least Core Formation realm. And in the Eastern Territories, most cultivators never break past Qi Refining or Foundation Establishment. Core Formation and above are rare. So sword-riders are uncommon."
Alexei processed this. Qingxue was at Dharma Aspect realm, several major stages beyond what most cultivators in this region achieved. No wonder she'd been so confident about protecting him. She was probably one of the most powerful people in a thousand-kilometer radius.
"We're about fifty kilometers out from the sect now," Qingxue said, and Alexei caught the subtle shift in her tone.
The landscape below had changed dramatically. Gone were the plains and forests. Now jagged mountain peaks pierced through seas of clouds, their slopes steep and dramatic in a way that screamed "cultivation sect headquarters."
"Now that's what I'm talking about," Alexei muttered.
Qingxue smiled. "I remember having the same expression when I first flew here as a child. Master said I wouldn't stop gawking the entire trip."
They continued flying for another twenty kilometers or so. Then Qingxue's expression shifted. Her smile vanished. The sword stopped moving forward, hovering in place.
"What's wrong?" Alexei asked.
"Someone's coming." Her voice had gone cold.
Alexei followed her gaze and spotted a figure in the distance, riding what looked like a cloud of grey mist. The cultivation equivalent of pollution, basically. As the figure got closer, he could make out more details: a young man, maybe mid-twenties, dressed in expensive robes that contrasted sharply with his sickly appearance.
"You're from the Ghost Sect," Qingxue said.
The young man didn't respond immediately. His eyes were busy doing a slow, invasive scan up and down Qingxue's body. When the creep's gaze finally landed on Alexei, still holding onto Qingxue's waist for stability, something shifted in his expression. Then his attention snapped back to Qingxue, and the hunger in his eyes intensified.
Alexei's internal alarm bells were screaming. This guy was bad news wrapped in red flags and dipped in warning signs. Qingxue's spiritual energy spiked, he could feel it like static electricity building before a lightning strike. Frost started forming in the air around her.
"Stay close," she said quietly.
Then she dove.
The sword shot downward, the wind howling past them despite the spiritual energy barrier. The creepy young man followed, riding his pollution cloud in pursuit. They landed in a clearing surrounded by trees. Qingxue grabbed Alexei by the back of his collar and set him down on solid ground.
"Wait here with Bessie. I'll be right back."
Alexei untied the lead rope from the sword, letting Bessie drop to the ground with an indignant moo. "Do you need help?"
Qingxue's expression softened slightly at that. She reached out and ruffled his hair like he was a kid. "I appreciate the offer. But I'll handle it."
Before he could respond, she was gone, launching herself back into the air as a streak of white light, sword already drawn.
He stood there with a mushroom cow, watching two cultivators square off a few hundred meters overhead.
---
High above...
Ming Heng's mind was trying to reconcile what he was seeing with what his grandfather had told him. The old man had said the half-demon was heavily injured. Less than ten percent of her former strength. She'd be easy prey.
This woman launched herself into the air like a goddamn missile and was currently closing the distance between them at speeds that suggested "injured" was a very relative term.
Her first sword strike came fast. He barely managed to dodge, throwing himself sideways as the attack tore through his grey mist claws. The second strike came before he'd finished dodging the first. Qingxue was on him, moving with the kind of speed that only came from being several realms above your opponent.
One hundred meters.
Fifty meters.
Twenty.
She raised her sword for a finishing blow.
Heng's survival instincts overrode his pride and lust in an instant. He screamed, "I'm the grandson of the Seventh Elder of the Ghost Sect! Kill me and my family will hunt you to the ends of the earth! They'll destroy your sect! Burn your..."
His voice was shrill. High-pitched and nasal, lacking any of the commanding presence he was trying to project.
From the ground, Alexei heard that voice and grimaced. "Blyat... No wonder he didn't talk before. That's like nails on a chalkboard."
Qingxue hesitated for half a second, not out of fear, but pure surprise at how awful that voice sounded. Heng saw the hesitation and his expression shifted to smug satisfaction. He opened his mouth to continue threatening her.
The sword strike took him across the waist.
For a moment, nothing seemed to happen. His eyes went wide. He looked down at his torso, still intact. Then the top half of his body started to slide sideways.
Only a thin layer of ice was holding his upper and lower body together. His brain was finally catching up to the fact that he'd just been bisected.
"Fucking bitch!" he managed to choke out.
Three more sword strikes followed in rapid succession.
Slash-slash-slash.
The ice shattered. Heng's lower half crumpled to the ground. His upper body started to fall. Then grey mist burst forth from Heng's body. The mist was thick and putrid. His physical form convulsed violently. The corpse fell in pieces toward the forest below.
Qingxue sent several more sword strikes after it, shredding the body into chunks just to be thorough. But the grey mist had already coalesced into a new form: a vaguely humanoid shape made entirely of that foul spiritual energy.
"Grey Mist transformation," she muttered. "I should've expected that."
The wraith that had been Heng let out something between a laugh and a shriek. No more physical body meant no more physical pleasures. All he had left was hatred. And the half-demon in front of him made an excellent target for that hatred.
---
On the ground...
Alexei watched the fight. Qingxue made combat look effortless. The creepy young man, by contrast, fought like someone who'd bought his way through cultivation. Sloppy techniques, predictable patterns.
When Qingxue cut him in half, Alexei felt a bit relieved. One less creep in the world was always a good thing. Then the mist erupted and reformed into that wraith-thing, and his relief turned to unease.
"That's not good," he said to Bessie, who was eating grass and giving zero shits about the aerial combat happening overhead.
The wraith sent a barrage of attacks at Qingxue, filling the air like a cloud of angry wasps. Qingxue deflected them easily.
"Those attacks are too weak," he muttered. "He's not even trying to hit her. Is he..."
The wraith shifted position suddenly. And he realized what was happening. The attacks had been a feint. Because the wraith wasn't trying to fight Qingxue. It was using her own position against her, keeping itself aligned between her and Alexei so she couldn't attack without risk of hitting him with a stray strike.
And now it was diving straight toward him.
Qingxue realized the deception a second later. "No!"
She pivoted mid-air and chased after the wraith. But sword-flight was her only aerial movement technique, and it required the sword itself for maximum speed. Changing direction cost precious seconds.
The wraith sent out another burst of grey energy heading directly for Alexei. A second wraith-form split off from the main body, smaller but just as fast, closing the remaining distance. Less than a thousand meters separated them now.
The wraith's voice echoed across the clearing:
"Since I can't have my pleasures, I'll take yours instead! I'll drag this one back to the sect!"
---
Qingxue watched the wraith closing in on Alexei below and felt something cold and sharp twist in her chest.
There wasn't time to think or plan, only time to act.
Spiritual energy exploded out of her body in a torrent. Her meridians immediately protested, hairline cracks forming as the sudden surge of power tore through channels that weren't ready for this kind of abuse.
She tasted blood. She had bitten through her lip without realizing it. None of that mattered. Since her master's death, she had been adrift, going through the motions of cultivation without understanding why. She raised her realm step by step, like climbing stairs in the dark, never seeing where they led.
The stronger she got, the more hollow it felt.
She'd tried traveling and finding purpose in the outside world. But everything came too easily. Resources appeared when needed, problems resolved themselves, and obstacles disappeared before she could face them. She became too comfortable and complacent. In doing so, she let her guard down in a world that had never earned her trust.
When she'd been gravely injured during the tribulation, part of her had welcomed it. She had chosen self-destruction without hesitation, because at least that would be an ending.
Then that silver-haired figure had appeared in her fading vision. Alexei was like sunlight cutting through fog, pulling her back from the edge, returning color to a world that had gone gray. He'd given her cultivation purpose again. Now he was both her greatest treasure and her most vulnerable weakness. And some dead bastard was about to put his filthy spiritual hands on him.
The wraith must've sensed her approach because thirty percent of its form suddenly split off, condensing into a trapping formation meant to slow her down. It wouldn't hold long. The wraith knew that. But even one more second meant victory.
All it had to do was grab the kid as a hostage before she arrived.
Twenty meters.
Ten meters.
Five meters.
The wraith's formless body vibrated with excitement. So close. Just a bit closer and...
---
Alexei quickly crafted a crafting table, then an iron sword and shield. He had planned to make armor too, but there wasn't time.
"Come on then," he muttered, raising the sword overhead with both hands.
The wraith saw the kid's stance and almost laughed. How adorable. This child thought a normal weapon could hurt spiritual energy. Time to teach him about the terror of the Ghost Sect.
Instead of dodging, the wraith accelerated, rushing forward to meet that sword strike head-on. It wanted to see the look on the kid's face when the blade passed through harmlessly. It spread its arms wide, as if going in for a hug.
WHAM.
The iron sword, looking clumsy and off-balance in Alexei's grip, connected with the wraith's face. The impact drove the wraith's head straight into its chest cavity. Its high-speed charge reversed instantly, and it slammed into the ground, leaving an impact crater in the grass.
Alexei staggered backward three steps from the recoil, barely keeping his footing.
"Fuck you!" He swung the sword in a loop, raising it overhead again. "Take another one!"
The wraith was still trying to process what had just happened.
It got... hit?
How?
That single strike had destroyed over forty percent of its divine soul. The Gray Mist technique was supposed to be invincible in the Eastern Territories. Blades, swords, sword qi, none of it could touch spiritual energy. Only spells and divine abilities could cause any real damage, and even those never touched the core.
That myth had just been shattered by a teenager with an iron sword. And for the first time since transforming into this wraith form, the thing that had been Heng felt terror. It could die. It was going to die. If it stayed here, it would die.
The sword came down again.
At the last second, the wraith shifted, launching a strand of gray mist upward as a decoy while trying to swap positions through some kind of displacement technique.
It dodged.
Or... mostly dodged.
The sword missed the main body but caught a trailing wisp of mist that hadn't quite pulled away in time.
SLAM.
The physics-defying weight of the sword treated that wisp like solid matter, smashing it back into the ground. The wraith's divine soul, already reduced to below sixty percent, dropped another forty percent in an instant. Less than twenty percent remained. Any lower and it would cease to exist.
It stared up at the sword being raised again and saw death itself. It still had so much left to do. It was supposed to inherit the Ming family headship. It was a genius, carefully cultivated with preferential resources and...
"MOVE!" it screamed silently at its own unresponsive form. "MOVE, DAMN IT!"
But damage to the divine soul was damage to consciousness itself. Control was sluggish. Like trying to run through waist-deep mud.
"You can't kill me! I'm from the Ghost Sect! My grandfather will—"
CRUNCH.
The sword came down again.
The wraith shattered into mist and light, green and yellow orbs bursting outward like sparks from a firework. Experience orbs swirled around Alexei in a miniature tornado, each one racing toward him and absorbing on contact.
"That guy was actually worth something," he muttered, watching the lightshow.
For a moment, he just stood there, sword still raised, trying to process what had just happened. He'd killed a cultivator. Well, killed a wraith. Which had been a cultivator. Same difference, probably. And it had been... easy?
He lowered the sword, let it dissolve back into his inventory, and looked up to find Qingxue. Arms wrapped around him from above. A familiar scent filled his nose. Her hands were trembling. And he felt something warm and wet hit the back of his neck.
Was she... crying?
"Uh," he managed, which was all he could manage.
After a beat, he said, "I'm fine. You can... maybe loosen up a bit? It's becoming difficult to breathe here."
She released him immediately, stepping back with a startled expression. When he looked up, he saw her eyes rimmed red, tears still caught in her eyelashes, but wearing a smile that came straight from her heart. Also, her fox ears were visible, twitching slightly.
"Your ears," he pointed out.
"What?" She reached up, touched one, and her eyes went wide. "Oh no—"
"It's fine, there's no one else around." He gestured at the empty clearing. "Though you might want to fix whatever makes them invisible before we get to the sect."
She nodded, still looking slightly dazed. She took several deep breaths, focusing inward, trying to retract the fox features. It should've been automatic. The concealment artifact was supposed to handle this passively. But the sudden massive surge of spiritual energy earlier must've disrupted its internal formations, weakening the hiding effect significantly. She sorted through the chaotic energy patterns, rebuilding the inscription circuits piece by piece.
It took longer than it should have.
"Finally," she muttered, the ears and tail fading from view.
They stood in the quiet clearing for a moment, Bessie peacefully grazing nearby.
"Moo~"