The two figures clashed and broke apart in an instant. Blood Wanderer had the edge in raw power, while Shui Die Lan's strength lay in her lightning speed. To slip past her razor-sharp hand strike, Blood Wanderer stepped back. She, in turn, was forced to shed the crushing pressure around her body, her form sliding steadily backward.
At that moment, their eyes locked again.
For some reason, a chill of unease ran through her. But in the rush of combat, how could she have time to grasp why? By instinct, she pushed her protective true breath to a higher pitch. Yet just as it was about to surge, a thread of icy cold stabbed into her waist and spine.
Only then did the roar of the shockwaves from their earlier exchange crash into her ears. That chain of blasts, and the rippling turbulence it caused, had smothered part of her senses, slowing her reaction by a heartbeat.
The cold pierced upward from her back, carving through her spine, tearing past who knew how many organs and meridians, until the blade finally burst out from beneath her ribs.
She looked down in shock at the dark, blackened sword edge. A thought struck her: she had seen a weapon like this before.
The Ghost Crow Sword… Hundred Ghosts!
In a flash, everything fell into place. Fury boiled up inside her, and with a piercing scream she let her true breath explode, ignoring the organs shredded within her body.
Hundred Ghosts let out a ghastly cry and, incredibly, used the same technique he had shown yesterday against Yuan Nan. Crossing his arms before his face and curling his body inward, he shrouded himself in flickering yin flames. A subtle force of dissolution spun out from him, blunting part of the attack.
But Shui Die Lan's erupting waves of true breath came layer upon layer, sharp and relentless. He managed to withstand one, even two surges, but by the third and fourth his body gave way. A chorus of tearing muscles followed, blood spraying as he collapsed to the ground like a heap of mud, his fate uncertain.
Seeing him in that state, the suffocating anger in her chest eased slightly. Yet just then, Blood Wanderer let out a vicious laugh. His crimson sleeves twisted together, releasing a massive pull of suction that struck her in the brief lull between her true breath outbursts.
Her body faltered, the motion tugging at her injuries. Pain ripped through her so sharply her face went pale.
All her life, she had been the one to make others suffer. When had she ever endured such agony herself?
The pain only deepened her hatred, but she knew it clearly: in her condition, a direct clash with Blood Wanderer meant certain death. Gritting her teeth, she forced her escape technique into motion, tearing free of his pull and vaulting into the sky.
Blood Wanderer chuckled coldly, seizing on the ripple of qi flow she had stirred. His body stretched and blurred as he sprang upward in pursuit.
Everyone in the Tongxuan Realm knew of Blood Wanderer's unmatched skill in close combat. And Shui Die Lan knew better than anyone that she could not allow him to draw near.
She drew in a sharp breath and, by sheer force of will, held fast the long sword piercing her body. At the same time she unleashed an exquisite technique, her form flickering more than forty times in the span of a heartbeat, slipping free from Blood Wanderer's relentless qi-lock as if threading the eye of a needle.
But it came at a cost. In that brief moment, she and Blood Wanderer simultaneously manipulated their qi mechanisms. Though there was no direct physical confrontation, they used the void primordial qi as a medium to influence and disrupt each other, throwing one another's blood and energy flow into chaos.
For Blood Wanderer, brimming with qi, it was little more than a ripple. For Shui Die Lan, already wounded, the exchange left her breathing ragged.
She had broken out of his grip, but could not yet pull away to gain true distance.
Blood Wanderer was not about to waste the chance. His wide sleeves swept outward, and the dark sky seemed to fill with a tide of crimson light. The void reeked of blood. With a booming laugh he cried, "Fairy Shui, stay where you are!"
Drenched in that suffocating haze, Shui Die Lan felt her body beginning to stiffen. Even so, her speed was breathtaking. Each flickering sidestep grew faster, her movement reaching a level that defied reason.
It was her way of gathering force, of building momentum to smash through the blood barrier. Though given the current balance, the chance was slim.
By now, Blood Wanderer held complete control.
He no longer chased her across the sky as before. Instead he stood rooted in the void, like some blood-red kraken, visible and invisible tendrils stretching outward as he bent the surrounding flow of primordial qi to his will. With it he wove another vast, intricate net, trapping her within it.
Do I really have to… use that move today?
Shui Die Lan bit down hard on her lip. Just as she hesitated, a shrill scream split the air beside her ears. Her heart jolted. In the chaos she turned her head and saw Gu Pin'er, hair in disarray, kneeling before the barely-breathing Hundred Ghosts, staring in her direction.
Those once bright eyes were now entirely blood-red.
In the next instant, a sword flashed into her hand. The Purple Sun Divine Sword. And she rode it through the void toward them.
Instead of alarm, joy leapt in Shui Die Lan's chest. Heaven itself aids me!
Not far away, Blood Wanderer spat a furious curse. "Worthless woman!"
With a resonant hum, the blood-woven net he had struggled to spin was pierced wide open, melting like snow dropped into boiling soup. Gu Pin'er plunged forward, body and blade as one, her sword-light blazing across the sky as she shot straight toward Shui Die Lan.
Blood Wanderer roared, qi blazing from his hands as he frantically sutured the rift in the net, closing most of the gap in the blink of an eye.
But Gu Pin'er herself was already a deadly disruption.
Her body radiated with Vast, Righteous Qi, the perfect counter to the Blood Demon Heart Transformation Technique. No matter how skilled Blood Wanderer was, he could not, in such a short time, restore his seamless control.
A glimmer lit Shui Die Lan's eyes as she fixed on Gu Pin'er's unrelenting sword strike. The blazing sword-light, like a rising sun, was already upon her chest when she suddenly smiled. Her body seemed to dissolve under its radiance, scattering like smoke in the wind.
Blood Wanderer roared again, fingers clawing wide before snapping shut, but the rift he had torn open could not be mended. Shui Die Lan's body, insubstantial as mist, slipped through the narrow gap. And even had the leisure to glance back at Blood Wanderer's face.
Their gazes met. His blood-red eyes, wild with fury a heartbeat before, suddenly cleared as if dust had been swept away by a breeze. At the corner of his lips lingered the faintest smile.
Tricked!
An icy dread surged through her heart.
But colder still was the world around her. In the space of a blink, the air that had been swirling with motion seemed to vanish. She felt as though she had hurled herself headlong into an ancient, fathomless ice cavern, where a shrieking wind froze everything in its path.
In Shui Die Lan's wide, stunned eyes, a tall, slender figure appeared. The person was wrapped in a black robe, their whole body shrouded in a haze of shadow. Yet nothing could veil those piercing, ice-cold eyes.
The figure stood squarely in her path, one hand outstretched. Though draped in black, that hand was as pure and flawless as snow that had lain unmelting on a mountain peak for centuries.
Beneath the darkened sky it shone with startling beauty. Yet from it radiated a killing intent so cold it seemed to freeze the very blood.
A Nethermyst Puppet? But that means… Hundred Ghosts, you ruthless bastard! In an instant Shui Die Lan understood why Hundred Ghosts had refused to use the puppet to save himself moments before.
But that heartbeat of realization was all it took. The stranger's fingertips were already nearly brushing against her chest, aimed at her heart.
In the flash of a spark, Shui Die Lan made her choice.
Her jewel-dark eyes shifted, suddenly burning with a beautiful and otherworldly ice-blue light. The wound torn open by the sword split wider, and under the surging of her qi and blood, a mist of scarlet burst into the air. Yet her speed did not falter in the least; with an impossible twist of her body, she shot off at a new angle.
The stranger's slender fingers grazed her chest. They caught only her clothing, but even that was enough. A bone-deep chill pierced through her body, and in an instant a thin layer of frost crept across her skin.
Her qi and blood turned against themselves, and she coughed up a mouthful of blood. Even as it left her lips, it froze into shards of crimson ice, proof of the ruthless, overwhelming cold that had invaded her.
In that single moment of contact, she understood: the one before her was a master no less fearsome than Blood Wanderer himself.
Who was it?