Chu Mingyao’s flying sword was exceptionally fast.
She specialized in the Path of the Swift Sword. Now that she had reached the Nascent Soul stage and successfully condensed her preliminary Swift Sword Intent, her speed was nothing short of extraordinary. With a sharp whoosh, she vanished, reappearing an instant later with Chu Mingbei above a pitch-black mountain peak.
When her sword came to a sudden halt, Chu Mingbei’s face was deathly pale. He swayed unsteadily atop the blade, and had Chu Mingyao not reacted instantly and caught him, he would have tumbled off and made a complete fool of himself.
Chu Mingyao shook her head helplessly, a trace of a sigh escaping her. “Xiao Bei, you truly need to work harder on your cultivation.”
She could have found plenty of excuses for him— his mediocre talent, a master who didn’t value him, or his lack of resources— but ultimately, cultivation was a personal responsibility. Shouldn’t poor conditions be all the more reason to make up for shortcomings with sheer diligence?
Chu Mingbei finally managed to steady himself. He opened his mouth, ready to offer a pitiful complaint to his eldest senior sister, when a voice filled with laughter caught up from behind.
“Exactly. Xiao Bei, Eldest Senior Sister is right. You really should work harder. When we return to the sect, come train with me at Mingxin Cliff for a while. If you don’t listen, I’ll have Second Senior Brother use you as a test subject for his pills. I’ll even provide the medicinal ingredients myself!”
Arriving shortly after Chu Mingyao, Chu Mingxi had overheard every word. He brought his sword to a halt beside hers, stealing a glance at her with lingering awe.
On the way over, Chu Mingyao hadn’t carried him directly as she had with Chu Mingbei, but she had infused his flying sword with a wisp of her Swift Sword Intent. That single wisp had doubled his speed.
Terrifying, he thought. Since their reunion, Chu Mingyao had done nothing but strike blow after blow to his confidence. He felt a sudden need to vent some of that pressure on Chu Mingbei.
Chu Mingbei muttered sullenly, “Second Senior Brother doesn’t even have time to test pills on me. He’s been far too busy lately!”
Chu Mingxi raised an eyebrow. “Oh? Finding your voice, are you? Don’t want to go to Mingxin Cliff anymore? Let me think…… If Second Senior Brother is too busy, perhaps I should handle your training personally……”
He dragged out the last words, causing Chu Mingbei to shrink back instinctively. Reaching out, he tried to grab Chu Mingyao’s sleeve for protection.
However, the solid surface he was stepping on vanished. Chu Mingyao and her flying sword disappeared from his sight in the blink of an eye. He let out a startled cry, only to be caught disdainfully by the belt and hoisted onto Chu Mingxi’s sword.
“That’s enough!” Chu Mingxi barked. “Don’t forget, it was Eldest Senior Sister who told you to work harder. When we return, you’re coming to Mingxin Cliff. Between the rewards from this mission and the peace of mind of following Eldest Senior Sister, we should have enough resources to cultivate undisturbed until the Dao Discussion Assembly.”
Chu Mingbei froze. “The Dao Discussion Assembly?”
“Yes!” Chu Mingxi knocked him on the head irritably. “Now, hurry up and mount your own sword! Don’t you see Eldest Senior Sister has already entered the mountain? If even one monster slips away, I’ll personally see to it that you practice swordsmanship with her.”
Chu Mingbei didn’t dare utter another word.
He summoned his refined natal flying sword and took flight, putting some distance between himself and Chu Mingxi. The two of them took up positions on opposite sides of the peak. If Chu Mingyao said not a single monster could escape, then they would ensure the perimeter was airtight.
Despite the thick, black mist obstructing his vision, Chu Mingbei could clearly sense the lifeblood of the mountain. There was one singularly powerful aura at the center, surrounded by roughly ten Golden Core monsters. The rest were negligible— mostly a swarm of minor monsters at the Qi Refining stage, with a few Foundation Establishment scattered among them.
Yet, something was wrong with these lesser monsters. They were darting and hopping through the forest, shrieking incessantly. Even though an enemy had clearly arrived and their leader could no longer mask its presence, they seemed obsessed with their frantic, erratic movements.
Chu Mingbei couldn’t make sense of it. He only knew his orders— let nothing pass.
Meanwhile, Chu Mingxi— who spent his spare time studying the intricacies of array formations— had his brows knitted tight. He saw what the others didn’t.
This place was highly unusual.
It wasn’t that the great monster was exceptionally skilled at concealment; rather, the grand formation laid over this mountain peak was a masterwork of aura-hiding. If Chu Mingyao hadn’t led them directly into the formation’s heart, and if he hadn’t been guided by the lingering trace of her sword intent, he might never have found this place at all.
Now that he was physically present, Chu Mingxi could finally confirm the location. This was the mountain range outside Luori Town, situated directly within the intersection of the three realms.
This particular peak lay far from the town, nearly touching the outermost edge of the intersection. For as long as records existed, the Human Realm had remained ignorant of the conditions deep within this no man’s land. Shrouded year-round in an impenetrable black mist, the area was a void of information. Even when monsters or demons escaping the intersection were captured, soul-searching techniques yielded nothing but fragments.
Neither the cultivators, the monsters, nor the demons could determine the paths through the depths, let alone the exact coordinates of the other realms. Because of that, unless a war of total annihilation broke out— where any kill was a victory— no side dared to send a true army through the intersection.
There was also a more chilling deterrent— the place was a mirror of one’s own power. Any living being that entered its depths faced dangers scaled specifically to their own strength. The more powerful the cultivator, the lower their chances of survival. Consequently, those who successfully crossed between realms were usually only of average strength.
That was precisely why the Sword Sect felt comfortable stationing Guan Jingjing— who was only at the mid-Golden Core stage— to defend Luori Town. Even with the promise of quick reinforcements, the truly perilous zones still required a guardian of sufficient caliber to oversee them.
As Chu Mingxi realized that a group of monsters had managed to quietly erect a concealment formation of this scale— one that swallowed an entire mountain peak without alerting the town— his brow furrowed even deeper.
To him, the mid-Nascent Soul monster lurking within the mountain, along with its swarm of subordinates, was far less terrifying than the formation itself. He looked further into the implications. If the disturbances in Danming Village were tied to this array, did it mean the ancient balance of the intersection had finally been shattered? Had the Monster Realm finally grasped the secrets of the mist?
Chu Mingxi’s contemplation was cut short. Within the heart of the mountain, Chu Mingyao had engaged the Nascent Soul monster.
She began with a display of lethal precision, commanding her flying sword to sweep through the area and slaughter every Golden Core subordinate clustered around their leader. The act was a calculated provocation, and it worked flawlessly.
Monsters at the Nascent Soul stage typically possess the ability to take human form. This creature had been masquerading as a man, calmly listening to the rhythmic, shrill cries of the minor monsters echoing through the forest. But as Chu Mingyao ignored the crushing pressure of its mid-Nascent Soul aura and decimated its inner circle, the creature erupted in a fury. It roared, shedding its human skin to reveal its true form— a massive, ferocious tiger— and pounced.
Its claws were heavy enough to shatter boulders, its strikes driven by raw, savage power.
Chu Mingyao let out a cold, sharp laugh. She recalled her flying sword and instead gripped her natal longsword. As the tiger made its thunderous descent, her figure blurred. She shifted just enough to let the savage pounce whistle past her. With a flick of her wrist, she lunged, her blade whistling toward the creature’s flank.
Tonight, this tiger would be her whetstone.
Since breaking through to the Nascent Soul stage and condensing her Swift Sword Intent, she hadn’t yet had the opportunity to test her limits or fully integrate her intent into her techniques. A mid-Nascent Soul monster was the perfect sparring partner— strong enough to survive more than a few strikes, but not so powerful that she couldn’t control the flow of the battle.
She drew her sword fully, and the air seemed to hum.
As Chu Mingyao lost herself in the rhythm of the blade, only the tiger monster suffered. Initially, it had been delighted. Seeing that this human was only at the early Nascent Soul stage and had abandoned long-range advantage to engage in close-quarters combat— the specialty of physical-type monsters— it assumed it would crush her in a single sweep.
It was a fatal miscalculation. The moment Chu Mingyao’s sword was unsheathed, her techniques became an unending, suffocating flow. To the tiger monster, it felt like traversing a treacherous mountain range— just as it thought it had crested a peak and earned a moment’s rest, an even taller, more perilous mountain loomed immediately ahead.
Chu Mingyao’s strikes grew heavier with every breath.
The velocity of her blade far exceeded anything the tiger monster could have imagined. Because it had failed to break her rhythm at the very beginning, the opportunity was lost forever.
At the start of the battle, the monster could retaliate once for every three of Chu Mingyao’s strikes. Soon, she was landing five or six blows for every desperate counter it managed. Before long, it was reduced to frantic dodging— and then, even that became impossible.
The sword pierced through its shoulder with such blinding speed that the monster didn’t even have time to register the pain. Immediately following the pierce, a sword momentum as heavy as a collapsing mountain range crashed down. Every inch of the creature’s flesh and bone was pulverized under the sheer weight of that crushing intent.
And then? Darkness. The tiger monster lost consciousness forever.
Chu Mingyao stood still, her sword trembling slightly as she stared blankly at the heap of bloody pulp that had once been a mid-Nascent Soul powerhouse.
This…… I did this?
She replayed the final strike in her mind. Had she, in the heat of battle, unconsciously perfected a technique that had previously been nothing more than a flickering spark of inspiration?
But if she was shocked, Chu Mingxi and Chu Mingbei— watching from the perimeter— were absolutely staggered.
Was this truly Chu Mingyao’s strength? Was it possible for someone who had just reached the Nascent Soul stage to possess such terrifying, oppressive power?
Had Chu Mingyao been possessed by some ancient, wandering soul? Or was she a reincarnated immortal who had returned to this world to cultivate anew?