CHAPTER 228: ABSOLUTE DOMINATION [2]

After cutting down the fallen disciples, Yu Xuan drifted towards another area where he detected a group fight taking place.

He moved like a shadow and arrived just in time to see what the others had already seen: a woman backed against an invisible wall of swords.

She held a zither in her hands — delicate, lacquered, the strings taut like a trap. White hair framed slightly pointed ears; her eyes were pupil-less and moon-bleached, giving her an otherworldly, unreadable expression.

Around her nine disciples circled, blades gleaming, voices full of the cruel amusement of a pack.

"Kill her," snapped one. "Be careful, she uses soul-attacks."

"Tsk. If my cultivation weren’t sealed I’d have cut you in half first," another taunted, stepping forward with a swaggering blade.

Luo Xianyin, smiled without humor. Her fingers brushed the zither strings.

Music spilled out, soft and impossible, like moonlight on water.

The sound knotted itself into patterns; even those disciples hidden in the back felt it, pressure their chests. She played as if playing were an act of war.

"Fellow daoist," she said in a voice threaded with melody, "do you honestly think I won’t hear you plotting with your friends?"

Nine blades rose at once; the formation tightened, a dome of sword-qi encasing her.

"Earth Killing Formation!" they chanted.

Swords launched, converging to pierce her from all sides.

Luo Xianyin’s figure shimmered. For a heartbeat the plan seemed to work — then one of the cocky braggarts who’d shouted "kill" had his laugh cut off as his head separated from his shoulders in a grotesque, instantaneous spray of red.

His expression was still that of a laugh.

She then materialized behind him, blood-slick strings wrapped around her fingertips. Her zither had become a weapon; the music had been the blade.

Shock slammed through the remaining attackers. The disciples who’d thought to swarm her now hesitated, fear sharpening where arrogance had been.

Then spears cleaved the air.

Not not thrown by visible arms — countless spearheads, blades wrapped in a dark red hue, dropped like meteors into the circle. They found hearts, necks, skulls: no scream long enough, no chance to dodge. The attackers collapsed, one by one, lifeless.

Even those hidden behind were not spared form this.

A single spear flew wide and nicked Luo Xianyin’s arm; the zither snapped, strings snapping like thin wires, and blood arced across her pale sleeve.

She staggered, chest heaving, wounded and suddenly very human.

Where the spear had embedded itself in the earth, a crimson blade now stood upright.

From above a figure landed on that sword, calm as a god descending.

Dust spiraled away; his white robes were stained with old blood, his eyes were black and white. He looked bored. Handsome and dangerous.

"Who are you?" Luo Xianyin asked, voice hoarse but not pleading.

She’d never seen this face in the sect.

Yu Xuan’s gaze slid over the battlefield — over the broken strings, the fallen, the stunned onlookers.

"I thought this would kill all of you," he said flatly, the black-and-white intensity in his eyes flickering.

"You’re slightly stronger than the mediocrities I cut down. Honestly that’s rare — I’ll spare you for it, but what can you give me?"

Luo Xianyin’s jaw tightened.

"Why would you spare me? Only one of us will remain in the end."

"A fair point." Yu Xuan’s lips quirked.

"I am Yu Xuan and you, survive until I meet you again."

Saying this Yu Xuan rose in air.

In an instant the spears that had fallen earlier reassembled into a spinning ring behind him, a deadly chakram. It circled, humming with restrained power; the survivors, there were none just leaving Luo Xianyin.

Luo Xianyin collapsed to her knees, the weight of the encounter pressing into her bones. Her pride had kept her upright; now she found fear where confidence had been, because of such an easy defeat.

"What was that... monster?" she whispered, her voice trembling, pupils dilated as the last echo of Yu Xuan’s presence faded into the air.

"Who would have thought the sect was hiding such a being?" she murmured again, half in awe, half in dread.

The scene replayed in her mind, the blood-stained white robes, the detached gaze that seemed to look through life and death alike.

But another thought quickly surfaced. Those disciples... they were all from the Martial Heaven Peak.

Her jaw tightened.

"I need allies," she muttered under her breath.

Finding reliable support would now become her top priority. If she were to encounter Yu Xuan again, there was no guarantee that mercy would be shown a second time.

’Even the protective talismans didn’t work...’ she thought grimly. When she had tried to activate her defensive charms earlier, an invisible force had nullified them.

"First, I should tend to my wounds,"

From her storage ring, she retrieved a few lustrous healing pills. Crushing one between her fingers, she let the medicinal fragrance spread, swallowing the rest with a trace of spiritual energy to quicken recovery.

As the warmth of the pills coursed through her body, Luo Xianyin closed her eyes briefly.

Her zither lay broken beside her, strings snapped and blood-stained, a silent reminder of how narrow her escape had been.

"Yu Xuan..." she whispered, a faint chill creeping up her spine.

"Just what kind of demon are you?"

***

Yu Xuan moved across the plains like a ghost, silent and unstoppable. Wherever he passed, disciples fell like wheat before the scythe.

Yet his slaughter was not mindless.

Those who showed courage, who resisted even when despair pressed upon them — he spared them.

It was not mercy that guided him, but calculation.

He wanted the Young Yu to have worthy enemies. Without struggle, there was no growth; without blood, no strength.

His [Immortal’s Gaze] had already revealed an anomaly. Though his strikes were clean and absolute, the fallen bodies did not quite resonate with the essence of death. Like the time, he killed the Devouring Demon.

He had also activated his trait [Soul Vision] which confirmed the truth.

The truth was simple.

The disciples he had "killed" were not dead.

Each time his killing blow landed, their true bodies vanished, replaced by an identical representation — a lifeless clone so perfect that even their souls seemed to linger for a moment before dissipating.

The illusion was crafted with terrifying precision, mimicking the severed flesh, the fading qi, even the final flicker of consciousness.

Yu Xuan’s expression remained calm, but a cold gleam passed through his eyes.

In the distance, the plains shimmered faintly, like a painted world on the verge of peeling apart.