Traveling with Wu Kangming's team was... an experience.

I'd expected things to be tense, maybe awkward, but what I hadn't anticipated was the sheer volume of creatures we'd encounter. In the past hour alone, we'd been attacked by more ninth-stage entities than my team had faced during our entire time in this realm.

It was almost ridiculous.

First, a pack of shadow wolves had emerged from behind a cluster of bone-white trees, their eyes burning with that familiar death essence hunger. Before I could even spread my spiritual sense in preparation for using the Verduring Step, Wu Kangming had stepped forward, his hand moving to his sword hilt in that fluid motion I was beginning to recognize.

One strike.

That's all it took.

A diagonal slash that seemed to cut through the very air itself, and all six wolves collapsed simultaneously, their forms dissolving back into the ambient death qi of the realm.

"Impressive," Wei Lin had muttered, but I could see the competitive gleam in his eyes.

When the next group of creatures appeared, skeletal birds with wingspans the size of houses, Wei Lin was ready. Lightning qi crackled around his hands as he stepped forward, clearly not wanting to be outdone.

"My turn," he'd said with that confident smile I knew well.

His technique was different from Wu Kangming's surgical precision. Where Wu Kangming was all about that single, perfect strike, Wei Lin was raw elemental power. The lightning that erupted from his palms turned the entire flock to ash in seconds.

Lin Mei and I had exchanged glances throughout this display. Wei Lin's competitiveness was predictable, but what was interesting was Wu Kangming's complete lack of response to it. He didn't seem to care that Wei Lin was trying to match him technique for technique. If anything, he looked... bored.

That should have been reassuring, but somehow it made him seem even more dangerous.

"Those two are going to exhaust themselves at this rate," Lin Mei whispered to me as we walked behind them, watching Wei Lin casually absorb death essence from yet another defeated creature.

"Wei Lin's just showing off," I replied quietly. "But Wu Kangming... I can't get a read on him."

And that was the truth. Every other cultivator I'd faced, I could at least sense their limits, their patterns, the boundaries of their power. Wu Kangming felt like trying to measure an ocean with a teacup. There was something bottomless about his spiritual pressure that made my instincts scream warnings.

"Master," Azure called out, "I'd recommend extreme caution when you eventually face him in single combat. Whatever he's hiding, it's significant enough to make him confident about fighting multiple ninth-stage opponents simultaneously."

I nodded internally, filing that advice away for later. Right now, we had more immediate concerns.

The crimson number hanging in the sky had dropped to 4 during our journey, which was actually good news. With the constant stream of creatures attacking us, I'd been worried that other teams would claim the remaining slots while we were busy fighting for our lives. But apparently, we were making decent time despite the interruptions.

"The exit's close now," Wei Lin announced, extending his spiritual sense toward the disturbance he'd been tracking. "Maybe another li, just past that ridge."

Meng Haoran, who had been nervously leading our group, visibly relaxed at this news.

He had opened up about his experience in the Fallen Realm and even I had to admit, the poor guy had been through enough already: falling into a sea of liquid shadow, nearly getting eliminated by my team, then watching two ninth-stage prodigies casually demolish everything in their path.

I couldn't blame him for wanting this nightmare to be over.

"Good," Luo Yichen said, adjusting his grip on the Mirrorwater Blade at his side. "I'll be happy to get out of this death-soaked realm. The qi here feels wrong, like it's trying to seep into my bones."

I understood the feeling. The ambient death essence was oppressive in a way that went beyond mere spiritual pressure. It was like being constantly reminded of mortality, of the inevitability of decay and ending. Not exactly conducive to a positive mindset.

"At least we haven't encountered any—" Lin Mei started to say, then immediately stopped herself, realizing she was about to jinx us.

Too late.

The ground beneath our feet began to tremble, a deep, rhythmic shaking that seemed to emanate from something massive approaching. We all turned toward the source of the disturbance, spiritual senses extending outward to identify the threat.

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What we saw made my blood turn to ice.

A stone golem was walking toward us, each step sending tremors through the landscape. But it wasn't the size that made my heart skip a beat, though it was easily thirty feet tall, with limbs like ancient tree trunks and a torso that could have housed a small building.

No, what made my stomach clench with dread was the aura rolling off the creature.

Elemental Realm.

Not pseudo-Elemental Realm like the shadow phoenix we'd faced earlier. This was the real thing, genuine Elemental Realm spiritual pressure that made the air itself feel thick and oppressive. The kind of power that could reshape landscapes and level mountains.

"Oh," Meng Haoran squeaked, his face going pale as paper. "Oh no, oh no, oh no..."

Wu Kangming's eyes narrowed slightly, the first real expression I'd seen from him since our teams had joined forces. Even he recognized the threat level we were facing.

Wei Lin took a step back, his confident demeanor cracking for the first time since his breakthrough to the tenth stage. His hands moved to his storage ring, probably reaching for emergency pills or artifacts, anything that might help against such overwhelming power.

"This is bad," Lin Mei whispered, her voice tight with fear. "Even with all of us together, an Elemental Realm opponent..."

She didn't need to finish the thought. We all understood the mathematics of cultivation. The gap between Qi Condensation and Elemental Realm wasn't just a difference in power, it was a qualitative transformation. Like comparing a candle flame to a forest fire.

The stone golem's massive head turned toward us, empty eye sockets flaring with the same sickly green light that permeated this realm. It raised one boulder-sized fist and let out a roar that shook the very air, the sound so deep and primal that I felt it in my bones.

Then it charged.

Thirty feet of animated stone, moving with impossible speed for something so massive. The ground cracked beneath its feet with each thunderous step, sending up clouds of debris that filled the air with choking dust.

I immediately extended my spiritual sense outward, touching every piece of vegetation within a hundred-yard radius. The bone-white trees, the gray-green grass, even the strange phosphorescent fungi growing on nearby rocks, I left microscopic qi traces on all of it, creating a network of anchor points for Verduring Step.

I was just finishing the marking process, preparing to teleport the moment the golem got too close, when Wu Kangming moved.

He didn't say anything. Didn't announce his intentions or coordinate with the rest of us. One moment he was standing beside Luo Yichen, the next he had simply... vanished.

I blinked, extending my spiritual sense to track his movement, but even with my enhanced perception, I could barely follow what happened next.

Wu Kangming reappeared behind the charging golem, his sword already sliding back into its sheath with that characteristic soft whisper of steel on leather. He stood with his back to us, perfectly calm, as if he'd just taken a casual stroll rather than engaged an Elemental Realm opponent.

For a moment, nothing seemed to happen. The golem continued its charge for another step, maybe two.

Then its head slid sideways and tumbled to the ground with a crash that echoed across the landscape.

The massive body followed a heartbeat later, crumbling into component stones that scattered across the ground like oversized hail. Within seconds, the terrifying Elemental Realm threat had been reduced to nothing more than a pile of rubble.

The silence that followed was deafening.

I stared at the remains of the golem, then at Wu Kangming's perfectly composed figure, trying to process what I'd just witnessed. My mind kept trying to make sense of it, to find some logical explanation for how a ninth-stage Qi Condensation Realm cultivator had just casually decapitated an Elemental Realm opponent.

"What..." Wei Lin's voice came out as barely a whisper. "What was that technique?"

Wu Kangming turned to face us, his expression as unreadable as ever. "Nothing special," he said simply. "Just a sword strike."

Just a sword strike. Right.

I'd fought enough battles to recognize power when I saw it, and what Wu Kangming had just displayed went far beyond anything I could comprehend. The speed, the precision, the sheer cutting power required to sever an Elemental Realm creature's defenses in a single blow... it shouldn't have been possible.

"Azure," I thought urgently, "please tell me you have some insight into what just happened."

"I'm as confused as you are, Master," Azure replied, his voice tinged with genuine bewilderment. "That technique operated on principles I don't recognize. It wasn't just sword qi or elemental manipulation. It was something else entirely."

Lin Mei was staring at Wu Kangming with a mixture of awe and terror. "How did you…I mean, that was an Elemental Realm—"

"Sometimes the gap between realms isn't as absolute as people think," Wu Kangming interrupted, his voice carrying a casual indifference that somehow made his words even more chilling.

I found myself comparing his performance to my own capabilities, and the results weren't encouraging. Could I have handled that golem? Maybe, if I used both my suns, activated every rune I had, and fought with perfect strategy. Even then, it would have been a brutal, exhausting battle with no guarantee of victory.

Wei Lin looked like he was having similar thoughts. His face had gone pale, and I could see his confidence taking a serious hit. The tenth-stage breakthrough that had made him feel invincible just hours ago suddenly seemed insignificant in comparison to what we'd just witnessed.

"Big Brother," Luo Yichen said, his voice filled with admiration, "your swordsmanship keeps improving."

Before Wu Kangming could reply, something impossible happened.

The scattered stones of the golem began to move.

Not falling or settling, moving with purpose, flowing like liquid toward a central point. The rubble swirled upward in a spiral pattern, defying gravity as it reformed into a humanoid shape.

But this wasn't the same massive stone golem we'd just watched Wu Kangming destroy.

This was a perfect copy of Wu Kangming himself.

Same height, same build, same pale features and expressionless face. Even the clothes were identical, pristine white outer disciple robes that looked exactly like the ones Wu Kangming wore. And at its side hung a sword that was indistinguishable from Wu Kangming's own blade.

The spiritual pressure rolling off this copy made my knees weak.

Elemental Realm. Full Elemental Realm power, but now wearing Wu Kangming's face and wielding his techniques.

"Well," I said weakly, staring at what was essentially Wu Kangming's evil twin, "this just got significantly more complicated."

The copy tilted its head in a gesture that was perfectly mirrored from Wu Kangming's own mannerisms, then smiled, an expression I'd never seen on the original's face, which somehow made it infinitely more unsettling.

Wu Kangming's hand moved to his sword hilt, the first sign of genuine concern I'd seen from him. He was probably the only one who understood the implications of facing himself with genuine Elemental Realm power backing every technique.