Maybe it was excitement. Maybe something darker. A light blush touched Gu Yin’s perfect face and vanished before it meant anything. She lifted an arm. Smiled. “Time to kick away the last obstacle. Please…”

All of sudden, the smile hit a wall. She caught the shock flashing in the Demon Phoenix’s eyes. And in those eyes, she saw Tianzhi coming straight at her.

“Stop her!”

The Ice Witch’s scream split the air. The few guards still circling Gu Yin struck, sword-lights cutting a deadly cage around her.

Tianzhi didn’t blink. Didn’t even lift her head. Calm. Distant. The storm of blades hit, and she went straight through it.

No sound of tearing. No explosion of flesh. Just a blur.

And then, as everyone’s vision snapped back, Tianzhi stood less than five feet from Gu Yin. Close enough to reach out and touch her.

Gu Yin was flat-footed. She saw it coming -- Tianzhi’s hand strike was stabbing straight at her -- and she couldn’t stop it.

The Ice Witch, still several yards away, could only watch in horror. Even if she killed Tianzhi now, she wouldn’t be able to stop that desperate, all-or-nothing attack.

Before she could even curse, the Demon Phoenix moved.

The world’s unrivaled master of fire unleashed her power. A thousand layers of flame twisted together, thick and tangled, forming a living wall in front of Gu Yin.

It wasn’t just a barrier. Every crossing spark, every flicker of heat, was sharper than any weapon. One wrong move from Tianzhi, and her arm would be shredded to nothing. Then devoured by fire, leaving not even ash behind.

But then the Demon Phoenix saw it. Tianzhi’s eyes, suddenly bright.

Her arm stabbed straight into the fire. No bones shattered. No limbs shredded. Just a streak of five-colored light—shhh—parted the flames, then closed.

Where the light flashed, the fire vanished.

“What—how?”

The Demon Phoenix let out a low gasp. Her reflexes were lightning-fast. In that single breath, she swung her arm across, shielding Gu Yin. Her wrist traced a perfect arc. Blinding white fire erupted, a sudden whirlpool spinning up before Tianzhi’s eyes.

Shhh! Five-colored light flared and vanished.

This time, the Demon Phoenix felt it clearly: that bone-deep weakness flooding her limbs, that vast, dissolving emptiness swallowing everything. It confirmed what she’d feared all along.

The Five-Colored Divine Light!

The thought barely sparked, and the tingling in her arm had already spread through her whole body. A grunt escaped her throat. In the disbelief of every eye around her, she was helplessly flung dozens of feet, before clawing back control and skidding to a stop.

The place went utterly silent.

Tianzhi who had been mocked, humiliated… was gone.

Maybe she still looked battered. Maybe she still carried wounds deep enough to cripple her. But in that instant, the spirit that erupted from her, sharp as a blade and vast as the ocean, slammed like a fist across the faces of every idiot who had just laughed at her.

Tianzhi didn’t care. Her pupils held only Gu Yin. Nothing stood between them now. Their eyes locked, a storm of emotions tangled so tightly that no one else could ever understand it.

It all happened in the blink of an eye. Then, Tianzhi crashed straight toward Gu Yin’s center.

Gu Yin lifted her flute across her chest to block, her body twisting sharply as Tianzhi closed in. No one noticed the black mist curling fast at her feet.

A ripping sound, sharp as shattered silk, tore through the air. It climbed, shrieking higher and higher, until the pitch became unbearable. And in that fraction of a second, their forms seemed to cross, intersecting impossibly. The black mist beneath Gu Yin erupted upward, then froze midair.

For a heartbeat, the void held its breath. But the stabbing pain in everyone’s ears, and the sudden evaporation of the icy fog all around, told the onlookers that nothing here was as simple as it looked.

Powerful cultivators like the Three-Headed Flood Serpent and the Ice Witch didn’t even think. They simply leapt back, retreating at full speed.

The others followed suit, backing away in haste. But someone was just a fraction too slow.

One of the demons who had rebelled alongside the Kunpeng hesitated for only a heartbeat. And his body froze mid-motion.

At that same instant, the air around Gu Yin and Tianzhi, within a circle about thirty feet across, suddenly collapsed.

Of course, it was only an illusion to the eye. But in that split second, the violent surge of primordial qi trapped in that tiny space had already ripped through it thousands of times.

To the onlookers, Gu Yin and Tianzhi’s forms seemed to warp and twist. The poor soul who had fallen behind barely had time to scream. Half his body was scooped away in an instant, crumbling into dust.

Then came a silence so deep it was terrifying.

And within that dreadful stillness, a single, soft sound whispered through the air...

Whoosh.

This time, it was crystal clear to everyone.

Five beams of light shot out, lined up in blue, yellow, red, white, and black.

The crushing pressure that had been suffocating everyone vanished in an instant. This left the air so empty it made people stumble on their feet.

A muffled grunt. Gu Yin went flying, limp as a ragdoll, tumbling through the air.

The moment everyone saw her posture, they knew right away. At least a third of her bones had to be broken. She could barely even stand, let alone fight back.

But Tianzhi didn’t press the attack. She stopped, because standing before her was a demon, black from head to toe.

The creature looked just as battered. Its body, thin and twisted like a dead tree, was half-kneeling on the ground. The long bone spikes jutting from its left shoulder had all been snapped, and there was a gaping hole in its chest where Tianzhi had literally carved out a chunk of flesh, exposing the raw red meat beneath.

The sight left everyone frozen in shock. The first to react was the Demon Phoenix. She darted forward and shielded Gu Yin.

Net Throat Demon suddenly let out a low growl and backed off.

Its blood-red eyes locked onto Tianzhi’s face, burning with hatred. It felt like it was engraving the image of the one who had wounded it deep into its very bones.

Li Xun felt like his brain couldn’t keep up. Then Shui Die Lan bit down on his ear, hard enough to make him grunt in pain. He didn’t even have time to get angry before her whisper stole his attention away:

“Oh my god… that’s the Innate Five-Colored Divine Light!”

“Huh?”

“It really is! The most dazzling technique in this world. And the one I’ve always wanted to learn!”

Li Xun rolled his eyes.

Just then, Gu Yin started coughing violently. Leaning against the demon phoenix, she hacked up mouthfuls of blood. Her chest was soaked in red, and all her usual calm and elegance were gone.

Li Xun had always thought Gu Yin’s hands were the most perfect he’d ever seen.

Now, her left hand was held weakly in front of her chest, the wrist twisted at an odd angle. Her right hand still gripped the flute, but it was broken clean in half and utterly ruined.

Even though he hated her guts, seeing her like this sent a chill down his spine.

Yet despite her pallid, blood-drained face, she actually smiled.

“Surprised to see Net Throat Demon?” she said. Her voice was soft, almost casual, as if chatting with an old friend. “Ah, right, you’re still the same as ever, jumping to conclusions the moment the wind changes. But I must admit, you’ve surprised me too… I truly underestimated the Heart Demon Refinement Technique.”

She had said too much, and another fit of coughing wracked her body. The Demon Phoenix tried to hush her, but Gu Yin only smiled wider and went on:

“Then again, it makes sense. Hatred is the finest nourishment for a heart demon. With your talent and wit... and the humiliation you’ve carried for nearly two hundred years, why wouldn’t you transform from a True Person to a Red Child?”

Li Xun’s heart lurched.

A True Person transforms into a ‘Red Child’; the ‘Red Child’ is the True One. Could Master Tianzhi already be at the level of a True One Grandmaster?”

If that were true. If she, the leader of her sect and a True One Grandmaster, had allowed herself to be mocked and humiliated in front of everyone just moments ago... was it all for the sake of one decisive, thunderous strike?

Tianzhi said nothing. She only watched Gu Yin coldly, as if weighing exactly how to end her.

Gu Yin gave a smile. “Tianzhi, with our history, did it really have to come to this? In this world, who could possibly understand each other better than we—”

Two glacial stares, sharp as frost and snow, cut her words in half.

Two frost-and-snow-like eyes struck her face, cutting her words in half.

Li Xun had been wondering at Gu Yin’s sudden weakness, but then he saw that Tianzhi’s body swayed slightly. And the back of her robe was soaked through with blood.

How could she be wounded on the back… when all her attacks were head-on?

Before Li Xun could even make sense of it, Tianzhi’s figure flickered.

And in the next instant, she darted straight into the icy mist.

A moment ago, she’d looked ready to go down with the ship, but now she suddenly pulled back. No one saw that coming.

Everyone in the place froze. The Ice Witch, who’d just lost face and had been itching to get it back, had never taken her eyes off Tianzhi. The instant she saw her retreat, she was the first to react.

With a low hiss, she raised her hand and sent out a cluster of shimmering jade talismans. They sliced soundlessly through the mist, closing in until they were only a few feet behind Tianzhi. Then suddenly burst apart with a sharp hum, multiplying into countless shining copies. Each one carried a biting aura, sharp as blades, all locking onto Tianzhi at once.

But Tianzhi didn’t even slow down. She flicked her sleeve, and a flash of five-colored light flared and vanished in an instant. A faint whoosh sounded. Then all those countless talismans popped like bubbles, disappearing without a trace. The original jade piece was swept aside by her sleeve and sent flying, vanishing somewhere in the distance.

The Ice Witch stood there, stunned. That had been one of her proudest treasures. And Tianzhi had brushed it aside as if it were nothing at all.

It was only a heartbeat of hesitation, and Tianzhi had already vanished completely into the icy mist.

“Don’t chase her!”

Gu Yin spoke, cold. As if those soft, gentle words from before had been nothing but a hallucination.

Through her soft, hacking coughs, she murmured, “Don’t waste time on meaningless things. From now on, our focus should be on that old Kunpeng instead.”

Though Gu Yin wasn’t officially part of the Rogue Cultivators’ Alliance, everyone knew her standing there was almost untouchable. When she spoke, no one dared argue.

And by then, Kunpeng they’d momentarily forgotten because of Tianzhi’s sudden strike had recovered from his wild frenzy and launched another furious assault.

The tension in the air spiked again. Even the Three-Headed Flood Serpent, whose position among them was awkward, was quick to sidle up to Daoist Jia, an old acquaintance of sorts, hoping to snag a task to keep himself busy.

At that moment, Gu Yin seemed completely out of place amid the chaos around her. She lay back in the Demon Phoenix’s arms, eyes half-open, half-closed. Almost as if she’d fallen asleep. But the Demon Phoenix knew better. Gu Yin wasn’t resting; her mind was working through something impossibly complex.

The Demon Phoenix stayed silent, quietly channeling waves of warm, vibrant energy into Gu Yin’s body, mending her grievous wounds bit by bit.

After a long while, Gu Yin let out a low, weary murmur. “In the end… I still made the wrong move.”

The Demon Phoenix gave a soft, reassuring laugh. “It can still be fixed. The bigger picture hasn’t changed. And besides, we’ve still got our backup plan, don’t we?”

Gu Yin’s lips curved into a slight smile, and she was just about to reply when she noticed the Demon Phoenix’s expression suddenly changed. She turned sharply, startled. And in that instant, a wave of dread surged up from deep inside her.

Through the swirling mist and tangled qi, came a calm, magnetic voice:

“Excuse me... could I ask if Gu Zhixuan is home?”

...

“What did you just do? And what are you planning now?”

As she moved swiftly through the icy mist, Shui Die Lan still had the leisure to toss the question back at Li Xun.

Li Xun, however, had plenty of questions of his own. The problem was, just walking through this deadly frost was draining everything he had. For now, he had no choice but to keep quiet and focus entirely on fighting the freezing poison.

When Tianzhi had dashed into the mist to escape, Li Xun had grabbed Shui Die Lan and rushed after her without a second thought.

There were too many things he needed to ask Tianzhi, and right now was his only chance.

Even as the freezing mist seeped into his limbs, numbing them until they felt like ice, his heart pounded like a drum, flooding him with brutal, unstoppable vitality.

Ahead, Tianzhi’s figure had already vanished from sight, but the thick scent of blood in the air was impossible to hide from Shui Die Lan’s inhumanly sharp sense of smell.

At last, when Li Xun’s eyes picked out the glacier again in the dark, Shui Die Lan spoke up: “Right here! Hey, you still haven’t answered. Did you do something just now…?”

Li Xun stared at the hole chiselled into the glacier’s shadow and muttered an absent, “Hm.” He was thinking that the opening wasn’t natural. And it certainly hadn’t been made just moments ago. Whatever Tianzhi had planned, it clearly hadn’t been a spontaneous thing.

He needed to work out how to use the situation to learn more, so he started weighing his options.

Before he could form a plan, a sharp blow landed in his side. He gasped in pain. Shui Die Lan squinted at him, leaned in close, and said, meanly, “Am I nothing compared to that half-dead crazy woman? Answer me right now, or I’ll go in and bring her head to Gu Yin as proof!”

Seeing her like that, Li Xun couldn’t help a quiet, surprised laugh. No matter how complicated their relationship might be, in that moment Shui Die Lan really did look…oddly endearing.

That ridiculous thought made him grin. “It’s really nothing,” he said. “Yin Wanderer’s been looking to pick a fight with Jade Wanderer anyway. This whole thing just happened to come up, so I told her to join the fun.”

Anyone who didn’t know him would’ve thought he was insane. But Shui Die Lan got it right away. She clicked her tongue and shook her head.

“Honestly, you’re the kind of guy they say has sores on his head and pus on his feet! Gu Yin’s put a lot of effort into this, and you...”

The massive glacier before them suddenly began to tremble. Ice and snow cascaded down in roaring sheets, sending shards flying everywhere.

Li Xun and Shui Die Lan spun around. And in the far distance, right where sky met earth, a blinding beam of light shot upward. The already dark sky seemed to dim even further. And a heavy pressure rolled over them like storm clouds whipped by fierce wind, flashing above their heads before vanishing thousands of miles away.

Li Xun glanced up at the sky, then back down at the pristine glacier. The bright red splotches that had just fallen from above made him chuckle. A smug, satisfied little sound.

Shui Die Lan shook her head. “What the hell is your problem with them? Even if you save Kunpeng, that old geezer isn’t going to be grateful…”

“They won’t be happy, that’s for sure,” Li Xun said. “Their plan’s probably in pieces now. And that’s enough.”

He said it casually, but his mind was working differently.

For decades, he had been itching to boss Gu Yin and the others around like dogs. Though he had managed to dispel their suspicions, he still couldn’t figure outhow they think. He’d never been able to find a pattern or a weakness to exploit.

Now their plan had gone off the rails. Where there had been nothing to grab onto before, a crack would almost certainly show itself.

From this moment on, he would have to stay calm and keep his distance. He'd watch, listen, gather as much vital information as he could to prepare for his counterattack later.

And the beginning of it all, the key to everything, had to lie with Tianzhi inside this icy cavern.

He tilted his head slightly toward Shui Die Lan and whispered, “I’ll need you to play along for a bit. Thank you.”

She gave an irritated little huff, but he just winked, took a deep breath, and drifted toward the mouth of the cave. Tapping lightly on the icy wall, he called out:

“Mistress, are you well? A fellow cultivator wishes to see you… Mistress?”

Li Xun frowned and leaned in to take a look. And in the next instant, shouted in alarm as he flipped backward. A blazing arrow of light shot past his head, close enough to scorch the hair on his scalp, and slammed into the distant ice wall hundreds of feet away with a crackling roar.

He himself wasn’t too shaken, but Shui Die Lan had gone pale, a cold sweat breaking out across her back.

If Li Xun had been even a heartbeat slower, the two of them would’ve gone down together. A tragic pair of doomed lovers. The thought of having her life hanging on someone else’s reflexes was downright maddening.

She cursed under her breath, grabbed Li Xun by the collar, yanked him behind her, and snapped, “Stay out of the way. Let me—”

Li Xun was motioning at her, and before she could make sense of it, he’d pulled her back again. His tall frame instantly blocked most of her from view. At that exact moment, a shadow appeared at the mouth of the icy cave.

Master Tianzhi stepped out, eyes flashing cold and sharp as lightning. The chill in the air was almost painful.

Li Xun shouted, “She’s not hurt! Go!” and before Shui Die Lan could even figure out what was happening, he was already dragging her away at full speed.

Behind them, the howl of the icy wind exploded. Glacial ridges cracked and tumbled, seven or eight of them collapsing in the chaos with a roar that shook the earth.

Shui Die Lan glanced back. The air was thick with ice mist and drifting snow. She gave a cold snort, shook off Li Xun’s hand, stopping short. “What the hell are you doing? She was bluffing! What are we running for?”

Li Xun halted in midair too, calmly straightening his rather disheveled clothes before replying with a small smile. “Why fight her head-on? Charging in with nothing but hot blood never ends well. Strong at first, weak after, and then spent. Take a breather, and we might just avoid a pointless clash.”

“Cunning!” Shui Die Lan shot back, but then her lips curved into a wry smile. “Fine, I’ll give you that. But you should know that Tianzhi’s already made a good escape. Whether we can still catch her is anyone’s guess.”

“She’s gotten far?” Li Xun blinked, then shook his head with a laugh. “Now that’s where you’re wrong.”

Shui Die Lan frowned. “How am I wrong? Her blood scent it’s already blown a hundred li off. I can smell it clear as day!”

Li Xun could only shake his head. “Scents can fool people, but reason never lies. Look at her, do you really think she still has the strength to control her aura? I’d bet she can’t even make it past the North Sea now. Otherwise, she’d have flown straight into the ‘Eternal Night Aurora’ zone we just set up. It’s a hundred times safer than this place.”

Seeing the stubborn look on Shui Die Lan’s face, he paused, then chuckled. “Alright then, how about we make it interesting? Let’s have a little wager. You do things your way, I’ll do things mine. We split up and look for Tianzhi. Whoever finds her within thirteen minutes wins. Deal?”

Shui Die Lan raised an eyebrow, intrigued. “And what are we betting on?”

Li Xun smiled. “Nothing too serious. The winner gets the loser to agree to one request. No refusals allowed. For example, you could ask me to teach you the core controls of the Mist-Hidden Pavilion, and I might ask you to show me your Reverse Shadow Escape Technique. Fair enough?”

Li Xun suddenly remembered that he hadn’t yet told Shui Die Lan that the Mist-Hidden Pavilion’s secret might already be compromised.

But now wasn’t the right time to bring that up, so Li Xun kept it to himself for the moment, simply smiling as he watched Shui Die Lan’s reaction.

She seemed intrigued. Her eyes flicked, and after just a second’s thought, she agreed without hesitation.

Li Xun chuckled, extended an arm, and made a polite “after you” gesture. Shui Die Lan shot him a quick sideways glance, then she blurred and vanished in an instant.

Li Xun let out a quiet breath and turned toward the empty air beside him. “You’re back?” he said calmly.

A faint ripple shimmered, and Yin Wanderer stepped soundlessly out of the void, giving a small nod. “Everything went smoothly.”