“STOP!”
The augmented aura of a Nascent Soul Realm cultivator enraged beyond his emotional limits billowed forth, and the young servant leapt from his bleary position on the ground to rush towards the young girl.
His right palm extended before him, Xie Bie dashed forth, willing for the entirety of his cultivation to rear its head and hiss towards the world without sparing any expense.
As the young servant’s body traversed through space, time seemed to slow for the young servant of the Heavenly Sword Sect.
The colors of the world dimmed into a monotone gray, and the grass besides his feet anxiously parted to avoid the lethal pools of spiritual essence emanating from his body.
Xie Bie’s vision narrowed onto the back of the young girl dressed in a hanfu of faded violet and peach blossoms, ignoring everything else within the world.
The young servant’s ears strained to their limits as they focused onto the blade of the taijijian swooping downwards towards Ming Xia’s startled and bewildered countenance.
His Young Master – how dare she draw her blade towards his Young Master!?
Pa!
The youthful palm swatted the empty air, and the young servant released a pent sigh of relief upon noticing that the short youth remained standing, albeit with a shellshocked expression on his delicate countenance.
Xie Bie directed a brief glance towards his right palm, before focusing onto the irritated expression on An Fei’s countenance.
He missed?
How did this young girl manage to evade his blow – a strike infused with the entirety of a Nascent Soul Realm cultivator’s strength, even if it wasn’t endowed with any martial arts techniques?
“You’re rather annoying for a servant. Why can’t you just remain in place after being knocked down?”
An Fei released a pained huff of air as she glared daggers towards the young servant, her expression warped from the searing sensation plaguing her back.
The prickling heat writhed and thrashed within her shoulder blades, inflicting a miserable torture onto her frail body with each intake of breath.
It was akin to having a nest of agitated snakes implanted into her back – excruciating and mind-shudderingly painful and distracting, but not particularly lethal.
“You avoided it with ease; what’s the matter?”
Perhaps, not particularly lethal for others, but for her…
“So? A sneak attack from behind – how dishonorable of a Young Master’s servant, ah!”
The young girl scowled towards Xie Bie who was emitting an aura of righteousness. Her vision struggling to remain upright as the sensation of pain worsened each second, An Fei tightened her grip onto the handle of the taijijian, a worried sentiment creeping within her heart.
She had indeed easily avoided the physical strike, having spared her life from a Nascent Soul Realm’s sneak assault.
Nevertheless, the residual spiritual essence billowing out from Xie Bie’s pores had instantly permeated her entire body, triggering a plague of suffering without any shred of mercy.
She felt indignation and fury, but at the same time – fear!
Fear that the <Steps of Underlying Shadow> did not grant her the invincibility that she once thought that she had possessed. Fear that combined with the extreme and unforgiving conditions of the Shattered Star Continent towards her wellbeing, that her goal of aimless wandering and survival was impossible to attain.
One Xie Bie could probably drown her in overwhelming pool of spiritual essence; what then of the Hundred Clan Coalition’s Shen, Yang, Du, and Tang Families?
“If only I had the swords, then…”
The wish germinated its roots within An Fei’s heart. Yet it was at this time, that Ming Xia and Xie Bie rushed forwards towards the slightly trembling and small figure standing alone in the plains, their blades howling for the enemy’s blood.
The Young Master held a pair of short swords in his hands, forged from the depths of the underground forge’s legacy.
The servant held Ming Xia’s divine sword, the spiritual essence of the Nascent Soul Realm embodying a series of life-like characteristics onto the blade.
They were unsure of the origins of the unusual sensation, but within their hearts lay an unforgiving premonition – one that if they allowed for the young girl to have freedom for the next few minutes, their souls would regret it forever!
“Strike!”
An Fei’s eyes trembled as she witnessed the vibrating air before her morph into a brilliant display of colors, her body flickering into the shadows of the world by its radiance.
The young girl whirled towards the right, the elegant blade of the taijijian sweeping forth with a keen of sorrow and death.
She couldn’t manipulate the elements of the world like Ming Xia, nor could she forcefully impart a pseudo existence into the sword and give it life.
It seemed inevitable that before the tsunami of spiritual essence and the twin fangs of the earth, the lonesome figure of an underaged young girl would immediately perish without resistance.
However, it proved that the Sanctum wished to lodge a complaint against the dismal conditions of the mortal world. Mere moments before the sharp edge of the divine sword slashed apart An Fei’s clothes and sank into her body, the young girl sprung into motion.
A half moon sweep to brush away the lethal point of the divine sword; a reverse swing to lodge the blade against the twin fangs.
A full moon turn to evade the sweeping palm, then a backwards kick to repel the dual fists imbued with spiritual essence.
An Fei morphed into a mixture of shadows, colors, and light as she dove deep into the grisly mixture of a battlefield. Faced against the gradually accumulating pool of Xie Bie’s spiritual essence integrating itself into the atmosphere and Ming Xia’s unreasonable ability, the young girl chose not the retreat, but the advance forwards.
The qama fluttered from its hidden holster near her chest and into the soft grip of her left hand, and the taijijian raised its keen edge to guard her front.
An Fei tried her best to ignore the splintering pain spiking across her back, keeping her eyes onto the two frowning youths before her.
“Perish!”
Xie Bie roared as he stomped with his right foot, scattering clods of softened earth in every direction. When the mounds of earth had taken flight, the young servant’s figure had already vanished from sight, appearing directly behind An Fei, the divine sword flickering with bloodthirst as it swept for the kill.
“This again!?”
The young girl scowled as she hastily swatted the air behind her with her right hand, sweeping the taijijian forth to catch the surface of the divine blade.
By luck or misfortune, the taijijian’s steel edge struck the divine sword’s blade, and An Fei quickly fled from the area by assistance from the <Steps of Underlying Shadow>.
She obtained no rest, for the moment her figure lost its obscure haze, two spears of golden light struck from above. The young girl was forced to constantly evade the encroaching attacks from Ming Xia, until Xie Bie had caught up to her back once again.
An Fei dared not to come into direct contact with either of the delicate Young Master’s attacks nor Xie Bie’s divine sword.
Though she did not know of Ming Xia’s exact circumstances, her encounter with the young servant’s sneak attack was more than sufficient to cause her to be cautious regarding everything in her vicinity.
And thus, when Xie Bie tried to launch another assault onto her back, he found a foot encased in a thick leather boot strike towards him from a reverse sweeping kick, then the lethal edge of a qama intent on beheading the enemy. Faced with the unusual combination of attacks, the young servant was repelled with ease.
“Young Master, do not approach!”
When the divine sword was retrieved, Xie Bie found to his horror a deep crack onto the blade – precisely at the location of which the qama’s edge had dug into the treasure sword.
Furthermore, the fluttering of fear in his heart whenever he neared the young girl prompted him to issue a warning with haste.
Ming Xia revealed a solemn nod, and stepped back from the direct line of sight. The delicate youth raised his hands towards the sky, and before An Fei’s astonished and infuriated gaze, conjured a spear of golden light.
“Form! Fall!”
They were just two words; of vernacular speech, lacking any of the eloquent connotations or alternative contexts that accompanied many scholarly treatises. And yet, what happened before An Fei could be nothing short of a miracle.
Light congregated in the sky to form a massive golden spear.
The length of the weapon easily exceeded that of ten meters, and the pointed tip itself was of three meters, tapering to a fatal point at the end.
From the tip to the end of the spear, faint inscriptions manifested; written in an unknown language, and it shimmered with a brilliant radiance as it the weapon aimed towards the young girl.
The skies erupted with a resplendent light with the spear’s manifestation, as though it were heralding a paragon child.
At the same time, the young girl who stood before its judgement felt a suppressive feeling spread across her chest, as though she were standing before a God.
