Decaying World Chapter 222

Chapter 222

"Heh. Rather than staying shut away in your Nine Dreams Sect, what brings you out to a place like this?" Han Sanmian said lightly.

"This junior has her own affairs to attend to. But for a key combatant like Elder Han to slip away just as a battle begins—that is sowhat unusual," Yun Xiazi replied.

"You young ones pick up a few sharp phrases and can't wait to use them. How do you know I'm not out here fighting foreign enemies?" Han Sanmian said.

Yun Xiazi's mind moved quickly, turning over the question of why a Blood Ancestor Elder would appear in this stretch of the Mist Zone.

They were already far from the battlefield. The Elders of the Taisu Primal Disk never moved without a clear target in sight—none of them did. No one climbed to their level without being both exceptional and calculating.

A Blood Ancestor's Blood Heart didn't strengthen them on its own. It grew only by devouring powerful experts.

Wait. Devouring—

Yun Xiazi tracked his flight path in her mind. Like her, he was headed in the exact direction the Clear Wind Temple's convoy had gone.

A cold suspicion crystallized.

"If that is the case, this junior won't keep the Elder any longer." Not yet ready to act on guesswork, Yun Xiazi reined in her aura and continued on her way.

She needed to see for herself what he was truly after.

The mont she moved, Han Sanmian resud flight. After several minutes, it was unmistakable—their paths were identical.

Swish!

Han Sanmian's figure blurred, sidestepping an invisible stream of Void Force fired from below.

"Little friend Yun Xia—what is the aning of this?" He raised an eyebrow. He had looked into her history and knew she had joined the Clear Wind Temple to study martial arts. He simply hadn't expected a Grand Elder of her standing to draw a weapon on his behalf.

Interesting.

"Elder, what are your intentions? The Clear Wind Temple is where I currently cultivate." Yun Xiazi stood her ground below, her right hand already closed around a slender sword of dark gold etched with hieroglyphs—the Mingde Sword, the blade that had made her na. It was a top-tier divine weapon of her own forging. As the most skilled blacksmith among the Inner City's Luminous Extre experts, she had naturally never cut corners on her own equipnt.

When she had sparred with Lin Hui before, she had been overconfident and left her preferred weapons behind. The Golden Sparrow Saber and the Mingde Sword were always by her side in real combat—but that had only been a spar. Not a fight where her life was on the line.

This ti, after settling matters at the Nine Dreams Sect, she had rushed straight for the Clear Wind Temple, uneasy at the thought that trouble might find them first. Sure enough, she had stumbled into sothing far worse than unease.

"I have long kept my eye on the talent and strength of the Clear Wind Temple's Temple Master—a junior I have always admired. If you have objections, state them plainly. Why resort to violence?" Han Sanmian regarded Yun Xiazi with a mild expression. "Could it be you've misread my intentions?"

"A misunderstanding." Yun Xiazi's thoughts moved fast. With her experience, she had no difficulty reading the situation: he was after Dao Master Lin Hui.

The question was whether to stop him.

Against an Elder Blood Ancestor, trying to stop him ant laying everything bare—and even then, success wasn't guaranteed. But if she stood aside, she feared what Lin Hui would think of her. Especially given that Righteous Body Law Seal of his—a seal that answered only to genuine conviction, only to those who truly belonged to the Clear Wind Temple. There was sothing almost idealistic about it.

Setting aside her Nine Dreams Sect allegiances and thinking purely as a disciple of the Clear Wind Temple—if she had no other identity to hide behind, would she step forward?

The answer was obvious.

Shhk. She drew the Mingde Sword in a slow, deliberate arc. Her Internal Force and Void Force detonated outward together, flooding the surroundings and turning a radius of several hundred ters into a lake of force.

"Oh?" Han Sanmian's eyebrows rose. He genuinely could not imagine what Lin Hui had given Yun Xiazi to make her willing to draw steel against a Taisu Primal Disk Elder.

"I have no intention of fighting. I simply ask that Elder Han remain here awhile. I have long admired you, and it so happens I would welco a pointer or two." Having made her choice, Yun Xiazi offered a composed, unhurried smile.

"Interesting." Han Sanmian raised his right hand. "I can't even recall the last ti a rising talent dared challenge one of us. Very well."

Hum! A vast expanse of pure white Internal Force radiated outward from him, forming a colossal jade disk suspended in the air above—a perfect mirror to the lake of force below.

"Then be careful, Elder. I don't issue challenges without the confidence to back them up." Yun Xiazi raised the Mingde Sword and held the blade level before her.

"Then co and try," Han Sanmian said, his own right hand rising in answer.

In the sa instant, blinding white light erupted from both sets of eyes.

Ti Sense · Thousand Origins Myriad Phenona!

They had reached for the sa Divine thod at once. Two vast streams of mind-spirit power exploded simultaneously, throwing up two enormous Ti Sense domains that covered a radius of several kiloters.

They vanished from their positions at the sa mont. The two domains crashed into each other in the air between them.

The invisible domains compressed rapidly, grinding against each other, steadily canceling. Almost imdiately, Yun Xiazi's Ti Sense domain began to lose ground. Against the accumulated mind-spirit power of an Elder, the gap was simply too wide. It announced itself the instant their domains collided.

She didn't mind. Her Ti Sense domain had never been ant to win—only to buy ti against his.

Inside the Ti Domain, the world had dissolved into brilliant color. There were no physical outlines, no Mist, no earth or sky—only countless multicolored flas burning in every direction, filling the void without limit.

Yun Xiazi and Han Sanmian hung suspended in that burning space.

Neither wasted a breath on words. They drove toward each other instantly.

My Ti Domain holds for a minute and a half, at most. Decide this before it collapses. Yun Xiazi's expression didn't shift as the Mingde Sword churned up gusts of fierce wind and lunged at Han Sanmian.

She opened with the Wild Wind Sword Technique she had only recently mastered.

"Looking for a quick finish?" Han Sanmian read her imdiately. He smiled and lightly tapped his temple with one finger. "Then let's test it—Luminous Extre!"

With a tearing crack, his body surged outward—from average height to over four ters in seconds.

Cyan-black scales erupted across his skin. A twisted, crown-like ridge of muscle reared up atop his head. Three heads took shape, then six arms. His six hands moved independently—sealing, striking, pressing flat—each channeling a separate martial art at once. He fused Void Force into his transford True Force and drove three surging walls of white-gold energy at Yun Xiazi, each one vast and crushing.

Yun Xiazi didn't hesitate. She tapped her own temple—and her Ultimate Martial Form erupted: three heads, six arms. A massive surge of Internal Force shifted into True Force and rged with her Void Force, driving a fierce gale at her back. Propelled by the Wild Wind Sword Technique, she charged straight into the oncoming assault.

BOOM!

They t in midair.

Yun Xiazi took the full impact. She was hurled backward, tumbling a hundred ters through the air before catching herself.

"That lands hard." She floated in place, wiping the blood from her nose and mouth, eyes fixed on her opponent. "We're both at Luminous Extre—but you've earned that Elder's title. Seven or eight hundred years of devouring geniuses and experts, all of it distilled into that body of yours. It shows."

"True Force has no ceiling. All one can do is deepen the mind-spirit and harden the body—nothing more," Han Sanmian said. "Do you still wish to continue? A Grand Elder of the Nine Dreams Sect deserves a worthier opponent than ."

"Who decreed who my opponent has to be?" Yun Xiazi held her ground.

"Amusing. You still have sothing in reserve." Han Sanmian's expression remained easy. "But what exactly do you plan to use against an Ultimate Martial Form I have spent centuries refining?"

"I don't know if it will be enough. But if I don't try, I'll never be satisfied." Yun Xiazi lifted the Mingde Sword high. "Be careful, Elder Han. I won't be holding back anymore."

"Holding back?" Han Sanmian gave a short laugh. "The arrogance of the young."

A mont later, his amusent faded.

Yun Xiazi's Ultimate Martial Form was expanding—growing taller than her original three ters. Violent, frenzied gales spiraled around her at mounting speeds, and she stood at their still center: the eye of the storm.

"What is this...?" Han Sanmian's six eyes widened.

Then a flash of light cut across his field of vision. A razor-thin beam of white.

"Wind!!" Yun Xiazi's voice reached him a half-beat after the blade did.

Swish! A fissure split open across Han Sanmian's chest.

"Kill!! Hahahaha!!" Three heads, six swords, and the gales behind her—Yun Xiazi orbited Han Sanmian at blinding speed, her laughter cresting into a roar as the barrage of slashes landed without pause.

"A formidable secret art, to spike your power this sharply. Lifespan-burning?" Gashes opened in rapid succession across Han Sanmian's body, black and bleeding. He gave them no attention at all, his tone as unhurried as a teacher making observations.

Puchi! The Mingde Sword drove through his back and into his heart. Han Sanmian didn't flinch. He turned to look at Yun Xiazi, who had closed to point-blank range.

"You haven't answered ."

"What does Elder Han want to hear? Last rites?" Yun Xiazi locked all six hands on the sword and wrenched hard, tearing the wound wide—a gash half a ter across.

Blood erupted—but before it could spray even half a ter, it reversed and flowed back into Han Sanmian's nose and mouth on its own, like a living thing reclaiming itself.

Only then did Yun Xiazi notice: not a single organ was visible inside the wound. And the Mingde Sword, nearly two ters long, had driven clean through his back without an inch of the blade protruding from his chest.

The wound was a black hole.

"Little friend Yun Xia, did no one ever warn you not to get too close to a Blood Ancestor?" All six of Han Sanmian's hands closed around her.

Raw power t raw power. He moved to tear her apart in a single motion.

Bolstered by the Righteous Body Law Seal's half-strength surge, Yun Xiazi held her ground—a strained, temporary deadlock.

But it didn't hold. Fissures began spreading across her entire Ultimate Martial Form, fracturing outward from every joint and seam. Under the sheer weight of his strength, the True Force inside her was the first to give way.

"I believe that settles it," Han Sanmian said, still smiling. He held Yun Xiazi firm and watched the True Force splinter across her body. A faint hunger moved behind his eyes. "Well. A little appetizer before the main course isn't unwelco."

He hoisted her up, suspending her above him.

"Who did you say you wanted to eat?"

A voice ca from behind him.

Astonishnt crossed Han Sanmian's face. He started to turn.

Puchi!

In the sa instant, all six of his arms were severed simultaneously, without a sound. Thin red lines appeared at the throats of all three heads.

Standing in the far corner of the Ti Domain was a woman in a white skirt, her face hidden behind white gauze. She had arrived without a trace, and now she looked up calmly at Han Sanmian and Yun Xiazi above her.

It was Han Xiaoyue.