Decaying World Chapter 288

"Oh? Beyond imagination in what way?" Lin Hui raised an eyebrow.

Thoughts flickered rapidly through his mind.

"An ant that has never seen the sky will never understand that the world is more than the dirt beneath its feet," Song Feishi said quietly. "Right now, all you and the Clear Wind Dao can see are Black Cloud and the Tuyue of old. You have no concept of the power wielded by those at the very top."

"I suppose I really don't know how vast the sky is," Lin Hui chuckled. "Why don't you show ?"

"?" Song Feishi stared at him as though he'd just told the most absurd joke she'd ever heard. Her eyes widened. "Are you planning to fight ?"

"Is that a problem?" Lin Hui smiled. "I'm the ant, and you're the bird in the sky—if you want to win over, shouldn't showing off a little of that strength be a given?"

However much Song Feishi had revised her assessnt of Lin Hui, she had revised it strictly within the bounds of what a mortal could achieve.

In truth, Lin Hui was neither a Mistborn nor a Blood Ancestor—only a mortal who had clawed his way here through sheer cultivation. For all his explosive power, trading blows with her would still be little more than bullying.

It was like hurling an egg at a block of endlessly regenerating steel. No matter how fast or dense the egg, it might crack the steel once before annihilating itself. And the steel? In her eyes, it wouldn't even break—at most, a faint scuff, gone in an instant.

Lin Hui was exceptional, undeniably so. But to her, he was like fine porcelain—beautiful and rare, yet fragile. All she wanted was to take him out of Black Cloud before the coming conflict shattered him.

But seeing that his expression had not shifted in the slightest, Song Feishi understood: there was no taking him anywhere without first forcing him to face reality.

"Very well." She drew her sword slowly and sighed. "Since coming to the Clear Wind Dao, I have witnessed too many extraordinary things in you. Among mortals, your aptitude, comprehension, and martial arts blaze like distant stars—rare and brilliant." Her tone shifted. "But no matter how bright the stars—how can they compare to the sun?" She gripped the longsword, her expression turning grave. "Let show you the distance between stars and the sun."

"If the distance is so vast—"

Without a sound, the Lin Hui standing before Song Feishi dissolved like a burst bubble.

"—then why are you just standing there?"

The voice drifted, unhurried, from just over her right shoulder.

That speed— Song Feishi's heart seized. Without thinking, she swung her sword in a vicious arc.

The motion made her expression collapse entirely.

"What—?"

She snapped her gaze down in horror. Her sword-gripping hands refused every command she sent them.

Clatter. A heartbeat later, both arms slid cleanly from her shoulders. They hit the ground together, sword and all, spattering drops of fresh blood.

That was not all.

Song Feishi's body shuddered before her knees struck the earth with a heavy thud.

"I… what…?"

Pfft! Dozens of ghastly gashes tore open across her body at once. In an instant, she was a ruin of blood and flesh, pitching face-first into the dirt.

"Look." Lin Hui smiled, lowering his right hand from his sword hilt. "The sun isn't moving anymore."

All at once, Song Feishi's body and severed arms burst apart, dispersing into countless streams of silver mist that shot out of the courtyard in every direction.

Then the silver mist was gone.

…

"No—no, no, no!"

Far beyond the courtyard walls, hovering in the air at a distance from the Clear Wind Dao Academy, Song Feishi's figure coalesced again. Her face was dark.

However foul the feeling, she did not dare linger.

She had known Lin Hui was fast—but not like this. She had not perceived his attack at all. The sonic booms, the shockwaves, the other phenona that should have accompanied such extre speed—none had manifested. His sword had co like a silent shadow; before she could even register its existence, it was already at her back.

Then ca absolute, catastrophic defeat.

Song Feishi's face cycled from pale to flushed. She sucked in a sharp breath. The contrast between her soaring words a mont ago and the utter ruin that followed was more than she could stomach.

She wanted to go back and fight to the death. But she hadn't even seen him move. Going back would only repeat her humiliation.

Beyond the bruise to her pride, sothing smaller and colder had taken root—a faint, naless fear.

He was hiding sothing. That modest Clear Wind Dao Academy concealed far more than it showed. Recalling the old man she had glimpsed standing behind Lin Hui, a thought struck her with sudden force.

Could it be… did the Nine Skies Gate actually exist? She had investigated through multiple channels ever since Lin Hui first ntioned it and found not a single trace. She had long assud he had fabricated it.

But now…

She reached for her token to contact the Society Master—then her face darkened. Everything she had carried at her waist was back in that courtyard.

She thought briefly about retrieving her belongings. An inexplicable chill stopped her cold. Utterly disregarding the fact that she was completely naked, she fled at full speed.

…

Back beneath the pear tree, Lin Hui turned a delicate blue jade talisman slowly between his fingers.

"Dao Master, why not simply finish her?" Yun Xiazi asked, stepping out from a nearby shadow, his brow furrowed.

"Her identity is too particular. Giving them sothing to fear is enough for now," Lin Hui said.

"Them? You're saying there is a faction behind Song Feishi?" Yun Xiazi's expression tightened.

Lin Hui did not answer—only chuckled. "Find Xia Si. The two of you will travel together."

"Understood." Yun Xiazi bowed gravely and withdrew.

Lin Hui turned his attention inward, sensing the hazy mark on Xia Si's body. Its fluctuations were far stronger than before—she had grown to a formidable level. The fruit he had been waiting for was nearly ripe.

A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. Xia Si and Song Feishi were both, at their cores, worthy seedlings. Only the lure of outside forces had clouded their sight.

But it didn't matter. In ti, he would help them understand that in this world, only the wind could lead a person to true stillness. Power, authority, ambition—all of it was foam and shadow, dissolving without a trace. Only serenity endured.

In his eyes, they were both children capable of finding their way back. If he could give them even one clear glimpse of the world's true nature, they would return to the Clear Wind Dao on their own.

"But what if they refuse to turn back?"

"How could everything in this world go according to my wishes?" Lin Hui replied to the empty air with a smile.

Then a sudden chill cut through him, sharp and clean. He spun—and found a phantom of an old man hovering behind him.

"Wrong, wrong, wrong!" The old man burst into laughter. "My good disciple, let your master tell you: there are only two kinds of things in this world. The first are fellow Daoists—and the second is trash!"

"If they refuse to beco fellow Daoists—" His voice rose from a murmur to a roar, crashing through Lin Hui's mind like thunder— "then turn them into trash!"

"Seven Extinctions—" Lin Hui retreated fast, but his vision lurched, and everything vanished.

No old man. No voice. As if it had all been a hallucination.

I must resolve this as quickly as possible. His expression darkened. He turned and walked swiftly toward the study where the Gold Jade Coral was stored. He needed to liberate the Blood Seal—at the fastest possible speed—and evolve the item that sealed the rift.

…

To the southeast of Black Cloud lay a small island called Kurong.

It was one of Black Cloud's cargo distribution hubs. Every day, rchant fleets offloaded goods here for repackaging before individual Chambers of Comrce ferried them onward to the major urban districts by sea. In the town at the island's center, sailors and crew moved freely among the locals, filling the market with noise and motion. The sheer volu of rchant traffic also brought a flood of miscellaneous goods—and, in the absence of Black Cloud's strict legal apparatus, a thriving black market for contraband.

Wearing a bamboo hat and close-fitting black martial attire, Xia Si moved unhurried through the market with a sword at her hip, indistinguishable from any other shopper.

But far behind her, three powerful auras tracked her like hunting dogs, combing back and forth across the town for any trace of her movent.

These were the three great guest elders of the Mingxin Society. She had clashed with them several tis already, without managing to gain any real advantage. The three operated as a trapping formation of considerable strength—they did not press for the kill, only focused on locking her down. Worse, their formation grew more powerful the longer the engagent lasted.

It gave Xia Si a genuine headache.

In a clean, open fight, she would not have feared them. But unable to break their net or cut her way out, she was left with nothing but retreat—a fact that sat bitterly in her chest.

She let out a quiet breath as the three auras receded into the distance. If I could separate them and take them one by one, they'd fold easily. In terms of pure speed, her movent technique outstripped theirs by a wide margin—leaving was never the problem. She simply couldn't bring herself to accept it.

She was still turning the problem over when her footsteps stopped.

Soone was blocking the path ahead.

He carried himself with a refined, unhurried ease. A faint smile rested on his face, and he wore a white robe so familiar it stung her eyes.

"Senior Sister Xia—by the Dao Master's orders, it is ti for you to co ho."

"Su Yaping." Xia Si's expression hardened. "You dare block alone?"

"Senior Sister Xia, we are only following orders. Please don't make this difficult." A woman's voice ca from behind her.

Xia Si glanced back over her shoulder.

A striking woman in a gold-trimd white dress stood with longsword in hand, blocking her retreat, her expression earnest and unmoving.

It was none other than Yun Xiazi.