Dao Yan hovered high in the sky, her golden Truth-Piercing Eye glowing with a faint, radiant light that allowed her to clearly perceive every single movement beneath the earth. The figure of the blue-gray giant, burrowing rapidly through soil and rock, was completely exposed before her gaze.
“Trying to escape underground? Don’t even think about it.”
With a cold snort, Dao Yan abruptly swung her spirit sword and slashed toward the ground, a few dozen meters ahead of the blue-gray giant’s path.
She held nothing back with this strike.
The spirit sword tore through the air, and a visible white sword qi detached from the blade, hurtling toward the ground at astonishing speed.
BOOM!!!
An ear-splitting explosion rang out as a massive sword scar—spanning a hundred meters long, ten meters wide, and over twenty meters deep—gouged itself across the streets of Fangfeng City.
Inside the scar, countless tiny sword auras spun and surged violently, emitting a sharp, piercing hum, as if a thousand blades were howling within. Any creature daring to step into this zone would be shredded to pieces by those sword auras.
The blue-gray giant, still burrowing swiftly underground, ground to a halt the moment it sensed the terrifying spiritual energy fluctuation ahead. Through the layers of earth, its four eyes could clearly “see” the insurmountable chasm before it.
Even with its limited intelligence, the giant understood—that sword scar was not something it could easily cross.
But it wasn’t about to give up.
If forward was blocked, it would try another direction.
With that thought, the giant immediately changed course, planning to circle around the obstacle Dao Yan had created.
However, before it could even move, several more whistling sounds cut through the air from above.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
A series of thunderous blasts followed, shaking the earth around the blue-gray giant violently. Gravel and dirt showered down from the tunnel ceiling.
When the tremors subsided, the giant stared in shock—all possible escape routes around it were now sealed by identical sword scars, each radiating terrifying sword auras and that same piercing hum.
These scars crisscrossed one another, forming an airtight underground cage that trapped the blue-gray giant mercilessly in place.
“Now you’ve got nowhere to run.”
Watching the giant, whose every escape path she had locked down with her sword scars, Dao Yan’s lips curled into a smug smile.
Realizing there was no way out and that staying underground would only put it at a greater disadvantage, the blue-gray giant finally made its decision.
It swung its remaining four fists, frantically pounding against the layer of earth above its head.
Rocks and dirt flew everywhere. In just a few breaths, the giant had carved out a massive opening and burst back up to the surface.
But the moment it emerged, a swift sword strike wreathed in blue-white flames came hurtling toward it.
Dao Yan’s Truth-Piercing Eye had already locked onto its position, and this strike had been building up for a while.
Sensing the threat of death, the giant’s battle instincts flared to life.
Instinctively, it raised its two arms, both wrapped in dense demonic energy, trying to block Dao Yan’s attack with its energy shield—just as it had done before.
After all, in their earlier exchanges, that very method had successfully repelled several of her lethal blows.
“Still pulling that trick?”
Seeing the giant’s defensive move, Dao Yan couldn’t help but let out a mocking laugh.
“You think I’m still the same as before?”
The moment her voice trailed off, her spirit sword came down.
A blinding flash of white light seared through the air, followed by the dull thud of a sharp blade severing flesh and bone.
The two arms the giant had raised to block her attack were cleaved clean off at the roots, crashing heavily to the ground and kicking up a cloud of dust.
“ROOOOAR!!!”
Agonizing pain tore through the giant, and it let out an earth-shaking roar. Its four eyes locked onto Dao Yan, filled with utter disbelief.
Why?
Why had its energy shield, which had held against her attacks before, now crumbled like paper?
It didn’t understand.
Of course it couldn’t—Dao Yan was now fighting with everything she had.
The enchantment of Samadhi True Fire granted her spirit sword armor-piercing and true damage properties, rendering any defense significantly less effective against it.
On top of that, she was channeling the Dao Yan Sword Art at full power. The combination of these two forces was incomparable to her earlier probing strikes.
“Don’t get it? Then take your questions to the grave.”
Dao Yan gave the giant no time to think or catch its breath.
She spun in midair, realigned her stance, and dove straight back toward the blue-gray giant.
Her spirit sword, wreathed in blue-white flames from the Samadhi True Fire enchantment, painted beautiful streaks of fire across the sky.
Faced with Dao Yan’s relentless, storm-like assault, the blue-gray giant—now missing two arms and covered in multiple sword wounds—was utterly defenseless.
It tried to parry with its remaining four fists, but every time they met Dao Yan’s spirit sword, chunks of its energy shield shattered, and even a few fingers were sliced off.
And so, Dao Yan darted back and forth through the air, landing one sword strike after another on the giant’s body.
Each blow carved a wound so deep that bone was visible.
The blue-white flames seeped into those wounds, furiously burning the giant’s flesh and demonic energy, causing it unimaginable agony.
In the span of just a dozen or so breaths, Dao Yan had delivered no fewer than twelve fierce attacks.
When she swooped past the giant for the final time and landed steadily on the ground, a dull, heavy crash echoed from behind her.
Dao Yan sheathed her sword and turned around.
There lay the once-arrogant four-star Abyssal Beast, now reduced to scattered fragments strewn across the devastated street.
Its blue-gray flesh and shattered bones lay mixed together, reeking with a nauseating stench of blood and gore.
The blue-white flames crackled and hissed as they consumed the remains. Before long, they would be reduced to ashes, erased from this world entirely.
After confirming that the blue-gray giant was dead beyond any doubt, Dao Yan retrieved her spirit sword and walked over to the debris.
She crouched down, sifted through the fragments, and quickly found a fist-sized magic core emitting a dim, eerie glow.
“So this is the core of a four-star Abyssal Beast?”
Holding the core in her hand, Dao Yan felt the immense demonic energy contained within and couldn’t help but marvel.
The energy stored in this core exceeded the total of all the beast crystals she had previously obtained.
“Too bad I can’t use this thing. Otherwise, I might have been able to level up again with its help.”
Dao Yan shook her head, then stored the core into her system space, planning to give it away later as a favor.
After stowing her spoils, she lifted her gaze toward the nearby Abyssal Rift.
At this point, having released a four-star Abyssal Beast far beyond its capacity, the rift had grown highly unstable and was visibly shrinking.
The opening, once wide enough for over a dozen trucks to drive through side by side, had now narrowed to a gap less than ten meters across—and it kept closing.
The abyssal creatures that hadn’t yet managed to emerge let out frustrated roars from within the rift, but as the fissure sealed completely, they were forever trapped back in the Abyss.
“It’s finally over.”
Staring at the now fully closed rift, with the sky restored to a clear, bright blue, Dao Yan let out a long, relieved sigh.
Though she hadn’t sustained any significant physical injuries in this battle, the mental toll was no small matter.
In particular, controlling both her main body and seven clones simultaneously in combat placed an enormous burden on her soul—it felt like her head was about to explode.
“I need to get back and rest soon, or I’m going to end up as the first supernatural being hospitalized for mental breakdown.”
Rubbing her temples, Dao Yan couldn’t help but grumble inwardly.
Without lingering any longer, she leaped into the air and took flight.
After getting her bearings, she headed toward the Fangfeng City Emergency Command Center.
According to plan, once the rift closed, all her clones would gather there, find a secluded spot to de-transform, and then let her main body return home to rest.
She also wanted to make an appearance there, though—after all, many people had surely watched today’s battle through the live broadcast. If she could show her face at the Command Center and build more presence, she’d likely earn even more reputation points.
And with those reputation points, she could pull from the gacha and finally draw that beautiful fox-eared big sister—the one with not just a pretty face but also a generously large heart—out of the card pool.
Just thinking about it made the corners of Dao Yan’s mouth lift slightly, and even her flight speed picked up a little.
