Dawn broke.
In the Qian Realm.
A flash of blade light, and the last crow fell. Ye Qingyi’s eyes gleamed with restrained brilliance, a trace of weariness showing on her face.
Perhaps because her sheathing motion was a bit too wide, her body unexpectedly drifted a distance out of control. If she hadn’t deliberately reined it in, she might have taken a long time to stop.
She had been here for seven days now and had long since figured out the rules of this world.
The Qian Realm—it should correspond to “Qian” from the Eight Trigrams. Though she wasn’t sure of its deeper significance, she knew that Qian represented Heaven.
And the rules of this world just so happened to be related to the sky.
The nights weren’t too bad—just a crow swarm attack every three hours. With her strength, she could hold out for an hour without too much difficulty.
But daytime was a different story. As she’d just experienced, gravity here was drastically reduced. One careless move and she’d float right up. In such conditions, the flying crow swarms became incredibly difficult to deal with—just landing a hit on them was already an achievement.
Fortunately, she had extensive combat experience and had achieved near-perfect control over her body, so she wasn’t at a disadvantage. Otherwise, she might have very well met her end here.
Following the mysterious hints, she had finally located the so-called world core yesterday—a small snakehead-shaped object—but someone else had beaten her to it.
The other party was a white woman named Yun Bie, who was slightly weaker than her in combat ability, but her arsenal of advanced tech gadgets was extraordinarily powerful. No prizes for guessing she was from the United States.
Ye Qingyi had suffered a loss at her hands. She’d thought the trial would end right there, but unexpectedly, even though Yun Bie had obtained the world core, she couldn’t activate the snake pillar—so the trial continued.
That gave Ye Qingyi a sliver of hope.
If she can’t do it… can I?
Just as the sun fully cleared the horizon, a “buzzing” sound gradually grew closer. Ye Qingyi knew—Yun Bie had come to finish her off.
“I have to admit, your skills are indeed impressive—you even managed to wound me. But in your current state, can you really still stand against me?” Yun Bie drifted over swiftly from the distance, surrounded by a dense swarm of drones. Several drones were lifting her as well, keeping her flight remarkably steady.
With a mere thought, the drones moved as if they were extensions of her own body, launching an orderly assault on Ye Qingyi.
While the hail of bullets couldn’t inflict fatal wounds on Ye Qingyi, under the weightless conditions, they severely restricted her movements.
The drone swarm wasn’t all long-range either—some were specifically designed for interference and close-quarters combat.
Ye Qingyi furrowed her brow, long blade in hand. As the blade light flashed, only a handful of drones fell.
“Just accept your fate. These drones are far stronger than before under the mental control system. All I need is a single thought, and they’ll move and attack in any pattern I desire. Meanwhile, you can barely even dodge in this weightless state, let alone mount a counterattack.”
“If you’ve got the guts, just kill me. All this trash-talking—are you not confident you can actually do it?” Ye Qingyi shot back with a cold taunt.
Yun Bie’s expression darkened. “Still running your mouth even at death’s door.”
The suicide drones suddenly went berserk, hurtling toward Ye Qingyi and exploding within a meter of her. Driven by the high-explosive charges, shrapnel managed to slice through her skin, leaving gash after gash.
At the same time, the force of the explosions pushed her body toward a nearby boulder.
“Great Fate Art!” A flash of light struck Yun Bie without warning. The drones carrying her malfunctioned in the next instant, and her body wobbled, then started careening erratically like a deflating balloon.
The drone swarm lost effective control and descended into chaos.
Ye Qingyi seized the opening and let out a fierce roar: “HRAAGH—”
A resounding dragon’s cry rang out. The already chaotic drone swarm was suddenly blasted apart by the shockwave, and many of the suicide drones detonated prematurely before even reaching her.
Dragon’s Wrath—a sonic-type technique she’d learned from the Beidou Scripture Depository, designed specifically for group battles.
Propelled by the backlash from the explosions and the Dragon’s Wrath, Ye Qingyi’s body slammed into the boulder. She kicked off it with force, launching herself forward like a bullet—though her trajectory seemed slightly off.
“You really think that’s all I’ve got?” Ye Qingyi’s long blade began to tremble. “A blade intent I just grasped—let me test its power on you. Gentle Breeze and Drizzling Rain!”
Her blade intent was different from Ye Qingyu’s and Su Mo’s.
If Ye Qingyu’s “Defy Heaven and Earth” was about overwhelming dominance, and Su Mo’s “All or Nothing” embodied the courage and resolve of a move with no regrets—then hers, “Gentle Breeze and Drizzling Rain,” was about subtlety: nourishing things in silence, killing without a trace.
The soft, tender blade intent washed over Yun Bie like a spring breeze—tingling and almost pleasant. But in the very next instant, the killing intent erupted!
A vast surge of murderous aura suddenly burst from Yun Bie’s body surface, exploding into a mist of blood.
In the very moment Ye Qingyi’s long blade swept forward, Yun Bie’s body—carved by a thousand cuts—appeared precisely in front of her, not a hair’s breadth off.
Watching the situation turn completely upside down in an instant, Yun Bie knew she couldn’t hold out. She hurled the world core as far away as she could.
Ye Qingyi gritted her teeth and had no choice but to chase after the core—but not before kicking Yun Bie square in the face on her way out.
No ill intent. Just using her for leverage.
Yeah, that’s right. Totally…
One of them flew toward the world core; the other was sent coughing up blood and drifting miserably away.
Yun Bie’s face stung like fire—after all, a size-42 foot packed quite a punch.
“Men from the Xia Kingdom have zero appreciation for a woman’s beauty… kicking me in the face…” Yun Bie ground her teeth and muttered bitterly before passing out cold, a tooth or two falling from her mouth.
On the other side, Ye Qingyi chased the world core, drifting for a long while before both she and the core plunged into a freezing cold pool.
The water was a deep blue, almost black at the center—clearly very deep.
Once in the water, with something to push off against, her speed surged, and she finally snatched the world core into her palm.
But just then, something unexpected happened.
Something terrifying seemed to lurk at the bottom of the pool, letting out a spine-chilling low growl. At the same time, a tremendous suction force emerged from beneath. She thrashed and struggled, but couldn’t break free, and eventually sank to the bottom.
Though her body was pulled downward involuntarily, her consciousness remained intact. She could clearly feel the pressure mounting, the light fading, the underwater world gradually being consumed by darkness.
After what felt like an eternity, her chest stopped rising under the crushing water pressure. Her face turned ashen, her lips began to purple—all signs of oxygen deprivation.
She wanted to struggle, but her body had long since run out of strength. Death crept toward her step by step, like some many-tentacled horror that refused to grant her a swift end, instead wrapping around her senses bit by bit, then slowly devouring her will.
In the darkness, a walnut-shaped phantom suddenly emerged from between her brows, radiating waves of golden light. But before the light could spread, a massive serpent head burst up from beneath the pool and swallowed the walnut whole.
The world returned to darkness. A solitary figure sank deeper into the abyss—helpless, alone…
