A dozen heartbeats flickered by like sparks in a gust, gone in a blink. In those breaths, every cut from Jing hit like a peak half-step Divine Realm, a hammer of thunder on still water. I’d figured the tornado spun from Sword Aura would last only a few seconds, a candle in a gale. It barely reached the effect I’d hoped for, which was not bad at all. Yet I still couldn’t break through; the feeling was clearer than before, like moonlight on a lake. But a thin film still separated me, a frost-skin I couldn’t pierce.

Crack, boom!

While I gnawed on that frustration, the tornado finally unraveled under Jing’s rain of slashes, mist torn by knives of wind. I stood there without a guard, a lone reed in stormwater. No—could only stand. If I broke that state of insight to dodge now, the door would slam shut, a winter that wouldn’t thaw for a month or two.

“Oh? You’re awfully sure of yourself,” Jing called, voice cold as a river at dawn. “Standing like it’s nothing, not even raising your sword. Planning to give up?”

He leapt high, a heron over ice, lifting his ice-blue tachi to the sky and pointing the tip at me.

“Flowing Water: Maelstrom!”

He spoke and dropped the blade. The lake around me sank like a collapsing sinkhole, and a ferocious whirlpool bloomed, a black iris opening. Its speed and reach were vast, and the impact roared like a tsunami battering cliffs.

As for me, I was swallowed by surging water like a pebble in a flood, dragged straight to the lakebed, lungs burning toward silence.

Strangely, there was no panic, no fear—only a calm as cool as midnight rain. The breakthrough grew clearer, a shoreline in lifting fog, and I was one grain short. So I pushed all in and forced it open, a blade point through paper.

Because I truly was only a hair’s breadth away, the forced breakthrough didn’t bite back at all. It slid open easily, like doors before a rising sun—no resistance, no thorns.

…

Afterward, a strange wonder washed through me, a spring bubbling under stone. It felt like my fingers brushed the world’s bones, my vision sharpened a hundredfold, hawk-eyes over plains. The lake before me wasn’t just clear water anymore; I saw the energy folded within it, the threads of water element like silver fish. I saw every water-borne creature in the lake as if through glass, down to the tiny flicks of their fins.

So this is true Sword Intent?

I steadied that wonder and tried to grasp it, like learning a new grip on a familiar hilt. Sword Intent was miraculous; I could even see the ghosts in this Trial Lake of Death, their lives replaying like a revolving lantern, a storm of moments from birth till now. Yes, that’s the name… wait—!

Cough, cough!

I spat a mouthful of lake water, clamped down on my breath, and gathered Sword Aura like drawing wind into a bellows.

“Sword Qi Storm!”

The tornado of Sword Aura bloomed again, a whirling pillar that shoved the lake aside and carved out a vacuum, an empty well in the flood. I kicked upward with all I had and burst back to the surface, like a carp clearing a weir. Hah, that was close—I almost died. Imagine finally grasping true Sword Intent, only to drown. That’d kill a crowd from laughing alone.

…

One minute earlier.

“Is it over?”

Seeing Yumigawa Sumeragi sink and not rise, Jing muttered to himself, voice drifting like mist. He shelved the thought at once, because from the place where Yumigawa Sumeragi went under, a crushing pressure erupted, a mountain’s weight on still reeds. The ice-blue tachi in Jing’s hand trembled, a winter leaf in wind. He knew this was the omen of Yumigawa Sumeragi’s Sword Intent about to transform.

“To break through even under the lake… just how high is your insight?”

Jing couldn’t help but sigh, a lonely reed whistle across water. Decades of grinding cultivation, and he’d gained less than Yumigawa Sumeragi had in a few hours; the gulf was a canyon cut by time. He wasn’t a genius, his roots plain as clay, so he’d bled for every step, polishing himself like stone against stone. Even so, with a mortal’s bones he reached the peak of half-step Divine Realm before a hundred winters—testament to how hard he’d driven himself.

Yet the gap between genius and the ordinary is a river in flood, and no bridge spans it. He’d thought effort could make up some of the loss, like hauling up a net against the tide. After witnessing Yumigawa Sumeragi’s crushing talent, he felt no jealousy—only a deep helplessness, an empty shore after storm. Good thing he didn’t know Sumeragi took only a year or two to reach half-step Divine Realm, or he’d cough blood on the spot.

Boom!!

Just as Jing drew breath to sigh again, a giant tornado erupted where Sumeragi had sunk, flinging lakewater aside like curtains. Then Yumigawa Sumeragi rose from the lakebed, a blade of light lifted from shadow.

“Looks like you really will win this time.”

He gave a wry shake of the head, a smile like frost, and attacked at once.

…

I’d barely broken the surface when several slashes howled in, too fast for naked eyes, hawks diving through clouds. Before, I might’ve been a step slow. Not now. With Sword Intent, every trajectory glowed in my sight, lines on a chessboard; direction and spread were clear as winter stars. And the breakthrough had fed my stamina like warm tea. I didn’t dodge. I met them, blade to arc, and knocked them aside in a spray of sparks.

“Sword Domain!”

This time, I’d nail it. I held nothing back and unleashed the Sword Domain at full flood. Gold washed over the battlefield like dawn, and swords woven from Sword Aura filled the Domain, a forest of blades in a golden sea.

Was it an illusion? The Domain seemed larger, a horizon pushed back by wind. Likely the lift from Sword Intent. And the energy and Sword Aura within… they felt more refined than last time, like fine jade after a master’s polish.

“Explosive Absolute Sword Formation!”

As soon as the Domain spread, I gathered Sword Aura into the Shattered Light Sword and drove it into the lakebed, an anchor in the deep. Sword Aura poured down the blade and into the bottom like a river bursting a dam. It thundered toward Jing, rending the water ahead into twin walls, a path split like parted waves. In a breath, the lakebed’s Sword Aura wrapped around Jing, weaving into a ring like a magic circle and locking every retreat, a snare of light and steel.

“Again—Myriad Swords Unleashed!!”

I drove my Sword Intent and seized every sword in the Domain, ignoring the strain clawing my body like iron thorns. I released them—tens of thousands of blades formed of Sword Aura, a meteor shower frozen midfall.

They filled the sky and closed from all directions, no gaps, no wind to slip through. The scene was majestic, a storm of steel over a golden sea.

“What?!”

Jing’s eyes flew wide like shattered ice. He whipped his ice-blue tachi in a blur, and his aura surged, a tide climbing to a final crest. He was about to unleash his strongest cut.

Too late.

“This is the last—Destruction Invisible Sword!”

I burned the rest of my strength and drew in all the energy within the Domain, a dragon breathing in the sea. It condensed into a formless giant blade, so vast its shape was lost, a mountain’s shadow without edges. Then I seized the Invisible Sword, aimed at Jing, and brought it down with all I had, a thunderbolt splitting the lake.

This time, it was the last strike for real.