By afternoon, after a quiet lunch, our wards quivered like spiderwebs in wind—Lingxiao and Lingsaki’s barrier sensed Tiger and Wolf tribes and Dark Demon closing in, a storm at our gate.
Then the ground thudded with blasts, and beastfolk screams tore the air, like trees snapping in a gale—they’d sprung the trap-magic knots the sisters had woven.
Lingxiao giggled with foxfire glee, like a sparrow heckling a hawk. “Didn’t expect them to blunder in. So dumb.”
A cold weight sank in my chest, like stone in a river. “Don’t celebrate yet.”
My bracelet shimmered like dawn on ice and became the Shattered Light Sword in my grip, edges humming like winter wind. I shook my head. “A hard fight’s coming. Let’s go see.”
“Okay, Brother,” Lingsaki chimed, voice light as snowflakes.
“Mm,” Lingxiao echoed, steady as bamboo.
We slipped out of the courtyard like shadows sliding under moonlight and headed for the Foxfolk border, breath quick as a running stream.
Outside the Foxfolk village, the earth was cratered like pockmarked moons, dust hanging like dry fog—the beastfolk across from us glared, several blood-slick and flayed, rage burning like wildfire.
“You call yourselves people of the Mizumi Clan? Using trap-magic is a coward’s mire,” one barked, voice rough as gravel.
“With tricks like that, you shame the Mizumi Clan,” the other snarled, pride bristling like a wolf’s hackles.
A brush of Sword Intent felt their tide: ten Divine Level beastfolk—their strength stacked like mountain steps, four early, four mid—two chiefs at high-tier, and four Dark Demon mid-tier like black smoke. Only the beautiful woman in strange garb felt like a freezing void—her presence ran deeper than mere Divine.
“Nice to meet you. I’m Lixin,” she said, smiling like frost on glass, eyes hiding a chill like knife-edges under snow. “I came to test your strength.”
Politeness steadied me like a still lake. “Yumigawa Sumeragi.”
“Hey! Mizumi brat, you dare ignore us?” the Tiger chief roared, anger coiling like thunderclouds.
“I ought to teach you—ah!” he yelped, shock cracking like ice, as an ice blade pierced his arm without warning—the blood sprayed and froze mid-air like scarlet petals in frost.
“Less talk. Fight,” Lixue said, voice sharp as sleet, already moving like a hawk through snow.
“Damn it! A yellow-haired girl acting this bold? We charge!” one snarled, breath hot as embers.
“You follow me too!” the other chief growled, muscles rolling like boulders.
Their Divine Level aura slammed out like a tidal wave, and they sprinted at us, feet pounding like drums.
“Just what I wanted,” Lixue whispered, eyes blazing like winter stars. She soared to her arena—the sky—like a crane taking wind. Ten Divine foes felt heavy as mountains; I called to the sisters with urgency like a beating drum. “Help Lixue with those beastfolk!”
“Got it! Be careful, Brother—the woman’s no ordinary storm,” Lingxiao warned, voice like a bell.
“Same here—please be careful, Brother!” Lingsaki added, worry fluttering like sparrow wings.
They broke toward Lixue in twin arcs like twin moons, and burst into a hail of attack spells, light streaking like meteors—but the beastfolk had hides like iron bark and strength like thunder; ordinary magic splashed like rain on rock.
“Go help Chief Weikzha and Chief Saikusha deal with those three girls,” Lixin purred, tongue grazing her lip like a cat tasting cream. In her hand, a staff bloomed, ornate as a royal peony—a top-grade artifact humming like a hive.
“I’ll handle the boy,” she said, gaze on me like a hawk watching a rabbit.
“Yes, ma’am!” the four black-robed figures replied, voices low as the night. They flowed to the beastfolk like ink in water—now it was Lingxiao, Lingsaki, and Lixue against fourteen Divine, a tide against three lanterns. Lixin’s predator gaze slid over me like a blade; my heart quivered like a plucked string.
The battle opened like a stormfront rolling in.
Lixin’s magic was eerie, a forest grown in shadow—wherever I ran, thorny vines burst from the earth like snakes, purple smoke coiling like nightshade. The barbs dripped poison like rain, and the smoke clouded minds like dreams.
I wrapped myself in Sword Aura like a shell of wind; without it, I’d have fallen like a leaf into a bog.
Even so, the vines were legion, a bramble sea—I couldn’t reach Lixin, and sword techniques broke like waves on reefs. She stood behind, sending odd attacks like ravens in batches—each shot heavy as high-tier Divine thunder.
I rode Sword Intent like a current, dodging by inches, sweat cold as dew. This path was a cliff. I gathered Sword Aura and loosed the Draw Sword Technique, clearing vines like cutting wheat, mind racing like a fire under dry pine.
But her strength towered like a black mountain; I was near full power, while she hadn’t even warmed up, calm as a winter pond.
“Law Realm mid-stage, huh?” she said, lazily, boredom like drifting snow. “Back in my world you’d be a super prodigy, but to me, you’re still a breeze.”
She flicked a dark purple laser like a comet; I ground out ten-plus Sword Aura beams to meet it, sparks falling like fireflies. No time to hold back—I tossed the Shattered Light Sword up like a sunbeam.
“Sword Domain—open!”
Golden light spilled like dawn over the land; swords formed in air and earth like rice through a field, each blade born of Sword Aura. The world’s elements shifted inside the domain like a river redirected—everything flowed into sword energy.
“A Sword Wielder’s domain?” Lixin murmured, curiosity like a cat’s gleam. “Magical. I’ll get a bit serious.”
Her words fell, and a huge monster phantom rose behind her like a mountain shadow; it hammered a fist at me, speed like lightning.
I steered the Domain’s blades to slash the vines like mowing a frost-bitten thicket, then focused Sword Aura into a single, silent storm—Destruction Invisible Sword.
An unseen giant blade crashed into the phantom’s fist like a glacier meeting a cliff; clouds shattered and the ground cracked, shockwaves barking like thunder.
Seconds later, I staggered back, breath ragged like bellows; both sword and phantom dispersed like mist at sunrise. Too strong—my full-force Invisible Sword only managed to disrupt the thing she’d summoned with a flick, like swatting a fly.
The fight had barely begun, and my stamina was burning like oil; Lixin stood fresh as a winter bloom, untouched.
Her power brushed Overdeity Level, a presence like a god’s wind. I tasted that despair like bitter tea—she was from another world, so here she couldn’t unleash fully, or it cost her something sharp; even so, her suppressed strength felt like a storm I couldn’t break.
If she were alone, the four of us might hold like bamboo in snow. Reality bit like frost; forget victory—if we could force them to retreat, it’d be enough.
“Surprisingly capable, Yumigawa,” Lixin said, amusement like cold starlight. “Let me give you a little reward.”
The gem atop her staff flashed violet like a witch’s moon, and four giant monster phantoms swelled into being, larger than before, looming like mountains.
“This is bad…” I breathed, grip tight, sweat beading like rain.
On the other front, the four Dark Demon used some harsh method like iron branding to force four Law Domains to merge—an almost-complete, near Overdeity Level domain, a wheel turning like a cosmic ring.
With that domain’s boost, and the beastfolk’s fight-hardening trait like iron tempered in fire, Lixue and the sisters were pushed into bitter struggle, waves breaking over them like a relentless surf.
“Extreme Snow Flash Blade,” Lixue whispered, and the air’s temperature plunged like stars falling into water—her form vanished like a snowflake, then an ice-blue arc flashed downward like a crescent moon.
“Hmph, petty tricks,” Chief Weikzha snorted, smashing light-dark orbs like juggling stones, then flared his claws, hard enough to crush rock, snatching at the arc like a hawk’s strike.
Clang! Metal sang, his claws both blocked and returned the strike, force slamming back like a rebounding tide.
Lixue shifted fast, slipping into Mirror Calm Water, mind still as a lake—she dodged the counter like a reed bending under wind.
“Dance Petals Flow Blade,” she breathed, steps elegant as a flower dance, blades ready like swan wings—but she wasn’t facing Weikzha alone; nine other beastfolk ringed her like wolves.
As she evaded Weikzha’s blow, the surrounding beastfolk massed under Chief Saikusha like a pack, ignoring Lingxiao and Lingsaki’s streaming spells like rain on armor, focusing fully on Lixue like arrows at a target.
Her footwork stuttered like wind through broken reeds; Mirror Calm Water held, barely, as she slipped past their dense, terrifying strikes like a fish dodging nets.
She wanted to break the pressure and return to the sky like a bird to open air, but they pinned her to ground like stakes in frozen earth.
“Mirror Calm Water won’t hold long…” Lixue felt her stamina draining fast, like sand in an hourglass—this wasn’t the Palace of Ice Crystal, and she couldn’t spend sword arts like endless snow.
“No choice—use that,” she decided, gathering ice Sword Aura like storm clouds. The temperature dropped hard, and a blizzard howled like wolves.
“Wind-Snow Absolute Freeze.”
Centered on Lixue, ice Sword Aura erupted like a geyser; frigid currents rolled out like waves, freezing beastfolk who failed to react, bodies crystallizing like statues.
It lasted a heartbeat, a single second like a flicker—but enough. Even with her body’s momentary fatigue like lead in limbs, she sped back to Lingxiao and Lingsaki like a swallow to shelter.
“Lixue, take this spirit medicine to recover your strength!” Lingxiao called, pulling out a shining herb like a jade sprout and handing it over.
“Thanks,” Lixue said, swallowing in one go like a pill of frost—power bubbled inside her like spring water. As expected of a Supreme Divine Spirit Medicine; the effect was blazing, like dawn.
“Then—Heavenly Snow Dance Burial!”
In a breath, an ice-blue radiance wrapped Lixue like a silk of winter light, beautiful and fierce as a glacier under sun.
