When the one hundred lights announce the invasion of demonic beasts, Wu Yulan’s expression quickly changes. The same question Lan Xiaohui had back then when it was her first time now lingers in Wu Yulan’s heart: this is easy?

Unlike Lan Xiaohui, Wu Yulan had never experienced this kind of danger. Before entering this formation, Lan Xiaohui has been on the brink of death several times. Perhaps because she had given up on life once, it was easier for her to deal with situations like this.

Wu Yulan, on the other hand, is in a state teetering on the edge of frozen panic. Her mind cannot even comprehend how to begin addressing the problem — how does one even kill this many demonic beasts? Where does one begin?

At the same time, the sword cultivator in her rejects the notion that numbers matter, or logic in general. It sings to her, urging her to throw herself forward at the enemy until they are no more, or she is.

Fortunately, Lan Xiaohui is there to show Wu Yulan the way, by embracing the simplest principle of the sword: to cut.

My owner dashes forward, gathering sword energy in the core of my vessel as she lifts me high and then slashes me down at the closest demonic beast, and cuts the wolf from left shoulder to right hip, the blast of energy enough to obliterate the second-rank beast before my edge even has a chance to cut it.

The one hundred beasts are mostly composed of these second-rank distractions, with very few third-rank beasts in the mix — Foundation Establishment realm demonic beasts.

After cutting the wolf, Lan Xiaohui stands still, forming an island of clearance as the monsters surround her. Even these beasts — simulations though they are — possess intelligence. Even though they cannot comprehend martial arts they can still understand the incredible threat that Lan Xiaohui presents to their existence.

This cultivator standing before them is death itself and they are merely vessels trapped in the transition to a new form of matter. And though they may possess enough intelligence to recognize my owner as a threat, they are still not smart enough to make the correct decision and flee. Though, this may be because their simulations are required to fight and throw their lives away.

In the Forbidden Ancestral Hunting Grounds, even beasts close to Lan Xiaohui’s realm were unwilling to cross paths with her.

When the beasts lunge — four of them at the same time — Lan Xiaohui swipes my vessel in a circular fashion, which I do not recognize.

This is not [Storm Cleaver] or [Sundrinker Blade] from the Heartless Blood Lily martial art; and it is not [Star Burial] from the Fractured Sword method that I taught her and which she has been practicing.

This must be the [Law of Transience] — or rather a very weak form of it. Without the Ancient Sword Graveyard guiding her, Lan Xiaohui’s mastery over the Transient Sword techniques is rather lacking, but I understand that this is Lan Xiaohui’s goal: to practice and improve this martial art.

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My vessel transitions into a strange state at the limit of Lan Xiaohui’s mastery over the martial art. My basic physical attributes change; I become lighter, but at the same time, my momentum increases. This paradoxical change of being lighter but having more mass indicates that there is an aspect I do not comprehend yet.

As a result, when Lan Xiaohui slashes, my vessel moves with blinding speed, but with enough force to launch Lan Xiaohui off the ground as the inertia of her rising, circular slash pulls her along. The shroud of black and red energy, instead of expanding, collapses closer to my vessel, compacting and becoming more solid.

I identify several mistakes in Lan Xiaohui’s swordsmanship, which she also recognizes, and once her feet touch the ground, she corrects them when she slashes again, in the opposite direction.

In total, with two slashes, Lan Xiaohui slays seven demonic beasts and steps forward.

Seeing this and remembering that she is Lan Xiaohui’s equal in a spar, Wu Yulan’s heart emboldens and her hesitation evaporates.

With a click, Wu Yulan’s sword tip touches the floor and then disappears. A moment later, Wu Yulan disappears and then reappears immediately after several dozen steps forward, already in a slashing motion that cuts through three beasts surrounding Lan Xiaohui, and creating a second island of martial superiority.

Wu Yulan, even with her higher comprehension, cannot utilize her [Law of Emergence] to its full potential, and when she strikes from afar, her body follows along with the strike.

Their basic swordsmanship will not improve here; they are both aware of this. At least, it won’t improve significantly in the time that they have left. But they both understand, without speaking a word, that they can improve their understanding of the new martial arts they have learned.

For Wu Yulan, that is the Transient Sword. However, for Lan Xiaohui, and the faint traces of collapsing dimensions I detect in the wake of my vessel, that is the Fractured Sword.

As my owner realizes that it might be possible, in fact, to unravel some of the secrets of that profound martial arts here, even with her lacking cultivation depth and Dao, an excitement rises in her heart and the desire to be useful to me.

She still remembers the snake in my sea of consciousness that she could not cut. And I am not entirely sure if this excitement is purely because of wanting to be useful to me, or because the snake would not yield to Lan Xiaohui’s sword before and this is an anomaly she wants to correct.

The two make quick work of the one hundred demonic beasts. And though this time the time limit and objective were not announced, my internal chronometer records a completion time of merely seven minutes to deal with the beasts.

Quite an optimization.

Wu Yulan still has not shaken off the initial fear and panic of this situation, and only when the final beast falls does she allow her hands to tremble. For Wu Yulan, these were the scariest seven minutes of her life, but at the same time, the most exciting ones. Her opinion of Lan Xiaohui transforms and changes, evident in the way that she looks at my owner who is no stranger to this anymore.

But Lan Xiaohui does not see herself the same way Wu Yulan sees her, and she smiles gracefully at the other girl and gives her an encouraging nod.

To Lan Xiaohui, killing a hundred beasts is the same as drinking water from a river. She no longer has a mirror of ego or narcissism that can identify her accomplishments as anything more than taking a step along the Dao of the Sword. Those mirrors shattered when she was left in that forest to die.

In Lan Xiaohui’s eyes, there is only one accomplishment that still grips her heart with fingers of selfishness: to kill Yu Shun.

“Let’s do it again, but I’ll make it a bit more difficult,” Lan Xiaohui says as she walks over to the stele and puts her hand on it.

Wu Yulan nods, eager to take on the next challenge.

This time, more than two hundred flashes of light glimmer into existence, and half the beasts this time are in the Foundation Establishment realm.