The roar of a Devil White Tiger, and for that matter any demonic beast at this realm of cultivation, is a powerful blast of energy.

The moment the sound waves hit Lan Xiaohui’s body, so does the powerful force and spiritual power strike her body.

A sheet of black, pure Yin energy ripples before Lan Xiaohui, smashing her away as if she was hit by a hammer. Thanks to her Liminality Steps, she manages to twist and turn her body to arrest her flight and land on the ground with her feet first.

As she slides back, digging tiny trenches into the clearing, she stabs my vessel into the ground to stop herself completely, before rushing forward once more.

Lightning ripples around her body, as the tiger’s blood rains from the sky above. Though the tiger’s fur begins turning red from the raining blood and the blood pouring from the three holes on its body — two on the back, and one on the abdomen — Lan Xiaohui’s dress remains completely untouched.

The sword domain pulses at that moment as Lan Xiaohui’s unnaturally long and floating steps propel her forward, and the rain of blood freezes in the air, hovering in place.

Everything stills and becomes quiet.

It lasts for only a brief moment. It is not that everything becomes still and motionless — I still detect small movements in the blood raining down — but that it is incredibly slow.

Sound and motion return in the next pulse, and my exposed vessel becomes shrouded in thick sword energy once more. The billowing shroud of coalesced Qi shrinks and collapses inward, pressing against the form of my vessel with such force that I can feel it trembling against my core.

In the very same instant, Lan Xiaohui’s body flashes forward, crossing the distance in the blink of an eye, and appearing as a black crack that spreads through the air.

The white tiger never even gets a chance to react. It happens so quickly, and from its perspective, Lan Xiaohui suddenly appears before its eyes, unleashing a devastating amount of energy.

Liminality Steps is a movement technique that not only encapsulates the profound mysteries of freedom of motion but also reason-defying speed. At its core is the high-order law of space that can shrink or expand distance, among other advantages.

In terms of short bursts of speed, it is far superior to Vanishing Moon Steps, but in terms of long-distance speed, it falls quite short.

— Heartless Blood Lily: Sundrinker Blade!

The arc of energy left in the wake of my trajectory solidifies in the air and forms a storm front of compressed sword energy — the purest that Lan Xiaohui can produce. In that moment, as it forms in the air, the incredibly sharp sword arc contains the might of countless swords with such violence that it causes the entire arc to tremble and shudder, as if about to collapse under its own power.

My vessel strikes the tiger’s shoulder, right beside its neck, and sinks into its skin. Then it cuts through the tiger’s flesh, eliciting another shrink of its pupils. Then it hits the bone, cuts deep, but stops.

I find it impressive that its body is this sturdy. Even my divine-grade treasure vessel can do no more than this, even with Lan Xiaohui’s finishing moves. Its body is likely the equivalent of a Nascent Soul-level body cultivator.

Then the half-moon arc of sword energy descends like a guillotine, and strikes into the tiger, in the same place as my vessel, and blood flies into the air.

The skin shrivels away under the blast of released sword energy, and it peels away from the crater of impact. The flesh crumbles to black dust and even the bones turn into powder.

The tiger’s body is pressed into the ground, its legs buckling under the spiritual might and pressure of the Sundrinker Blade energy arc.

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Even a beast can make an expression of indignity and rage, but this tiger even more so. It is a Beast Lord. When has it ever bowed to another, or been forced to kneel?

It growls and roars, black energy rippling once more into existence to resist the might of the sword arc. Though this blast of energy is not directed at Lan Xiaohui, it still causes her internal energy to lose cohesion and fall into disarray. It even causes internal wounds, as her body is shaken to the core in the aftermath of that terrible roar.

The white tiger is also holding back, it seems. Had it not released its full power right then and there, it would’ve forever regretted not doing so.

That roar is enough to resist the energy arc, and with a shrug of its wounded shoulder, and incomparable body cultivation, it manages to redirect the sword arc and send it flying into the forest beyond.

Dozens of trees fly into the air, their trunks cut in half.

One limb severed, and the other wounded, the tiger still manages to raise its wounded paw and strike at Lan Xiaohui. Had the tiger not sustained such heavy, debilitating injuries, Lan Xiaohui would’ve likely fared much worse than Wu Yulan. But my owner manages to block the paw with my vessel, barely able to remain standing on her feet as the jaws of the tiger approach her neck.

Glimmers of sword energy appear above the tips of her fingers, and she lashes out with her nails, stabbing them directly into the tiger’s eyes. In her heart, she feels disgusted with herself for using such lowly, dishonorable methods, but it is a matter of life and death, so I do not blame her.

The tiger howls, stumbling back as blood pours from its destroyed eyes.

At that moment, there is a flash of white light and a pure silver-white line that appears above the tiger’s neck.

A moment later, Wu Yulan’s sword cuts through the space, and the tiger’s head cleanly separates from its body.

Lan Xiaohui stumbles and falls to the ground, as Wu Yulan also immediately falls to her knees, and continues coughing out blood, her injuries worsened once more.

The tiger’s head hits the ground and rolls away from its body that remains standing for a moment longer before it leans to the side and falls over.

“Yulan!” Lan Xiaohui shouts, scrambling to her knees to crawl over to her companion and cradle her form against hers. “Are you okay?”

Wu Yulan coughs, resting her head in Lan Xiaohui’s lap. “I… I’ll be fine,” she says, with a grim smile. “Did I kill it?”

Lan Xiaohui glances at the body as if to make sure it is dead. “Mm. You did it.”

Wu Yulan produces a raspy laugh. “We really… underestimated a Beast Lord, huh?”

To begin with, challenging a late stage demonic beast was a foolish idea, not to mention a Beast Lord. If they had a choice, they would not have done this.

Lan Xiaohui looks towards the north and east, where the endless expanse of the Forbidden Lands stretches on.

“We have to go dee—“ Lan Xiaohui whispers, but before she can finish, she coughs violently, blood pouring down the corners of her lips.

Wu Yulan squeezes my owner’s hand, gritting her teeth. The anger she feels is not toward Lan Xiaohui’s suggestion, but her own powerlessness. “If we pay a heavy… price… we might even kill a peak stage beast, but that over there… is the land of Nascent Soul beasts,” Wu Yulan manages to say, with considerable difficulty. “We will die without leaving… a whole corpse behind.”

Lan Xiaohui’s heart is cold and distant. She knows this. She knows that even this feat today is a miracle that was produced by the unfairness of having powerful martial arts, and deep sword attainment. Anyone else would’ve died ten times over before even putting a scratch on the white tiger.

In fact, had the white tiger fought all out from the beginning, even this result would’ve been unachievable.

“We haven’t found a trace of the items we need,” Lan Xiaohui says. “We haven’t found even high grade materials in this area. It has been picked clean by the sect years ago. Our only option is—“ another coughing fit, and more blood follows, but her meaning comes across.

“I can’t give up here,” Lan Xiaohui says after she gets her coughing under control, and then gently strokes Wu Yulan’s hair. “What do you want to do, Yulan?”

Wu Yulan chuckles weakly again. “Where you go, I will go,” she says. “I am not afraid… of dying, I just find it regrettable…”

Lan Xiaohui looks into her companion’s eyes.

“We have the… Empty Moon Pr—“ a cough interrupts Wu Yulan, “— but we cannot learn a single… thing, even after two months. It is so… frustrating. If we could learn… it, maybe our chances wouldn’t be so pitiful.”

Lan Xiaohui frowns at the words and nods.

It was the [Empty Moon Prana] that drove them into these desperate measures. Even after two months, they could not comprehend the incomplete manual. Yun Fei’s life was dangling from a thread, and neither the sect, the city, nor Lady Yue could find any of the materials so far.

They had no choice but to challenge the Beast Lord, but its power was beyond their expectation. The lands beyond are even more dangerous.

“There may be a way for you to improve your strength in the short term,” I tell them via [Telepathy].

Their eyes widen. They had already tried to improve their swordsmanship in my Inner World — with poor results — so they did not expect me to provide a solution.

“How?” Lan Xiaohui asks.

“For now, return to the Starsword Peak. It is about time for Yun Fei’s next treatment.”