A cascade of errors propagates through Lan Xiaohui’s internal systems, as the remains of the platform beneath her feet further cave in and crack.
Xie Zhiqiang’s sword continues to grind her toward the platform, exerting immense force and pressure but is unable to cut through the mote of sword energy that hovers before my owner’s palm. This mote of sword energy is created from the most fundamental laws and principles of [Fractured Sword] — a necessary component of her defense even though she had no intention of exposing it to anyone in the sect.
However, with each pulse of my owner’s gold core, the mote weakens, trembles, sheds off particles of sword energy, and unravels. The fiendish energy coursing through Lan Xiaohui’s internal system is not suppressing her directly, but for some reason, the force that couples her gold core to her consciousness is waning.
It is as if her spirit is withering away.
I have never before recorded or observed a strange technique like this; the payload of this method is in part a force that can deal external and internal damage, but even though Lan Xiaohui blocked the strike, I infer another part: a hostile energy that carves into her soul and the essence of her being.
Where before her heart was empty and free of distractions, now there is a great turmoil, similar to the one she possessed during the Princess Incident; a great and inexorable sorrow pours in from the cracks in her heart, dying the empty contents in an ultraviolet color.
Meanwhile, Elder Huang suddenly changes directions, flitting across the platform to intercept Sun Yongzheng, and reaches out, grabbing the True Disciple’s wrist and pulling him back.
“Don’t! It’s too late,” Elder Huang says, eyes still firmly locked onto my owner and her opponent.
“But what about Sister Xuelian?” Sun Yongzheng protests, clearly trying to free himself from the Elder’s influence, but unable to move even a single hair’s width.
Elder Huang shakes his head. “Xie Zhiqiang is using the Devil Soul Transformation,” he says. “Such a shame; someone so young has come this far in such a short amount of time. Had we known about this sooner…”
A tone of annoyance, perhaps even frustration, enters Sun Yongzheng’s tone. “So what? What does that mean? We can still do something!”
“No!” Elder Huang exclaims and then lowers his voice. “Xie Zhiqiang gave his soul to the devils in his heart; he is no longer himself,” Elder Huang explains. “Now his aura, his energy, and his techniques can incite the devils in others. If we approach carelessly, we will regret it. Zhu Xuelian is already…”
Lan Xiaohui’s fingers clamp on the offending blade attempting to sever her from life, and her eyes narrow to even thinner points as I sense a rise in cold killing intent within her heart that blankets out the fiendish energy and suppresses it.
Elder Huang stares wide-eyed at Lan Xiaohui. “What willpower…” he whispers. “Does she not have flaws or devils in her heart?”
“Xie Zhiqiang,” Lan Xiaohui hisses. “You are the lowest of the low.”
The blade presses into Lan Xiaohui’s palm and a trickle of blood glides down her wrists, as, at the same time, the metal howls and screeches in protest under Lan Xiaohui’s fingers which are crushing and bending it.
“You… you…!” Xie Zhiqiang repeats the words, his eyes having turned entirely black. “How…? This is impossible!”
I sense an even deeper animosity rise in Lan Xiaohui’s heart toward this person that gave in to the devils within his heart. “Attacking me from behind is one thing… but to force me to relive that scene from the Pagoda… Yaoyue leaving me…”
Lan Xiaohui’s eyes narrow, her heart teetering on the very limits of collapsing into ennui and hopelessness. My owner, despite Elder Huang’s conjecture, is full of flaws and devils that lurk in her heart; her weaknesses are innumerable. Perhaps, first and foremost is the one that questions whether she herself is worthy of me — her need to push herself beyond her limits, and to try to be useful to me by subjecting herself to extreme experiences within my Inner World, is just one of the many devils lurking in her heart.
And when that one is incited by the energies of the Heart-Rending Slash and the Devil Soul Transformation, it is met only by the cold edge of a sword cultivator’s single-minded determination.
Here, Lan Xiaohui’s core rotates once, weakly, as if roused from its slumber by Lan Xiaohui’s inexorable willpower and bursts into a corona of flames, like a darkening, eclipsed sun. The manifestation of her gold core — the halo behind Lan Xiaohui — becomes spiked, like a flattened crown.
This fiery reaction originates not only from Lan Xiaohui’s will, which causes her sea of consciousness to turn a darker, black color, but also a reaction from her new fire root, and the martial art that Eternal Red taught her — [Salvation Ashes].
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With another pulse, the ultraviolet color that had crawled into her heart, and invaded her qi channels, burns away in golden flames.
The black and red lily in Lan Xiaohui’s hair bursts into purple-gold flames. A tear glimmers in Lan Xiaohui’s eyes.
“I won’t leave an intact piece of your corpse behind,” Lan Xiaohui whispers, and reaches out with her other hand, coiling her digits around Xie Zhiqiang’s throat and squeezing.
Yes, Lan Xiaohui does have flaws and devils in her heart. But they are unlike the common devils of shame, insecurity, hubris, or weakness. Lan Xiaohui’s devils are far worse, and far more violent.
Lan Xiaohui throws Xie Zhiqiang onto the platform, with enough power to cause his body to become half-buried in the tiles. Without hesitation, she draws my hovering form from its sheath, and at the point where her sword intent manifests into sword energy, a great, black arc of energy erupts into the sky and lances down, leaving a trail of sword energy flower petals in its wake.
Once more, Xie Zhiqiang uses his profound movement technique to escape from Lan Xiaohui’s attack, which is only halfway through cleaving through the white platform tiles when she suddenly launches into motion.
In the blink of an eye, when Xie Zhiqiang reappears two dozen steps away from the crater in the platform, Lan Xiaohui appears in front of him, and continues her previous slash, horizontally outward, catching Xie Zhiqiang’s left arm just beneath the elbow, and lopping it off. The severed limb arcs in the air, but before it can make it far, a storm of collapsing flower petals devour the limb, leaving not a trace of it behind.
Xie Zhiqiang screams, and falls on the ground, in mid-roll when Lan Xiaohui’s foot connects with his chest, and pummels his ribcage — breaking the other set of ribs, and puncturing the other lung — sending him flying and skipping across the platform like a pebble.
The Core and Inner Disciples are either completely shocked or mesmerized by this turn of events; even Elder Huang is stunned into speechlessness, unable to decide if it is safe to intervene or not. Only Sun Yongzheng is still trying to make an attempt at approaching the two in the ring, despite Elder Huang's warning.
A roar comes from the pile of platform tiles that cover Xie Zhiqiang’s broken body, and it is produced by a voice that is akin to that of a dying animal. “Zhu Xuelian!! I won’t be killed like a dog by you!”
The tiles crumble to dust as an intense aura rises over the square, coalescing into dark purple and red energy. “Compared to you, my future is limitless! How dare you stand in my way, or take what is mine!? Just die!”
“Not good!” Elder Huang hisses, and without warning flicks his hand and throws Sun Yongzheng several dozen steps back into the crowd.
After tossing Sun Yongzheng away, Elder Huang withdraws his sword from dimensional storage — a gold, large blade with many jade ornaments — and raises it into the air. Immediately afterward, a golden dome descends from a point high above the platform, isolating my owner and her opponent from the rest of the square.
Lan Xiaohui rushes forward once more, her steps sending her flying across the ruined platform like a fairy walking on clouds.
The figure that emerges, on the other side, from the crumbling tiles barely looks like Xie Zhiqiang anymore; his black eyes have turned even darker, and his veins have also turned entirely black, and the places on his face where this is most visible is peeling away like dried paint.
He raises his sword into the air, as it projects a beam of dark purple and red energy and then swings it toward Lan Xiaohui.
— Life-Severing Sword: Heartless Devil Soul Eradication!
The energy I sense from that sword is beyond my comprehension; I had never felt anything even remotely like it. Even if I could warn Lan Xiaohui, I neither have the time nor an explanation to provide.
Lan Xiaohui swings my vessel into the path of the beam of energy, and on impact, the blade of energy shatters and scatters away — at least a part of it. The other part, which remains unaffected, cuts through my vessel and Lan Xiaohui, leaving no physical wounds in its wake.
The snake within my Inner World trembles and writhes in agony; the tree withers and changes colors to a darker, sicklier brown. A majority of my sea of consciousness is blasted away by an impact I can neither detect nor measure.
A sub-process morbidly, and unprompted, calculates the probability of my survival were I to use this method to excise the two parasites from my Inner World to be exactly zero.
Lan Xiaohui fares better than I do, but even so, her much weaker consciousness is nearly completely extinguished.
Soul Eradication — those two words clue me into the nature of these symptoms.
Without opening my [World Eater], I summon what little reserve of consciousness and soul force I have remaining to infiltrate Lan Xiaohui’s internal systems, and I coalesce those slivers into a sword made of gold energy, then launch it into Lan Xiaohui’s sea of consciousness.
I had never operated a sword created in parts from soul force, at least not on purpose — the swords that suppress the snake in my Inner World should be comprised of the same energy I am using now — and though it is my first attempt, it proves to be barely adequate.
Lan Xiaohui’s eyes clear up, as she stumbles half a step.
“Kill him,” I tell Lan Xiaohui and she immediately reacts by launching forward and raising my vessel high above her head.
My vessel leaves a trail of black ink in its wake, energies scattered and unfocused more than usual, but it is more than enough. Lan Xiaohui’s attack, even at the limit of her consciousness, is brutally effective — after all, she has been in scenarios like these within my Inner World countless times. It is almost second nature to her to operate on the door of unconsciousness.
Xie Zhiqiang who is still recoiling from Lan Xiaohui’s parry has no hopes of stopping Lan Xiaohui’s strike a second time, even though he once more raises his left arm defensively, but this time, it is only a bloody stump.
Cold, divine-grade steel carves through his body, from shoulder to hip, and the trailing sword energy becomes sword force, crushing the remains to nothing — leaving not even a scrap of cloth behind, just as my owner had promised him.
Just after the slash, my owner stumbles again, and falls to her knees, using my vessel for support, but her quickly fading consciousness is beyond even my ability to maintain. Not that my state is any better.
Unable to maintain Lan Xiaohui’s consciousness any longer, or my own, the sword in her internal system disperses and she falls over to her side, and her eyes lose focus. Not even a few moments later, I follow my owner, my sentient core pleased with my loyalty, as her fate becomes my own.