The Drow Maiden had been clear when she said there were only two likely-to-work ways of defeating an overwhelmingly faster enemy in a one-on-one clash: a sneak attack or forcing them into making a mistake.

Shen couldn't sneak attack her; he had tried. So, his following plan was simple: dormant lacerations and taints.

Dormant lacerations were the most annoying trap technique he knew. It was about making air molecules vibrate at a frequency that acted like invisible mines. Said frequency aimed to damage any carbon-based lifeform that touched them.

Yinhu Lanfen would inevitably touch them if she fought him in close quarters, and a single instant of contact was enough to infiltrate her body deeply and, more importantly, painfully. He estimated she could lose as much as two hundred HP if she ate an entire tear, but that was unlikely; she was fast enough to get away from them too quickly to get severely damaged. She would probably only suffer a few points of damage, but doing so repeatedly would be very, very annoying.

Annoyance would lead to anger, which would hopefully push her into doing something stupid.

There was even a tiny possibility of the technique giving him a significant edge. However, it depended on his enemy doing something very, ridiculously, absolutely dumb. He didn't even know if she could do it, though the being in a cultivation realm named "Ethereal Harmonization" suggested she could.

His only reserve with that plan was whether the woman was enough of a carbon-based lifeform to begin with. He didn't know how to affect qi or living Laws the same way. At least her arm had felt human enough when he cut it off with his spear and tore it apart with his aura.

The truth was that Shen had seen little of her capabilities until now. Her fist technique was dreadful, but she was a swordswoman. He hadn't exchanged blows with her primary weapon yet. Her only sword until now attack had been a long-range one.

Shen rushed at her, keeping a random pattern of approach and paying attention to everything Yinhu Lanfen did while preparing himself.

First, he dropped his aura-fueled invisibility because it had shown it was useless. Then, he enveloped himself with the skin-tight qi that had weakened the lightning bolts the most. Lastly, he pushed the dust and air away from his opponent at a range of precisely one foot further than her sword's reach.

The vacuum would help weaken her Law-filled lightning bolts. Almost as important was that, like the dust, it also prevented "common" lightning bolts from automatically materializing around her.

That was crucial. After Yinhu Lanfen had shown she could command lightning from the skies, he had to assume any lightning could come under her control. She hadn't imbued the heavenly bolts with her Law, but maybe it was a matter of proximity. He definitely didn't want a seemingly harmless lightning bolt behind him to suddenly turn into a lethal tool.

Shen didn't create a vacuum around him this time because, without matter, he needed to waste too much qi to move around in the air. Qi thrusters weren't cheap to maintain.

Suddenly finding herself in a vacuum and with a direct line of sight to her foe's approach made Yinhu Lanfen stop screaming in rage. Unexpectedly, the vacuum made her fall. Whatever technique she used to stay afloat also needed matter to work.

She quickly used qi thrusters to stay afloat, but she sucked at it, and her flight was unstable. Not a big advantage, but Shen would take any he could.

The flight destabilization was distraction enough for Shen to reach the midway point between them without resistance, but then, she acted.

Yinhu Lanfen swung her sword.

Dozens of Law lightning bolts shot at Shen.

He was nowhere fast enough to detect natural lightning moving, not this close. Yet, Yinhu Lanfen's lightning wasn't over ten thousand times faster than him, like the ones that had fallen from the heavens. He calculated them to be merely hundreds of times faster after going through the vacuum that decreased their speed. She had also shown limited control over the bolts. All that had added up to have him lose only five percent of his health in her previous attack.

Still, Shen couldn't dodge them if he was moving at them. Fortunately, even the Drow Maiden had said his random pattern of approach, often even moving backward, might fool a particularly dull mosquito. Coming from her, Shen took it as a compliment.

So, every single one of Yinhu Lanfen's bolts missed that time.

The woman didn't give up. She swung her sword again, and again, and again. He only moved at Mach 30 in the air, so her swing speed was six times as fast as he, at around Mach 200. However, she couldn't attack relentlessly. She made a small pause between each strike.

Seventeen times she sent dozens of bolts his way as he approached.

Over five hundred Law lighting bolts tried to kill him.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Only seven managed to pierce his body.

| Health Points: 217 / 300

And then, Shen was unto her.

He thrust his spear at her using all power of his Ruptured Concepts. She dodged. Her body's defenses were weak, so she would avoid blocking or parrying his spear unless she was an absolute maroon.

He had expected it and used his spear in a set vibration to release a shockwave around it. It was as if dangerous roots infiltrated the air and expanded quickly. It wasn't fast enough to catch her, but this round of attacks wasn't about speed.

He had started setting up his dormant lacerations.

There was no visible effect, but the trap would stay in place for a quarter of a second. More than enough time for her to return to this position at the speed she could move—although her movement speed had fallen to less than Mach 100 now that she used qi thrusters to stay afloat.

Still vibrating his sword to set up the trap, Shen changed his spear jab into a swing. Yinhu Lanfen was midswing. She was faster and thus had believed she would have time to counter-attack and cut him down, but her technique was atrociously ineffective.

She also seemed to have no battle experience worth a damn. She actually froze for a split moment, unsure whether to change her attack into a parry or get out of his spear's way.

She wisely picked the latter, and he missed again. The dormant lacerations followed on his spear's wake—and would continue throughout the battle. He couldn't know where she would attack from but hoped she would try to strike him from behind—where he had left the trap.

Yinhu Lanfen was twisting her body to dodge his previous attack, and once more, Shen followed. His spear never stopped, and his first thrust had turned into a continuous, never-ending movement. He had to use precise body positioning and perfect pacing to achieve that without weakening his attack.

His spear followed her again—and, this time, so did his foot. She could fly three times as fast as him but not maneuver as well. He took a guess at how she would dodge his spear and kicked in a way that would exploit it.

He failed. Instead of keeping dodging, he flew away from him. He followed while counter-vibrating his body to avoid getting hit by the very aerial traps he was setting with his spear. He kept it moving before him.

Unfortunately, Yinhu Lanfen had just decided she would be better served by getting away from him and throwing lightning bolts from a distance.

There wasn't much Shen could do then. He did his best to dodge all bolts but would ultimately die if that kept going.

Yinhu Lanfen knew that, but when he got to a little over 180 HP, he bluffed otherwise.

"Buy qi crystal— No, healing crystal," he said.

He had finished his Rupture Pilgrimage. He wasn't beholden to its rules anymore.

The system was, fortunately, working normally this time. The crystal instantly materialized on his hand. He cut off a thin layer of his skin to eliminate the Drow Maiden's Laws in his body, hiding his identity, then crushed the crystal. The pain was instantly replaced with healing.

| Purchased: Minor Healing Crystal | -9,000 AP

| Remaining AP: 38,827,622

| Health Points: 283 / 300 | +100

Yinhu Lanfen could instantly regrow limbs. So could Shen. Mostly.

The female cultivator's Law fragments inside him didn't disappear from his shoulder injury. It didn't heal. The very thin opening and the burnt marks remained.

Shen ignored it all and kept advancing.

His foe was once more angered. He knew better than to assume things, but he also knew he had to analyze his opponents to find openings. More and more, she pointed at an emotional instability. He had counted on that to provoke her into close-quarter combat.

It worked.

Yinhu Lanfen roared angrily again, then yelled, "Very well, dog! I shall show you the true might of the Yinhu Clan!"

And she did show him indeed.

She became lightning.

She suddenly turned into a lightning bolt that blazed through the air and the vacuum straight at him. Forget Mach 100; she could travel at five times that speed and her form was so small and agile that Shen's reactive spear swing missed it by a long margin. He immediately cut all his pain receptors because he knew what was coming.

Yinhu Lanfen got behind him, turned human again, and swung her sword.

He used Finite Avoidance, twisting his body and moving his spear to block. Yet, she was too fast. Her sword came horizontally, and the tip pierced four inches into his shoulder before the rest of the blade met his incoming weapon's shaft. The blade cut half an inch into the wood but did stop.

Then came the electric discharge.

There was no dust vibration or magnetism between them this time. No vacuum. Even his qi layer was ignored because her blade was inside him.

At least he felt no pain as he was cooked alive.

The strange Law-lightning ignored his soul's innate defense. All water in his body instantly evaporated. He turned into charcoal.

Feng Shen would've died if not for the dormant lacerations he left in his wake as he moved toward his enemy.

The Drow Maiden had shared many truths about metaphysical energy and matter with him. One of them was that turning yourself into an element could be useful, but only as a last resort. Such techniques turned most of your body into pure mana or qi while changing a small part into the element. That energy was left behind if you changed position. If you wanted to revert the process, you took the energy from the surrounding area to recreate your body.

So, it left you vulnerable to many things. For instance, you would end up with a malformed body if you couldn't absorb enough energy from your surroundings.

However, the worst-case scenario was if you found invisible traps like the ones Shen had created.

His dormant lacerations technique should be relatively weak compared to her entire health pool. However, it became considerably more potent when its target simply decided to start existing in the space occupied by the lacerations.

Yinhu Lanfen's body was reformed from the inside out with the lightning bolt as the center. As she did, her body pushed away all matter touching it, including air. However, the lacerations were built to resist being moved, or a random breeze might take them out of position. They wouldn't hold against a dedicated push, but there was nothing of the kind there.

So she ended up with lacerations filling almost all of her belly. It quickly poisoned and tore her body from the inside. It only seemed to take an eternity to produce results because she moved so very fast.

So, one moment, Shen was dying.

Then, Yinhu Lanfen's body suddenly exploded from the chest to the knees.

She might still be alive, but Shen's brain had just almost fried beyond survival. He was unconscious and wouldn't wake up any time soon.

They both started falling to the ground and soon reached the bottom of the crater he had created.

The disintegrated earth and grass he had taken from the cavity followed suit, burying them underneath.