“Are you certain… this is the… way?"

The Mother tigress’s voice rumbled deep and resonant, vibrating through the chasm like the distant growl of thunder. She slowed, her bright and glowing gaze burning into his back as if questioning his every move.

Alex had been walking with the tigress and her cubs for less than an hour, and the uneasy tension between them had risen slowly with each passing second. Every step taken was with suspicion, and each glance betrayed a rising lack of trust as though they each waited for the moment when they would strike against one another.

The words ‘Allocation’ and ‘Mana Burn’ were on the tip of his tongue and the edge of his mind as he walked several paces ahead, determined to keep her out of his domain so he would have extra time and space to react to any potential attack that would occur if she finally realised he had no idea where the Little Demon of Winding Bloods was hiding. And although she remained just outside his domain's range, every movement she made sent sound, ripples through the air, heat through his awareness, and tremors in the ground beneath his feet—enough to give him a clear warning of her actions.

Alex didn’t bother turning to face her, his senses already on edge from the weight of her presence. He replied calmly with his eyes still fixed on the path ahead.

“I am certain.”

He absolutely wasn’t.

What’ll I do when she finds out I’m making it all up? Alex halted mid-stride, the question lingering in his mind. He dismissed Eclipse with a thought, summoning another blade; but this one was different—stolen from one of Phurafel’s stronger imperial undead revenants, it pulsed with life and power.—a guardless cultivator’s weapon, brimming to the edge with Qi. The blade glowed faintly in his grip, its energy patterns shifting and fluctuating across the unknown metal. It reminded him of the ancient Chinese swords he’d once seen in Earth’s museums and ceremonial displays, relics from a distant past.

Alex's thoughts focused on the weight of the sword. Every step he took sent out ripples of energy, the blade responding in kind, its glow brighter, sharper. Within the domain, he could sense the smallest changes, down to the air currents shifting around him, the ground’s quiet vibrations, and even the chemical signatures left behind by the undead that had once held the blade. It vibrated with unstable lightning Qi.

Good. This should work, he thought, raising the sword. “Thousands become One.” He muttered to no one.

Alex closed his eyes and shifted his focus entirely inward as he drew half his mana pool from within, pulling the energy from deep within his heart with the precision of a sword stroke, dumping it all into the activation of his skill. His senses sharpened through the near-omniscient reach of his Sword Saint's Domain, where every internal breath and vibration came alive in exquisite clarity.

[Thousands Become One - Mastery: 0 > 12%]

From his heart, hundreds of thin strings of mana erupted, much more than had sprouted from the skill’s first activation. They rose skyward, countless threads that shaped into countless swords, some glowing faint blue, others brighter, some large, and some smaller, and a final tether that caused the cultivator’s Qi-filled sword to rise and join them.

The Eraser. The Void Web. He wasn’t even sure what to call it yet, but he knew it was dangerous. The strings of mana that formed from his heart had already stretched far beyond the domain’s limit, reaching for a sky littered with hundreds of swords. The sheer scale of it unnerved him, its potential to annihilate not just the tigress, but himself. He remembered the destructive power it held when it collided with Qi—the void it left in its wake, erasing anything it touched. It had been raw, unruly, and impossible to control. I definitely put too much mana into the activation this time, Alex thought as he eyed the thin, near-invisible strings expanding into branches of destruction. Once multiple skills merged and the true technique activated, a single misstep could erase him from existence.

The tigress's molten eyes fixed on the constellation of swords hanging above them, her body remaining still as she regarded the display with an air of detached interest. A low, rumbling growl escaped her throat, not of fear but of mild amusement and sheer curiosity at the spectacle. “What are… you doing?”

“Preparing,” he responded calmly, without breaking stride or looking back. To him, her question had no real bearing on the outcome.

Instead, Alex mulled over the risk of using the Void Web to attack and possibly kill the Fire Tiger, as her large form followed some distance behind, either unaware or unthreatened by the trap forming around her. Her massive form radiated power. But that doesn't matter, Alex thought. The moment she’s distracted—that’s when I’ll move. His mind flowed with focus, expanded to the edges of his domain like a cloud as his attention concentrated to a sword's edge.

My perception of time will slow when I condense the domain, I’ll have to do that to manage this. If she moves too fast, I’ll need the smallest of windows—just enough to catch her in the web.

He turned the possibilities over in his mind, piece by piece. The prospect of condensing his domain as far as it would go…. But if I do that, it limits everything else. If I shrink it too much, I lose sight of everything beyond it. A mistake that small could cost him. But slowing time was his only way of making this work. He would gain one foot of sheer omniscience... But he would be practically blind beyond that, unable to sense energies or fluctuations of the world. Unable to sense even the smallest of tremors in the air or ground. That was the trade-off, the crux of his plan.

I’ll have to rely on my human eyes alone, he realised.

That would mean that when he attacked, he would have to ensure that he was facing the mother and that his eyes could track her movements, somewhat. With time slowed that shouldn’t be a problem, as long as I’m facing her.

But what if she’s faster than that? Than the attack? The thought sparked a new path of consideration. What if she dodged the initial strike? What if her reflexes were too honed to fall into this trap? The possibility nagged at him, but he found his answer. He couldn’t rely on raw power to take her down—he needed to wait for her to be injured, preoccupied, anything to make her slower.

The Sovereign Clone, perhaps? The idea surfaced, but he immediately dismissed it. Too risky. Jin was still alive and likely watching, and his ability to create clones from any blade he touched was not an asset he could afford to reveal—not now, not ever. Each clone carried his presence, his essence, and any cultivator would have questions as to how he could seemingly create priceless treasures at will, especially someone like Jin. The clones would become a liability, not an advantage. No, the only real path is to wait until she’s too preoccupied to react.

Alex paused, allowing the mother and her cubs to enter the range of his domain, before he began to walk once more, his awareness drifted through his domain to search her form, past muscle, skin, blood vessels and Qi pathways, searching for the location of her spirit beast core. I’ll have to target that to end this quickly.

His senses sharpened, Sword Saint’s Domain fluctuating, every vibration in the ground feeding him real-time information about her stance, her slight movements, the raw Qi radiating off her like heat from a bonfire. He could feel the vast gap in their strengths—the nine levels of Qi gathering between them seemed as wide as an abyss, with each level beyond the second stretching the distance like the space between sky and earth. Her Qi vibrated through the air in a storm of energy brewing under her skin. At the ninth level, she was an immovable boulder, unstoppable.

He found the core, a bright star of fiery mana burning in the centre of her chest, between her forelegs, sending waves of invigorating heat through her form and causing the air above her fur to ripple.

Precision, control, timing. Everything will depend on these three. The second she makes a move—that’s when I’ll strike. His plan solidified and the blades hovered above him connected to his mana threads, waiting for his command.

A cub's hot fur brushed against his skin, hair, and shoulder as it bounded ahead, each of its steps impacting the ground as horses would.

The cubs—they couldn’t survive an attack like this. His gaze shifted in a brief moment of hesitation and conflict before his thoughts turned cold. It’s either them or me. If they die in the blast then… He sighed. So be it. I won’t be held back by sympathy now. Sentiment had no place in this situation, if the tigress saw him hesitate, it’d be the end of him. As much as he didn’t want to involve innocents, he steeled himself, solidifying his resolve with a thought. The cubs are collateral, nothing more. If they survive, so be it.

There was no certainty that any surviving cubs would pursue vengeance or even possess the awareness to understand the need for it. If they sought him out in the future, he would face them, and if required, send them to meet their mother in the afterlife. Or perhaps he would spare them. Whatever would happen was a matter for tomorrow. For now, his focus remained on one goal: to be the last left standing.

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Before either could break the silence of their trek, the ground shifted. A low rumble vibrated beneath their feet. Alex strained to listen, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end. "We're not alone," he murmured.

From the distant darkness behind them, red eyes began to appear, one pair after another, until dozens glared back at them. The creatures emerged slowly, their bodies formed of congealed blood and sinew, grotesque parodies of living beings. They moved with slow predatory motions, limbs twisting unnaturally as they advanced.

Then came the larger blood creatures, the cracks of their bone spurs on stone causing both man and mother to pause and look—twenty, thirty, no, more—bursting from the place they had left behind, their snarls filling the space around them. Their forms were grotesque and unnatural, bristling with muscle and blood—some towering, others crawling, all moving in unison as though pulled by an unseen force.

The mother tigress bared her teeth, a snarl ripping from her throat. "You lead me… into a trap?" she roared, turning her fiery gaze upon Alex.

He shook his head urgently. "They must have followed us," he insisted. "We just need to fight them."

The tigress hissed, claws sliding out, her massive body lowering into a crouch, her cubs huddling behind her. Alex shifted his stance. He summoned his blades, the steel sprouting from his arms, ready as the blood creatures charged. The creatures would be at either his stage of cultivation or slightly higher, but all of them held higher physicality than he did, if they were to have stats, each of them would be five times stronger than him in each category save intelligence, endurance and perhaps dexterity. He could boost his senses, reaction time and perception through passives like his domain and its affect on how he perceived the flow of time, and Sword Sense’s system-constructed nervous system and internal structures boosted his dexterity, enabling instant reactions, reflexes, and rapid processing of stimuli which allowed him to respond to stimuli and threats beyond his level. But it still wouldn’t be enough, not even if he used the Dao or Allocation. And the reallocation of his stats was something he planned to save for taking out the Mother Tigress.

Instead, his eyes locked on the cubs, and he moved first, intent on encompassing them within his domain and utilising their cultivation levels to monopolise the tide of overpowered blood creatures. With each cub being at the first stage of Qi gathering, they were strong enough to survive an exchange and would serve as distractions for the beasts, allowing him to weave between them to strike at their cores. Hopefully I can kill the creatures in one strike that way, he thought, allowing his consciousness to seep into his domain to become a god of the battlefield.

Still, the clash came hard, the weight of the horde crashing against his defences. Blade and claw clanged against bone and Mana surged through his veins, fuelling his strikes as he carved through the onslaught.

As mana surged to fuel his every move, his chaotic sword dance struck from unseen angles— always a blind spot, always from a place where his dark weapon surged unseen, blended in the shadows and hidden by the cubs horse-like forms.

[Eternal Disorder - Blade Dance - Mastery: 0 > 12%]

[Eternal Disorder - Blade Dance: Skill 1/3 gained!]

[Skill ‘Eternal Shroud of Disarray’ gained!]

Each creature fell, torn apart, but more took their place. Alex dodged a swipe from a skeletal claw, his Dao-infused blade slicing through its neck in one fluid motion, cleaving through its spirit beast core. His body moving before his mind had caught up he battled among the tiger and its cubs. Blood splattered across the stone, thick and heavy, but his focus remained sharp. The cubs were behind him, untouched and unharmed, as the last of the creatures crumbled.

[E-Grade Skill: Eternal Shroud of Disarray - (Eternal Disorder- Blade Dance 1/3, Active):

Shroud of Disarray grants the user near-invisibility, blending them and their blade into shadows, appearing as barely perceptible light. As long as their blade remains unseen and ungraspable by opponents, the user becomes equally elusive and uncomprehended. Mana surges through the user, reinforcing their body and boosting speed, agility, and power. The longer they remain untouched, their unpredictable attacks from blind spots grow more devastating, amplifying the chaotic nature of the Eternal Disorder sword dance. Full mastery leads to further skill development, with consolidation at 100%.]

[You have defeated [Error - Non-System Entities detected - Quantifying…]

[Quantification Accepted.]

[You have defeated level 0̴̰͈͖̊͋0̴͎̟̣̈́̐0̵̠͉̥̔̊̈0̴̰͈͖̊͋0̴͎̟̣̈́̐ Blood Familiar (Qi Gathering: First stage) x 10.]

[You have defeated level 0̴̰͈͖̊͋0̴͎̟̣̈́̐0̵̠͉̥̔̊̈0̴̰͈͖̊͋0̴͎̟̣̈́̐ Blood Familiar (Qi Gathering: Second stage) x 4- additional experience points due to the cultivation difference.]

[Experience Assimilated.]

[Qi: 53 > 63]

Breathing heavily, Alex took a step back, his senses still heightened, dismissing the notifications to search for further threats. Then he saw it. The air shifted subtly. The Qi from the slain creatures didn’t settle or even completely disperse into the environment as it usually would— instead, it remained and drifted, pulled by some force deeper within the chasm. Not just there, but above, too, he realised, observing the large mass. Two directions. It moved in two directions, pulled by two forces. Siphoned. One drew the blood Qi ahead into the dark depth of the cavern, and another drew the blood Qi to a source that seemed to lead high into the sky directly above them.

Alex paused.

Two forces are siphoning the blood Qi of the dead creatures, one’s some distance ahead, and the other’s… directly above us. He looked up, then back down to the dead blood creatures, studying their drifting Qi that refused to follow the natural order and disperse into the environment. It was clearly being siphoned. As far as he was aware there were only two beings in the realm besides himself capable of siphoning the Qi of blood creatures. The little Demon… and the Phoenix. They’re close. His pulse quickened. Then two sounds rocked the cavern.

Crack.

Boom.

The crack of stone thundered above, so loud Alex felt it in his bones. His feet reacted before thought, leaping to the side as a boulder, massive enough to crush a house, shattered where he had stood in a deep and rumbling boom. His Sword Saint's Domain thrummed in sync with the world, each shift in the rock vibrating through him like the war drums of the earth. It told him that whatever had caused the boulder to fall had the power to cause many more, and the basalt trembled because of it. Alex shielded his eyes as the space lit up—caused by the rivers of fire that licked the walls high above, threatening to send the cavern rumbling toward further collapse.

A shadow covered them, bathing the entire space in a deep and dark maroon red.

All present looked up to see the blood phoenix swooping above them with its wings spread wide, a sea of its blood-red feathers blotting out the sky. Burning blood covered the sky, its wings igniting the air with every beat as Its screech pierced the air like a blade, though Alex could have sworn it sounded almost like a cackle.

With a swift motion of its wings, the phoenix unleashed a barrage scything molten blood and fire that scattered in all directions, molten flames scorching the stone, and feathers like molten spears sending cracks spidering across the cavern walls. Its intent was clear: to kill everything below.

The tigress only glared back, unphased by his words. “Keep up… if you can, human,” she snarled, her eyes fixed on the phoenix as it circled overhead.

The tigress hissed and her cubs scattered as the cavern began to tremble with intensity. Alex instinctively shifted his stance, dodging a cascade of stones that crashed down from above. The ground quaked violently beneath his feet, and he could feel the low rumble of collapse as the very air trembled with displacement.

Then all hell broke loose.

A mountain of stone gave way, cracking as slabs the size of palaces began to plummet from above. He sensed the change in pressure a split second before impact, twisting his body unnaturally mid-air as Boundless Dodge yanked him from death's edge. The heat of the phoenix’s flame bit at his skin, forcing him to leap once more with Phoenix Leap, the ground becoming a blur beneath his feet.

The tigress snarled, bounding past him, her cubs scattering under her commands as the cavern groaned under the weight of their collapsing tomb. Alex’s senses stretched outward, filling the environment, reading the blood and fire Qi that filled the space. Every pulse and every tremor fed into his mind, charting a clear path through the debris. His domain sharpened, contracting from 15 feet to 10, amplifying his perception to pinpoint precision.

Without pausing, Alex thrust his sword into a falling stone, the reality withering flux of his Dao cutting a section of debris, storing it into his Inventory in a desperate attempt to clear a path forward. The sheer size of the collapse would crush him, but the edge he’d gained with his domain might be enough to outpace it. He condensed his domain by half.

5 feet.

He could feel every crack, every shift in the rock above, every tremor in the air around him, every sound and every falling insect. He felt unthreatened by the chaos as the stones fell much slower than before. A Phoenix Leap and Boundless Dodge sent him rocketing through the gap and closer to the Tigress. He stared at the giant Tigress ahead and contracted his domain further.

1 Foot.

All senses faded, he could no longer see the energies of the world as one would see leaves on an autumn tree. He no longer felt the world’s pulse as the air shifted, earth trembled, heat moved, and chemicals flared from the displaced and falling cavern outside of his perception. Beyond the limit of his domain he felt disconnected, blind almost.

Except within it, he felt like a god, his senses amplified beyond measure. Time stood still, moving at a snail's pace, and his eyes were trained on the Mother, drinking in her situation.

He witnessed the Tigress distracted, spewing gouts of flame and lava constructs to shield herself from harm as she navigated the collapse, her eyes in the midst of darting to and fro, her senses far more limited than his despite the disparity in strength.

It’s now or never, Alex thought, mentally preparing the hundreds of remaining blades to rocket towards her like homing beacons shot from a missile.

If this were Mistress Yan Hua... His thoughts momentarily shifted. She’d dodge everything. She’s faster, sharper, more powerful—unless I caught her by complete surprise, but I doubt it would work even then... But he wasn’t dealing with Yan Hua now. He was dealing with a creature driven by instinct, not strategy. One he could outthink, find the moment when her nature betrayed her. When she’s too distracted by something else.

Like a collapsing cavern the size of a mountain.

The real blade of among his summoned weapons pulsed faintly with condensed and enchanted Qi, almost unnoticed among the countless mana constructs. It would be her end.

Hopefully.

But no matter the outcome, hesitation wasn’t an option. Phoenix Leap, Boundless Dodge, Phoenix Leap, Mana Burn, Allocation, he whispered in his mind, layering the movements that would save him should the web recoil too quickly. His focus narrowed on the tigress, every fibre of him ready. If this worked, it wouldn’t just kill her—it would break the very fabric of the space around them.

Mana Blade.

He commanded the strings to move, the delicate strands pulling taut, glinting with raw energy as swords rained down like shooting stars. They would either snare the tigress, or they would tear everything apart.