Chapter 214

The white Internal Force blazing from Yun Xiazi's body contracted sharply and surged back inward. The shattered white dragons coalesced swiftly back into her form.

Her previously pure-white Internal Force gradually gave way to specks of gold.

Suspended in mid-air, her body elongated and swelled. Two additional heads—their features blurred and indistinct—sprouted from her shoulders, while two extra pairs of arms extended from her back.

Three heads and six arms.

In her four new hands, she gripped longswords formed from the blinding light of white-gold True Force.

"Old Dream Divine Method."

Yun Xiazi's six hands blazed simultaneously with golden light. The colorful radiance gathered between the brows of her three heads grew increasingly solid.

"Lunar Hundred Dragon Slash!"

An ear-splitting boom rang out. A massive surge of white-gold Internal Force erupted from Yun Xiazi's body, and from within that surging mass, an endless swarm of white dragons burst forth.

The densely packed wyrms shot skyward like a reverse waterfall—crisscrossing, roaring, exhaling frost—as they rushed toward Lin Hui.

The Mist within a several-kilometer radius was instantly scattered, and the abyss beneath Tianzhan Cliff flooded with endless white-gold light.

Countless dragons lunged from the glare, crashing like a tidal wave toward Lin Hui, who stood calmly on the broken cliff's edge. Had an attack of this magnitude been aimed at Xinyu Town, it would have wiped the settlement off the map in a single strike.

"Not bad momentum." Lin Hui raised Ruyi, his long hair whipping wildly in the gale. "Then I suppose I should get slightly serious as well."

He held his longsword horizontally.

Special Effect: Featherweight Ascension. Righteous Body Law Seal, activate. Righteous Virtue, activate. Righteous Heart, activate.

In an instant, Lin Hui's frame expanded. His stature shot up to four meters, muscles swelling and thick veins rising against his skin—yet his face remained bizarrely untouched by the transformation. His gaze drifted into the distance, carrying a faint, inexplicable trace of pity.

That god-like bearing gradually caused him to overlap with the phantom Yun Xiazi had always feared in the deepest part of her heart.

"Kill!" The last sliver of restraint within her collapsed.

The effects of the Time Sense Divine Method, which she had been carefully suppressing, were unleashed without reservation.

Hiss...

Lin Hui had just raised his hand to meet the incoming swarm with a sword strike—but the moment he moved, something felt wrong.

His own speed had turned frighteningly sluggish, while the lunging dragons below accelerated sharply. At that speed, even in his current state, he had no time to react.

Boom!

He was completely swallowed by the deluge.

Wait— Only then did Yun Xiazi snap back to herself. Her mania had taken over. She had struck far too heavily, accidentally unleashing her full strength.

"My martial arts!" She scrambled to pull her power back, but it was already too late.

The swarm of dragons surged skyward, obliterating what remained of the broken cliff and sweeping the pulverized rock into the air. From a distance, it looked like a white-gold pillar of light erupting from the abyss, shooting hundreds of meters into the clouds in a single breath.

"No!" Yun Xiazi soared upward in pursuit.

But a moment later, something felt wrong.

She spun around.

She found herself staring into a pair of beautiful, crystalline light-blue pupils.

"You—?" Yun Xiazi gasped. "When!?"

"You should be feeling the pain now," Lin Hui said calmly.

Long blue hair trailed behind him, glowing with a faint fluorescence. Large patches of blue markings had surfaced across his skin, and three complex golden characters floated at his back.

Pfft!

Without warning, a bloody line split straight down the center of Yun Xiazi's body from throat to abdomen. Fresh blood sprayed outward in a grisly mist.

She plummeted in shock. Her fifteen-times-enhanced Luminous Extreme Grandmaster physique. Her massive True Force protection. The iron-boned toughness reinforced by an Imitation Divine Weapon. The defensive Relics she carried.

All of it had been as fragile as paper, effortlessly cleaved by a single sword stroke.

A sharp, electric hiss cut the air—and in the blink of an eye, both of them vanished from mid-air.

The surrounding white light faded. Only the howling wind remained, quickly scattering their lingering auras as the Mist rolled back in and drowned the ruins in gray.

Several seconds later, multiple figures appeared at the edge of the devastated cliff. They found nothing but a ravaged battlefield and massive energy fluctuations faintly stirring in the subterranean abyss.

"Fluctuations below—suppress it, together!"

They dove into the chasm and disappeared.

One figure, however, abruptly returned to the surface. Bending down, she picked up a single strand of black hair caught in a fissure.

Interesting.

She raised her head, revealing a charming, bewitching face. It was unmistakably the mother of Hong Ling and Hong Lingxiang.

…

Clear Wind Temple, rear courtyard.

Lin Hui dropped Yun Xiazi unceremoniously onto the ground. She executed a nimble flip and landed lightly on her feet. The horrific wound bisecting her torso had already healed without a trace.

"At a time like this, shouldn't you take advantage of a sleeping beauty?" Yun Xiazi asked, at a genuine loss. Where did all those aphrodisiacs he consumed go? Why no reaction whatsoever? "Am I not beautiful enough?" she added, honestly puzzled.

"That has nothing to do with it." Lin Hui raised a hand and gave a casual wave. An invisible gust of wind slammed the courtyard door shut behind him. "I'm simply not interested in you," he said evenly. "Now then. You have lost."

He had reverted entirely to his normal state. Black hair falling to his waist, build slender and well-proportioned. Aside from his robes being stretched and tattered by the earlier transformation, there was no sign whatsoever that this man harbored such terrifying power.

Yun Xiazi said nothing.

She had considered many scenarios—she had kept a vast amount of her strength hidden, after all. But she had never truly expected to lose.

To lose to the hallmaster of an Outer City martial hall.

She remained still and silent for several minutes before finally speaking.

"I will keep my promise. Five years." She raised her head and met his eyes. "Can you tell me what you used at the very end? What kind of Divine Method was that? I have never seen anything like it. You clearly haven't reached Luminous Extreme—I can sense that much. So what art could instantly elevate you to that level of power?"

Even now, she felt as though she were in freefall through an illusion, as if everything that had just happened was nothing but a bad dream.

"Yun Xia, Luminous Extreme, and The Call aren't the only paths to power in this world," Lin Hui replied.

Thump.

Yun Xiazi dropped to one knee, expression grave. "Please impart true martial arts to me."

"You can accept it now?" Lin Hui asked.

"I believe so." She closed her eyes. "To become stronger, I am willing to give up everything."

"Whatever you have endured in the past, whatever your motives—understand this: if you ever lose your loyalty to this sect, everything you have gained will leave with it," Lin Hui said.

"I understand." Yun Xiazi dispersed the aura concealing her and knelt before him without a shred of resistance. In this unguarded state, he could end her effortlessly—and they both knew it.

A speck of white light drifted forward and stamped itself gently between her brows. The mark of the Righteous Body Law Seal was, in that moment, truly branded into her core.

Her frame shot upward instantly. The tattered remnants of her dress burst apart at the seams.

She stood completely unclothed before Lin Hui—and did not care in the slightest. Thick veins surfaced across her skin as her musculature swelled and densified.

Whoosh!

A violent gale exploded from her body, rattling every piece of furniture in the surrounding courtyard.

"Such... such terrifying power! My physical attributes have jumped by half, all at once!" Even having anticipated a boost, Yun Xiazi was staggered. She was a Luminous Extreme Grandmaster—a fifty-percent increase to her foundational strength was a monstrous figure by any measure.

And if the power granted to a subordinate through the Bestowal Seal was already this overwhelming, then what heights could Lin Hui himself reach—controlling this system and possessing that extraordinary, devastating blue state?

"I will honor my promise." Yun Xiazi reined in her physique, shrinking back to her normal size. Her Internal Force flared, pulling the shredded scraps of her dress back together with telekinetic precision. "With an enhancement like this, reaching Tianchong City should be easy. And snatching—I mean buying—precious medicines will go far more smoothly!"

Lin Hui stared at her in silence. He had long suspected she simply robbed people for those medicines. The slip of the tongue confirmed it.

"Go. Adapt to your new power first, then let me know when you're setting off." He waved a hand, too exhausted to address her antics.

"Yes, Temple Master!" Yun Xiazi replied, and this time the title carried real weight. Now that she had genuinely submitted to the sect, it sounded nothing like it had before.

Lin Hui caught the shift in tone. He turned toward the camellias planted along the courtyard wall—only to find that Yun Xiazi's recent gale had stripped every last branch bare, smashing the delicate blooms into the dirt.

"You absolute wretch!" The fury was instantaneous.

…

Meanwhile.

Yun Xiazi stepped out of the courtyard and nearly walked directly into Han Xiaoyue, who was coming through the moon gate.

It was no coincidence. At their level of cultivation, moving through a compound was never a matter of leisurely strolling—it was done through movement techniques to eliminate transit time entirely. This was precisely why ordinary people so rarely encountered true top-tier experts: they simply refused to waste time walking. At those speeds, commoners couldn't even catch a clear glimpse of their shadows.

"You—" Han Xiaoyue stared at Yun Xiazi, who was barely dressed.

Yun Xiazi was still in her Mingxia form. Her curves were immaculate, her proportions flawless, and her fair skin exceedingly alluring.

Han Xiaoyue glanced once at Lin Hui's courtyard behind the elder, then looked back.

"Did you two...?"

"S-sorry..." Yun Xiazi's eyes darted around. She adopted a defensive posture, one hand subconsciously drifting to her lower abdomen, a flash of panic crossing her face.

"I don't like this feeling," Han Xiaoyue said, evenly.

She left it there—but Yun Xiazi had no trouble filling in the rest.

She was just about to escalate the prank and claim she was pregnant when a silent, cutting chill swept suddenly across her back. She stiffened and stood upright at once. "Just joking. Don't worry—I won't steal your man."

"I know," Han Xiaoyue replied with a serious nod. It was plain she had seen through Yun Xiazi's disguise long ago. "If it were someone else, it might be possible. But you, Yun Xiazi? Absolutely not." She paused. "Though if it were actually true, I think I could accept it," she added as an afterthought.

By any reasonable measure, it should have sounded like someone stubbornly saving face.

Yet both Yun Xiazi and Lin Hui, with uncanny unanimity, sensed the complete and utter sincerity behind every word.