"The General can't do it, but who says I can't?"
The brown-haired girl spoke these words with a beautiful smile and a tone brimming with confidence.
"!!!"
The expressions on Guinaifen and Bailu's faces were truly spectacular. For Little Gui, her best friend was clearly spouting nonsense—an unrealistic fantasy—yet she lacked her usual silly and foolish temperament. It was to the point that these words didn't sound like a joke; instead, they carried the dashing and unrestrained air of a chivalrous wandering swordswoman descending from the heavens like a divine soldier in a time of crisis.
But being cool doesn't put food on the table. Well, maybe being kept by a sugar mommy could, but it absolutely couldn't be used as actual combat strength!
"That kind of thing... can you really do it?" Bailu blinked her large eyes, which were painted with crimson eyeshadow. In that instant, she seemed to see the Sword Immortal girl who had sat with crossed legs on the flying eaves of the building the night she ran away.
"Mmhmm, just leave it to me."
Li Sushang revealed a dashing and handsome smile. Clad in moon-white attire with pale blue satin ribbons, embellished with ink-wash plum blossoms braving the frost and cross-shaped sword insignias, the magnificence she radiated in that instant caused Guinaifen, a fellow female, to lose her focus for a second.
She... seemed to have seen a ghost again! Was this graceful, ethereal Xianxia maiden before her eyes really Sushang?
After dazing for a few seconds, Guinaifen took out her phone, opened the recording function, and continued filming the video "Secret Agent: Disciples of Sanctus Medicus Headquarters." Giving the camera entirely to the main carry, the 'Big Daddy' Sushang, and then...
"Holy crap!"
The street performer who mingled in the marketplace let out a very down-to-earth curse. Guinaifen's originally somewhat nervous and curious eyes instantly widened to their limit.
She watched as the fine hair at her best friend's temples moved without any wind. Sushang lowered her gaze with a smile, her fingertips gently tapping the void: "Condense."
In an instant, the accumulated Qi transformed into a three-foot green blade. The body of the sword was semi-transparent like glacial soul-ice, yet red-gold patterns flowed within it, emitting a clear and melodious sword hum.
Little Gui was so shaken that she couldn't even hold her phone steady. It slipped from her hand and nearly fell to the ground; she scrambled frantically to catch it in mid-air a few times before finally grabbing it firmly. Letting out a light sigh of relief, she looked up at the screen. In the lens, the beautiful white-robed figure had already soared into the air, stepping on the sword energy.
"No, wait, sister, I didn't turn on special effects?"
Guinaifen's expression was like she had seen a ghost—oh, or rather, like a ghost seeing an Immortal. She staggered forward two steps, completely unaware, and lowered her phone. Sushang was still stepping on the sword. Through the phone lens, that beautiful figure was still dashingly treading on the sword in mid-air. You're telling me this is Sushang?
Guinaifen's suspicion of Sushang reached its peak at this moment.
Moonscar and Li Sushang didn't care what Guinaifen and Bailu were thinking. Even if they had to tear this Grotto-Heaven apart today, Moonscar was going to destroy the Ascension Elixir Powder! That was a whole 160 Crystals!
Li Sushang's thoughts, however, were very simple: seeing a crisis on the road, how could she sit idly by? If this evil cult organization were allowed to distribute the poison powder, it would inevitably poison many people. She couldn't just watch helplessly.
The Xianzhou Alliance's folded space technology—Grotto-Heavens—far exceeded that of ordinary interstellar civilizations. Space folding wasn't anything new in the Galaxy, but using space folding technology on such a massive scale as the foundation for daily life, like the Xianzhou did, was extremely rare.
Considering the scale of this Grotto-Heaven, it was an ultra-small Grotto-Heaven. Perhaps if the two of them combined their power and erupted all at once, they could directly blow it up, but it was hard to say what consequences that would trigger. Therefore, what they needed to do was merely open a hole in the Grotto-Heaven's spatial barrier.
Saying 'merely' was easy, but in reality, this was even more difficult than simply destroying the Grotto-Heaven. The difference between the two was like killing someone versus performing surgery on them; the former only required enough brute force to stab the knife in, while the latter was precise technical work.
This was the fundamental reason why Jing Yuan couldn't do it, but Li Sushang could. Her power was inferior to Jing Yuan's, but her Sword Realm surpassed his.
"Mmhmm, understood."
Li Sushang chuckled softly, forming her fingers into a sword and drawing a circle in the air, holding it upright before her chest. The airflow around her body suddenly reversed, rising in a spiral like sudden breaking frost and snow. Ink-colored Honkai energy formed a domain covering the space like ripples of water. Within it, zero-degree ink colors resembled fireworks, blooming into hundreds of undulating lotus patterns.
"What is that?"
Such cool special effects left Guinaifen dumbstruck. "So... so amazing!" Bailu's big eyes sparkled.
"Found it."
Li Sushang's almond eyes radiated a strange luster as her gaze locked onto a specific point in space. Since it was technical work, she naturally couldn't just bombard any random spot in space; she needed to find a weak point to execute a penetrating attack. This step alone was enough to stump many Pathstriders. Without the help of instruments, relying solely on one's own ability to find spatial weak points required spatial abilities.
Li Sushang did not possess these, but she was one of only five sword geniuses in the thousands of years of the Honkai World to cultivate the Taixu Sword Art to the peak of perfection, comprehending the Sword Heart and the fifth shape of Taixu—Shen. The other four were the Immortal Chiyuan, the Herrscher of Sentience, Kiana, and Cheng Lingshuang.
The Sword Heart is the prerequisite for using the Taixu Shen. The pinnacle of Shen is the Taixu Sword God!
[Then, let's begin.]
Moonscar's voice rang out from the mental channel. In the spiritual space, the brown-haired girl held the gradient red-feathered lotus—the Key of Consciousness, Fenghuang Down—in her hand. Moonscar borrowed the power of Fenghuang Down to further link her spirit with Li Sushang's. The wills of the two intertwined and merged like silk threads; there was 'me' in 'you', and 'you' in 'me'.
In this state, the two could be said to be completely of one mind and one body. A brilliant flame of Divine Essence ignited between the brown-haired girl's brows. No sword, yet there is a sword; relying on the spirit to manifest the sword, the sword energy forms naturally—this is channeling the Shen.
"Form is for advantage. It marvels at all things to give them expression, and cannot be interrogated by form."
Her imposing manner transformed into an exploding cyclone. A brilliant sword tip extended from her palm, and the chaotic lightning around her condensed and spiraled, finally gathering in the girl's hand to form the Sword God. Taixu Sword God—Formless and Boundless.
This sword fills space; this sword is space. Thus, it is omnipresent and all-conquering. Not only can it penetrate any tangible barrier and strike directly at the soul in the depths of consciousness, but it also possesses a special attack property against space—it is a type of space itself.
"So... so amazing!"
Below, Guinaifen and Bailu were endlessly shocked. So handsome! So cool! Damn it, this isn't Sushang at all!
"This is...?"
It wasn't just Guinaifen and Bailu who were confused and shaken; Li Sushang, the main body executing the Sword God, was equally astonished in her heart. This move, Taixu Sword God, was not executed with the full combined power of her and Moonscar—precisely speaking, not full power in terms of energy.
Before starting, Moonscar had specifically entrusted her to evolve the intent of Shen to the absolute peak she could reach, saying she wanted to try something. Li Sushang was very curious about what Moonscar wanted to do, but she didn't ask much. Instead, she followed Moonscar's instructions to push the Shen to its limit.
At this moment, she felt an anomaly—an anomaly in every aspect! The Taixu Sword Art had changed; her True Energy (Honkai energy) quality had been elevated to another realm! This felt inconceivable to Li Sushang. The Taixu Sword Art had four realms: Stop Water, No Dust, Bright Mirror, and Taixu. She was already in the Taixu Realm; how could there still be improvement? And it wasn't a general improvement, but a mysterious and abstruse realm she had never touched before.
The Taixu Sword God turned into stardust, refracting a strange halo. The brown-haired girl simply waved her sword-fingers gently. Ink colors interwoven into a painting overlapped like thousands of lotus petals, blooming.
Boom—!
Before the strange halo, the spatial node was as fragile as paper in a window, easily poked through. Moreover, the degree of power control was perfect; it didn't destroy the Grotto-Heaven's structure, only opening a hole in the spatial barrier.
Guinaifen and Bailu were so thoroughly shocked they couldn't speak. Sushang actually did it! And doing it was one thing, but how did she make it look so easy? A Grotto-Heaven was the crystallized concentration of the Xianzhou Alliance's highest-level folding space technology! And she poked it open just like that?
Could it be that the undercover agents from the Artisanship Commission rushed the job due to time and secrecy issues, resulting in structural problems with the Grotto-Heaven? This was too outrageous!
[As expected, my guess was true!]
In the mental space, Moonscar cheered loudly in excitement.
"'Me', what exactly happened just now?"
Li Sushang stared at her own delicate white hand in slight astonishment. She had already withdrawn from that mysterious and abstruse state, having only stood within it for a brief second with Moonscar's help. Although it was only a fleeting moment, that powerful and special state made Li Sushang feel she could crush her normal self, and even crush the Grandmaster in her memories, the Immortal Ancestor Chiyuan.
[I'll explain it to you in detail later. For now, take the two of them and leave this place.]
As Moonscar spoke, Li Sushang looked down. If the Xianzhou was a ship sailing the sea, the Grotto-Heaven was the ship's cabin. Now that Moonscar and Li Sushang had broken the cabin, the water outside would naturally flow into the cabin through the hole.
The emerald-clear water of the Ancient Sea surged in, spraying out from the spatial hole and pouring onto the mountain of bundles. The Ascension Elixir Powder that the Disciples of Sanctus Medicus had painstakingly accumulated was soaked by the unsullied Ancient Sea water, destroyed in one fell swoop.
"Ah! Run! We're going to drown!"
Like seeing a monstrous wave crashing towards them at the seaside, Guinaifen and Bailu turned and ran. Little Gui discovered that although Little Bailu's calves looked short, when she scrambled, Gui actually couldn't catch up to her.
"Don't come near me!" Bailu shouted while running, her face full of terror. Destroying the powder with the Ancient Sea water took time. If this water swept her up and she took a bath in the Ascension Elixir Powder bath salts, she would be dead meat!
"Sister Sushang! Save me quickly!"
Just a moment before the waves caught up to the two, Li Sushang stepped on her Qi sword, holding the panicked Guinaifen in one arm and lifting Bailu with the other. After quickly pulling away and descending, she switched personalities a second before landing. Moonscar put on the Persona Mask and sank into the shadow the instant her toes touched it.
"What's happening!"
"This is bad!"
"The Grotto-Heaven is leaking!"
"What?"
"Run!"
"Don't run, secure the Ascension Elixir Powder first!"
After the three left, only the chaotic shouts of the Disciples of Sanctus Medicus members remained. It was like ants in a nest that had been filled with seawater by a playful child.
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