Yunfan hated running.
He wasn't bad at it he just found it undignified.
Today, though, he ran fast.
Behind him, the Spirit Garden twisted violently, vines snapping and howling like beasts. And in his arms, curled tight and dangerously pale, was Yao Ling'er, half-conscious and shivering from a soul-wound.
Her breath rattled in her throat like glass being stepped on.
"That… was a bad formation," she whispered.
"You think?" Yunfan snapped, sweat glistening on his brow. "You set off a corpse-triggered poison array while flirting with a ghost! How is that even possible?"
"He was charming…"
"He had no lower jaw!"
She coughed, blood spraying over his shoulder.
The humor died in his throat.
"Hold on," he muttered. "Just a little longer."
Yunfan leapt across a collapsed platform, skidded down a slope of cracked bone-tiles, and ducked into a shadowed ruin marked with faded blade script.
A safe place.
He laid Ling'er down gently, propping her head against his knee.
Her skin had turned faintly green at the edges poison vein corruption. It was traveling fast.
He reached into his pouch and pulled free the Lightningroot Lotus he'd harvested earlier.
"You're not gonna die here. I refuse to be known as the guy who let the pretty one die."
"...You think I'm pretty?" she whispered weakly.
"Shut up and chew the flower."
She did.
Lightning-infused medicinal energy surged through her meridians, buying her time but not much.
Yunfan sat back, drawing a sharp breath. He was low on Qi. His body ached from the earlier battle. Wordless Edge pulsed faintly at his side, still resonating from the Silent Tribulation Slash.
Then
The air trembled.
Space folded once.
And a voice drifted through the ripple like silk over a blade.
"I'm surprised. I was told Heaven-Splitting's outer sect had no one worth my time."
He turned slowly.
A young man stepped from the mist.
Tall, robed in white stitched with shifting runes.
Sword floating at his back like a lazy shadow.
Eyes calm.
Voice soft.
Deadly.
"I am Xu Weiran," he said. "From Divine Spring Sword Hall."
"You're early," Yunfan said, standing. "I expected a final boss later on."
"The array you looted contains a legacy key. I'll be taking it now."
"Ah," Yunfan said, stretching his neck. "So we're robbing people after they've saved a dying girl. Bold. Respect."
Weiran didn't laugh.
He extended his hand.
"Don't make this complicated."
"Can't do that," Yunfan said, reaching for his zither with one hand and gripping his sword with the other. "Complicated is kind of my entire personality."
The Fight Begins
Weiran moved first.
A pulse of spatial Qi shimmered and he vanished.
Yunfan twisted, drawing Wordless Edge at the same time
Clang!
The two blades met midair.
Lightning and void screamed as they collided.
Yunfan gritted his teeth and shifted his stance, redirecting the strike with a reverse elbow and using the hilt of Wordless Edge to disrupt Weiran's footwork.
But the genius didn't stumble.
He stepped sideways into nothing, vanishing again.
Yunfan didn't move.
He struck backward, instinct leading the rhythm.
CLANG.
Weiran reappeared, smirking slightly.
"You can read my flow?"
"You're loud," Yunfan replied, spinning and pressing forward with a diagonal slash. "Like a guy who wears silk in a swamp."
They clashed again harder.
Sword Qi tore through the stone ruins, carving marks into the floating structure.
Yunfan ducked, rolled, then struck with a zither-snap of sound, catching Weiran mid-blink.
The pressure knocked the genius back.
Yunfan followed, blade flickering in rhythm with his breath.
TING –Tiing–TUNG
A wave of zither-enhanced Sword Qi shot forward deadly, fast, invisible.
Weiran's sword spun, forming a vortex of void to swallow the attack.
Then he reappeared right in front of Yunfan and slashed.
Yunfan barely blocked, but the force cracked the stone beneath him.
"You're strong," Weiran admitted. "But not clean."
"That's fair," Yunfan said, coughing blood. "I've always been a messy eater."
They clashed a final time.
Both swords glowed, one with stormlight, the other with silence.
Both cultivators stood bleeding, panting, refusing to back down.
Then Yunfan heard her.
A whimper from Ling'er pain flaring again.
He looked past Weiran.
And made a decision.
He sheathed Wordless Edge.
"Not today," he said quietly.
Weiran didn't strike.
Didn't press.
"You'd flee?" he asked. Not mocking. Curious.
Yunfan stepped back.
Lifted Ling'er into his arms.
"If I don't carry her out," he said, "who's gonna flirt with the ghost next time?"
Weiran stood still.
Yunfan smiled weakly.
"We'll finish this later. When you're ready to lose."
He turned.
And vanished in a streak of thunder.