The Obsidian Flame’s Fury

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

The three most insidious and swift wind blades whizzed past her temples and the hem of her robes, severing a few stray strands of her hair with a sharp, rending shriek, before embedding themselves deeply into the rock wall behind her, silently carving deep gouges into the stone.

Ji Xue’s pupils abruptly constricted.

The angle and ferocity of these three wind blades surpassed all prior attacks, silent yet brimming with lethal intent.

The severed strands of hair drifted down, grazing perilously close to her carotid artery, leaving a chilling sensation in their wake.

‘Wind Erosion Blade Kill?’ Ji Xue recognized it as one of Nangong Xuan’s renowned signature techniques.

This technique utilized wind blades to tear through the air, creating transient vacuum turbulence.

Its cutting power was astonishing, and it could silently disrupt an opponent’s spiritual energy circulation.

Nangong Xuan’s opening move was a lethal one; her lips uttered ‘Your Highness,’ yet her actions were utterly merciless.

Within the secret realm, being ‘killed’ merely meant being expelled and restored to one’s original state.

Evidently, Nangong Xuan no longer saw the need to maintain her pretense.

‘Your Highness possesses keen insight. This is the very technique I’ve used to defeat you countless times before. I wonder if you can still endure it now?’

In the face of Nangong Xuan’s taunts, Ji Xue’s heart remained as placid as an ancient, frigid well, undisturbed by a single ripple.

Without further ado, Nangong Xuan ceased her idle chatter.

The feather fan in her hand snapped open in an instant, resembling a verdant luan spreading its wings.

A surge of violent wind pressure, far surpassing anything prior, erupted explosively from her center.

‘Hundred Feather Wind Command!’

A furious pillar of tornado-like wind ripped from the earth, voraciously consuming the surrounding dense mist and spiritual energy.

From the eye of the storm emanated a shrill shriek, as if the very void were being rent apart.

Within it, countless azure feather-shaped wind blades, formed from highly compressed wind spiritual energy, spun at terrifying speeds, forming an impenetrable wall of overwhelming might.

‘This was a technique that had caused Ji Xue no end of trouble in the past! Now, these two powerful offensives were surging towards her!’

‘In the past, she had been forced to jump and scramble, looking utterly pathetic!’

‘Come!’

With a clear, resonant cry, the obsidian-blue flame spear in her hand flared with dazzling brilliance.

‘A spear? Oh, what’s the point of mimicking a weapon now?!’

‘Ji Xue!’ Nangong Xuan scoffed, a cold smile playing on her lips, certain of her victory.

At the spear’s tip, a pinpoint of obsidian radiance, condensed to its absolute extreme, blazed to life.

It exuded a frigid aura, as if capable of freezing the very soul.

This chilling luminescence plunged fiercely into the azure hurricane, which threatened to devour all.

Hiss—!

No earth-shattering explosion ensued.

The instant the obsidian-blue flame spear pierced the furious wind column, it was akin to a searing hot iron plunging into snow.

A grating, teeth-grinding sound of dissolution echoed.

The tempestuous wind spiritual energy, capable of rending metal and shattering stone, the moment it met the enigmatic obsidian-blue flame, reacted as if metal plunged into corrosive acid, rapidly dimming, congealing, and growing brittle.

It was not combustion, but rather freezing!

It was a fundamental freezing and disintegration of the dynamic, chaotic structure of the wind spiritual energy.

Nangong Xuan’s proud core killing technique, ‘Hurricane Command’, the impenetrable wind wall, spinning with ever-increasing speed, at the point where the spear pierced it, visibly congealed into vast expanses of obsidian-blue profound ice.

Its rotational speed plummeted dramatically.

Moreover, the very wind blades designed to restrict her opponent’s movement were now instantly frozen the moment they were touched by the obsidian-blue spear!

No, not merely frozen!

They were directly incinerated, caught in a swirling vortex created by the spear’s tip!

And now, they were hurtling back towards her!

Even more terrifying, the spear itself was hurled directly forward, shattering the hurricane entirely!

It then burst apart.

Nangong Xuan attempted to frantically defend herself, but for a fleeting moment, her concentration was utterly shattered, and the connection to her spiritual core was violently severed.

She suffered a brutal backlash, letting out a muffled groan as a trickle of blood escaped the corner of her mouth.

She distinctly felt the spiritual energy she had poured into her feather fan being disintegrated and consumed by that enigmatic flame at a terrifying pace.

It was, precisely like the Phoenix Flame wielded by the Second Imperial Princess!

It would not cease until everything was utterly incinerated!

However, while the Second Imperial Princess’s Phoenix Flame incinerated all it touched, with Ji Xue, it wasn’t the explosive force of her attack that was the issue, for that could be withstood.

The true terror lay in the chilling qi it emanated, which was now invading her very body!

Her meridians, at this moment, felt the biting cold, and the spiritual energy within her body nearly ground to a halt.

Having unleashed that spear, Ji Xue did not linger.

She pressed her left hand against the empty space to her side.

‘Abyssal Flame Succession!’

Puff! Puff! Puff! Puff!

Around Nangong Xuan, eight exquisite, bowl-sized obsidian-blue fire lotuses instantly blossomed in a circle.

Though seemingly beautiful, the power they contained was profoundly chilling and overbearing, converging menacingly upon her.

A sharp sense of danger pierced Nangong Xuan’s nerves, and a wave of unease instantly flooded her heart.

At this moment, she no longer dared to underestimate the Imperial Princess before her.

She glanced back, a fleeting thought of calling for aid crossing her mind.

Yet, she halted, for to summon help would be to admit her inferiority.

‘To be inferior to this Imperial Princess, whom she had always scorned?!’

‘Damn you! This is all your doing!’ Nangong Xuan’s fury blazed, and without further reservation, her spiritual energy erupted violently around her.

Her five fingers clenched savagely around the feather fan’s grip, and with a ruthless tug, ‘Clang—!’ a dazzling blade of pure, condensed spiritual energy was violently drawn from the handle.

‘This sword has been nurtured by my spiritual energy for over a decade! I even implored renowned sword cultivators to infuse it with their formidable sword intent! Imperial Princess, to compel me to unleash this technique, you truly have grown!’

Despite her words, Nangong Xuan’s face betrayed not a trace of admiration; only incandescent fury raged across her features like a wildfire.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!…

Seven crimson-white sword shadows assailed her!

Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!…

A dense flurry of metallic clashes rained down like a sudden storm!

The sword shadows struck the obsidian-blue fire lotuses that surged towards her like colossal dragons, erupting in showers of sparks!

The seemingly ethereal flames, at their core, possessed a temperature that instantly froze the sword qi, continuously eroding the spiritual energy imbued within the sword light itself!

Several fire lotuses dimmed slightly, but the seven sword shadows’ radiance rapidly weakened and dissipated after their frantic collision!

It was as if the fire lotuses themselves were forged from the hardest, coldest profound iron!

Amidst the clashes, the sword intent, eroded by the obsidian-blue flames, wailed at its spiritual core.

Finally, they collapsed and dispersed, scattering into points of light that vanished into the air.

Over a decade of painstaking effort, ruined in a single morning!

‘This… this is impossible!’ Nangong Xuan shrieked hysterically. ‘You… how could you possibly destroy my sword intent! This was infused by a renowned master, with your mere—’

The dazzling light sword in her hand flickered violently, like a final, desperate burst of light before extinguishing.

Despair, like an icy tide, instantly engulfed Nangong Xuan’s mind.

She desperately, recklessly, channeled the remaining, sluggish spiritual energy within her body, frantically pouring it into her feather fan, attempting to once again conjure wind pressure.

The azure light flowing across her feather fan grew wild and unstable, emitting a piercing hum.

‘Is that your sword intent?’ Ji Xue’s cold question cut off Nangong Xuan’s words. ‘Sword intent borrowed from others is, in the end, merely an external possession, fragile and easily shattered. If you don’t even understand this, why bother cultivating immortality, or treading this path?’

Ji Xue’s lecture immediately turned Nangong Xuan’s eyes bloodshot.

Abandoning all defense and techniques, she wielded her feather fan like a heavy hammer, enveloping it in chaotic, fragmented starlight, and lunged at Ji Xue!

‘Why? Why could this useless Imperial Princess lecture her with such condescension? You are nothing but a cripple! A cripple! You are nothing but a useless wretch I’ve always despised! You, you are nothing but—’

‘If you are not a sword cultivator, why cling to sword intent? Possessing many things is not always a virtue.’

The obsidian-blue spear in her hand effortlessly flicked away the feather fan from Nangong Xuan’s grasp.

At this moment, Ji Xue’s eyes held no disdain, not even any emotion at all.

It was as if… she were merely a small fry.

Nangong Xuan, in the eyes of the cripple she scorned, was nothing more than an insignificant existence.

This feeling, worse than contempt, worse than insults, filled her with even greater anger and sorrow.

‘She would not allow it!’

At this moment, the sword, fueled by all her remaining spiritual energy, swung towards Ji Xue’s neck.

‘That’s why I said.’ Facing Nangong Xuan’s desperate lunge, Ji Xue merely raised her other hand gently.

In her palm, a fist-sized, obsidian-blue flame lotus, condensed like a blue crystal, abruptly materialized.

This lotus, though smaller than the eight surrounding ones, emanated a terrifying, extremely restrained brilliance that sent shivers down one’s spine.

‘Just because you’re a sword practitioner, doesn’t mean you know how to use a sword. Why pretend to be a master when you should just stick to your fan?’

The moment Ji Xue’s words fell, that blue crystal-like lotus produced no earth-shattering explosion, no violent energy surge.

There was only a barely audible ‘pop,’ like the sound of shattering glazed glass.

The tiny obsidian-blue flame lotus, the instant it made contact with Nangong Xuan’s body, abruptly imploded inwards!

An invisible, intensely cold gravitational pull instantly erupted!

Nangong Xuan felt her body instantly hollowed out, all her strength, all her consciousness, even the burning rage and unwillingness, were rapidly devoured and frozen by that deep obsidian-blue ‘point.’

The feather fan in her hand quietly dropped to the ground.

The spiritual energy-constructed blade quietly dissipated.

An icy coldness and deathly stillness, originating from the depths of her soul, instantly pervaded her entire body, preventing her from even conceiving the thought of struggling.

In the final moment before completely losing consciousness, she saw Ji Xue’s cold, indifferent eyes, devoid of victorious joy, holding only an aloofness that looked down upon dust.

‘It turned out that, in her eyes now, she wasn’t even worth a speck of dust…’

Boom—

Dazzling white light instantly enveloped Nangong Xuan, and she vanished from the ravaged battlefield.

Simultaneously, a huge score representing her elimination instantly lit up, flowing into Ji Xue’s identity token.

Meanwhile, the observing disciples…

They all stood as if petrified, wide-eyed, staring at the ground, which was now strangely charred and scarred by the blue flames.

They gazed at Ji Xue, standing alone in the center of the battlefield, obsidian-blue flames quietly burning around her, like a demon god from the Nine Netherworlds.

Fear, awe, disbelief… a tumult of emotions churned within their hearts.

Outside the Hall of Clarity, before the Myriad Manifestations Secret Realm projection mirror.

Even with Qiu Ku’s thousand years of cultivation and temperament, witnessing Nangong Xuan being instantly disintegrated and devoured by that enigmatic obsidian-blue flame, and then transported out of the secret realm, an incredible light burst forth from his murky old eyes.

‘That… what kind of flame was that?!’ His withered face twitched slightly, his hoarse voice carrying unconcealed shock and doubt.

‘It was definitely not Phoenix Flame… not any known Nine Heavens Phoenix Flame Art… that coldness, that domineering power that freezes and suppresses essence…’

Beside him, Qiu Jingwen’s face was deathly pale, her lips trembling slightly.

‘Old Ancestor, that flame… it seems to… counter most spiritual energy attributes! Nangong Xuan’s cultivation technique was not weak, yet before that flame, it was as if… made of paper. Could it be… this is the Empress’s trump card?’

‘Impossible, if that were truly the case, our plan would not have proceeded so smoothly. To possess such power at the Foundation Establishment stage… if she were to advance further,’ Qiu Ku dared not imagine.

‘Moreover, if we knew, we wouldn’t have allowed our daughter to be in such a wretched place. The Xuan Nv Sect sounds impressive, but whether it’s resources or anything else, it has already declined. In the sect hegemony a hundred years from now, it will inevitably fall from its top position; let alone the title of one of the Ten Great Sects of the world, it probably won’t even qualify as an Upper-Grade Sect.’

Meanwhile, on the other side.

Upon the high platform, Empress Ji Fengyi’s jade-like countenance remained as serene as water, yet deep within her phoenix eyes, hidden behind the pearl curtain, a faint ripple stirred.

She understood the Nine Heavens Phoenix Flame Art too well.

This imperial secret art, at its core, mimicked the blazing Yang Flame of the phoenix’s nirvana, domineering and scorching, incinerating all things.

Ji Xue’s cultivation had been slow in the past, her foundation unstable; she had always assumed it was due to Ji Xue’s poor aptitude.

Now, it seemed… could it be that the Nine Heavens Phoenix Flame Art had undergone a mutation within her?

Was this why her previous cultivation methods led to slow progress?

For the first time, she cast a scrutinizing gaze upon this eldest daughter, whom she had always ignored and even given up on.

Perhaps… she was the variable that would change the fate of their clan?

While everyone was intently focused on Ji Xue and Nangong Xuan’s battle, only one translucent figure was secretly manipulating the view, watching another scene.

They watched a certain audacious young one who dared to disguise themselves as a man to enter the Xuan Nv Sect.

Her eyes, which had not shed a tear for nearly a thousand years, now stung slightly, and her vision gradually blurred.

She yearned to touch the face of the person on the screen, but her hand could only pass through it.

Her eyes welled with tears as she continuously murmured, ‘Xiao Mo… Mama… I’m so sorry…’