Yan Lingji floated slowly in the water, not attacking immediately.
She simply hovered before the Fire Fox Shark, her nine fox tails unfurled as the currents brushed past them.
She looked down as though from on high, scrutinizing the Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beast before her.
The Fire Fox Shark fixed its vertical pupils on her, a low hiss rolling from deep within its throat.
It did not understand why this tiny thing before it was not fleeing.
Yet instinctively, it felt uneasy, as though it had been targeted by some higher predator.
"What are you looking at?" Yan Lingji tilted her head, her peach-blossom eyes narrowing slightly. "Do you think I'm small? Think I'm not even enough to fill the gaps between your teeth?"
The Fire Fox Shark did not answer.
It suddenly lashed its nine tails, gathering dark-red flames into a vortex that swept toward Yan Lingji with a thunderous roar.
With the full-force strike of a Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beast, even the seawater was compressed until it let out a deep rumble.
The surrounding coral reefs were torn apart by the vortex, sending shards of stone flying.
Yan Lingji did not dodge.
Six soul rings lit up at once, and her aura surged like an erupting volcano.
Sword Twenty-Two unfolded, sword qi spreading like threads and nets, layer upon layer, endless and unbroken.
The dark-red flame vortex crashed into the sword net.
Like a clay ox entering the sea, it dissolved without a sound.
A flicker of shock passed through the Fire Fox Shark's vertical pupils, and it instinctively tried to retreat.
But Yan Lingji had already vanished from where she stood.
In the next instant, she appeared before it. The Venom Longsword swept horizontally, cutting across the scales on its neck and leaving a gash deep enough to expose