She stood at the center of the Arena, her red long sword angled toward the ground, a drop of blood slowly sliding from its tip.
Feng Yuan stood opposite her, thirty meters away.
His golden long sword had already returned to its sheath.
No—it had returned to the void behind him.
A trace of blood marked the corner of his lips.
Silence hung for a moment.
Then Feng Yuan suddenly smiled.
That smile was complicated: relief, reflection, bitterness, and something else that could neither be named nor understood.
"I lost."
When he spoke, his voice was somewhat hoarse.
"I couldn't withstand your Return-to-Void Sword."
Song Xue said nothing. She merely watched him quietly.
Feng Yuan raised a hand, wiped away the blood from his lips, and continued.
"Back then, you said your sword had three realms."
"I'd always wanted to know what the third realm was."
"Today, I saw it."
"Return to Void."
"Ten thousand swords return to Void; all things return to Void."
"What a Return to Void."
He paused, then looked deeply at Song Xue.
"This sword was even stronger than I had imagined."
"You won."
Song Xue finally spoke.
Her voice remained cold, yet beneath that coldness seemed to lie a faint, imperceptible complexity.
"You were not bad either."
"Dual cultivation of Buddha Sword, all dharmas empty."
"If your Buddhist cultivation had been three parts deeper, the outcome of this sword might have been different."
Feng Yuan shook his head. "There are no what-ifs. A loss is a loss."
He pressed his palms together and gave a slight bow.
"Song Xue, thank you for your guidance."
"With this sword, you severed the karma between us."
"After this sword, I owe you nothing."
With that, he turned and walked toward the edge of the Arena.
That sword had