Musou no Hitotachi Bubble-Shadow Annihilation

Qian Qizhou suddenly opened his eyes. A wave of intense vertigo made him stagger, nearly sending him to the ground.

He instinctively steadied himself, his heart hammering against his ribs, filled with overwhelming bewilderment.

Before him was no longer the quiet, elegant room of the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect, and his nose caught no scent of medicinal herbs.

In their place was a deathly silence permeated by dust.

He stood stiffly in place, his gaze sweeping across a vast, ruined plaza littered with broken walls and debris.

The sky was an oppressive, ominous dark red, like congealed blood. No stars were visible; only thick, filthy clouds rolled and churned sluggishly.

And what made his very soul tremble was the sight hanging high above that blood-red firmament...

A scarlet moon, so massive it occupied half the sky!

It hung so close it felt as if it might fall at any moment, crushing the earth beneath it.

It radiated an eerie, icy, suffocating crimson light.

Where was this? An illusion? A dream? Or...

Just as Qian Qizhou felt nearly suffocated by the endless scarlet and deathly silence, his mind reeling, a cold, majestic female voice echoed from behind him.

"You have come."

Qian Qizhou shuddered violently and turned around to follow the sound.

He saw Ei standing there, though he hadn't noticed her arrival. Her eyes were closed, her expression one of eternal indifference, and she hovered cross-legged in the void, a faint pressure radiating from her.

In this completely alien world, seeing the only familiar presence, Qian Qizhou blurted out almost instinctively, "Ei...?!"

Yet, looking at her, it seemed as if that oppressive scarlet moon and this ruined, silent plaza had nothing to do with her.

"This place is called the Plane of Euthymia," she said slowly. "It is formed by my will, a manifestation of my inner world."

Ei continued, "The power flowing within your body originates from me."

"It is through this connection that I was able to traverse space and time to draw your consciousness here."

"And so, we meet again."

Qian Qizhou stood on the desolate, ruined plaza, suppressing the massive shock caused by the bizarre environment and Ei's method of appearance.

He sorted through his chaotic thoughts; though he had countless questions, at least one thing was crystal clear.

It was she who had pulled him from the jaws of death.

He raised his head, looking toward the eyes-closed Ei, set aside all his emotions, and bowed deeply and solemnly in her direction.

"Ei... My Lady, thank you for bestowing the martial soul mutation upon me previously, giving me the possibility to change my fate."

"And even more, thank you for intervening at the Pope's Palace. Had it not been for you, I would not have been able to leave."

Ei nodded slightly, accepting his thanks, though her eyes remained closed and her expression did not change in the slightest.

To her, these seemed to be nothing more than trivial matters.

Suddenly, her arm moved with what seemed like extreme casualness.

A long-handled weapon with a unique design, wreathed in purple lightning, flew through the air without warning toward Qian Qizhou.

Qian Qizhou instinctively reached out to catch it—

The moment his fingertips touched the hilt, an unimaginably heavy force slammed down!

It was not the weight of ordinary metal; it felt more like carrying an ocean of thunder, or perhaps a mountain of ten thousand tons.

In short, it was heavy!

"Ugh—!"

Caught off guard, Qian Qizhou sank abruptly. The bones in his arms creaked under the unbearable strain, his knees buckled, and he nearly collapsed to the ground.

He used every ounce of his strength, even instinctively drawing upon the power within him that had not yet fully recovered, to barely steady himself and avoid being crushed to the ground by this seemingly ornate naginata.

But he was already hunched over in a wretched state, gasping for air, his arms trembling violently, barely able to hold the weapon up.

Only then did Ei's voice sound again: "There is no need for thanks."

"This blade is called Engulfing Lightning, and it is yours now."

"Since you have inherited my power, do not disgrace me."

"Within this Plane of Euthymia, I shall personally instruct you in the martial arts."

As she finished speaking, the faint light hovering around Ei dissipated, and she landed steadily in front of Qian Qizhou.

Her eyes, which had been closed the entire time, slowly opened.

They were deep, purple orbs, within which countless tiny sparks of lightning seemed to flicker and fade—cold, majestic, yet possessing a sharpness that could pierce through all things.

Merely by meeting her gaze, Qian Qizhou felt his soul tremble, as if his very being had been laid bare.

She did not look at the naginata that had nearly crushed him, but instead held out her right hand—

Crackling lightning erupted from her palm, instantly condensing, stretching, and transforming into a phantom naginata identical in shape to Engulfing Lightning, yet composed entirely of energy.

The blade of light pulsed, emitting a hair-raising hum, and the aura it radiated was far more terrifying than the physical weapon itself.

Ei said to Qian Qizhou, "Watch closely."

The next moment, her figure moved.

Without any superfluous flair, with just a flick of her wrist, the polearm transformed into a violet lightning afterimage that tore through space, thrusting straight out!

The movement was so fast it exceeded the limits of Qian Qizhou's visual perception; he only saw a thin violet line flash by. The space at the tip of the blade seemed to distort slightly, followed by a sharp, piercing boom.

Before he could react, Ei's figure turned sideways like a phantom, the polearm tracing a flawless, fierce arc as she slashed horizontally!

Every one of her moves was simplified to the extreme, discarding all unnecessary embellishments to condense speed, power, and precision to their peak.

This was no longer the martial art of the mortal realm, but a killing aesthetic belonging to a god—the art of reducing the complex to the simple.

Just as the thunderous blade light danced to its zenith, as if becoming the only rhythm in heaven and earth, Ei's figure suddenly froze.

She held the seething polearm with both hands, drawing it to her side with effortless grace. Far from receding, the aura around her surged and compressed at a terrifying speed!

In her violet eyes, the lightning glowed so intensely it turned nearly pure white: "Musou no Hitotachi—"

All the light within the Plane of Euthymia seemed to be sucked into that poised polearm, causing even the eerie red moon to pale in comparison.

The next instant—

"Bubble-Shadow Annihilation!"

She swung her blade with a fierce strike!

There was no sound—or rather, sound had been completely stripped away.

A violet-black thunderous blade beam, so vast and condensed to the extreme that it defied description, tore away from the polearm and slashed toward the endless void ahead!

Wherever that blade beam passed, space shattered and annihilated layer by layer like fragile glass, revealing the pitch-black nothingness behind it.