A tremendous rumble immediately shook the underground chamber. Within that thunder, every other sound was drowned out.
Li Piaoqing lunged, pressing one hand onto a dagger that had fallen to the ground. Bracing her other hand against the floor, she hurled a streak of cold light with all her strength!
That movement all but squeezed the last trace of strength and will from her body, which had yet to recover. Her arm gave way, and she fell.
But Yi Chengxin seemed to have eyes in the back of her head. She whipped around as the cold blade tore through the air.
An ordinary person without cultivation should never have evaded the streak of light thrown from behind by a fifth-growth cultivator. Yet in that instant, Yi Chengxin's movements suddenly became nimble and swift. In her eyes, the world no longer required reaction.
Li Piaoqing froze. Her gaze met the girl's as she turned, and it was as though a separate world had formed between them.
A clearer, slower world, where everything was plain to see.
[Quail Head]
What she had wanted to bring into the purple bamboo realm, only to be refused by the servants who obeyed the edict, was [Quail Head]!
Within Li Piaoqing's vision, that body, long practiced on the stage, had already twisted and fallen backward. The cold blade skimmed her chest. With a supple backward flip, the girl evaded the thrown dagger, braced a hand on the floor as she landed, and stood before the gateway.
Only then did Li Piaoqing realize what her sword strike had caused.
This solemn gateway had a stone door to match. The faint light remaining on the Fire Talisman faded little by little, and a massive section of the stone gate, weighing over ten thousand jin, had already emerged.
Yi