"All right."
Ten breaths had already passed since the three chimes. He drew his sword and said evenly, "Yan Feiqing of Qingwei. My master is True Person Minghe. Please."
"I ask for your instruction, senior." Pei Ye's smile faded, and he drew a gleaming sword with a clang.
There was no [Soil-Breaking] now. He closed his eyes, swayed a few steps as gracefully as a drunk, and thrust an oblique, mysterious sword at Yan Feiqing's chest.
Neither fast nor slow, beautiful as a little lotus in the wind. Yan Feiqing raised his sword to block, his body turning lightly with his sword force. Half a Yang Fish had already been drawn on the ground.
Yet Pei Ye's sword force flowed on without a break. His last thrust had targeted the chest; this one glided toward the lower abdomen.
Yan Feiqing redirected it again, and Pei Ye thrust again. Seven times in succession, the paths of those seven strikes formed a diamond-shaped bud facing Yan Feiqing.
As Pei Ye completed his seventh strike, a force born from nothing naturally blossomed from the diamond's heart, soft and lingering.
[Green Peach Turns to Fat Jade]
The opening form of "Lotus Trust": the tip of the green bud blushed pink and white, its hard shell turning soft and translucent. If you had met the previous seven strikes, this soft, translucent force was already within your sword, impossible to guard against, precisely because it had not been transmitted outward, but born from those seven preceding forms.
Pei Ye used it to invade Yan Feiqing's Limitless Sword Force, seeking to break the balance between its two poles. The Heavenly Matriarch had failed to overcome softness with strength; naturally, an offensive sword like [White Dew] would be no stronger than hers.
Thus, his only option was to