Tide Rising

Like Qu Yangzi, the Heavenly Demon Sect elder next door, One Sword Fox had her dantian pierced by a sword and nailed to the wall, her limbs and bones hooked by chains and firmly fixed to the ground.

Her only special treatment was a jug of wine that seemed never to run dry, traded for prison meals—and it contained no spiritual power.

The Heavenly Demon Sect elder next door, Qu Yangzi, had spent every day hoping this woman would break out of prison and take him flying with her.

One Sword Fox's wonder lay in this—her golden core was liquid, and her cultivation could fluctuate along with it.

Her talent was so rare, so bizarre, so ever-changing that even Xiao Bai, a transmigrator, had to call her Big Sis.

Back during the Sect-State War, merely drinking a jug of fine wine had caused her Golden Core cultivation to surge instantly to the Peak Nascent Soul. No one knew how many great figures she had slaughtered across the battlefield.

The reason she had survived until today was, first, because the Dao Alliance cherished talent, and second, because...

Legend had it that she had someone above her.

That was why Qu Yangzi believed she could break out at any time.

Within One Sword Fox's lower abdomen, the spiritual-pressure distribution of the sword thrust had originally formed inward-facing barbs, tightly locking down her dantian.

Suddenly!

Her dantian turned into Core Fluid, rippling like water together with the spiritual pressure of the sword thrust.

Like the tide rising, like the tide falling, a wave surged from her lower abdomen and sent even the sword body flying backward.

The spiritual pressure within the chains did the same, rising and falling like tides. At last, when the tide ebbed, the flying sword that had shot away and returned cleaved them apart with a single strike.

Only then did One Sword Fox rise unhurriedly and stretch lazily. For an instant, her stunning figure drew taut before vanishing once more beneath her loose hemp robe.

She instinctively touched her waist, only to remember that her sword had been pawned for three thousand spirit stones...

Left with no choice, she picked up the sword that had been embedded in her dantian for twenty years, hoping it might fetch a good price.

With a gesture, she plucked the wine jug hanging from the vault overhead and tucked it at her waist.

Just as she was about to take a long-awaited swig, she decided that drinking with her hair hanging loose would get strands caught in her teeth. So she tore a strip of hemp cloth from her sleeve and casually tied up her scattered hair...

Revealing a peerless, breathtaking beauty that dry grass and mud stains could not conceal.

Seeing One Sword Fox escape without even breaking the wall, the old man next door panicked and hurriedly said:

"For the sake of this old man having exchanged one hundred eighty-three sentences with you over twenty years, lend me a hand. This old man wants to go out and see whether his granddaughter married into a good family..."

Only one hundred eighty-three sentences in twenty years?

One Sword Fox thought about it, then said regretfully:

"Mm, you old man were fairly quiet. You haven't disturbed my sweet dreams these years... Unfortunately, I need to collect twenty years of back pay from the Dao Supervision Envoy. If I help a Devil Race member escape prison, it'll be hard to get my wages."

Before she had even finished speaking, she was gone.

Clang—

Clang—

Clang—

Alarm bells rang throughout the Underground Prison!

Along with the urgent footsteps of prison officials and guards gathering on every level...

And Qu Yangzi's sigh.

Just as despair overwhelmed him, the sword body embedded in his dantian was suddenly wrapped in black vines.

A slender woman in black stockings, wreathed in mist, slowly appeared before Qu Yangzi.

"No need to sigh. Elder Qu's luck is still fairly good."

Inside the Internal Examination Room on the fifth floor of the Dao Supervision Palace.

Xiao Bai was dumbfounded.

The miraculous pill he had thought would let him escape had completely fallen silent after releasing its alcohol scent.

There were no special effects, no illusion capable of covering his escape... only the pervasive alcohol scent.

And it was absurdly fragrant.

So it really was a placebo!

Seeing that his dantian was about to be cut open, Xiao Bai could no longer bother with acting.

He twisted his body and screamed at the top of his lungs.

"Help—"

The three Dao physicians were startled by the sight.

That was an anesthetic capable of knocking out even Golden Core cultivators!

Qi Shan's command came from within the Internal Examination Room.

"This is too abnormal. Hurry up and do it!"

At that moment, an eerie spiritual pressure pressed upward from below, pinning the three Dao physicians so thoroughly that they could not lift their knives...

"Why haven't you started yet?"

Qi Shan urged them on.

The Dao physicians were helpless too. They had thought the Sect Overseer had changed his mind at the last minute and was stopping them.

Unfortunately, that was not the case.

"Lord Sect Overseer, I... I can't move."

The short blades in their hands rang sharply...

Right then!

Clang—

Clang—

Clang—

Alarm bells rang throughout the Underground Prison!

Xuan Shi understood instantly and shouted:

"Not good, someone has escaped!"

The spiritual pressure holding down the three Dao physicians from below suddenly ebbed like a receding tide and burst apart.

Bang!

A wave crashed outward, shattering all five walls of the Internal Examination Room!

The Internal Examination Room collapsed with a thunderous roar, taking the neighboring Surveillance Room down with it...

A Nascent Soul Realm spiritual pressure instantly blanketed the entire fifth floor.

Qi Shan drew his sword fiercely.

He had probably guessed who had broken out!

Amid the ruins of the Internal Examination Room, Xiao Bai was taking advantage of the chaos to get dressed when his feet suddenly left the ground. A woman had grabbed him by the collar and lifted him up.

"Who are you, brat? Where's Master?"

The woman's voice was like a sword cleaving jade, carrying the muddled, mellow scent of alcohol...

Xiao Bai turned his head in midair.

So dirty...

No, so beautiful!

Beautiful might not have been the right word.

It was a rare kind of... heroic air.

Her clothes, hair, and face all looked grimy as a beggar's, yet she gave off a light, pleasant alcohol scent.

As if she had been marinated through in wine.

She was very tall. Her loose, coarse-cloth robe was missing lapels and sleeves, draped directly over her long, slender frame without the slightest tailoring or design.

Yet she had some capital in her figure. A great swath of white rose at her collar, while the deep snowy ravine, reddened by spilled wine, seemed naturally sketched and carved by gods and ghosts.

The sight went straight to Xiao Bai's head.

Her face was still stained with dry grass and mud. Her coarse chestnut hair was a tangled mess like thatch, and she had casually tied the ends into a braid with rough cloth, calling it done.

Her eyelashes were long, each like a sword, yet tangled together in a chaotic forest of blades pointing wildly in every direction.

Only the sword and wine jug hanging from her waist were exquisitely made, utterly mismatched with her disheveled aura.

From every angle, she was an utterly unrefined, slovenly tomboy.

And yet, she possessed a peerless face that seemed to have stepped straight out of poetry and paintings.

Her sword-like brows slanted upward. When her starlit eyes swept lightly across him, his soul nearly fled his body.

Within her abundant elegance beneath those wide robes, the scent of wine mingled with Sword Qi, making her seem both languid and dashing.

One word: transcendent.

Xiao Bai stared, spellbound.

He forgot to count.

When he came back to himself, he suddenly realized that the Alcohol-filled Chocolate Yu Hu had given him was not a placebo at all, but a signal flare that was not afraid of wine fragrance drifting down a deep alley—

Drawn by that strange alcohol scent was precisely the woman imprisoned in the Eighteenth Floor Underground Prison beneath the Dao Supervision Palace—

One Sword Fox.

It had to be said, Yu Hu trusted this woman far too much. If she had been even one step slower, his dantian would have been castrated and he would have had to disperse his Qi and start cultivating anew.

Xiao Bai had heard so much about how powerful and how vile the legendary One Sword Fox was that his ears had practically grown calluses.

But only after meeting her did Xiao Bai realize that this woman was outrageously beautiful...

He guessed the Modifier had noticed that too.

Calling me... brat?

Even though he was being held like a chick caught by an eagle, Xiao Bai still calmly straightened the clothes he had only just put on and unleashed the strongest cry of a Qi Refining cultivator.

"You should call me Martial Granduncle."