"Who's there?"
A low, cold shout came from the center of the pool, carrying the pressure of spiritual power that had condensed into tangible form. Even from a hundred meters away, that chill stabbed Chu Yunfei's skin like needles.
"How dare you!"
Yan Guining's voice suddenly rose, sharp with killing intent.
Without moving her body, she lowered her right hand slightly beneath the water. As she poured in spiritual power, three water droplets, condensed until almost solid, shot up from the pool.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!
Three sounds of air being split rang out almost simultaneously.
The droplets were outrageously fast. Imbued with the full power of the fourth level of the Spirit Martial Realm, they drew three slender white lines through the air, targeting Chu Yunfei's head, chest, and abdomen.
Chu Yunfei's scalp prickled. Without time to think, he instantly drove the spiritual power in his legs along the pathways of the Divine Movement Art, darting sideways to the right like a phantom.
Bang, bang, bang!
Three bowl-sized craters blasted open in the rock where he had been standing, sending fragments flying through clouds of dust.
A stone chip grazed his cheek, leaving a shallow bloody cut.
Cold sweat instantly seeped down Chu Yunfei's back.
A full-powered strike from the fourth level of the Spirit Martial Realm-even if it consisted only of casually condensed water droplets-was destructive enough to gravely injure a Qi Condensation Realm cultivator.
Had he not happened to learn the Divine Movement Art, those three droplets would have left him bedridden for half a month.
Perhaps even longer.
Yet before he could catch his breath-
Splash!
An enormous spray exploded from the pool as a fair-skinned figure shot into the sky. Clothes wrapped around her at an incredible speed in midair, and she was fully dressed by the time she landed.
Only the ends of her hair still dripped, while the anger at the corners of her eyes seemed on the verge of taking physical form.
Yan Guining stood a hundred meters away, her eyes fixed on Chu Yunfei like two unsheathed swords.
"Chu Yunfei."
Her voice was icy, bone-chilling, interwoven with anger and embarrassment.
Chu Yunfei raised both hands in surrender.
"Senior Sister, it's a misunderstanding. Definitely a misunderstanding."
"A misunderstanding?"
Yan Guining sneered, bringing the fingers of her right hand together as fierce spiritual power gathered in her palm. "You spied on me bathing, and you call this a misunderstanding?"
"I just happened to pass by. I really didn't see anything." Chu Yunfei waved his hands repeatedly, wearing an utterly innocent expression.
Yan Guining's gaze settled on his face.
Following his gaze, she noticed that as he said he had seen nothing, his eyes seemed to drift downward for an instant, not entirely under his control.
Yan Guining's expression darkened completely.
"You didn't see anything?"
"Right, nothing at all." Chu Yunfei looked exceptionally sincere.
"Were they big?"
The question came far too suddenly.
Chu Yunfei's mouth moved faster than his brain.
"Just the right size."
The instant the words left his mouth, he knew he was done for.
Yan Guining's movements paused for half a beat.
The air froze for roughly two seconds.
Then she moved.
"And you still claim you didn't see anything!"
A fierce blast of palm wind, wrapped in fury that could destroy heaven and earth, crashed straight toward his head and face.
Chu Yunfei cursed inwardly and drove the Divine Movement Art to its limit, retreating at speed.
The palm wind skimmed past the hem of his clothes. Behind him, an ancient pine thick enough to encircle with both arms snapped, its crown crashing down along with half its trunk.
Chu Yunfei glanced at the severed trunk, his heart turning cold.
The cut was smooth as a mirror. A single strike had severed it without even leaving wood chips.
This woman really meant to kill him.
Yan Guining gave him no chance to breathe. With a flicker, she closed in again.
She was far faster than Chu Yunfei. Her fourth-level Spirit Martial Realm cultivation crushed his eighth-level Qi Condensation cultivation; an entire major realm separated them.
Without the instantaneous burst of speed provided by the Divine Movement Art, Chu Yunfei could not have dodged even her first move.
"Senior Sister, calm down. We can talk this through." Chu Yunfei tried to reason with her while frantically dodging.
Yan Guining turned a deaf ear. Turning her right hand over, she condensed her spiritual power into a water-blue sword of light. Its sword light flickered, its edge aimed straight at Chu Yunfei's throat.
Chu Yunfei was forced to the point where he had nowhere left to retreat.
Gritting his teeth, he turned his right hand over. The Abyss-Devouring Sword appeared in his grip, and he frantically poured spiritual power into its blade.
The sword rang out.
Heaven-Severing Slash!
At that moment, the earth-grade sword technique, mastered to major accomplishment, erupted with astonishing might.
A dark golden ray of sword light burst from the tip of the Abyss-Devouring Sword. Carrying all the spiritual power of the eighth level of Qi Condensation, it sliced through the air and met Yan Guining's attack head-on.
Boom!
The two forces collided in midair, sending waves of air sweeping in every direction.
Chu Yunfei's feet plowed two deep furrows through the ground as the impact drove him back seven steps. The webbing between his thumbs and forefingers went numb, his blood churned, and a trickle of blood seeped from the corner of his mouth.
Yan Guining, however, retreated only one step.
But the look in her eyes changed.
For the first time, a clear trace of shock appeared in those rage-filled eyes.
The eighth level of Qi Condensation.
She had not been mistaken.
This fellow, who had been only in the Body Tempering Realm half a month ago, had already reached the eighth level of Qi Condensation.
This speed... was far too outrageous.
But his rise in cultivation was not what shocked her most.
It was that sword strike.
An earth-grade sword technique.
There was no mistaking it. The fluctuations within that dark golden sword light undoubtedly carried the signature of an earth-grade martial technique. Moreover, judging by the fluidity of its execution, he had mastered it to at least major accomplishment.
The highest-grade martial techniques available to the Azure Mystic Sect's inner disciples were merely profound-grade. Only true disciples and elders were qualified to cultivate earth-grade sword techniques. Although Chu Yunfei had once been a true disciple too, to her knowledge, he had never visited the library pavilion.
Where had this Chu Yunfei learned an earth-grade sword technique?
Yan Guining stood where she was, her chest rising and falling slightly. Her anger remained, but reason had already overcome impulse.
Chu Yunfei wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and took advantage of the pause to cup his fist toward Yan Guining.
"Senior Sister, I was indeed at fault today. I just learned a movement technique, and while testing it, I failed to control my direction and ran all the way here in one go. For the offense I've caused, I will certainly make amends another day."
After saying this, he did not wait for Yan Guining's response. He urged spiritual power into his feet and drove the Divine Movement Art to its limit, his figure turning into a wisp of smoke that vanished into the mountain forest in the blink of an eye.
Yan Guining stood where she was, staring in the direction he had disappeared. The rise and fall of her chest did not settle for a long time.
Anger and embarrassment alternated across her face.
The humiliation of having someone glimpse her most private side made her want to chase after Chu Yunfei immediately and beat him half to death.
At the same time, however, another, more complicated emotion quietly spread through her heart.
He had blocked her strike.
At the eighth level of Qi Condensation, he had blocked a strike from the fourth level of the Spirit Martial Realm.
Although he had been knocked back, although he had suffered internal injuries, he had indeed blocked it.
Yan Guining understood better than anyone what that meant.
In the previous outer sect tournament, he had swept the arena with Body Tempering Realm cultivation.
And now, with eighth-level Qi Condensation cultivation, he had withstood a strike from the fourth level of the Spirit Martial Realm.
This man's rate of growth had already surpassed every principle of common sense she knew.
Could this be the benefit of cultivating anew after having one's cultivation crippled?
Yan Guining drew a deep breath and forcibly suppressed her surging emotions.
She lowered her head to look at her soaking clothes. Having dressed in haste, she had not actually fastened her collar properly. The front of her robes hung slightly open, leaving more than half of two expanses of lustrous white flesh exposed.
And she had just stood like that for so long, less than three zhang from Chu Yunfei.
Yan Guining's face instantly burned.
"Chu Yunfei."
"You lecher. Just you wait."