The air in Mei Yilan’s chamber curdled into a suffocating shroud of killing intent the moment her fingers closed around the hilt of the black Blade. The four assassins moved with the synchronized, cold-blooded cruelty of a wolf pack closing in for the kill.

"Die, you bitch!" the two 1st-stage Golden Core assassins hissed in unison. Their twin daggers pulsed with a sickly, necrotic green light, carving poisonous arcs through the air as they lunged from her flanks. Simultaneously, the Peak Foundation expert dived low, his blade a silver blur aimed at severing her hamstrings.

Wraith-043 remained anchored in the center, his hands glowing with a condensed, blood-red Qi, his eyes tracking Yilan like a hawk waiting for the exact heartbeat her guard might falter.

Yilan’s eyes flashed with a cold, nostalgic fire. She didn’t retreat. She stepped directly into the eye of the storm, her black blade tracing a perfect, shimmering circle in the air.

Clang! Clang!

With two precise, effortless flicks, she parried the venomous daggers. The sheer force of her 7th-stage Golden Core Qi, tempered by her lingering Nascent Soul insights, sent a localized shockwave through the assassins’ arms, shattering their bracers and numbing their nerves. Before they could reset, Yilan’s foot lashed out, catching the low-diving Foundation expert square in the jaw and sending him spiraling into the ceiling like a broken doll.

Finding a momentary gap, she spun, her palm connecting with the face of the nearest Golden Core assassin in a thunderous slap. The strike carried enough concentrated internal force to make his brain swell against his skull.

SLAP

"Your mother would be the bitch, you bastard," Yilan whispered, her voice a deadly frost as the man’s teeth sprayed across the room.

The second Golden Core assassin lunged forward to fill the gap, his hands transforming into jagged, spectral claws of crimson energy, the Ghost-King’s Desolating Palm. Every strike he unleashed carried the crushing weight of a mountain peak. The sheer atmospheric pressure caused the floorboards to groan and buckle, while the room’s mirrors shattered into a thousand shimmering shards that danced in the chaotic wind.

Yilan moved through the debris with the grace of a falling leaf, her black blade a blur of defensive arcs. But as the fight reached a fever pitch, a sharp, stabbing agony flared in her lower abdomen. The old, deep-seated injury from the Shen Clan massacre, a wound that had never truly closed, chose this moment to scream. Her breath hitched for a fraction of a second, and her aura flickered.

Wraith-043’s jagged grin split his scarred face. "Found it! The crack in the legend!"

He didn’t hesitate. Igniting his very life essence, his aura ballooned, surging from a standard Peak Golden Core to a terrifying pressure bordering on a Half-step Nascent Soul. The crimson light in the room became blinding, a localized hurricane of blood-colored Qi that threatened to bring the entire master wing down.

"Shatter for me, Crimson Sword Master!"

He slammed both palms into the floor, detonating his Qi in a massive, directional shockwave aimed directly at her core.

Yilan’s eyes narrowed as the world slowed to a crawl. She knew she couldn’t dodge without exposing her back to the two killers on her flanks. Instead, she planted her feet, her black blade pulsing with a dark, devouring light. She didn’t just block; she compressed every ounce of her remaining 7th-stage Qi into a singular, impenetrable point of absolute defense.

BOOM!

The explosion ripped through the master wing, the shockwave reaching the outer corridor like a physical blow.

"Mother!"

Lixue’s heart plummeted. For a split second, her focus shattered, her gaze darting toward the rising smoke of the master wing. It was the only opening the Peak Foundation expert needed. Exploiting the distraction, he lunged with a heavy, bone-breaking kick that slammed into Lixue’s ribs, sending her crashing into a stone pillar.

The world blurred. Before she could draw a breath, the assassin was over her, his shadow looming like a shroud. He raised his daggers high, his eyes gleaming with the sadistic pleasure of a job nearly finished. He leaned in, expecting the soft tear of flesh and the light to fade from her blue eyes.

The obsidian daggers descended like twin executioners, the cold steel a mere inch from Lixue’s throat.

Instead, the air around Lixue didn’t just move; it shattered.

An invisible, razor-sharp pressure exploded from her body, a force so ancient and domineering that the stone pillar behind her groaned and cracked under the weight of it. It wasn’t just Qi; it was Sword Intent, the absolute, conceptual realization of the blade.

CLANG!

The daggers didn’t just miss; they were deflected with such violent force that they nearly flew from the assassin’s hands. He staggered back, boots skidding on the stone, his bone-white mask trembling in shock. The girl before him had transformed. Her azure robes fluttered in an aura that felt like it belonged to a Sovereign of the Heavens; her Ancient Sword Sovereign Body reacted in response to the mortal threat.

"What... what are you?" the assassin stammered, his voice cracking with primal horror. He clutched his numbed wrists, staring at the translucent, silver-white edge of Intent coating her blade. "How? You aren’t even twenty! To manifest Sword Intent at the 2nd Stage of Foundation Establishment... Monster! You’re a monster!"

Lixue didn’t answer. Her blue eyes were no longer hazy with pain; they were as sharp and cold as the steel she held. Shen Yu had warned her, he had commanded her to keep this power buried, to keep it hidden to avoid the prying eyes of others. But the sound of the explosion from her mother’s wing and the cold touch of Syndicate steel at her throat had snapped the final threads of her restraint.

With a movement that was less a step and more a blur of light, she used the momentum of her awakening. She swung her sword in a simple, horizontal arc.

Shing—

The Sword Intent bypassed the assassin’s Qi defense as if it were parchment. A thin, silver line appeared across his throat. For a heartbeat, he stood perfectly still, a look of realization frozen on his face. Then, his head slid from his shoulders, hitting the floor with a dull thud before his body even began to fall.

The "Peak" expert had been erased in a single breath.

Lixue didn’t linger to watch the corpse. She reined in the silver aura, her face pale but determined. She ignored her bruised ribs and turned her gaze toward the master wing, where the crimson Qi was still raging like a dying star.