Chapter 15

Chapter 15: Wen Zhao

Flames erupted across Yan Si’s skin. He drove a palm forward—only for the woman to catch his arm. The fire died instantly, snuffed like a wick pinched between fingers.

A heartbeat later, she was behind him.

Yan Si didn’t even have time to turn before a sword hilt smashed into his back. A faint crack rang out—bone giving way—and his body lurched forward.

Defeat.

The whole exchange looked effortless. It didn’t feel like a fight at all, more like a lord disciplining a child.

And yet Yan Si had lost.

In the crowd, Wang Jie’s gaze sharpened. That footwork—just like his. Jia Eight Steps. Only… she had one more step than he did.

Even worse was how she extinguished Blazing Flame Body. She hadn’t countered with finesse; she had simply crushed Yan Si’s cultivated power beneath her own, flattening it so completely the flames had nothing left to cling to.

Decisive. Tyrannical.

Yan Si lay on the ground, teeth clenched as he fought through the pain and pushed himself upright. Bones inside him were broken; his face twisted.

The woman looked down at him with cold indifference and flicked her hand.

Yan Si didn’t say a word. He turned and walked away.

She hadn’t killed him, which already counted as mercy.

A trial was supposed to have a survival rate. If not many trialists had died, then the trial wasn’t over yet.

This woman was already being kind.

She turned to Hong Jian. “And you?”

Her tone was casual, almost bored. “Want to try?”

Hong Jian raised his blade and faced her head-on. “This is Hua Xia’s base. We won’t hand it over to an alien.”

“You’re not planning to have the other cultivator in your base surround and kill me?”

“You’re not a mutant beast,” Hong Jian said. “You’re human.”

The woman smiled. “You have Bone Qi Method. But you’ll lose faster than he did.”

As she shifted her stance, a voice cut in from behind.

“How about you let me go first?”

The woman and Hong Jian both looked back.

Wang Jie stepped out of the crowd.

A ripple of shock went through the people around him. Someone recognized the “wild grass” and couldn’t understand where he’d found the nerve to jump in now. Lian Fei and his group were there—Feng Yu too, people from the Zhao family, and more. They all stared at Wang Jie like he’d lost his mind.

But Wang Jie wasn’t acting on impulse.

First, he respected Hong Jian’s Bone Qi Method. Ever since the failure two years ago, he’d kept a wary distance from the Three Gods and the Five Extremes, hiding his identity in Jin Ling Base. Yet over those two years he’d come to understand Hong Jian. This man wasn’t like Zuo Tian.

Second, his old injuries had healed. Things he couldn’t do before, he could do now.

Hide his identity? There was no need anymore.

Third… he might not lose.

He couldn’t win—not against her Jia Eight Steps. She was practically unassailable.

But Wang Jie could use it too.

He walked forward, one measured step at a time, meeting the woman’s gaze. His presence unfurled like a blade sliding from its sheath.

Third Seal. Fourth Seal… Seventh Seal.

Imprint Power surged from him so violently the air itself seemed to warp.

Hong Jian knew Wang Jie, but he’d never imagined the man could hide his cultivation this completely. How?

Lian Fei’s expression darkened. It was him—the one who’d knocked him out outside Cang Eagle Nest.

Feng Yu remembered too. The person who’d stolen Hibiscus Tears.

The woman studied Wang Jie with open curiosity. “Jia Yi Sect’s Breath-Concealing Method—you know it?”

A slight smile touched her lips. “That sky projection doesn’t make it easy to learn. Looks like you’ve seen a lot of martial shadows.”

“Plenty,” Wang Jie said.

He lifted a hand. In the crowd, someone’s longsword tore free and flew into his grasp. The weapon was crude, more like a strip of iron than a proper blade, but it was still a sword.

Wang Jie raised it and pointed at the woman. “Jin Ling Wang Jie. Please instruct me.”

She looked him over. “Where does your confidence come from?”

Wang Jie only smiled.

He stepped forward and slashed.

In the same instant, his sword cut three times along a diagonal—so fast the separate strikes blurred into one. Sword qi ripped through the air toward her.

The woman moved. Her figure blurred and vanished, slipping past the sword qi as she closed in with terrifying speed—exactly the same approach she’d used on Yan Si.

One step. Two.

Three.

On the third step, she appeared at Wang Jie’s left, reaching for his arm.

Wang Jie’s eyes stayed fixed forward, as if he hadn’t even noticed her—until her fingers were a breath away from closing.

He turned his head.

He smiled, just once.

Under her startled gaze, his sword thrust out at a bizarre angle, stabbing straight for her shoulder.

She hadn’t expected him to react.

Instinct took over. She stepped—fourth step—and her figure flowed behind him, narrowly avoiding the blade.

Wang Jie’s feet shifted. Jia Eight Steps.

Left, right—too fast to track.

The woman’s vision went empty.

Wang Jie was gone.

She froze, genuinely shaken.

Also Jia Eight Steps?

In Jia Yi Sect, mastering Jia Eight Steps within the Ten Seals was rare to the point of absurd. It was one of the standards used to test genius disciples. And yet a native of Blue Star had learned it?

Just like Breath-Concealing Method, it should have been nearly impossible to learn through sky projections alone.

She didn’t have time to think.

Wang Jie reappeared behind her and swung the sword hilt into her back.

A sneak attack. She had already committed her fourth step—she couldn’t dodge.

The hilt landed cleanly… and sank into something soft and boneless, like a wad of cotton.

Wang Jie let out a quiet breath through his nose. Of course.

He retreated at once, using the third step of Jia Eight Steps to open distance.

The woman didn’t chase. She only turned and stared at him, eyes bright with disbelief.

To everyone else, it was incomprehensible. They only saw two phantoms spinning, flickering, vanishing, reappearing—then separating again. Ordinary cultivators couldn’t even follow with their eyes.

Only Hong Jian could see it clearly.

He was stunned by the footwork’s mystery, and even more stunned by Wang Jie’s strength.

Jin Ling Base had been hiding a monster this young?

And then another thought hooked into him—sharp and sudden.

That age. That strength.

It matched the rumors about the bounty board’s top target—the one who’d done something that shook the world.

The woman’s gaze bored into Wang Jie. “Are you really from Blue Star?”

“As real as it gets,” Wang Jie said, shrugging.

“Unbelievable.” Her interest sharpened. “Breath-Concealing Method. Jia Eight Steps. What else do you know?”

“That depends,” Wang Jie replied evenly, “on what you know.”

She nodded, still smiling. “Fighting me is unfair for you. Eighth Seal crushes Seventh Seal. And besides… the Lockforce you cultivate is the lowest-grade power there is.”

Lockforce?

Wang Jie’s eyes flickered. He’d always called it Imprint Power.

He didn’t show the reaction. “No choice. Protecting your home is everyone’s duty.”

They stared at each other.

The woman raised her sword and drew it fully. “Wen Zhao, the Qing Feng Madam Wen. Please instruct me.”

Wang Jie’s sword tip touched the ground. “Jin Ling Base, Wang Jie. Please instruct me.”

The wind howled. Around them, crude tents snapped and strained, and the people outside the base clung to canvas and ropes so the storm wouldn’t steal the only shelter they had.

Wang Jie and Wen Zhao charged at the same time.

Sword met sword.

A light clang rang out—then Wang Jie’s sword snapped in two.

He didn’t hesitate. He swept the broken blade across, but Wen Zhao’s sword pressed down a beat ahead of him, pinning the attack with sheer force. Another sharp sound rang out as Wang Jie was driven back, boots skidding.

Eighth Seal against Seventh Seal really was pressure.

Wang Jie could only circle, deflecting and bleeding off each strike’s power. He could keep it up—for now. But Wen Zhao’s swordwork shifted, turning lighter and sharper, and Wang Jie was forced to retreat.

A rain of sword edges fell from above.

It was the same move she’d used to surround and kill Moon Plant.

Wang Jie stabbed the broken sword into the ground. Seven currents boiled inside him. He slammed his palm into the hilt, and the currents surged along the metal, bursting out as afterimages of shattered blades that crashed into the falling sword rain.

The earth split.

The ground around them sank, cracking and folding like wet clay.

Wen Zhao’s eyes narrowed in surprise. Another Martial Hall combat art. How many had this man learned?

Wang Jie flipped backward and landed cleanly. The missed sword rain carved into the thick city wall; some slashes veered toward the crowd, only to be intercepted by Hong Jian.

Wen Zhao surged forward, stepping onto the broken sword’s hilt as if it were a foothold in midair.

Wang Jie’s gaze locked onto her. He lifted one hand and tapped out a finger.

Spiral Qi Force—striking from afar.

A shriek cut through the rain.

Wen Zhao’s pupils contracted. She dodged with Jia Eight Steps, but a lock of hair still flew free, shorn clean by the force. Her eyes widened as she stared at him.

“Luo Xuan Finger? How many combat arts do you actually know?”

“Guess,” Wang Jie said.

He pointed again.

Spiral Qi Force blasted toward her in a visible surge.

Wen Zhao didn’t move. She held the white sword in a reverse grip and chopped downward with a casual backhand swing.

The force split cleanly.

Wang Jie kept firing, finger after finger, but Wen Zhao simply snapped her sword through each wave, cutting them apart while advancing step by step.

He’d seen someone do this in a sky projection once and assumed it was arrogance—a flourish.

Now he understood. With the right technique, the sword could carry force like water through a channel, wringing the most out of every motion.

His Luo Xuan Finger couldn’t threaten her.

And then Wen Zhao’s eyes changed.

Starlight glittered in her pupils. In her vision, Wang Jie’s face blurred; what stood out instead were the seven currents in his body, each position clear and vivid.

So little consumption?

She was stunned. By any logic, after fighting this long his Lockforce should have been more than half depleted. Yet he hadn’t even spent a third.

He used it more efficiently than most trialists.

She couldn’t know the reason.

For two years, Wang Jie had been unable to raise his cultivation. He’d hoarded disaster materials for Si Yan to research treatments for Old Five and Old Nine’s injuries. He rarely restored his own Imprint Power. Saving became instinct—until it became skill.

In this era, who would dare cultivate like that?

Even the Three Gods and the Five Extremes wouldn’t. They had enough disaster materials to burn through power like kindling.

Hong Jian, fighting the giant eagle, would rather empty himself with one huge move than risk a drawn-out battle.

Wang Jie never allowed himself to reach that point.

Wen Zhao tightened her grip.

Enough.

Dragging this out would only waste time, and time was a resource too.

She bent her knees. The sword leveled before her.

Then she burst forward.

Jia Eight Steps.

Three steps swept her through the air, her figure shifting and sliding between raindrops. A flash of white cut the world.

Wang Jie moved too, using Jia Eight Steps to slip away—but the light still grazed past, close enough to make the air feel like glass.

Wen Zhao’s fourth step landed.

Wang Jie had already used three.

There was nowhere left to go.

The sword came down from above.

“White Sword Edge Descends.”

A streak of white light tore upward into the sky—so immense it felt like a giant blade had been magnified dozens of times and brought down on the world. The strike covered everything around them. Without Jia Eight Steps, there was no dodging it.

Even the air turned thick.

Wang Jie took a deep breath, eyes fixed on the waterfall of light crashing toward him.

Now.

He snapped his fingers.

A colossal finger appeared above the falling sword—descending as if it had torn through cloud and sky.

At the same time, the earth beneath them ruptured. A second finger burst up from the ground.

One above. One below.

They pressed toward the void between them.

Wen Zhao’s expression changed violently.

What was that?

Her body shuddered as a terrifying suction locked onto her, dragging her upward. Above her head, her white sword cracked—fractures racing along the blade like lightning.

The pressure came from the finger descending through the clouds.