Ji Lingxiu severed her black hair, breaking free from the entanglement of threads of affection. Her heart and mind returned to clarity.
The Four Symbols Sword Formation operated without obstruction once more, sword intent harmonious and complete, offense and defense unified. Her gaze turned cold as she pointed her Coiled Dragon Golden Spear at Ding Tanghuan from afar, fighting spirit rising once more to its peak.
Ding Tanghuan barely recovered from her initial shock, suppressing the towering waves in her heart as she grit her teeth and activated her Five Elements techniques once more.
Flames, ice spikes, giant stones, metal blades, vines—various spells flowed effortlessly from her hands, overwhelming the battlefield as they attacked Ji Lingxiu. The spectacle remained magnificent and imposing.
Ji Lingxiu's spear moved like a dragon—lifting, sweeping, thrusting, blocking. The Four Symbols sword intent circulated endlessly, dissolving each attack in the storm of spells. Their figures interweaved at high speed across the arena, magical light and spear energy constantly colliding and exploding, the roar of battle unceasing.
On the surface, the battle seemed to have reached a stalemate once again, evenly matched.
However, within Ding Tanghuan's heart, the situation had long since turned completely upside down, like a tempestuous sea!
She came from an extremely powerful cultivation world in the Upper Realm, born as the legitimate eldest daughter of the prestigious Ding family, a top aristocratic clan. Gifted with exceptional talent, she had been given great expectations from childhood.
Her father, wanting her to pursue the Dao without being trapped by romantic entanglements, had expended tremendous effort to find her seven "child bridegrooms"—each outstanding in appearance, talent, and temperament.
These seven men—some gentle as jade, some cold as ice, some sunny and cheerful, some deep and reserved—encompassed nearly every type of admirable man in the world. Her father's intention was that by seeing so many excellent men, she would become immune to romance and her Dao heart would remain clear.
At first, this had indeed worked. She viewed the seven as playmates, as servants, as mere embellishments on her path of cultivation.
But how could the human heart be so easily calculated?
Over time, she inevitably fell hopelessly in love with one of them. She loved passionately, loved humbly, loved until she lost herself. She thought he felt the same.
But fate's irony knew no bounds.
The one she loved with all her heart, along with the other six, had somehow all quietly fallen in love with her seemingly fragile half-sister, whose talent was far inferior to her own!
To this day, she still couldn't understand why. Was it because her half-sister knew how to appear weak? Was she herself too domineering? Or was it some malicious twist of fate she could never comprehend?
This absurd romantic tribulation became an unhealable wound in her heart. Trapped by love, her Dao heart grew clouded.
She had once had great hope of breaking through to the Sage Realm, but now her cultivation had stalled, unable to advance another inch. Heart demons grew, and she became increasingly extreme.
Taking on this mission to descend to the Lower Realm was less about the sect's grand plans and more about her own escape.
She simply wanted to flee that suffocating environment in the Upper Realm, flee that person she thought of day and night but could never have. Out of sight, out of mind—she even carried a certain self-destructive recklessness.
She had thought that entanglement by threads of affection was the hardest shackle to break free from in this world. She had thought that sinking into the sea of desire, trapped by love, was a tribulation almost no cultivator could avoid.
But she never imagined!
In this "barbaric," "backward" Lower Realm! In this opponent she had originally looked down upon!
She would personally witness someone so decisively, so cleanly—sever the threads of affection with a single sword stroke!
Not suppressing it, not evading it, but facing the delusions stirred within her heart with supreme willpower, clarifying her true self, and then... cutting them away with one stroke!
What was severed was not merely a lock of black hair, but the tangled karma, the demons that shook the heart!
This shock, for her, was far more intense than defeat itself—far more worldview-shattering!
"Why... how could she do it..." This question echoed like a curse in her mind, crashing against her established beliefs, making her doubt her own Dao for the first time.
With her heart and mind in turmoil, the flow of her techniques showed a nearly imperceptible hesitation, and the connection of her spiritual energy was no longer as seamless as before.
In battles between experts, the slightest gap was fatal!
Ji Lingxiu keenly captured this fleeting weakness!
"Four Symbols Unite—Break!"
She cried out clearly. The four sword intent phantoms—Azure Dragon, White Tiger, Vermillion Bird, Black Tortoise—suddenly merged into her Coiled Dragon Golden Spear! The spear erupted with dazzling four-colored divine light, transforming into an indestructible streak of brilliance that instantly tore through Ding Tanghuan's slightly chaotic Five Elements barrier, thrusting straight toward her heart!
"Puh—!"
Her protective spiritual light shattered on impact!
Ding Tanghuan felt a sharp pain in her chest as overwhelming spear energy penetrated her body, instantly devastating her meridians and dantian! The spiritual energy that had been surging around her dissipated like a punctured balloon, blood seeping from the corner of her mouth.
She stumbled backward several steps, no longer able to maintain her techniques. Her face was pale as paper as she stared blankly at Ji Lingxiu standing with spear in hand. Her eyes were filled with complex, inexpressible emotions—shock, unwillingness, bewilderment, and perhaps even a trace of... relief?
Ji Lingxiu didn't pursue. She simply stood with spear in hand, waiting for the referee to announce the result.
Ding Tanghuan looked at those clear, determined eyes, now completely free of confusion, and suddenly gave a bitter, self-mocking smile. She had lost—lost completely, not just in cultivation and techniques, but in state of mind and willpower.
She slowly closed her eyes, two lines of clear tears silently sliding from their corners.
The aura of death seemed to be drawing near.
'Is this how it ends...' she thought silently, her consciousness beginning to fade.
Her final thought was not fear of death, nor regret for the Great Dao left unfulfilled. Instead, it drifted involuntarily toward that figure in the distant Upper Realm who filled her with love and hatred:
'When he learns of my death... will he... feel even a trace of sadness and sorrow for my sake?'
Perhaps until the very last moment, she had still not truly broken free from those threads of affection. But that answer, she would never know.
[
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