That day, a loud bang echoed through the air.
Du Mei Zhenren, who had been standing firm just moments ago, was now sent flying backward like a meteor, scraping across the ground.
Along the way, she crashed into countless trees until she smashed into the mountain behind her and finally came to a slow stop.
“So hard.”
Yun Yiyi frowned slightly.
In that instant, she could sense that a surge of energy had separated them, and her attack had been blocked in that same moment.
From within the dust cloud, there was no scream from Du Mei Zhenren.
Yun Yiyi took only a single step back.
Then, a figure several meters tall appeared, and the massive figure swept away the dust in front of it.
When the smoke cleared, a dharma aspect with a blue face and fangs appeared before everyone.
[Dharma Aspect: Poison Demon Giant]
“Just now I let you get a sneak attack in, did you really think I’m a pushover~!”
Du Mei Zhenren summoned her own dharma aspect at this moment.
Since she couldn’t gauge her opponent’s strength, she had to go all out.
If she dragged things out too long and her barrier collapsed first, she would face a siege from a group of Nascent Soul cultivators, or even have to confront a Deity Transformation cultivator.
“Such an ugly dharma aspect..”
Yun Yiyi looked up at the figure dozens of meters tall without much reaction.
She simply commented lightly on its appearance.
However, Du Mei Zhenren was now standing within the dharma aspect, her body also protected by her life-bound artifact.
She gave her opponent no chance for another sneak attack.
Now Du Mei Zhenren was using her true strength.
She glanced at Yun Yiyi and curled her lips into a sneer of contempt.
“In the world of cultivation, we vie with heaven and earth for longevity. Fellow cultivator, you don’t even have a single magical artifact, yet you still want to fight me~”
Faced with Du Mei Zhenren’s taunt, Yun Yiyi didn’t say much.
She simply walked toward her step by step.
Ordinary cultivators would never take off their precious armor or put down their magical artifacts, but Yun Yiyi had never worn such things.
“I have magical artifacts and stuff too, but I’m saving them to pay little Xinyi’s friendship fee, so I usually don’t use them..”
Yun Yiyi walked step by step, showing no fear even in the face of a dharma body several dozen times her height.
Du Mei Zhenren’s eye twitched; she couldn’t understand why the other party remained so leisurely.
“Having magical artifacts but not using them, you’re such a fool. You’ll pay for your arrogance!”
[Spirit Art: Red Spirit Poison]
Without any hesitation, Du Mei Zhenren clenched her left fist, gathered power, and thrust it out.
At the same time, the giant dharma aspect mimicked the action.
In an instant, the massive dharma aspect’s fists descended with earth-shaking force, slamming toward Yun Yiyi.
“Even if you dodge my Red Spirit Poison, the poison will still enter your body. You’ll die for sure!”
Even as she said this, a powerful tremor spread through the entire sect in an instant.
Murong Xue, who had been sitting in a pavilion, opened her eyes—the commotion was simply too loud.
Correspondingly, the elders stationed on the various spiritual peaks of the sect all shot up into the sky.
“What’s going on? That tremor just now?”
“You felt it too? Is there a Nascent Soul cultivator making a move within the sect?”
“That shouldn’t be. I didn’t sense any Nascent Soul spiritual power. It’s probably just an earth dragon turning over..”
…
Du Mei Zhenren saw the beams of light shooting into the sky and realized that her attack just now had been a bit heavy.
But to instantly kill the person in front of her, she couldn’t hold back.
‘She took my punch head-on and got hit by my Red Spirit Poison. If she’s not dead, she’s at least heavily injured. I need to kill that brat first..’
Du Mei Zhenren looked up toward Lin Xinyi’s position even as she spoke, but the moment she shifted her gaze, a crimson figure burst out from the smoke and appeared before the dharma body in an instant.
“Don’t you know that you can’t be distracted when fighting someone….”
Yun Yiyi’s icy eyes looked as if she were staring at a dead person.
Du Mei Zhenren turned her head in shock.
Although she wasn’t good at frontal attacks, that punch had carried immense force—and she had clearly felt it land on her opponent.
“You… why…?!”
Before Du Mei Zhenren could finish her question, a fist slammed into the dharma body.
In an instant, the emerald-green dharma body began to crack like glass.
One after another, cracks appeared, and then the several-meter-tall dharma body was once again sent flying backward, just like before.
It finally stopped only after crashing into a nearby mountain, leaving a dent in the mountainside.
Although Du Mei Zhenren was protected by her dharma body and dharma robe, suffering no real injury, she still stared with wide, incredulous eyes.
‘What happened? Why is that person completely unharmed? No, she’s already poisoned. If I just drag things out a little longer, a little longer…’
Du Mei Zhenren repeatedly clung to a hopeful thought: if she could just stall a little longer and wait for the poison to take effect, she would win.
But Yun Yiyi gave her no chance to catch her breath.
In a flash, she stepped onto the dharma body’s shoulder, looking down at Du Mei Zhenren within.
“Do you have any last words…”
Looking at the other’s pitiful state, Yun Yiyi spoke casually, as if issuing a final ultimatum, already certain that the other would die.
Du Mei Zhenren’s forehead bulged with veins.
She refused to admit she would lose to this person.
She had sacrificed everything she could to reach her current realm.
“I! I am a Nascent Soul elder of the Heavenly Demon Sect!! Don’t you look down on me!!”
“Is that so? But you seem much weaker than little Xinyi. You were raised on pills, weren’t you? Why would little Xinyi lose to someone like you..”
Yun Yiyi tilted her head slightly as if she didn’t understand.
Hearing this, Du Mei Zhenren’s face flushed with anger.
After all, she knew that when she had seen Lin Xinyi’s unstable cultivation base, she had felt relieved.
The name Changqing Zhenren was one she had heard during her years as a spy, but having it pointed out to her face like this made Du Mei Zhenren feel an immense humiliation.
“You! You bastard!”
Now consumed by rage, Du Mei Zhenren only wanted to fight to the death.
Yun Yiyi saw the fury in her eyes but sneered disdainfully.
She simply raised her right foot and stomped down hard.
In an instant, the already cracked dharma body sank further, and even more cracks spread across its surface.
Du Mei Zhenren’s anger was instantly replaced by fear.
Her dharma aspect was being overwhelmed by brute force—no matter how she looked at it, she had already lost.
But at that moment, Du Mei Zhenren burst into wild laughter as if she had gone mad, and her expression grew even more deranged.
“I understand, I understand! So that’s why your spiritual power is so faint that I can’t detect it—you have a Leaking Spirit Body!!!”
She had originally wanted the one who hurt Lin Xinyi to die in despair, but when Yun Yiyi heard what the other said, a hint of displeasure appeared in her eyes.
“Even if you know, so what? You’re going to die today no matter what..”
A Leaking Spirit Body, as the name suggests, is a physique that cannot accumulate spiritual power.
One can only use spiritual power to temper oneself, but when trying to gather spiritual power, the body is like a balloon full of holes—not a single bit of spiritual energy can be retained.
Therefore, Yun Yiyi could only let spiritual power constantly flow through her body, with no way to store it.
This was why she could only practice body cultivation.
“You’re at the Yuanwu Realm, so you have to get close to me. You can’t use any spells, can you~”
As if she had discovered her opponent’s weakness, Du Mei Zhenren began to laugh arrogantly.
At the same time, the entire dharma aspect slowly became enveloped in deadly poison.
She thought that if Yun Yiyi wanted to fight close quarters, she would inevitably be poisoned.
She had initially despaired when she saw that her opponent could beat her like this without even manifesting a dharma aspect.
But when she realized it wasn’t that she wouldn’t manifest it, but that she couldn’t, Du Mei Zhenren felt she still had a chance.
“Let’s see if you can break my dharma aspect first, or if my poison will turn you into a puddle of water~!”
Du Mei Zhenren used her life-bound artifact to concentrate a great poison, covering the entire surface of her dharma aspect.
Even a late-stage Nascent Soul cultivator wouldn’t dare touch this poison, let alone this mere body cultivator.
“You seem to misunderstand something..!”
Facing the poison spreading over her entire body, Yun Yiyi neither dodged nor resisted.
She simply let it enter her body.
Du Mei Zhenren thought she had succeeded, but when she saw Yun Yiyi still slowly clenching her fists and bringing them down, she was completely baffled.
“No, why? Why is the poison useless against you?!”
Thud!!
“Wait! Wait! If you kill me, the poison won’t disappear!”
Thud!!
“The poison will accumulate in your body and invade your internal organs when you least expect it!!”
Thud!!
“I! I’ll give you the antidote! You! Stop, stop!!”
Thud!!
Du Mei Zhenren was completely panicked.
The poison that would turn ordinary cultivators into blood on contact seemed to have no effect on this person.
Yun Yiyi ignored her pleas and just kept punching.
If it had been any other time, Du Mei Zhenren might have succeeded.
But her bad luck was in running into Yun Yiyi.
The poison on Yun Yiyi was not ineffective; it was actually continuously harming her.
However, the damage it dealt to Yun Yiyi was less than the recovery from the blood and qi within her body.
Since the poison was a continuous damage effect and couldn’t kill instantly, this resulted in:
[Yun Yiyi] [HP] -50+100-50+100-50…
“You! Don’t come any closer! Don’t come closer!!”
As Yun Yiyi delivered another punch, the originally indestructible dharma aspect finally cracked open, leaving a gap.
But the gap was only a sliver—yet it was enough to strike fear into Du Mei Zhenren, who was hiding inside the dharma aspect.
Seeing that there was finally a tiny gap, Yun Yiyi slowly leaned down, brought her face to the broken slit, and peered inside with her crimson eyes.
The corner of her mouth slowly curled into a cruel smile that didn’t belong on her innocent-looking face.
Perhaps at this moment, Yun Yiyi was showing her true nature.
Lin Xinyi, hiding far away, couldn’t see what was happening clearly.
Du Mei Zhenren, meanwhile, pressed herself against the lowest part of the dharma aspect, her body trembling uncontrollably.
“Are you ready to be crushed by me bit by bit..”
“No!! No!! Please! Please don’t come closer! No!!”
Yun Yiyi’s slender fingers grabbed both sides of the gap.
Without any magical artifact or protection, she pried it open like breaking apart a cookie.
With that cruel smile on her lips, she punched again and again, slowly widening the gap that had only been big enough to show her face.
“Hello, and then goodbye..”
“No! No!!!!”
Du Mei Zhenren was now so terrified that she didn’t know how to fight back.
She manipulated the twelve life-bound artifacts in her hands, stabbing at her opponent.
Even though the poison was ineffective, she still struggled.
But when the blades stabbed into her opponent’s body, they only produced a sound like clashing steel.
In that moment, even the ever-victorious life-bound artifacts couldn’t break through Yun Yiyi’s defense.
Du Mei Zhenren could only watch helplessly as the other entered her dharma aspect.
“Don’t come closer!!!!”