Chapter 844: That Person, That Light (1)

Stasis! This was another signature ability granted to Li Xiaofei by the Secret Time Pavilion. He rarely used this skill, but at a critical moment, it could very well save his life.

Once he entered the golden statue state, no matter how powerful the enemy was or how profound their techniques, they could no longer target or attack him. No harm could be done to Li Xiaofei during this time.

However, the effect was not permanent. With his current cultivation level, he could only maintain Stasis for thirty minutes at most. After thirty minutes, the effect would end, and he would exit Stasis.

Li Xiaofei couldn’t circulate his cultivation techniques to heal his wounds, nor could he use any internal energy to recover his true qi while he was in Stasis. He himself remained in a state of absolute stillness.

The silver Ruo circled the golden statue, observing him. It tried to attack dozens of times, but each attempt failed. This left it both enraged and confused. As the strongest Reaper of the Primal Faction, its combat instincts and intuition could not explain what was happening. In the end, it chose to wait.

Time flew by swiftly. As the limit approached, the golden statue around Li Xiaofei began to fade. A cold, brutal killing intent surfaced in the silver Ruo's eyes.

Meanwhile, Li Xiaofei was inwardly panicking.

What now?

He had already used Time Rewind. Stasis had also been activated. Both were now on cooldown. Almost all of his trump cards were spent. If the fight continued, he would surely die. He didn’t even know whether Little Aunt and the others had successfully entered Doushuai Palace yet.

Ding.

A soft chime rang out as Li Xiaofei completely exited Stasis.

Boom!

He was immediately sent flying once again by the silver Ruo. Blood splattered across the space of the Realm of Eternal Samsara as Li Xiaofei crashed heavily onto the ground.

But the silver Ruo didn’t hesitate in the slightest. As a killer of the Primal Faction, it would never make the classic villain’s mistake of ‘dying because it talked too much’. It unleashed killing moves at full force from the very first strike.

Li Xiaofei didn’t even have time to get up. His body twisted like a snake, narrowly evading a fatal strike. It was the Fox Twist Serpent Walk technique from the Nine Yin Manual, a movement skill much like the ‘lazy donkey roll,’ designed to dodge deadly attacks in critical moments.

The many techniques Li Xiaofei had drawn from the Secret Time Pavilion in the past were now yielding effects far beyond their original limits, thanks to his current cultivation realm. But even so, faced with the relentless onslaught of the silver Ruo, the severely wounded Li Xiaofei felt himself beginning to falter.

This time, he had truly run out of tricks. There were no hidden cards left to play. He was about to be crushed to death by the overwhelming strength of the silver Ruo. As his strength drained, his movements grew slower and slower.

Bang.

The silver Ruo struck his right chest with a claw. Half his chest was blown apart.

“My life ends here...” Li Xiaofei’s vision went dark. It felt as though Death himself was standing before him, lighting a cigarette, pouring a drink, and hosting a welcoming party. He had no choice but to accept death. But just then—

A strange change occurred. Inside the Secret Time Pavilion, the woman slumbering beneath the ice suddenly radiated endless divine light. Her previously shut eyes snapped open.

Sword light shimmered in those beautiful eyes. Galaxies emerged and collapsed within them. Black holes of life and death flickered at the edge of vision. Seas turned to mulberry fields, and the rise and fall of the universe seemed to unfold and complete in a single instant within her gaze.

Li Xiaofei remained entirely unaware of this transformation. But in the very next moment, Ishihara Masami’s body turned into sword light. She traversed time itself, pierced through the barriers of the Secret Time Pavilion, and crossed an endless span of space to arrive at Li Xiaofei’s side.

Whoosh!

The sword light, emerging from the void of the Realm of Eternal Samsara, seemed to come out of nowhere. Even a being as powerful as the silver Ruo had no time to react.

The sword light sliced across the silver Ruo’s body and a blurred, radiant figure took form within the flames of light. Li Xiaofei’s eyes widened, filled with disbelief.

Ishihara Masami?!

The disciple who slumbered within the Secret Time Pavilion, did she really transform into a sword and arrive in the real world?

The sword light remained hazy and indistinct, yet it effortlessly pierced through the silver Ruo’s exoskeletal body. Ishihara Masami’s phantom form clung tightly to the silver Ruo.

She now existed in a most peculiar state. She was both alive and dead, but there lay ultimate terror between life and death. And within that terrifying boundary, Ishihara Masami unleashed a power that defied all logic and reason.

Her hands, her arms, her shoulders, her legs, her feet. Her entire being had become a sword. That sword light completely enveloped the silver Ruo, piercing it through and through.

In the final fraction of a millisecond, Ishihara Masami turned and looked at Li Xiaofei. Her face was so young and radiant, yet so sorrowful and resolute. There was an infinite, aching longing in her eyes.

She looked at Li Xiaofei and said softly, “Master...”

Then, she transformed into light along with the silver Ruo and vanished from the Realm of Eternal Samsara. And from the universe itself, forever. She was gone. She had died.

Li Xiaofei stood frozen in place. This sudden, unimaginable turn of events left him reeling. Even now, he was lost in the final gaze of Ishihara Masami, the last fleeting expression of the sword goddess of Jiepeng.

What kind of expression was that?

Li Xiaofei clutched his shattered chest; he could feel the pain searing through him. Though his body had already been ravaged and crushed by the silver Ruo, in that moment, he felt another kind of anguish, one that came from the deepest depths of his soul.

That girl, whom he had saved once on a whim, had died. Her lifelong wish had never been fulfilled. When he had avenged Ishihara Masami’s family and pulled her from despair, Li Xiaofei had never imagined that one day, she would save him in return, through such a tragic and absolute sacrifice.

Suddenly, he remembered something Shin Koharu had once said. There had been a moment when Ishihara Masami’s body, entombed in slumber, had shone with a dazzling white light, almost as if awakening.

Now that Li Xiaofei thought back carefully,

wasn’t that very moment the same time I had been imprisoned in the dungeon of Chongque City, tortured and facing certain death?

So then... every time my life was in danger, Ishihara Masami who was still asleep sensed it? Has she always been trying to do something?

Even across mountains and rivers, through endless galaxies, she had always sensed the moment he was in peril. Was it longing? Intuition? Or something deeper, instinct?

Li Xiaofei fell into a long silence. He had never truly taken Ishihara Masami to heart. After all, she was from Jiepeng. But it seemed Ishihara Masami had placed no one else in her heart... except him. Even though he was from Great Xia.

“Master... farewell.” That might have been the last thing she ever wanted to say. But perhaps, it wasn’t. The mist of blue and violet light gradually dispersed as the effects of the Realm of Eternal Samsara faded.

A faint glimmer of light flashed as Li Xiaofei returned to the real world. He turned to glance around him. He was still less than a thousand meters away from the Doushuai Palace.

However, the swarm of white, twin-headed Ruo creatures had vanished without a trace. A vast, divine pressure filled the void, majestic and overwhelming, like the presence of a god.

Li Xiaofei's heart tightened with unease. He hurriedly scanned his surroundings. But there was no sign of Little Aunt or the others. He shot toward the distant Doushuai Palace.

He arrived at the palace gates in an instant. He gave the door a push and the gates of Doushuai Palace softly creaked open. Li Xiaofei peered inside to find a dimly lit main hall. But even so, it was far brighter than the darkness outside. He stepped across the threshold.

Boom!

The massive doors behind him shut automatically. Li Xiaofei paused for a moment, then continued forward. His nose twitched as he caught a familiar scent in the air. It was the aura of the Black Emperor. That instantly lifted his spirits. It seemed Little Aunt and the others had already made it safely into Doushuai Palace.

But... where is everyone?

Li Xiaofei turned his head and scanned his surroundings. He soon realized that the first floor of the palace was quite spacious, easily covering several thousand square meters.

The interior was arranged much like a modern administrative hall, with rows of chairs, long desk-like tables, and in the deeper section, what looked like cabinets or workstations. The whole layout had an unexpectedly contemporary feel.

But there was nothing particularly special about it. There were no alchemy furnaces, no herbs, and no visible formations. None of the things Li Xiaofei had expected were present. This was entirely different from what he had imagined.

He carefully searched every corner of the space. There was no trace of Little Aunt or the others nor any sign of the legendary Blood-Drinking Sword.

After a moment of thought, he found a staircase and began ascending to the second floor. The Doushuai Palace was said to have thirty-three levels, each one different from the last.

The second floor was divided into numerous compartments of roughly equal size. Each one looked like an individual office, complete with desks, chairs, and what appeared to be display shelves or bookcases.

The third floor resembled a large classroom, which seemed to be a place for lectures or training. The more Li Xiaofei explored, the stranger he found it. This was nothing like the Doushuai Palace described in the legends.

There were no racks of gourds filled with immortal pills, no storage gourds hanging on the walls. Instead, he felt like he had entered a large-scale training facility.