In just a short moment, wind blades had filled the space around her, like a dense swarm of mosquitoes, thick and terrifying.
Xuan Yin Zhen Ren immediately reacted.
“Self-created Wind Dao spell? Damn it, how annoying!”
She had noticed that these wind blades would split upon destruction, yet she was somewhat helpless. If she actively destroyed them, each blade would split into two; if she didn’t, the blades would dissipate against her air wall and split anyway—it was impossible to defend against.
After a few seconds, she finally got one piece of good news and one piece of bad news. The good news was that the splitting had a limit. Once it reached an upper cap, the blades could only regroup and could no longer split further.
As for the bad news, the number of wind blades was terrifyingly high. As far as the eye could see, wind blades were dancing everywhere. Because they were constantly moving and slashing, they were impossible to count—at least a hundred or more.
What’s more, from the rhythmic clanging sounds, she once again determined that these wind blades were under Lin Huanhuan’s control, searching for weak points in her air wall, aiming to concentrate on one spot to peel away her defense.
Xuan Yin Zhen Ren understood that for now, there was no way to break this bizarre technique. She could only tough it out.
But she was still confident.
“Damn brat! You want to outlast me in spiritual energy? Then watch closely—I don’t believe that a clone with Late Foundation Stage cultivation can’t outlast a mere Mid Foundation Stage like you!”
Lin Huanhuan didn’t know exactly what she was thinking, but she could roughly guess.
“Heh, let’s see who runs out of steam first.”
Ever since being hunted by those cultists and suffering from the lack of pills, Lin Huanhuan had shamelessly asked her sister for a lot of recovery-type pills. To be honest, even if Xuan Yin Zhen Ren hadn’t already consumed a lot of spiritual energy, even at her peak, she might not be able to outlast Huanhuan.
Xuan Yin Zhen Ren persisted for a while longer, seeing that the wind blades were still like ocean waves with no sign of stopping. She glanced at her nearly depleted energy reserves and grew anxious. Several times she tried to charge out but was beaten back.
‘Damn it! How is this possible? This brat’s background is not simple—she actually prepared so many recovery-type treasures.’
Xuan Yin Zhen Ren, though furious, was still powerless. The new Wind Dao spell, combined with the damage she had already sustained, forced her to stay hunkered down in defense.
“Am I really going to fall here today? What a loss. Forget it—since I probably can’t get out anyway, I might as well go all out!”
A fierce gleam flashed in Xuan Yin Zhen Ren’s eyes. She simply gave up on defense altogether and let the raging wind blades continuously slice into her body.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The wind blades kept exploding against her body. It often took many blades to carve out a single crack. At this rate, it would take at least fifty or sixty breaths to completely dismember this body.
The reason she had been working so hard to defend before was that she thought she could still win and conserve energy to bring You Yuelan out. But now, realizing that was no longer possible, she stopped defending altogether. She would kill that wretched Lin Huanhuan first.
“Energy-saving mode, deactivate!”
Xuan Yin Zhen Ren stood in place, her Mechanical Puppet Body spinning rapidly. In just two instants, it would complete the transformation, unleashing its full Late Foundation Stage combat power to eradicate Lin Huanhuan!
Seeing this, Lin Huanhuan was not frightened but delighted. She immediately stood up.
“Old hag, you finally got anxious and showed a weakness.”
She flipped the Ten Thousand Soul Banner in her hand, raised it, and unleashed another Soul-Breaking Wind.
Xuan Yin Zhen Ren was shocked and tried to use the same trick again—splitting her soul at the cost of some combat power.
“How is this possible! You still have such a trick?”
But Lin Huanhuan had been planning for so long—how could she not have anticipated this? While Xuan Yin was frantically splitting her soul, she completely failed to notice that the wind blades swirling around her were rapidly converging and merging, finally forming a huge, ring-shaped wind blade.
By the time she finished splitting her soul and reacted, it was already too late.
Lin Huanhuan roared:
“Eight-Part Light Wheel, cut!”
Xuan Yin could only watch helplessly as the enormous wind blade shot toward her at an almost unbelievable speed, striking the energy core she had just exposed on her chest, slowly sinking in.
Crack—crack—
The wind blade cut through her body.
She looked down at the large hole in her chest, the red light in her eyes gradually dimming.
“Th-this… how is this possible?
“I am a fallen Golden Core, and this puppet has Late Foundation Stage strength. I planned so much, even if there were a few small hiccups, how could I be defeated by a mere Mid Foundation Stage ant like you!”
With her last bit of energy, she stared intently at Lin Huanhuan, as if trying to memorize her completely.
“Just you wait. This isn’t over. The price for ruining my scheme—one day, I will make—”
Lin Huanhuan waved her hand, and another wind blade shot out, directly decapitating her.
“What’s all that gibberish? I’m already sick of threats like that. If I get the chance, you won’t need to come after me—I’ll tear you limb from limb myself!
“Hmph! I’m not the protagonist. I’m the one who actively picks fights!”
“Phew, even though I used a few tricks, I still crossed a cultivation level to fight. That means the terrifying gap between me and the protagonist has narrowed a bit, right?”
“In the Original Work, I remember Bai Lingfeng utterly dominated that old hag in this fight. He even had the leisure to wait for her to enter her second phase, and when she ran out of trump cards, he mocked her with ‘Late Foundation Stage, that’s it?’ What a monster.”
Lin Huanhuan sighed. The tension in her nerves released, and she collapsed to the ground.
In truth, she had almost reached her limit just now. She had only been running on adrenaline. She turned her head to look at the severely injured You Yuelan and forced a smile.
“Come to think of it, did I change the plot or not? Probably not. If I hadn’t intervened, You Yuelan would have died for sure. This should count as plot correction—yeah, definitely.”
As Lin Huanhuan muttered, the Mustard Seed Secret Realm shattered like a world of mirrors. They reappeared in that Broken Temple.
This was because the owner of the mustard seed space had “died,” and with such fierce battles inside, it was already on the verge of collapse. Its destruction now was only natural.
After a while, two figures finally arrived belatedly. Sensing the situation, one of them—a white-clad figure—suddenly accelerated.
Only then did Lin Huanhuan dare to faint.
“Damn protagonist, what the hell was he doing? Showing up this late to save the day. Just wait, next time I’ll—”