Despite realizing that his Queen has been ambushed by the opponent's King, Han Xuhan couldn't really do anything about it. This avatar he was possessing moved according to its own will. And it refused to take the small, oncoming 'soldier' seriously.

The soldier's speed increased as it approached, and within a few seconds, it was moving as fast as an experienced Martial Cultivator. Swinging the silver saber over its head with a blinding quickness, it leaped high and slashed at Han Xuhan's chest.

Han Xuhan's avatar lazily brought up the long handle of its scythe in the saber's way, and as both weapons collided, a deafening screech rang out. Han Xuhan had no time to marvel about it, because somehow, that small 'soldier' had put enough power behind that slash to sweep his avatar off its feet.

He flew backwards, staggering haphazardously to gain a proper footing while another loud whistling noise grated against his ears. Thrusting the butt of his sickle into the hard floor to stabilize himself, he looked up to see the source of that noise.

Thunk!

A silver blur hit him in the face almost immediately, leaving him disoriented again. But being detached from any sense of pain, Han Xuhan managed to get a glimpse of the source of the noise.

The King's saber had punched a hole through his skull. Only one of his eyes was working. With it, he saw the few remaining inches of the saber's blade hanging in front of his face, followed by the handle. Raising a hand, he felt the back of his head.

Sure enough, nearly half the length of the blade was sticking out through the back of his skull, covered in bits and pieces of his avatar's brain.

The vision came to an end immediately after that realization. Han Xuhan woke up with a start in the patio of the hut again. The cold sweat that had soaked his back earlier returned once more as the vision flashed through his mind.

Suppressing his apprehension of his mysterious opponent, Han Xuhan spoke up.

"I had no idea that the King would look like that. Nor did I think it would be THAT powerful, considering its limited range of movement in ordinary chess. Did you position it behind your Queen, knowing that I'd try to ambush it as a last-ditch move?"

"Tch~ What a foolish assumption! How can a King be a weak piece? And it's exactly because of his power that he can't move around as freely as the other major pieces. He's too important to be thrown around the battlefield. Every other piece is expendable!"

Although the woman didn't answer the most important question, Han Xuhan could guess the truth anyway. It couldn't be a coincidence that the King had been so far up on the chessboard, guarding the Queen.

Now that he thought about it, how could an experienced player like her not immediately move her Queen away after seeing that the opponent had locked on its position?

While he had been thinking that he was ambushing her Queen, she was waiting to turn the ambush into his own loss, knocking out his most powerful piece out of the game...

As if reading the thoughts behind his silence, she muttered, "To deal with an unscrupulous rule-breaker like you, your strongest piece must be dealt with as quickly as possible. Now the game is far more balanced, regardless of how many rules you break."

Han Xuhan started to grow a little irritated. He said defiantly,

"Since the King is stronger than the Queen in this mode, I can just break the rules of movement again and make the King rampage across the chessboard, can't I?"

"...Sure you can. But a King who puts himself among his soldiers... Can he really touch the shadow of his real opponent?" the woman replied in a mocking voice.

"He can, if he's strong enough," Han Xuhan retorted as he grabbed his King, positioned at one corner of the board until this moment.

"And in this game, my king's strength depends on my willingness to break rules."

Picking the king up, he crossed rows of other pieces like they didn't exist, travelling diagonally until it hit his opponent's King accurately. There was no possibility of a mistake in this move, because that spot had belonged to his Queen just one move ago.

Sure enough, when a vision was triggered by the contact, Han Xuhan found himself facing the familiar crowned soldier, wielding the silver saber that had slayed the Queen earlier.

However, he himself was not possessing a similar avatar. His new avatar was almost as tall as the fallen Queen, and very heavily armored, almost resembling a mobile fortress. The hard marble floor beneath his feet seemed to crack a little wherever he set his foot!

As the avatar swiveled its head around to scan the battlefield, Han Xuhan came to another startling realization. This was not a one-on-one battle!

Two other soldiers had appeared in this vision. Han Xuhan recognized what pieces they were by the insignia on their armors.

A Rook and a Bishop, both major pieces with considerable strength, just inferior to the Queen herself.

But most importantly, both belonged to his enemy's army...

This is...

This woman was cheating! She was using some mysterious means to ambush his King to ensure that he couldn't win even if he cheated...

Oh well, he cheated too. So how could he complain?

Disheartened, Han Xuhan could only watch the tragic three-on-one battle unfold beyond his control.

The Kings seemed to be evenly matched. His King had superior raw power, whereas the enemy King matched him with sheer skill. But he was also complemented by the skillful contributions of the Rook and the Bishop. So the result wasn't surprising.

Within a couple of minutes of a blurry, chaotic battle, his King fell to its knees and had its head chopped off by a wild swing of the enemy's silver saber, mirroring the manner in which its Queen had been killed.

As the vision faded, Han Xuhan discovered that the darkness outside the hut was beginning to wane as well. He could see the chaotic state of the chessboard.

All of his pieces had somehow been blown off it, perhaps due to the fall of their king. A bunch of white pieces stood proudly at the center, emitting a victorious aura.

He had many questions, but the answers were unimportant in the face of mortal danger.

"It looks like the better side has rightfully won. Since the fog outside is thinning, I must take my leave, senior sister. Goodbye!"

Taking one final look at the woman's pale and placid face, Han Xuhan jumped to his feet and quickly ran outside, hoping to get out of this encounter unscathed.

To his delight, she really did not force him to stay. Still, he didn't dare to look back as he sprinted through the small patch of woods.

Watching his back disappear behind the old vines, the woman's expression flickered. Her gaze was doubtful.

A lively voice came from inside the hut.

"What does the reading say? Since you're so interested in this little boy, the reading of his game should be interesting!"

Looking down at the fallen black chess pieces around the chessboard, the woman shook her head, uttering her words intermittently.

"Karma Bonds... Ordinary.

"Dao Root... Doesn't exist.

"Fate Sutra... Found nothing.

"Heavenly Core... Degenerated.

"Cultivation... Shallow.

"Overall... Unsuitable to be a seeded vessel."

The person inside the hut seemed shocked to hear the reading results.

"How can that be? It's impossible for him to be able to play like that if everything about him were so ordinary! He broke the rules of the game so casually that I was sure that we'd met a real old monster!"

"Indeed... Not possible. But..."

"But what?"

"He... may not be... a seeded vessel. But very suitable to be a... chess piece."

"For whom? Against whom?"

"Does... not matter. Because he is... a sentient piece... a penchant for breaking rules... He can be used... by us too."

A woman who looked identical to her rushed out of the hut, knocking out the lamp on the door in her panic.

"Don't tell me you want to use him to prove your Dao, Ziwei?!"

The woman sitting in front of the chessboard didn't move her gaze away from the fallen black pieces.

"...Chess pieces... are meant to be used. My... Dao of destruction... can only be proven... if a destructive chess piece... proves itself where I failed before."

The fog around the hut began to disappear, and alongside it, the hut itself seemed blur away from existence, replaced by an ancient rock covered in old moss.