Ming Ji offered Li Xun a few words of advice, but seeing how determined he was to stay, she didn’t press the matter any further.

In truth, what he was doing was exactly what she hoped for.

Back in the day, she'd also grown stronger through life-and-death battles, brushing up against the edge more than once before reaching the level she was at now.

If Li Xun had actually listened to her and run off to somewhere safe, she'd probably have looked down on him for it.

That was the end of their exchange. As the Eternal Night Aurora began to shift, the massive, sky-blocking form of the ancient Kunpeng started to shrink rapidly. In no time, the sky returned to its usual brightness.

But just as the sunlight broke through, streaks of sword-light came flying across the sea from the north. No one knew how many.

Since the Miaohua Sect proposed the Rogue Cultivators Alliance, this was the largest-scale battle between them and the orthodox sects. And it had finally erupted.

The Eternal Night Aurora might be one of the most mysterious formations in the Tongxuan Realm, but its real power lay in offense, not defense.

In other words, it was built to strike, not to protect. The true defensive formation was the Aurora Barrier outside the city. But how could that possibly stop peerless powerhouses like the Demon Phoenix or Gu Yin?

Suddenly, a streak of crimson burst across the sky, appearing at the edge where light met shadow. In a blink, it stretched across the entire horizon. The sea below turned blood red, like molten lava churning beneath a haze of mist. As a tidal surge crashed in, the already battered ten-thousand-li-wide Aurora Barrier shattered to pieces.

Everyone in the city looked up and saw a chilling red figure in the sky.

Li Xun held his breath, eyes locked on the scene above.

She still looked the same, wearing that same fiery red dress. But now there was a cold, icy stillness about her.

The only difference from the last time on Tiandu Peak was the thin red veil covering her face. It hid her stunning beauty, leaving only those strange eyes exposed. Pure black, yet flickering with an eerie, fiery glow.

So… this counted as a reunion, didn’t it?

Li Xun’s heart was pounding. He couldn’t tell if it was fear.

There had been a time when the Demon Phoenix had been like a living nightmare to him. In front of her, he had been nothing more than a paper bag filled with water; press just a little, and all his shame would come pouring out.

He could practically see the way she must have looked at him. Like a stray dog, like a spineless worm, like a toy to be played with at will. Or maybe just… nothing. Just air.

And honestly, she wouldn’t have been wrong. If it weren’t for what happened in Songjing, that’s exactly what he would’ve been. A dog, a worm, a toy, air. He wasn’t about to deny it.

But what he couldn’t deny even more was that things had changed.

Now, he had two of the strongest Nethermyst Puppets the world had ever seen. He was the most promising disciple of the Shadow-Devouring Soul Sect. At the same time, he was also widely recognized as one of the brightest young talents in the Mingxin Sword Sect.

With all that behind him... was there really anything he couldn’t do?

So what was there left to be afraid of?

Maybe it would take a hundred years. Maybe two hundred. He didn’t know. But there was one thing he knew for sure…

One day, when the time came, he’d be sure to properly return the favor to the Demon Phoenix.

Staring up at that figure in the sky, Li Xun’s gaze grew distant. He took a deep breath, and in the cold wind, it felt like there was a faint, indescribable scent drifting through the air.

Carried by the wind, it filled his lungs.

Was that… the smell of fire?

Just then, a sharp pain hit him in the side. It snapped him out of it. He turned just in time to catch the look Ming Ji was giving him a mix of annoyance and encouragement.

“Don’t embarrass yourself,” she said. “No one’s asking you to fight her.”

Li Xun blinked, finally catching her meaning. The thought made him smile a little, but still, something stirred inside him. A sudden impulse. His hand moved to his sword, drawing it partway from its sheath. Then, one word at a time, he said: 

“Someday… that day will come.”

Ming Ji raised an eyebrow, her eyes lighting up with amusement. “Oh yeah? Well, we’ll see if I let you get that far first.”

As the martial aunt and martial nephew traded jabs and smiles, the Demon Phoenix raised a single finger in the sky.

She pointed downward. Then gave the slightest curl of her finger.

Wind roared to life. Explosions of flame erupted.

The protective formations around Nightless City didn’t stand a chance; they shattered instantly under the first shockwave.

In the blink of an eye, a wave of firestorm swept across the entire city. The sturdier buildings held up, more or less; but the trees, the gardens, even with their protective formations, were scorched clean in massive swaths.

As the fire flared, countless cultivators had already leapt into the air, flying on their swords. Even the slowest to react managed to shield themselves with true breath just in time to block the blast.

There was no question about it; this seemingly random attack was a show of force. In other words, it was a challenge.

Among the sect leaders and elders, only a handful had both the strength and the standing to take that challenge. And of them, one stood out above the rest…

The sound of a sword rang through the air. A clear aura wrapped around Qingming as he launched skyward. No one here was better suited to face the Demon Phoenix; whether publicly or privately, he was the obvious choice.

At that moment, everyone present heard his voice thunder through the sky:

“Demon Phoenix. Do you truly intend to make yourself an enemy of the world?”

The Demon Phoenix’s bright eyes flickered, flames dancing in their depths. Her answer came cold and sharp: “So much useless talk.”

A blinding explosion of fire erupted in the sky.

The moment sword light clashed with flame, the battle was on.

Disciples from every sect quickly responded to their elders’ commands. Their job now was to form defensive formations.

With a well-coordinated formation, their offense and defense would become far more effective. This was exactly where the great sects held a major advantage over rogue cultivators.

The Mingxin Sword Sect began deploying the “Suspended Heaven Formation.” It was a particularly demanding one, requiring every disciple to have refined sword control. At the very least, they needed to reach the level where sword-light circles the bodies.

The formation technique’s shifts happened entirely in the void, reaching every direction: up, down, all around. With nine immortal masters guarding nearby, there was no worry of any True Person expert breaking through by force.

As time passed, the formation shifted more fluidly, and they grew more coordinated.

By now, the three of the immortal masters had already been dragged into separate battles. And it was clear more would follow.

“They’ve got a lot of skilled fighters,” Li Xun muttered, eyes twitching as he watched Mingde get tied down by a rogue cultivator he clearly didn’t want to deal with.

Nightless City had fully become a battlefield. Hundreds of cultivators and demons, seven or eight hundred, at least, were locked in fierce combat, both in the sky and on the ground. The chaos had already spread across nearly a thousand li, and it was still expanding.

The strength of the Miaohua Sect had clearly caught them all off guard.

Qingming and the Demon Phoenix had taken their fight out over the sea, locked in a brutal, no-holds-barred fight. Meanwhile, Li Douliang was going head-to-head with the ancient demon Kunpeng, tearing up the sky and earth as their battle pushed deeper inland.

Then there was Ling Fengzi and Gu Yin, the strangest matchup of all. Their fight jumped unpredictably from place to place, flashing from east to west, sky to ground, tearing through hundreds of li like a storm without warning.

The worst part was that both of them had rare flight techniques that made them near impossible to track. They would vanish, reappear somewhere else mid-fight, and if they suddenly crashed into another battle zone… well, anyone caught in the crossfire was out of luck.

And yet, even with all this chaos, it was clear the Miaohua Sect hadn’t gone all out yet.

Everyone knew that among the Seven Great Demons of the Tongxuan Realm, Qing Luan still hadn’t shown up. And then there was Jade Wanderer, one of the legendary Three Wanderers, whose power was so deep it defied comprehension. If the two of them entered the fray, who could stop them? The injured Master Tianzhi, who could barely muster half her strength?

So even though the battle was raging fiercely, there were still five experts at the True Person level, including Qingxu, who hadn’t joined the fight yet. They were being held back just in case the worst happened.

Li Xun took it all in, quickly assessing the situation. Right now, the only one still guarding the formation perimeter was Ming Ji. And from the look of things, even she was starting to get overwhelmed.

Although the group of rogue cultivators and demonfolk varied in cultivation level, being surrounded by thirty or forty of them meant that, over time, they naturally fell into a kind of rhythm and coordination.

As the battle wore on, the enemy began to settle into their own tactics; either unleashing flying swords and magical weapons from a distance, or launching waves of close-quarters attacks. Just as this pattern was becoming clear, Ming Ji, after cutting down three men and one demon, caught the attention of a powerful opponent. With her life on the line in a direct clash, she had no choice but to focus solely on that fight.

“Hold the line as best you can. At worst, form a three-person formation…”

She forced herself to block a blow head-on, using the moment to shout a critical instruction to her fellow disciples. But almost as soon as the words left her mouth, the formation they had struggled to maintain finally collapsed.

Right before it fell apart, Li Xun had just sliced his Azure Jade sword across the eye of a rogue cultivator. He was still reacting to the man’s agonized scream when a fellow disciple beside him was hit by three incoming flying swords. Even though another comrade threw himself into harm’s way to help, he could only block two of them. The last one struck the disciple square in the face. And he fell headfirst to the ground; his fate unknown.

The formation immediately fell into disarray. The enemy seized the moment, bombarding them with seven or eight flying swords and over a dozen magical weapons at once. Li Xun felt a sudden roar in his ears before a violent blast sent him flying. He spun through the air and slammed into the ground. Luckily, the Phoenix Feather Needle and the Jade Bixie responded just in time to shield his organs. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have made it.

Until now, Mingxin Sword Sect had been one of the few sects still holding their formation. But the moment their line had broken, the entire battlefield descended into chaos.

Li Xun scanned the area. In that brief moment of confusion, at least one more sect member had gone down. Still, the others managed to regroup into smaller formations, even protecting two unconscious or fallen comrades on the ground. Amid all the chaos and struggle, the strength and discipline of a major sect shone through.

But Li Xun himself wasn’t in good shape at all.

That coordinated strike from the enemy had been overwhelming. Even with protective artifacts shielding him, Li Xun had been blasted far away. After scrambling to reposition himself, he realized he was now at least three hundred steps from the rest of his sect.

Under normal circumstances, that wouldn’t have been a big deal. But right now, with the battlefield in total chaos, even a blink of an eye was enough for seven or eight cultivators, locked in fierce one-on-one fights, to charge through that distance. The shockwaves from their attacks pushed Li Xun back a few more steps. By the time he looked again, the other sect disciples were nowhere to be seen.

No way… Panic started to creep in. He turned his head, scanning his surroundings, forgetting that doing so right now, was practically asking to get killed.

The moment he lifted his head, three deadly attacks were already bearing down on him from different directions.

Damn it, how are there so many damn rogue cultivators and demons in the world…

Li Xun cursed to himself. With a flick of his Azure Jade, a ringing vibration burst out like clashing metal and stone. Wisps of sword qi, misty and green like mountain fog, spiraled around him. It was intangible and ghostlike.

His attackers were a flying sword, a ball of ominous-looking black mist, and a powerful arc of sword qi.

Li Xun’s eyes narrowed, quickly sizing up his opponents. The flying sword had no real force behind it; he could ignore that. The bearded man holding a soul-summoning banner was tough expert. But the one unleashing that void sword qi; that was the real threat.

Now that he had a read on their strength, his sword qi shifted at will. In a sudden surge, it swelled with killing intent. Azure Jade flared once, then contracted sharply, blasting apart the black mist. Li Xun shifted his position, dodging the incoming void sword qi. Then his blade's gleam flashed again. Hard and fast. The flying sword let out a sharp screech as its edge cracked, a chip missing from the blade, its glow quickly fading.

With the minor threats cleared, Li Xun didn’t pause. He leapt into the air, straight toward the cultivator who had unleashed the void sword qi, as if ready to face him head-on.

But halfway there, his body twisted sharply, and something slipped from his hand.

It was a hairpin-shaped hidden weapon. But halfway through its flight, its speed suddenly slowed. Around two or three inches from its tip, the air shimmered strangely, as if wreathed in firelight.

The hairpin’s form began to shift rapidly. The two sides of its tail unfolded, and a flush of deep red spread outward, quickly staining most of its surface. The tip of the pin gradually lost its muddled coloring, revealing a pure, jade-white core underneath.

Then, a breeze swept past. The hairpin gave a soft shudder, caught the wind, and gently floated upward, tumbling lightly through the air.

But at that point, who could still call it a hairpin? It was clearly a fiery red feather.

Just then, a glint of gold lit up from the center of the red plume; a gold speck about the size of a fingernail, like a golden eye blooming on the feather’s surface.

In the ancient texts, it wasn’t referred to as a “red feather with a gold mark.” It had a proper, authoritative name.

Phoenix Feather.

As the golden light flared, it was like a tear ripped open in the air itself. From within that rift came golden flames. The Great Bright Flame. It could refine souls and burn spirits, purify corruption, shatter all demonic arts. Wherever it passed, ghosts and demons fled. Nothing could stand against it.

With one flash of that golden light, fifty steps away, the bearded man wielding the soul banner was done for. His banner snapped. His head flew. He died on the spot. Even the black mist he’d summoned was instantly scorched from existence. Every wisp that touched the light simply vanished, as if it had never been there.

“Phoenix Feather Needle!”

High above, the rogue cultivator who had launched the void sword qi recognized it instantly. His eyes flickered. First with confusion, then with a flash of understanding.

Li Xun gave him a cold, sharp smile.

Figured it out, huh? Too bad… what you don’t understand is still coming…

....

TLer: Speaking of the Rogue Cultivators Alliance, check out Life as a Rogue Cultivator.

I’d like to also clear up something about the note in Sanpe’s recent review regarding the translation of "True Qi" as "True Breath. First off, I really appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts. It seems there might be a bit of confusion here. The term used in the book is "True Breath" (真息), not "True Qi" (真气). These are distinct terms in Chinese philosophy, even though both describe a refined form of Qi.