Tang Yushang hovered thirty meters above the ground. Her makeup-free face was exquisite and flawless, and the hem of her skirt fluttered in the night sky, making her look like a celestial maiden descending to the mortal realm.
She was radiant with vitality, her confidence stronger than ever before.
Qin Ming looked up into the night sky, keeping his tone as mild as possible. "I'm ready."
Yet the vengeful Tang Yushang was having none of his pleasantries. Her entire body shone with light, brimming with confidence. Looking down on her opponent, she raised a fair finger and wagged it gently.
Qin Ming suddenly felt an itch in his hands. He instinctively clenched his fists, seized by the urge to pummel her out of the sky. He really couldn't be blamed—when a beautiful woman flaunted such insolence, it was quite provocative.
"Do you want to fight in the consciousness space provided by the Golden Ranking?" Qin Ming asked.
Tang Yushang refused. "No. That wouldn't bring out my true strength."
Her feet unstained by mortal dust, she treaded upon empty air toward him. The ribbon tied around her slender waist fluttered in the breeze, her dark hair cascading down like a waterfall, while her lovely eyes burned with light.
"Fair enough." Qin Ming nodded, the corners of his lips curving slightly in an unmistakable smile. He kept the second half of his thought to himself: *Only by beating her in the flesh will it have any real texture.*
Neither of them wanted a public duel, as both harbored plenty of secrets.
They called upon the Golden Ranking, requesting it to seal off the area.
They were currently on the outskirts of the Wilderness Forest, a relatively suitable battleground.
The Golden Ranking responded, instructing them to venture further into the primeval woods.
Bai Meng came running up, shouting, "Brother Ming! Sis! Wait up, don't shut me out! What if you two really lose your tempers?"
He was genuinely worried that neither would back down, escalating into a lethal clash.
Qin Ming set his mind at ease. "It won't come to that. It's just a spar."
Standing aloft in the night air, Tang Yushang smoothed her fine hair and spoke breezily, "Fine with me. If he collapses from exhaustion later, Bai Meng, you can carry him back."
Qin Ming truly couldn't hold back anymore. He rubbed his hands together, traced circles on the ground with his foot, and threw several feint kicks into the air.
The Golden Ranking showered a faint glow, enshrouding a stretch of the Wilderness Forest and marking out an arena for them. The two could now enter.
With a rustle, a crowd came rushing over from further away—Yao Ruoxian, Pei Shuyan, Zhuo Qingming, Cheng Sheng, and others, all eager to watch the spectacle.
"Wait! We're worried too! We want to oversee the fight so we can pull you apart if things turn critical!"
The crowd had clearly been waiting for a long time. They sounded righteous, but in truth they were just there for the excitement, some already unable to suppress their grins.
Tang Yushang flatly refused; there was no way this match would be open to spectators.
"One hundred thousand day-gold per seat," Qin Ming offered with a smile.
"Brother Qin, that's absurd! What a shameless price!"
A pale golden barrier spilling from the depths of the Wilderness Forest blocked their path, forcing them to remain outside.
Bai Meng was granted a special exemption, allowed to move freely in and out of the light-shrouded forest.
Yao Ruoxian, the Fourth Princess of Dayu, stepped forward gracefully. "This isn't fair. The Tai Ruins side has someone inside to watch and provide backup at any moment, yet Qin Ming has no one accompanying him. I find this improper. I should be allowed inside as well."
Tang Yushang shot her a glance and sternly refused.
"On what grounds?" Yao Ruoxian's eyes sparkled as she glided forward, arguing her case.
Tang Yushang replied, "Bai Meng knows both combatants very well."
Yao Ruoxian smiled. "I know Qin Ming very well too. And I hosted you warmly back in Dayu's imperial capital—surely we aren't strangers?"
"We are for now!" Stepping across the void, Tang Yushang drifted nimbly into the depths of the forest where golden mist rippled, leaving Yao Ruoxian with only a view of her slender back.
Fuming with frustration, Yao Ruoxian kicked the grass, utterly helpless.
Bai Meng patted his chest. "Don't worry, everyone. I can come out at any time to give you updates on the battle."
Then he delicately hinted that while a supreme-level duel like this was priceless, they were all acquaintances, so he would offer a friendly discount.
"You're even charging for that?!"
Deep in the Wilderness Forest, fire springs wove through the trees, intermingling with the pale golden mist until the surroundings seemed bathed in the glow of a setting sun.
Qin Ming and Tang Yushang stood several hundred meters apart. Towering ancient trees and colossal boulders lay between them, and both kept their eyes fixed on the other.
To show good faith, they had left their special weapons outside the arena.
At the edge of the woods, the five-colored treasure fragment eyed Tang Yushang and muttered softly, "So pretty, so valiant... if she loses, is she going to burst into tears?"
Tang Yushang clearly heard it and shot it a fierce glare.
Her weapon—the pristine white chain resting at the edge of the forest—spoke up to rebuke the fragment: "You're still the same chatterbox, without the slightest change!"
The five-colored fragment retorted, "Though the stars shift, the sun and moon sink, and the seas turn to mulberry fields, I alone remain unchanged."
"Quiet," the Yellow Silk Canopy reproached mildly.
Standing in the distance, Bai Meng couldn't help feeling nervous. Looking at their solemn expressions, this was clearly no mere scuffle. Were they truly about to stage an earth-shattering duel among peers?
He sent voice transmissions to both of them in turn, urging them not to hurt their friendship.
Tang Yushang said, "Relax, I have him completely in the palm of my hand!"
Qin Ming said, "Hold me in your palm, squeeze me in your grip? Yushang, boasting will get you nowhere!"
Tang Yushang said no more. Her porcelain-like skin suddenly shone, steaming with a layer of mysterious radiance that formed a halo around her.
Her dark hair was dyed in sacred luster, her brow and the corners of her eyes shimmering with brilliant light, making her appear as if standing within an immortal pure land.
In this instant, she seemed to have severed all mortal dust, about to ascend with an entire cave heaven. With jade bones and icy flesh, her clear, flawless form radiated an intense Dao rhythm.
Bai Meng's heart jolted violently. He finally understood why she was so confident.
A few direct descendants of the Tai Ruins possessed extraordinary origins, rumored to be the progeny of the Lord of Yujing.
*Has the supreme divine blood within my sister briefly awakened?* Bai Meng felt his heart race.
Rumor had it that a mysterious Dao-sealing ring existed within Tang Yushang's body, though some believed it to be innate—a shackle left behind by her ancestral bloodline that was exceedingly difficult to break.
Clearly, those rumors held some truth.
Tang Yushang spoke, "Today is a special juncture in time. I will be formidable!"
Qin Ming nodded. "In that case, I'm truly looking forward to it."
Tang Yushang said, "Back at the Feixian Mountain remnant range, we already knew each other inside out. Don't bother holding back. You had long since reached the Mind Lamp realm back then, yet you hid it during your duel with Cui the Second!"
At the mention of the Feixian Mountain remnant range, Qin Ming inevitably recalled the disaster sparked by a single drop of saliva, where they were hunted endlessly by the myriad monsters dispatched by that woman slumbering in the deepest recess of the Solar Secret Aperture.
"Please!"
The next instant, both figures blurred into motion. Two plumes of pale white shockwaves erupted across the forest like boiling immortal mist, obliterating swaths of ancient trees in deafening booms.
Their speed was terrifying, far surpassing their peers, darting through the woods like two streaks of light.
Pure yang sword radiance howled forth from Tang Yushang like a meteor shower.
With a flick of Qin Ming's fingers, heavenly light blossomed into layer upon layer of lotuses. Every petal that flew out carried the peerless sharpness of a celestial blade.
Amid deafening clangs, saber qi clashed with pure yang sword radiance, tearing through the forest until a nearby low stone hill was sliced clean in two!
Accompanied by thunderous rumblings, rock faces collapsed and the hill shattered, flattened by their interplay of blades and flying swords.
Bai Meng's eyes went wide, standing frozen in the distance. *Could this level of power threaten even a grandmaster?!*
In the arena, the pure yang sword radiance formed a shimmering curtain of rain that surged alongside saber light, tearing at the clouds.
Tang Yushang flickered forward, vegetation grinding into powder along her path as the white shockwave billowed into immortal mist. It framed her ethereal presence as she closed in on Qin Ming in an instant.
Even as dense sword radiance shot across the void like divine rainbows, Tang Yushang struck with her palms and whipped her long legs, wrapped in sacred runes that threatened to shatter the very fabric of space.
Surprise flickered across Qin Ming's face. She was indeed a formidable opponent. He had underestimated her earlier; no wonder she was brimming with confidence—she truly was astonishingly capable.
Black and white light intertwined across his hands as he channeled the Black-White Classic with Hunyuan force, deflecting the barrage of pure yang flying swords to pass him by.
Qin Ming unleashed consecutive black-and-white palm prints, trading blows with the slender silhouette before him in a barrage of direct collisions.
At that moment, Tang Yushang was like a golden willow swaying in the wind, her movements supple yet extraordinarily resilient. She unleashed terrifying destructive force that seemed to warp the surrounding space.
Her fair palm prints and translucent fists erupted with thunderclaps at every strike, and her sweeping kicks cracked through the void like divine whips.
Qin Ming recognized the technique—the Immortal Willow Golden Body Art, renowned across the immortal path as a premier supreme method, practiced by both Jiang Ran and Li Qingyue.
In truth, it was a favorite among female cultivators.
The Immortal Willow Golden Body Art was both potent and profound; it granted an indestructible resilience while sculpting the body, unlike other protective techniques that left one's frame rigid as stone.
Qin Ming showed genuine astonishment. Tang Yushang's confidence only swelled as the fight progressed, to the point where she dared to engage him in close-quarters combat!
Sacred runes erupted repeatedly from their arms and calves as they collided again and again, moving like gods and fiends through a sea of night mist, swift as lingering phantoms.
The moment her pure yang sword radiance was ground away, Tang Yushang's long leg whipped out in a space-distorting arc, riding the tail of the dispersing swords.
Twisting her waist and sweeping her leg, her movements were graceful yet carried formidable lethality. She looked like an immortal willow dancing amid cataclysm in a sea of primal chaos, lashing out with pliable yet dreadful branches.
Dao rhythms surged; the void seemed on the verge of splintering under the strike.
Golden mist surged across Qin Ming's body, every pore expelling mysterious Dao patterns. Channeling a technique from the Extreme Dao Golden Body, his defense spiked, and his right hand plunged downward like a Kunpeng reaching from the deep firmament. With a heavy thud, he caught her fair ankle.
Tang Yushang's body stiffened for a fraction of a second before immediately relaxing.
Her luminous, whip-like leg shimmered with light. Her ankle trembled slightly, slipping from his grasp like a slick white loach.
Qin Ming exerted force, five golden claw phantoms clamping down to bite into her jade-like flesh.
*Hm?* He froze. What she displayed wasn't just the Immortal Willow Golden Body Art, but an esoteric sect technique involving the transformations of inner landscape deities.
The void blurred rapidly as Tang Yushang shrank, vanishing into her inner landscape before instantly teleporting back into the Wilderness Forest.
Having broken free, five faint greenish finger marks were visible on her fair ankle, standing out sharply against her pale skin.
Bai Meng was astonished; his sister had taken a loss.
He immediately turned away, pretending he hadn't seen a thing.
Tang Yushang was immensely proud. She walked the path of harmonizing immortals and gods; what had appeared to be merely the Immortal Willow Golden Body Art was actually a resonance of multiple arts.
Unwilling to concede, and brimming with self-belief, she sought to suppress him in close combat.
The mysterious blood within her blazed, resonating across multiple scriptures. Leaping through the air once more, she brought her foot down, the tip striking like a celestial crane pecking at the firmament in a blaze of blinding radiance.
The protective barrier cast by Qin Ming's Extreme Dao Golden Body shuddered violently, rumbling without pause.
Tang Yushang brought a second kick down, a celestial dragon coiling at her foot to tear through a corner of the golden barrier.
Qin Ming was impressed. He could see she was truly formidable—and that she was deliberately showing off her repertoire.
In the span of a breath, Tang Yushang delivered six consecutive kicks, employing six distinct arts, dead set on shredding his Extreme Dao Golden Body.
Qin Ming didn't hold back. After letting his golden body absorb most of her strikes, he abruptly extinguished the faint remnants of the protective light, opting to tank the rest with his bare flesh.
A smile touched Tang Yushang's face. Her right leg descended like a celestial saber, her heel crashing down like a divine hammer packed with immense power, aimed straight at Qin Ming's head.
Composed as ever, Qin Ming tilted his head and shifted his footing, dodging the kick. Just as her leg was about to strike his shoulder, he surged forward a step like a beam of light.
He didn't dodge the blow entirely; instead, he let her heel clear his head and caught her right calf against his shoulder. At the same moment, Qin Ming channeled his strength, exploding upward through his shoulder.
A thunderous boom shattered the air, like rolling thunder across a vast ocean.
Tang Yushang had activated all her arts, yet her right calf felt as though it had struck exotic metal. The sheer hardness sent an agonizing, numbing pain tearing through her leg, feeling as though the bone were about to snap.
Between them, brilliant runes burst into dazzling flares.
The hem of Tang Yushang's skirt blew apart. Her right calf, struck by his shoulder, went into violent spasms, the bone emitting a faint shiver. She retreated at full speed to disengage.
With a thud, she was sent flying backward.
Beyond her torn skirt, the shoe and sock on her right foot had disintegrated, revealing a fair, delicate foot with rosy-painted toenails.
Tang Yushang landed in the distance, her right calf trembling and swelling, the bone hair-fractured inside.
Fortunately, she severed the residual Dao rhythms left by his strike immediately, preventing further damage, and her body began to heal rapidly.
Bai Meng decisively looked the other way, hypnotizing himself into believing he hadn't witnessed his sister being hoisted and sent flying by Qin Ming's shoulder, nor that she had lost her shoe and sock.
Yet his guilty demeanor immediately drew Tang Yushang's eye.
She hadn't intended to take it out on him, but Bai Meng's ridiculous act made her brow furrow. Swinging her uninjured left leg, she sent a kick flying his way.
Outside, Yao Ruoxian, Pei Shuyan, and the others suddenly saw the golden light distort as Bai Meng came flying out backward.
"How's the fight going in there?" Zhuo Qingming asked.
Bai Meng declared, "An absolute masterpiece of a duel! Heart-pounding!"
Pei Shuyan remarked, "Damn, Little Bai, you broke the rules! Did you join the fight or something?"
They noticed his torn clothes and the footprint on his shoulder.
Bai Meng said solemnly, "The battle is unprecedentedly fierce. Even standing far away, I was caught in the crossfire! The mere aftershocks were completely irresistible."
Cheng Sheng, a divine seed of the esoteric sect, sighed. "How thrilling! It makes me yearn to go in and watch. Hurry back inside and keep us updated!"
Bai Meng didn't want to go back. At this rate, he wondered if he would be kicked out a second or third time.
"Hurry up!" Holding back their laughter, the crowd shoved him back through the light curtain.
Reluctant though he was, Bai Meng had no choice but to re-enter.
Everyone present was sharp; they had put two and two together and guessed that Bai Meng had been kicked by Tang Yushang.
Yao Ruoxian smiled. "In a moment, we'll be able to gauge the true state of the battle just by looking at Bai Meng's condition."
Little Bai had become a full-fledged measuring tool.
Deep in the Wilderness Forest, fire springs merged with the golden glow like the lingering rays of sunset.
Tang Yushang had previously held her fair chin high; though she remained spirited, her chin wasn't raised quite so loftily anymore.
Having slipped on a new shoe and sock, she frowned slightly. Loath though she was to admit it, his mastery in the realm of body refinement was truly absolute.
Clearly, if she dared engage in close combat again, she would only suffer worse.
Qin Ming stood in the distance without pressing his advantage. His expression was calm, though the corners of his lips were slightly upturned.
Floating midair with the ribbon at her waist drifting, Tang Yushang regained her ethereal presence like an immortal descending to earth. She raised her brows. "You want to laugh?"
"Am I not allowed?" The smile on Qin Ming's face widened.
"Let's see who laughs last!" Tang Yushang rose dozens of meters into the air, unleashing profound arts. Her immortal and divine paths resonated together, embodying the most orthodox fusion of deity and immortal.
As she ascended, her delicate face turned frosty. Her red skirt whipped in the wind, outlining her graceful curves. Bathed in sacred light, she raised her right palm.
With a booming roar, she pressed downward from the high sky. Boundless patterns intertwined across her right hand, showcasing the true meaning of a supreme scripture in a grand, awe-inspiring display.
A colossal seal took shape beneath her right hand, pressing down toward the earth.
This was unmistakably an ultimate technique. Even from a great distance, the ground cracked open and large tracts of the Wilderness Forest exploded into fragments. The terrifying seal grew ever larger, descending like an entire mountain peak.
Qin Ming was impressed. No wonder Tang Yushang was so confident; she truly possessed countless remarkable skills and unfathomable methods.
He showed no fear. Within him, a peerless purple-golden core traced the patterns of heaven and earth, its light piercing through flesh to scatter the boundless night mist.
Qin Ming shone like a blazing sun, illuminating heaven and earth. In his right hand, a seal coalesced, radiating light that commanded all mountains, rivers, and living things.
He met seal with seal—this was the great seal formed from the Taichu Ten Thousand Thunders Talisman.
When Bai Meng stepped back inside, his scalp went numb. *Are these two deities demolishing the house?!* Swaths of the Wilderness Forest were shattered, low hills collapsed, and a small lake was boiled dry, evaporating into clouds of white steam.
The earth shook and mountains trembled as the two massive seals slammed into each other relentlessly, laying waste to the wilderness. The two combatants teleported continuously in fierce clashes, the shockwaves gouging deep chasms across the ground.
Bai Meng was secretly shocked. *One of the Tai Ruins' supreme inheritances, the Primordial Jade Void Seal, can't even suppress Brother Ming? How terrifying!*
That art of materializing a seal had been left behind by the Lord of Yujing himself.
Tang Yushang gripped empty air with her right hand, assuming the posture of holding the seal, controlling the massive artifact across the void to hammer down upon her opponent in an apocalyptic display.
All mountains and rivers seemed to bow to her command; a single seal could stabilize the universe and crush great foes.
Yet the Taichu Ten Thousand Thunders Seal in Qin Ming's grasp released wisps of tribulation qi, refusing to yield to the Primordial Jade Void Seal, matching it blow for blow!
A large mountain cracked under the impact of the two seals, its peak shattering and tumbling down the slopes.
Tang Yushang's fingers glowed. The seal she held suddenly dissolved into a dense torrent of script and runes, pouring toward Qin Ming like a deluge rather than a physical seal.
This made it even more lethal. Space distorted as though the sun and moon were melting, glowing particle streams sweeping across the terrain, reducing vegetation to ash and causing the ground to cave in.
Qin Ming reshaped his seal into the Taichu Ten Thousand Thunders Talisman, unleashing a storm of particle streams of his own. At the same time, he channeled the Black-White Classic, embracing yin and yang to abruptly reverse the incoming torrent of the Primordial Jade Void.
Though Tang Yushang reacted with lightning speed, she was still grazed by the aftershocks of the colliding torrents. In an instant, her red dress was scorched and torn to tatters, exposing parts of her fair skin, such as her shoulders and arms.
Bai Meng took it upon himself to avert his eyes. *See no evil! I saw nothing!*
Then he went flying again, struck by a stray particle stream that sent his eyes rolling back, nearly knocking him out cold as he crashed right out of the golden barrier and tumbled onto the ground outside.
It was mostly because he acted like an ostrich—the more abnormally he dodged and hid, the more irritated Tang Yushang felt, swatting him on impulse.
"Brother Bai, blown out by the shockwaves again? It must be extraordinarily intense in there!"
"Uh, yeah, right, exactly!" Bai Meng nodded.
When the crowd asked for details and prepared to push him back in, Bai Meng strongly resisted. He really didn't want to get beaten for no reason!
He felt that while some people woke up on the wrong side of the bed, his sister clearly suffered from a sore-loser temper.
Inside the Wilderness Forest, the battle grew fiercer still!
Tang Yushang opened her inner landscape, manifesting nine extraordinary deities.
In the past, she had walked the immortal path first before treading the ancient divine path, thereby perfecting the orthodox fusion of immortals and gods. In truth, the arts she practiced were derived from partial expositions left by the Lord of Yujing.
Divine radiance flooded the entire region. Phantom silhouettes of deities howled through the mountains and rivers, turning the battlefield into utter chaos.
In the end, the nine deities merged into one, fusing with Tang Yushang herself. Like a heavenly god descended to earth, she unleashed staggering combat strength.
Qin Ming was truly shocked—she actually managed to block his Inner Landscape Heaven-Opening Axe.
Evidently, the awakening of her mysterious bloodline today had pushed her combat power to an unprecedented peak.
With a boom, a low hill was pulverized by divine light.
With a crack, a sheer precipice was cleaved open by a colossal axe.
The two battled across the terrain, demolishing every obstacle in their path.
Governing all his arts through the true essence of the silk book, Qin Ming rumbled internally like a sun rising anew from the abyss, illuminating the entire wilderness.
He was forced to take this dead seriously, unleashing all his power. He dared not underestimate Tang Yushang, and even wondered if a full awakening of that bloodline would equate to the reappearance of a young Lord of Yujing.
At the critical moment, Qin Ming struck repeatedly with heavy blows, using Chaos force to dim the merged deity, forcing it back into her inner landscape where it split into nine once more.
Simultaneously, Qin Ming unleashed his full might, his fist stopping just short of Tang Yushang's face, pulling his blow at the very last instant.
However, the terrifying sonic wave he released continued to reverberate—a composite of heavenly light, pure yang consciousness, and divine wisdom—literally blasting her spirit out of her physical body.
She looked bewildered, drifting unconsciously outside her shell.
Qin Ming reached out with both hands, grabbed the cheeks of the miniature Tang Yushang, and tugged them firmly. "Do you yield?"
Qin Ming's final shout, though not lethal, had left her dazed. Her pure yang consciousness was thrown into disarray, her mind completely blank, unable to recover for several moments.
Seeing this, Qin Ming ruffled her hair and guided her spirit back into her physical form.
Tang Yushang remained uncoordinated, still somewhat lost.
"Turn around," Qin Ming commanded, infusing his words with Dao sound that carried a degree of bewitchment.
"Brother Ming, spare your foot!" Bai Meng yelled from the distance.
At that moment, Tang Yushang finally came to her senses. She realized that she had been obediently turning her body and now stood with her back facing Qin Ming!
Her consciousness cleared in a flash, exuding an exceptionally dangerous aura.
Qin Ming had been hesitating, ready to let her go, but seeing her body tense as sacred runes flared to mount a counterattack, he abandoned all courtesy.
Qin Ming swung his leg to gather power—just like when they first met at the Great Thunder Sound Temple—ready to treat her to a solid kick.
At the edge of the Wilderness Forest, the five-colored treasure fragment murmured, "It all began with a foot."
Chapter 532