Phase Two

The moment the words fell beneath the boundless moonlight, the battle officially began. Xu Yuan's figure turned into a blur of afterimages as he sped through the flooded paddies. The willow ghost blade in his hand trailed a ribbon of crimson more than a dozen meters long through the wind before plunging into the soil. Yet as he flicked the blade upward, no flash of sword light rose. Instead, willow sprouts broke through the earth one after another. Within a few breaths, the sprouts shot up, and an expanse of eerie Thousand-Thorns Ghost Willows stretched across the boundless paddies. The boughs of the sinister, withered willows intertwined, concealing Xu Yuan's silhouette like a vast curtain and blocking Orenli's line of sight. Orenli was a woman shrewd enough to border on demonic. A magical contest was never just about violence; it was a battle of wits and intellect. Countering moves, laying traps, using words to bait and actions to mislead—any tiny maneuver could become the final weight that tipped the balance. Given the cunning and intellect Orenli had displayed, Xu Yuan was certain that the moment they met, she had already begun plotting how to escape Xu Changge's grasp. After all, this was a woman who, while trapped in enemy territory under an absolute informational disadvantage, had still achieved her goal and turned Li Junqing's scheming to her advantage, carving out a path of survival for herself. The weaknesses he saw in her now, and the opportunities to seize victory that he noticed, might well have been deliberately leaked to him. Orenli was like a beast feigning injury, waiting for the hunter pursuing her to draw closer step by step before tearing him apart with gruesome fangs. Yet none of this stopped Xu Yuan from assembling a plan against this Sien princess based on the limited information he had. First, he had to use the willow ghost blade to create terrain advantageous to himself. Looking down at the sinister willow grove radiating an ominous aura and continuing to spread, Orenli parted her red lips and smiled. "Young Master Changtian, are you trying to lure me in?" "What, don't you dare?" Xu Yuan's leisurely voice drifted from the expanding willow woods. "It's fine if you don't. Either way, that knight of yours won't last long against Xu Changge. When that time comes, your schemes will fall apart." Orenli sighed softly, a trace of regret entering her lovely eyes. "Your powers of observation are quite keen. As a boundary magus, I truly cannot perceive anything outside my line of sight. But sadly, your countermeasure is truly childish." As she spoke, the crimson, intricately patterned magic ring beside the slender woman floating in the void blazed with dazzling light once more. Sparks of starlight appeared behind her, rapidly swelling into form. Dozens of explosive fireballs resembling rising suns hovered in midair, their radiance illuminating nearly half the sky. Then, with a faint smile, Orenli raised a slender index finger and waved it gently downward. "Wouldn't it be far better to simply destroy the advantage you've created?" Instantly, like the drop of a conductor's baton, a symphony of blazing flame sounded. Dozens of explosive fireballs poured down toward the earth like falling meteors! "..." The scorching air seemed to solidify. Watching the apocalyptic, cataclysmic spectacle descending from the sky, Xu Yuan, concealed within the ghost willow woods, couldn't help twitching the corner of his lips. For a moment, he felt an urge to curse Xu Changge and every relative on his household registry, but he held back. Was this woman, Orenli, really something a mere Body Integration cultivator could defeat? He had no idea where the upper limit of her power as a caster lay, but going purely by the fireballs she had conjured, she had already surpassed an ordinary Grandmaster. When a wide-area magic ring spell of this scale crashed down, Flesh Integration Realm cultivators would die in droves no matter how many came. The thought flashed through his mind in an instant, and the falling explosive fireballs had already slammed into the eerie willow woods Xu Yuan had sprouted with the willow ghost blade. A string of explosions echoed through the quiet, moonlit night. Blazing flares rose one after another, and the resulting shockwaves rippled out for hundreds of yards. When the dust and smoke cleared, the moment Orenli saw the scene below, a flicker of astonishment crossed her stunning eyes. Beneath her relentless bombardment, the sprawling, intertwined Thousand-Thorns Ghost Willow forest below remained intact. Only the surface layer of interconnected branches had been reduced to charcoal, and before her astonished gaze, those charred boughs were already rapidly regenerating. Orenli realized something was wrong at once. There was something bizarre about this willow woods; with Xu Changtian's cultivation, it was impossible for him to conjure something like this. Yet a moment later, she sighed softly in her heart. Dwelling on this now was meaningless. What mattered was figuring out how to crack this turtle shell. Yet after weighing her options, Orenli ultimately gave up. She could level this eerie willow woods, but she had not yet mastered that level of power. Destroying the forest would very likely kill Xu Changtian inside along with it. At that thought, Orenli glanced toward the direction in which Xu Changge and Huron had gone. If Xu Changtian died, she would be buried with him. Her lovely eyes flickered. Orenli exhaled gently, maneuvering her body down toward the edge of the willow woods while speaking softly: "Did you conjure this forest with that wooden saber in your hand?" "..." Her words were met with silence; the only response was the chilling ghost qi radiating from the trees. After several breaths of stillness, a helpless look appeared on Orenli's delicate face. Landing on the ground, she stepped across the water into the eerie willow woods, murmuring in a low voice: "The aura in this forest feels just like that haunted castle back then. If I had a choice, I really wouldn't want to go in..." Five minutes later, the battle was over. A fight to the death depended on each person's means. Xu Yuan's plan for dealing with Orenli was actually very simple. He only needed to seize three crucial points. First, Orenli didn't dare kill him. Second, Orenli's physical constitution was weak. Third, play to his strengths and avoid his weaknesses, making use of everything available. Everything had unfolded according to Xu Yuan's expectations, and the result was equally obvious. He got wrecked. The willow woods were silent and dark, the muddy water of the flooded paddies settling around the bases of the trees. A wooden blade radiating an ominous aura stood stuck in the ground, half of its length submerged in the water and the other half embedded in the soil. *Tap.* *Tap.* *Tap.* In the eerie, withered silence, the sound of footsteps treading on water was soft and unhurried. Orenli strolled leisurely through the dense woods, the thirteen magic rings drifting through the air around her forming an impassable chasm that sealed off all the ominous darkness. Finally, she came to a halt before him. Leaning against the base of a willow tree, the torn fine robes on Xu Yuan's body were soaked in muddy water. His gaze traveled past the two icicles piercing through his collarbones and finally settled on the blonde woman before him. None of his deductions had been wrong. Orenli's physical constitution was indeed weak, and she truly didn't dare kill him. Yet he—and even Xu Changge—had misjudged her strength. Just as Mr. Zhou Shuren had said in his past life: the prettier a woman, the better she was at deceiving people. This woman had been acting all along. Her performance had begun the moment she laid eyes on Xu Changge. In a sense, she was even stronger than that iron-plated tin can, Huron. Her detection method, whose principles he couldn't fathom, had completely neutralized his Void-Stepping Slash, and thirteen magic rings meant she could cast thirteen spells simultaneously, making it hard for him to hold his ground even with the terrain advantage. Aside from that, what proved most lethal was that the magic rings Orenli controlled could fuse with one another, unleashing combined spells of bizarre power. Dressed in her gown, Orenli carried herself with noble elegance. Looking at the foreign young master sitting in the muddy water, she smiled faintly. "Shall we continue?" Hearing this, Xu Yuan sighed softly, struggled to his feet from the ground, and looked directly at the blonde woman standing on the water's surface, smiling faintly. "You're very strong. And quite the actress." "Thank you for the compliment." Orenli smiled sweetly. "Though your strength falls far short of your brother's, you are still an outstanding talent among thousands." With that, Orenli raised her eyes to glance at the chilling ghost willow woods around them. "Young Master Changtian, I'm very grateful that you created this forest to cut off outside scrutiny. It saved me a great deal of trouble. But now, it is time for this to end. "Sedis may be useless, but his life is still very important to me. If he dies at your brother's hands, once I return to Sien, I won't be able to use his name to keep hiding my strength. If that monster sets its sights on me, my situation will become very awkward." Xu Yuan smiled helplessly at her words. "Popping champagne at halftime isn't a good habit, you know?" "Champagne?" A flicker of confusion showed in Orenli's eyes, but she soon shook her head gently. "Because of your brother, I don't wish to harm you too severely, so please refrain from any further futile resistance—" "Orenli." Xu Yuan cut her off. Reaching out, he took hold of the icicles piercing his body. Pulling them out with force, he murmured softly, "I told you. I'm the strongest of my generation." "..." The sudden words left Orenli momentarily speechless, but then she sighed softly. A gorgeous, azure-tinted magic ring behind her blazed with light. She stared at him. "In that case, out of respect for the strongest, I can only be impolite and cripple that dantian of yours—" *Crack.* Before she could finish her sentence, That blazing, intricate magic ring was suddenly shattered by a wisp of black qi. "..." "..." They stared at each other in silence, astonishment flashing across Orenli's eyes. Xu Yuan casually tossed aside the extracted icicles. The blood-colored pupils flickering with golden light gradually turned pitch-black, and he chuckled softly. "Now, Orenli, you can start phase two of the boss fight." The moment his words fell, an eerie black mist instantly engulfed a hundred yards around them.