Illusion

The black mist that spanned the wilderness gradually dissipated, and the willow forest veiled within it emerged once more. Moonlight filtered sparsely through the tangled vines overhead, casting shimmering ripples across the standing water on the forest floor. Slumped in the water, Orenli found her luxurious purple gown thoroughly soaked through with muddy water. The thirteen magic rings around her had completely shattered, leaving only her dazzling, disheveled golden hair drifting across the surface. "No... impossible..." Accompanied by a whisper as faint as a mosquito's hum, she looked down at her palms, her tall, slender body trembling slightly. "Wh-why could you directly deconstruct my magic rings... Gwah!" Suddenly, Orenli pitched forward from her slumped posture into a half-kneeling position, curling up like a shrimp. Blood surged up her throat, prompting her to instinctively clap a hand over her lips, yet she could not stop mouthfuls of fresh blood from spilling past her pale, slender fingers. Drip, drop... Blood trickled down Orenli's alluring, flawless jawline and dripped into the water, instantly blooming into a brilliant crimson like a red spider lily. Looking at the defeat screen before him, Xu Yuan let out a quiet sigh of relief and walked slowly toward the woman. For a moment, he had genuinely thought he was going to die. If that eight-ring spell—anchored by the ring of lightning and integrating the seven other rings—had truly materialized, he would have had no means of resisting it whatsoever. That was an absolute disparity that no amount of cunning could bridge. Unfortunately, this woman had underestimated her enemy. Or rather, calling it underestimation was not quite right; it was greed. Even though she knew he possessed the ability to reverse-deconstruct spells, she still attempted to unleash an ultimate technique right under his nose. Furthermore, to dampen the spell's fluctuations, she had split her focus to cast dampening arts, greatly extending the time needed to charge her attack. Earlier, Orenli could have either used her spatial magic ring to teleport out of the black mist and put distance between them before casting, or simply poured everything into charging the spell without using any arts to suppress the fluctuations. Had she chosen either of those two options, Xu Yuan would have been left with only one possible response: Silently whisper in his heart, "Brother, save me," and then give up and wait for death. Orenli was simply too greedy. She wanted to kill him without alerting Xu Changge, who was tangled in battle with Huron. This had given him room to maneuver. Before the ice crystals froze the willow ghost blade, he had already left behind some black Source Qi capable of deconstructing spells inside the massive cocoon woven of willow branches through his relentless thrusts. What followed was simple. While she was charging her spell, Xu Yuan manipulated the wisp of black Source Qi inside the cocoon to dissolve and deconstruct a tiny portion of the array patterns along the edge of one of the eight magic rings she was channeling. Like a chain reaction caused by a misplaced decimal point in the aerospace industry of his past life, the erasure of those subtle patterns rippled upward with blistering speed. The building blocks collapsed, wreaking catastrophic havoc on the spell Orenli was casting. In the terms of Great Yan cultivators, it was even simpler and more direct: qi deviation. In just a few minutes, their situations had completely reversed. "Stop..." The faint, mosquito-like voice rose softly. Hearing it, Xu Yuan instinctively stopped in his tracks and asked quietly, "Do you have something to say?" "Why..." "What?" "..." After a moment of silence, Orenli raised her deep golden eyes to glare at the man before her. Gritting her teeth, a frantic edge colored her pale face: "Why could you interfere with my magic rings?!" "..." Her voice rippled across the quiet water. Seeing the confusion in her eyes, Xu Yuan sighed softly and stepped forward. "I thought you would face your defeat with more grace, but you look truly pathetic right now..." As he spoke, Xu Yuan halted half a zhang in front of Orenli. Looking down at this woman, who only moments ago had radiated terrifying might like a deity, his voice carried a faint trace of amusement: "Orenli, is this the extent of the Sien imperial family's caliber?" "No!" Orenli gritted her teeth and struggled to rise from the water, but another surge of blood cut her off: "Gwah... cough, cough..." Wiping the blood from her lips with the back of her hand, Orenli looked up at him, her voice weakening further. "If... if you had crushed me head-on like your brother, I would have died without a word of complaint. But to fall to your dirty, petty tricks..." "Petty tricks?" Xu Yuan cut her off. Raising a hand, a plume of black Source Qi rose from his palm, and a sneer curled the corner of his lips. "You mean I should play to my weaknesses and duel spells with you like a proper mage for it to count as a genuine method? If using my own art makes me despicable, then if I used a martial apprentice's methods, would you call me vulgar?" With that, Xu Yuan took a step forward and lashed out with a sudden roundhouse kick, striking the lush softness of Orenli's chest. The tip of his boot sank into the softness. The tremendous force sent her slender, graceful body flying backward, skipping several times across the vine-tangled water before slamming hard against the base of a willow tree with a dull thud. "Gwah..." Spitting up yet another mouthful of blood, Orenli struggled to push herself up from the water. Wet golden hair clung to her cheeks, and her paper-white complexion combined with her crimson lips lent her an eerie, tragic beauty. Though utterly feeble, her gaze remained fixed venomously on Xu Yuan. Meeting her eyes, Xu Yuan walked over slowly, his voice tinged with laughter: "I've completely figured out the underlying mechanics of your magic rings now. So you'd best not try any of those little stunts in front of me." As he spoke, Xu Yuan tapped his blood-red pupils, which flickered with golden light. "Because I can see them now." With that kick earlier, Xu Yuan hadn't been aiming for the fullness of her chest; he had targeted her heart. The power source of this so-called boundary magus did not stem from the dantian like Great Yan cultivators, but from her heart. While she was speaking just now, although no magic ring had visibly appeared, a holy white light had flickered over her heart. It looked somewhat like the holy healing light from RPGs in his past life. With that thought in mind, Xu Yuan connected his intent-soul to several willows beside Orenli, commanding them to extend two long, tough branches that hoisted her limp, fair arms into the air. Drip. Drip. Drip. Her soaked gown clung tightly to her alluring curves, and droplets flowed along their contours before dripping from her bare feet into the water, splashing rhythmically. Stopping before her, under her murderous gaze, Xu Yuan reached out and placed a finger against her well-defined abdomen. Pausing for a moment, he slid it upward along her clinging gown until it rested over her heart. Seeing this, the suspended Orenli frowned slightly. "What are you doing?" Xu Yuan's expression was calm as he watched his wandering fingertip. "What do you think I'm doing?" Orenli glanced at the man's face, a mocking sneer curling her lips. "I'm not going to survive anyway. The damage this backlash inflicted on my body is irreversible. Before I die, using a scoundrel like you as a substitute for your brother... is palatable enough." "..." Xu Yuan's hand paused slightly at her words, and he looked up to meet her gaze. A sickly flush rose on Orenli's pale face. "After all, you two look quite alike." "Your twisted tastes are even worse than I imagined." Xu Yuan shook his head and stopped looking at her. Pressing down with his fingertip, the softness sank beneath it. Orenli parted her red lips, her tone teasing: "You're being so cautious, just like a cowardly wretch who craves sin but lacks the guts for it. Do you need me to teach you how to give a woman pleasure? From the look of you, you probably couldn't satisfy—" Mid-sentence, Orenli's azure pupils constricted abruptly, and she began to struggle. But the two thick willow branches held her arms fast, and when she tried to lash out with her legs, two more branches shot forward and bound them in an instant. Xu Yuan did not look up, replying casually, "Don't move around. If you feel unsatisfied, I can use the willow branches to help you." "What are you doing?!" Orenli's voice spiked, her crisp tone now tinged with hoarseness. "You bastard! Stop this at once!" Ignoring her shouts, Xu Yuan mused to himself, lost in thought: "The cultivation structure in you Sienese is somewhat different from our Great Yan's. The place where you gather qi is actually in your heart... Hmm, no wonder my Source Qi couldn't find an entry point. With no meridians, there naturally wouldn't be a Zhongji acupoint either. But what are these concentric rings of runes around your heart?" Here, Xu Yuan paused and raised his eyes to meet Orenli's seething glare, remarking with slight amazement: "Orenli, you truly are a dangerous woman. "Those magic rings orbiting your body were just a smokescreen you deliberately put up. Who were you planning to use this information gap on? Xu Changge?" Only after making physical contact did Xu Yuan realize that Orenli was hiding even more than he had imagined. Those flashy magical circles hovering around her earlier were nothing but a deceptive facade; the dense rings of runes around her heart were her real magic rings. In other words, this woman could cast spells without the slightest warning. After her brief loss of composure, Orenli calmed down as well. Looking at the man before her, she spoke in a cool voice: "Then since you only just discovered the true location of my magic rings, how were you able to deconstruct my spell?" "..." At that, a meaningful smile played at Xu Yuan's lips, and a pink glow flickered in his eyes: "What do you think, Princess Orenli?" "..." Orenli's pupils shrank sharply as realization dawned on her. The Ring of Nightmares. The moment the thought arose, the entire space suddenly jolted, and a ripple spread outward with her at the center. Buzz! Then, time seemed to freeze. Xu Yuan's figure peeled away in layers like soft tofu, followed by the ghost willow woods, and the moonlight filtering through the gaps between tangled branches. The entire space shattered and shed piece by piece like a puzzle. Then, countless spatial fragments appeared, overlaying the fractured reality and reassembling it. When the tremors faded, everything before Orenli had vanished, replaced by a space shrouded in darkness and a particle-sized orb of lightning condensing before her eyes. Everything that had just happened was an illusion he had created using the Ring of Nightmares. Orenli remained entirely unharmed within the cocoon woven of willow branches, and Xu Yuan was still standing not far away. Biting her lip, murderous intent surged violently in Orenli's eyes: "Xu Changtian, you are a dead man." "You can't blame me for that," Xu Yuan laughed nonchalantly as cherry blossom petals drifted away. "Against someone like you, I couldn't control the illusion. Everything that just happened was simply your own mind's worst-case anticipation of the future. "Still, are you planning on re-enacting what happened in that illusion right now?" "..." Orenli raised her slender fingertips slightly. Lightning arcs erupted, instantly clearing away every foreign object around her. "You think I'll fall for the same trick twice?" As she spoke, the black spatial magic ring beside Orenli began to flicker, freezing the surrounding space as she pronounced each word: "Don't even think about escaping with that instant-cast space ring of yours." "Heh... Still acting, are we?" A smile touched the corners of Xu Yuan's mouth. "You truly are arrogant. Even after losing to me once in the illusion, you're still plotting against Xu Changge. And for your information, mine isn't a space ring—" Before his words had fully fallen, the lightning particle detonated under Orenli's command. In an instant, lightning flashed and thunder roared across the earth. Centered on the lightning particle, boundless electrical energy surged in all directions like a tsunami, swallowing the entire ghost willow forest whole. When all settled back into calm, the black mist and the vast willow grove were gone without a trace, leaving only Orenli standing alone above a charred crater over a hundred zhang across. Seeing this, Orenli did not relax in the slightest; instead, she instinctively clenched her pale hands. Even if she had killed him, the humiliation he had inflicted upon her remained indelible in her heart. But now, she had to consider how to handle Xu Changge, who was as terrifying as a crown prince. Thinking this, she glanced sideways toward the direction where Xu Changge and Huron had been fighting. All that met her eyes was a headless, burly corpse standing upright in place. Before Orenli could even react to Shedes's death, unhurried applause suddenly reached her ears: Clap, clap... clap... clap... Orenli snapped her gaze toward the sound, her pupils constricting. There stood Xu Yuan in his Great Yan robes at the bottom of the crater, completely unharmed, smiling warmly as he looked back at her: "Seems the battle over there has wrapped up, but it looks like you still haven't managed to kill me." Orenli's breathing trembled slightly as irritation spread through her chest: "How did you dodge that?" Xu Yuan found the question amusing. His Void-Stepping Slash could dodge even Xu Changge's Karma Sword; did she think it couldn't evade her spell? Giving her a slight smile, Xu Yuan shrugged: "Why so surprised? I told you, I wasn't using a spatial magic ring, so your spatial lock doesn't work on me." As he spoke, Xu Yuan shook his head lightly: "I thought that while using your spatial magic ring to lock space, you would also use a detection magic ring to watch where I landed. "Now it seems you truly looked down on me, arrogant imperial princess of Sien. "Still, since things on Xu Changge's side are done, it's time for our side to conclude as well." With that, Xu Yuan curled a finger in a come-hither gesture toward the woman hovering in the sky. "Earlier, you cleared the surrounding Source Qi with your lightning arcs, but what about the Source Qi inside your heart?" In an instant, Orenli felt a sharp pang lance through her heart. A fraction of her wind-riding magic ring dissolved in an instant, and after a frantic wobble in midair, she plummeted straight toward the ground. Wind rushed past her ears. As she slipped into unconsciousness, she heard Xu Yuan's laughing whisper: "Backlash from an eight-ring spell would have killed you outright, but since you were only channeling a single wind-riding ring, you should only be heavily injured at most..." "Xu Changge, you can come out now. After wasting all that time, you must have figured out that tin can's cultivation method by now, right?"