Floating gently down from the ceiling of the Earth Dragon's Grave, Jun Li breathed deeply, savoring her first conscious breath of clean air in three days.

  She felt good.

  For a moment, she thought that comfort was merely a transient symptom of filling her lungs, but even after a few seconds had passed, the fatigue that should have been hollowing her out still felt tolerable, even mild.

  The last time Jun Li had actively cultivated was three and a half days ago.

  Since then, she had fought both Magical Beasts atop the cauldron's pillars and then Guan Heng himself near the Earth Dragon's claw. She had then expended great effort to bring down a pillar of the cauldron, before killing another beast, and spending nearly eighty hours breaking through the Viscera Tempering stage.

  And that's not even mentioning her improvisationally upscaled execution of the Glass Cloud Technique that she used to escape the bottom of the cauldron.

  Her only 'intake' of Qi during this time would have consisted of absorbing medicinal essence from the resources used in her breakthrough, as well as brief moments of Qi Circulation, which would have assisted Jun Li's body in naturally replenishing her Internal Qi.

  Jun Li had felt exhaustion set in even before she spent three days breaking through Viscera Tempering, but now it was clear that her exhaustion up until now had been purely physical in nature.

  Even after everything, Jun Li still felt she had enough Qi to carry on.

  Focusing inward to her Crimson Palace, Jun Li looked out over the pure, moonlit waters of her internal world, expecting to be greeted by a low tide.

  Yet, inside that space, the waters seemed nearly as abundant as ever, cradling the roots of the mangroves that spread out from the space's center, covered in a layer of frost that spread hazily into the air.

  The only abnormality present was the gently rising streams of blood that flowed out from the stones below, dispersing into the water like wisps of smoke and seeping into the roots of the trees, dying their bark a shade deeper with each moment.

  With each moment, Jun Li's Qi was being replenished at a rate almost half that of normal Qi Circulation. The sight unnerved Jun Li, who felt a physically painful dissonance from the presence of the blood.

  The blood did not share the transient and ever-shifting nature of its surroundings, its color tugging at the nerves of Jun Li's eyes and its scent filling her lungs with cloying strength.

  It was as if someone had created a vast and beautiful painting of a pure, heavenly wilderness, and then stapled a still-living animal to the canvas. The intensity of the blood's existence created a truly nauseating dissonance between the physical and ephemeral.

  Opening her eyes once more to the real world, Jun Li continued to fall, taking in a breath to clear the grim sensation that had begun to form in her gut. 'No getting squeamish now… It doesn't matter where it comes from, it's your power, so take advantage of it…!'

  Spreading her arms out to catch the air, Jun Li directed her attention to the center of the realm.

  From every pore of her body, dense Qi seeped out slowly, before bursting forth with an intensity that would have instantly exerted a Qi Condensation cultivator to unconsciousness, the trailing of Qi forming a sight akin to the tail of a comet.

  In that moment, two points of disturbance caught Jun Li's eye from the mountain at the center of the realm.

  The first was from the very top, where the massive, mutated beast shifted about, now on alert after sensing the abnormal spike of Qi from afar.

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  The second was from further down, a subtle movement of smaller scale, bustling about on the north-eastern edge of the mountain.

  "There you are…" Beneath Jun Li's foot, a manifestation of the Glass Cloud Art bloomed into existence, slowly expanding with each moment.

  … … … … … …

  With an expression of part curiosity and part frustration, Qin Yihua's gaze was fixed on the vague sight of something falling from the realm's ceiling.

  Four other disciples were by his side, and in that moment, Gao Feng was the only one whose reaction was audible. "What the hell…?"

  Just a few moments ago, their preparations for the fight against the mutant beast above had been interrupted by the sight of the fire tornado that had consumed the cauldron in the north,

  And just now, while Qin Yihua was dictating his plan and discussing the spoils, a glaringly obvious surge of Qi drew the group's attention once more.

  "Hmm…" Bai Yuelin spoke up, unable to ignore the cold aspect she felt from the distant Qi. "Could it be a treasure? We might have to delay our little hunt, Cousin Qin."

  She had walked out a few steps from the group, trying to get a better look at the mysterious object's path. When she turned to Qin Yihua, it was just in time to see his eyes slowly widen in shock. "Get down!"

  At the exclamation, all those gathered moved to defend themselves even without full understanding. Qin Yihua jumped back a dozen meters, Guan Heng braced himself, Gao Feng grabbed a Frost River Sect disciple and threw himself away from the group, dragging her out of the way alongside him.

  And Bai Yuelin vanished where she stood, and the ground she stood on burst apart as some great force landed, sending grey shards of the dessicated viscera that composed the mountain flying in all directions.

  For a few moments, all those gathered were silent as they watched the dust clear, slowly revealing a young woman in a grey robe, her leg half-embedded into the shattered ground.

  In that moment, Guan Heng instantly identified Jun Li, as did the Frost River Sect disciple that Gao Feng had pulled aside, Qian Ruo. Both were too taken aback by her appearance here to speak up, as Guan Heng had assumed she died after their clash, and had told his 'cousins' as much.

  Jun Li undid the hardening of the silver that protected her body from the impact and stretched her three free limbs slightly. Around her left leg, just above where it was embedded into the ground, she could feel a slight pressure, as if a rubber ring was constricting it slightly.

  From behind Jun Li, a pair of feet appeared on the ground, followed by legs, hips, and a torso as whatever vanishing trick Bai Yuelin had used wore off.

  Within a moment, her head was visible, pierced through from behind by Jun Li's leg. "Ah, so I did get her." Unwilling to observe what remained of her face, Jun Li held Bai Yuelin's corpse down by the back of the neck as she pulled her leg free, leaving a hole that quickly leaked blood to fill the shattered earth below.

  "The… the escape talisman didn't…?" Qian Ruo spoke from off to the side, shaken by the sight.

  At those words, Jun Li looked down and did indeed see a glint of verdigris-stained metal attached to Bai Yuelin's clothing.

  Looking towards Qian Ruo, Jun Li chuckled and scratched her head. "Haha… I guess she died too fast for it to activate?"

  Qin Yihua's blade launched up from off his back, swiping down towards Jun Li in an arc.

  Expecting the attack, Jun Li drew her saber from her Spatial Ring and braced it heavily in the greatsword's path.

  The moment the two blades collided, the terrible sound of metal grinding away metal rang out, and Jun Li saw the greatsword sink into her saber, sending sparks flying as it carved over an inch through the metal.

  Jumping back, Jun Li tore her saber free, feeling clearly how the cut blade had begun to bite into Qin Yihua's sword.

  As she slid back over the ground, Jun Li looked at her saber. It now sported a smoothly cut notch lower down the blade, cutting almost halfway through the blade's width. 'Damn… that's a good sword… I only just got this saber too…'

  '...No more clashing then.' Cautiously, Jun Li glanced about and saw that Guan Heng and Gao Feng were now moving to support Qin Yihua if needed.

  'Qin Yihua… if his sword cuts me, I'll probably die. Same thing if Guan Heng grabs me…'

  Standing a bit taller, Jun Li adopted an evasively inclined stance of the Drifting Ghost Blade, slightly altered to hide her off-hand behind her body.

  In the palm of her off-hand, she began to condense a sphere of ice about the size of a lychee.

  From the same starting point, Jun Li had toppled one of the cauldron's pillars just a few days ago.

  'It's dangerous, it takes a lot of focus, and costs a stupid amount of Qi… but if I have as much to work with as I think I do… I might be able to kill all of them at once.'