Qin Yihua's blade flowed like a landslide, collapsing towards Jun Li with an emissive force that shredded whatever ground she passed over, chasing her without pause.

  Jun Li barely kept out of the sword's path, dense clouds of Qi rotating beneath her feet to redirect her momentum on the fly, and sharp swipes of her saber redirected Qin Yihua's blade with split-second feints when she could not wholly evade.

  To Qin Yihua, it was a bizarre experience that caused him to, every few moments, be stricken with the illusion that his actions did not force Jun Li's movements, but that her actions forced his, as if his attacks trailed behind her willingly, framing her silhouette like an extension of her robe.

  When his eyes raised to meet hers, Qin Yihua froze and instinctively took a step back, drawing his sword closer to his body, ready to react to anything. But nothing came.

  'Again…?' The blank expression on Jun Li's face, and the horrid Killing Intent that flowed from her gaze, had caused him to react in reflex. 'I can't even look her in the eye…!'

  Qin Yihua was by no means inexperienced and had fought and killed a great many times in the past. But he had never faced someone from whom Killing Intent flowed so freely. For any normal opponent, Killing Intent fluctuated steadily, ebbing and flowing with their movements and intentions.

  For someone as experienced as Qin Yihua, the ability to read Killing Intent had become a foundational cornerstone of his combat ability. But here, it worked against him.

  A few dozen steps away, Guan Heng and Gao Feng watched the 'fight' closely. Qian Ruo watched from further away, seemingly unwilling to approach.

  "His movements seem a bit off." Gao Feng spoke, taking in every movement the duo made, eager to learn from whatever he could.

  "I thought so too, but why? His attacks seem sharper than ever, but he can't land a hit." Guan Heng was surprised at how well Jun Li fared. It was a night and day difference compared to their brief clash at the cauldron. 'It's like she's a different person…'

  "It's the Killing Intent, it's throwing him off. Hell, it's even making me flinch all the way over here when it spikes." Gao Feng spoke as if it were an obvious thing.

  "What do you mean? You can feel that from all the way over here?" Guan Heng raised an eyebrow at the words of his young 'cousin.' For an unrelated party to sense Killing Intent, it would either have to directionlessly spill outward or otherwise be strong beyond reason.

  Guan Heng certainly couldn't feel anything from where he was.

  "Right… Just a talent of mine, don't worry about it." Gao Feng clarified, shaking his head. "More importantly, you've already realized she's stalling, yeah?"

  "Indeed." Guan Heng stroked his chin and looked down towards Gao Feng. "Shall we go put a stop to it? I'd rather not see what she's waiting for."

  "That's probably a good idea. I don't see Elder Brother Qin winning with only the cards he's revealed so far." Drawing his saber, Gao Feng began circling closer to the fight without hesitation. "Just give me a minute to ask a few questions…"

  … … … … … …

  Jun Li had begun to feel significant strain in her body by this point, although none of it was visible outwardly. Her muscles and ligaments bloomed into sources of red-hot pain as she continued to evade Qin Yihua's blade. 'This guy… he's definitely completed Muscle Refining at the very least…'

  When pushed by her newly refined heart and lungs, the comparative weakness of her body was greatly apparent. 'But that's fine… just a few moments more…'

  "Hey! Fake cousin!" Off to the side, Gao Feng's voice caused Qin Yihua to pause his movements, giving Jun Li a moment of respite. Looking around, she saw that both Gao Feng and Guan Heng had begun to flank her. 'Perfect… but a bit too soon.'

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  Gao Feng scratched the back of his head. "Really, I was pretty surprised to hear you were some Rogue Cultivator who snuck in here. Jun Li, was it?"

  His words seemed to pull the tension from the air, and for a moment, it felt like a fight to the death was a distant notion.

  "I'm a bit confused, and I was wondering if you could clear something up for me…" He spoke in a humble manner, as if he wasn't holding a saber in his hand. Listening to him, Jun Li couldn't help but be interested. "Go ahead, I don't mind talking."

  "A few days ago, back at the encampment, why did you give me those medicinal pills after my duel with Senior Brother Qin? I probably wouldn't be in the Grave right now without that assistance, and you never seemed to ask anything of me after that."

  His words sounded genuine, but Jun Li couldn't quite pick out the meaning behind them. "Not only that, but you seem to have spared Cousin Qian your enmity as well. Why do that for us, when you're so willing to… act otherwise?" He glanced towards Bai Yuelin's corpse.

  "Hmm…" For a long moment, Jun Li contemplated quietly. She wasn't merely stalling; she genuinely needed some time to parse her own intentions. "Well, Qian Ruo was polite to me, and I liked how earnest you seemed in your duel against Qin Yihua." Jun Li nodded after a moment. "Yeah, that's probably it."

  That answer was so simple and childish that it stunned Gao Feng. "That… Are you serious? Is that… actually your reasoning?"

  "Was I wrong to help you? Is it wrong not to wish harm on you or her?" Jun Li looked Gao Feng in the eyes, speaking with clarity. "It's been a long time since I've had the opportunity to be charitable and help others, so even if I only have a flimsy excuse, I'd take it. Because I enjoy that sort of thing."

  "I… what?" Gao Feng was physically disoriented by Jun Li's words and blinked a few times. "That's… that's not what I'm talking about! Why avoid us entirely and kill Cousin Bai without hesitation!?"

  Jun Li felt uncomfortable at how heated Gao Feng seemed. "Ahh… Because I didn't have an excuse not to kill her." When Jun Li said that, Gao Feng's expression seemed to worsen, causing her to feel the need to explain further, a bit flustered. With her words, all the tension that Gao Feng removed from the situation came back even stronger.

  "I mean, it would be imprudent of me not to kill her, right? It's the least I could do since it was that easy. It's the uhh… how do I say this…" Jun Li stowed her saber and ran a hand through her hair. "Killing someone and taking their belongings is sort of… the default choice for a Cultivator, right?"

  "It's unreasonable to expect someone to act otherwise. I'm being generous here by making excuses to help you out." The longer Jun Li spoke, the more she could tell that she and Gao Feng had very different views on the Jianghu.

  The terrible expression that Gao Feng now wore silently indicated to Jun Li that any matters of 'diplomacy' had reached an end, and that any fondness he held towards her was long gone.

  Even with all those gathered understanding how this encounter would end, nobody made a move. Jun Li's words caused such unease that, for a few moments, an awful silence had formed, taking everyone present captive.

  "...you know, when water freezes, it expands." Jun Li began to speak aloud, in no particular direction, to no particular person. "And when it melts, it compresses…"

  "Normally, it compresses to the same size it was before it froze." When Jun Li began to speak nonsense, Gao Feng and Guan Heng both became confused, but Qin Yihua's eyes widened slightly, informed by experience. "But what if it didn't? What if ice compressed more when it melted than it expands when frozen?

  "Kill her now!" Qin Yihua shot forward, his voice reaching Guan Heng first, with Gao Feng moving a moment slower.

  Qin Yihua's blade swept out, passing through the space where Jun Li's neck was. She had crouched down just a moment before, one of her feet having frozen into a brace against the ground while she was speaking.

  Her other foot bore a small manifestation of the Glass Cloud Art beneath her sole, crushed beneath her weight the moment she slipped underneath Qin Yihua's sword.

  With a thunderous burst, Jun Li's body disappeared from the gazes of all those present, her Cloudburst sending her more than a dozen meters in the air.

  Where she had stood, a small bead of ice, the size of a wine grape, fell through the air. The ice itself was entirely mundane, bearing no Qi whatsoever. It was its origins that were unnatural, formed through Jun Li's use of the Ice Lotus Scripture and slowly compressed through cycles of melting and freezing, skewed slowly with a delicate application of her Authority of Melting.

  In her hands, under her Authority, the unnaturally compressed ice could continue existing as it was. But, now that it has left her presence, the reality of the ice's nature rapidly, violently reasserted itself. "Taiji Melt-Compression Sphere!"

  Below Jun Li, a massive explosion rang out as an immense sphere of steam burst into existence as if out of thin air, the force of its expansion sending a shockwave through the air and knocking the breath out of her lungs even as far away as she was.

  Self-inflicted as it was, the strike to the senses that the shockwave gave Jun Li felt greatly satisfying. 'I could have made it smaller, if he let me talk a bit longer… A sphere the size of a mustard seed might have taken this whole mountain down.'