Chapter 237 - 236: Third Floor (2)

The third floor of the Nine-Tiered Sky transformed into a blinding, deafening maelstrom of high-level combat. It was a flawless exchange of martial perfection, with neither side willing to give the other even the slightest opening. Sparks flew like fireworks under the blood-red moon.

The clash of heavy broadsword and thin rapier created a constant, ringing feel of violence, each impact sending shockwaves rippling outward across the flooded salt flat. The sound echoed across the vast arena, blending with the roar of thunder until it became almost impossible to distinguish one sound from another.

Lin Yuan’s Dao Intent saturated the air. He summoned pillars of golden-purple lightning from the sky, attempting to box the Guardian in. Each pillar struck the flooded ground with enough force to send waves racing across the shallow water. The Guardian responded by creating dozens of mirror-shields, reflecting the lightning back at Lin Yuan, forcing him to utilize the Immortal Cloud Step to constantly shift his positioning, his afterimages flickering across the battlefield faster than the eye could follow.

It was a breathtaking dance. Every strike carried the potential for instant death. Every parry required absolute, unshakeable focus. Steam hissed off the shallow water with every near miss, the reflected moonlight scattering into a thousand broken fragments across the arena. The entire battlefield seemed to tremble beneath their movements, and for anyone watching from the outside, the exchange would have been almost impossible to comprehend.

"It is good," Ling Xi noted within his mind, her tone shifting from playful to deeply analytical. "Its essence is flawless. It makes no mistakes. But it lacks a soul, master. It lacks creativity."

Exactly, Lin Yuan agreed silently, parrying a flurry of rapid thrusts that blurred into a wall of steel, feeling the vibration of each deflected strike travel up through his wrist and into his shoulder.

The Guardian was a perfect simulation of an Unshaken expert. But it was bound by the rigidity of its programming. It responded to variables; it did not invent them.

Lin Yuan decided to change the variables.

He jumped backward, creating a thirty-yard gap between them, his boots skidding briefly across the wet, glassy stone before he found his footing. The Guardian did not pursue him immediately. It merely stood across the shallow water, rapier lowered slightly, its grey armor reflecting the crimson light of the blood-red moon.

For that brief moment, the two figures stared at one another across the ruined battlefield.

"Mirroring truth is a parlor trick," Lin Yuan said, his voice echoing over the roaring thunder of his own domain. "Let me show you a truth you cannot reflect."

Lin Yuan raised the Primordial Sovereign Sword horizontally before his chest.

He channeled the absolute, totality of his Unshaken spiritual power into the blade, but he did not activate a standard sword art. He reached deep into the supreme, reality-severing nature of the weapon itself.

He activated: [Absolute Severance of the Heavenly Mandate].

The runes on the sword flared, not with light, but with a terrifying absence of it. The blade seemed to drink the blood-red moonlight, turning into a void of pure severance, and for a fleeting instant even the roaring wind across the arena seemed to fall unnaturally silent.

The Guardian, recognizing a catastrophic escalation in threat level, instantly split into a hundred mirror reflections. The entire salt flat was covered in grey-armored figures, all charging simultaneously, their footsteps striking the water in perfect, thunderous unison. Their identical movements created a strange and oppressive sight, as though a single existence had suddenly multiplied across the entire battlefield.

"A hundred lies," Lin Yuan whispered.

He swung the sword.

He did not target the physical bodies of the reflections. He targeted the foundational law of the third floor’s reality.

Snip.

The conceptual severance cut through the ambient essence of the Mirror Dao. It ignored the physical distance, the Qi barriers, and the agility of the Guardian.

A massive, invisible rift tore through the center of the arena, the surrounding water rippling outward in a perfect, expanding circle as though the world itself had briefly flinched. The invisible force spread through the battlefield with terrifying precision, reaching every reflection without needing to physically touch them.

The hundred reflections did not shatter; they simply ceased to exist, their connection to the ambient energy of heaven and earth entirely severed, vanishing without so much as a sound.

The true Phantom Guardian was suddenly violently exposed, stumbling forward as its domain collapsed around it, entirely powerless for exactly three seconds.

Three seconds was an eternity to a sovereign.

Lin Yuan immediately raised his left hand toward the blood-red moon.

[Heavenly Thunder Break]

The crimson sky blackened instantly. The ambient, freezing rain was vaporized by the sheer, terrifying heat of the gathering storm, the resulting mist curling upward in thick, ghostly tendrils. The entire arena became shrouded in a rapidly expanding layer of steam, while countless arcs of crimson lightning twisted through the darkened clouds above.

With a downward thrust of his hand, Lin Yuan called down the might.

A pillar of pure heavenly thunder, thick as a redwood tree and blindingly bright, crashed down upon the paralyzed Guardian.

The impact was monolithic. The floor of the arena cratered violently, the mirrored water instantly boiling into steam, the shockwave rolling outward and shattering what remained of the nearby mirror-shields into glittering dust. The force of the impact caused the entire third floor to tremble, and cracks spread across the ground surrounding the enormous crater.

The Phantom Guardian did not even have the chance to raise its rapier. The sheer, overwhelming destructive power of the Unshaken Stage Heavenly Thunder Break completely annihilated it. The grey bamboo armor disintegrated. The mask shattered into dust.

The entity was vaporized, leaving nothing behind but a lingering scent, faintly metallic, drifting away on the last dying gusts of the storm.

For several breaths, nothing moved.

The thunder gradually faded into the distance. The steam continued to rise from the ruined battlefield, slowly becoming thinner as the surrounding air settled. The blood-red moon once again became visible through the dark clouds, casting its strange crimson glow over the devastation.

Lin Yuan stood in the center of the steaming, ruined salt flat. He slowly lowered his left hand, the Primordial Sovereign Sword resting casually by his side.

He exhaled a long, slow breath, his chest rising and falling rhythmically. The fight had demanded his focus, but it had not exhausted him. The Unshaken Stage was a profound plateau of power, and the mild ache settling into his limbs felt more like satisfaction than fatigue.

His eyes swept across the battlefield.

The Guardian had been powerful. If he had relied solely on conventional techniques, defeating it would have required far more time and effort. Its ability to mirror techniques and create perfect reflections had made it an extremely troublesome opponent.

But absolute power was not always about having a stronger technique.

Sometimes, it was about attacking something the opponent could not defend against.

The Guardian could mirror techniques.

It could reproduce movements.

It could reflect power.

But it could not reflect the severance of its own foundational laws.

With a soft chime, the swirling emerald vortex at the far edge of the arena shifted, transforming into a glowing portal leading to the fourth floor. The emerald light pulsed gently against the blood-red surroundings, completely different from the violent scene that had just unfolded.

Lin Yuan did not immediately move. He took a moment to savor the absolute, victorious silence of the arena, the steam still rising gently from the crater at his feet. He had met an unshaken stage expert, and he had eradicated it.

His gaze lingered on the portal for several moments.

The third floor had tested his combat ability.

The fourth floor would undoubtedly be different.

Yet there was no hesitation in Lin Yuan’s eyes.

He tightened his grip around the Primordial Sovereign Sword and finally turned toward the glowing emerald portal.

His figure stepped forward through the lingering steam, leaving the ruined battlefield behind.

The moment his foot touched the edge of the portal, emerald light swallowed his figure.

The third floor fell silent once more.