'To take a foundational principle and adapt it into something uniquely your own...' Yoriichi's internal monologue resonated with profound respect, recalling the faces of his fallen comrades. 'That is the absolute hallmark of a true grandmaster. She did not just copy me. From observing the fluid mechanics of Water Breathing, recognized the freezing nature of her own bloodline, and synthesized them into an entirely new path.'
He snapped back to the present. With a light, soundless push, he dropped from the high canopy, landing gracefully on the python's corpse right beside his panting sister.
He looked down at the brutally ruined head of the massive snake. He sighed softly, an ancient melancholy touching his eyes. He found no joy in slaughter, recognizing that the beast had merely been following its natural instincts to survive and grow powerful, just as they were. But in the ruthless world of cultivation, the quest for power demanded a toll of blood.
"A flawless execution," Yoriichi praised, turning his gaze to Xiao Yu. "You recognized the inefficiency of a prolonged battle, adapted your Dou Qi structure on the fly, and created a localized technique to instantly exploit its weakness. Your Ice Breathing is highly effective."
Xiao Yu smiled brightly, the exhaustion momentarily fading from her face at his high praise.
"Thank you, Ning'er," she replied, wiping a smear of beast blood from her cheek. "I felt the inspiration during the fight. My frost Dou Qi is too rigid for the flowing forms of the Water, so I had to condense the kinetic force into sharp, sliding strikes like that previous fight. I only have the First Form right now, but I will develop more."
She hopped off the beast's corpse, landing in the shallow water, and immediately assumed a cross-legged meditative position upon a flat, submerged root near Yoriichi's boots.
"I need to recover," Xiao Yu stated, closing her eyes. "Managing liquid Dou Qi is exhausting. My Dantian is nearly empty."
She began circulating her basic, academy-issued Qi Method to pull the ambient worldly energy back into her body.
Yoriichi stood guard beside her, his crimson eyes scanning the dense, foggy perimeter. As he watched her, his Transparent World vision analyzed the flow of worldly energy entering her body.
He frowned slightly.
The absorption process was painfully slow as usual. Despite her incredibly pure foundation and her major realm breakthrough, the basic Qi Method she was using was acting like a severely constricted pipe attempting to fill a massive ocean.
'Her internal capacity has vastly outgrown her software,' Yoriichi thought, diagnosing the issue. 'She desperately needs an upgraded Qi Method aligned with the Yin or Water elements. Without it, replenishing her liquid Dou Qi will take hours, making prolonged combat impossible. Her path will stagnate.'
He decided that resolving this issue would be their absolute top priority once they returned to the academy. The Inner Academy's Book Pavilion would undoubtedly hold a suitable scroll.
Time slowly ticked by in the sweltering, foggy silence of the wetlands. Yoriichi maintained absolute vigilance over the surrounding canopy and the shallow water, ensuring no other predators were drawn by the scent of the python's blood.
However, in his intense focus on the perimeter, Yoriichi's Transparent World vision failed to account for a massive, topographical anomaly directly beneath them.
He did not notice that the puddle of water just near the python's corpse was not just a shallow indent. It was the very edge of the massive, fifty-foot-deep underground sinkhole the python had originally launched itself from.
And the python had not been the alpha of that deep-water pond.
SWOOSH!
Without a single sound, a massive, muscular tail—thick as a tree trunk and covered in slimy, pitch-black scales—erupted from the dark depths of the sinkhole right beside the corpse.
Yoriichi's danger sense screamed a fraction of a millisecond before the water broke. He instantly tackled forward, twisting his body in mid-air to evade the initial, crushing sweep of the massive tail.
But the tail was impossibly elongated, possessing a terrifying, whip-like elasticity. As Yoriichi dodged, the tail continued its sweeping arc, violently reaching toward Xiao Yu, who was deeply entrenched in her meditation.
Sensing the massive displacement of air, Xiao Yu's eyes snapped open in absolute vigilance. She noticed the incoming black mass and frantically tried to throw herself backward to dodge.
Because of her sudden movement, the beast's tail missed a direct, lethal strike on her head.
However, the unknown aquatic beast, sensing that its primary target had evaded, instantly poured the entirety of its predatory focus onto the nearest moving object—Yoriichi.
Before Yoriichi could land from his evasive tackle and draw his blade, the massive, slimy tail snapped backward like a recoiling spring. In a single, blinding motion, it wrapped violently around Yoriichi's torso and arms, pinning them to his sides in an unbreakable, crushing grip.
"Ning'er!" Xiao Yu screamed, her voice tearing through the fog.
She lunged forward, her hands desperately reaching out to grab him, but her fingers closed around empty, foggy air. It all happened in the span of three seconds.
The massive beast violently retracted its tail, dragging Yoriichi off the roots and pulling him backward toward the edge of the deep, black sinkhole.
As he was dragged over the precipice, Yoriichi's crimson eyes locked onto his sister's panicked face. He didn't struggle; he knew the sheer physical strength of whatever held him was currently beyond his ability to break without leverage.
"I... will be b...ack," Yoriichi stated, his voice absolute, echoing from the edge of the abyss. "Just w…wait for me."
SPLASH!
Yoriichi was violently dragged under the dark, murky surface of the deep-water pond, vanishing completely from sight.
"No!" Xiao Yu shrieked, scrambling to the edge of the sinkhole.
The sudden, violent disruption of her deep meditation caused a catastrophic backlash within her Dantian. The partially absorbed worldly energy violently collided with her liquid core.
Xiao Yu coughed up a massive mouthful of blood. She collapsed onto her hands and knees, staring down into the dark, swirling water where her brother had just disappeared. Her vision swam violently, the edges of her sight turning black. She felt like she could fall unconscious at any second.
A primal, desperate urge screamed in her mind to dive into the freezing sinkhole right now, to hunt the beast down and tear it apart to save him.
But Yoriichi's final command echoed in her fading consciousness. Wait for me.
She gritted her teeth, biting her lip so hard it bled to keep herself awake. Her rational mind, forged by the brutal realities of the trench, asserted control. She would be absolutely useless down there. If she dove in now, with an empty Dantian, she would just drown, making his sacrifice entirely meaningless.
Using her last ounce of physical strength, she dragged herself away from the edge of the sinkhole. She painfully climbed up a thick mangrove root, securing herself in the fork of a tree directly above the dark water.
Heaving ragged, desperate breaths, with absolutely no other option available, Xiao Yu closed her eyes, forced her chaotic meridians into alignment, and aggressively resumed filling her Dou Qi reserves, waiting for the devil to climb back out of the abyss.