Bai Xue and Li Xiang leaped back, breaking apart. Opposite them, Zhang Zhou stood, expressionless as always. Curse marks roiled over his skin, morphing and changing with every moment.

Panting, Bai Xue wiped blood off her cheek. Li Xiang frowned and held her sword one-handed, other sleeve bloodied.

Blood spurted from Zhang Zhou’s chest. He staggered backward, shuddering. Not even a shred of pain flickered over his face.

Light flickered overhead. All three of them looked up. The barrier shook, quavering. Waves spread through its surface.

“Do you think Hui’s done it?” Li Xiang asked.

“There was no signal, but…” Bai Xue glanced down. She sighed. “I bet he forgot. Let me check.”

She leapt up. One of her fans swooped around under her feet, and she zipped into the sky.

Zhang Zhou leaped after her. Li Xiang threw her sword. It slashed past Zhang Zhou’s arm, drawing blood. She narrowed her eyes and hooked her fingers. Her sword whipped around and struck at Zhang Zhou’s stomach.

Zhang Zhou caught the sword, curse marks burning red around his hands.

Li Xiang pulled with her hooked hand. The sword hurtled down. Silver light blasted off its blade. Zhang Zhou’s hands began to bleed. The blade touched his stomach.

Li Xiang leaped up. Her off-hand glowed with the same silver light. She jabbed at Zhang Zhou’s back.

Curse marks twisted together on his back. The black mass blocked her blow, burning red at the center.

Focusing, Li Xiang pressed from both sides. Sweat ran down Zhang Zhou’s forehead. Blood trickled down his hands and stomach. On his back, the red spread through the black marks.

Zhang Zhou’s lip twitched. “A mere third-stage—”

“Master always said I could fight a fourth-stage cultivator if I really tried. It’s easier than I expected!” Li Xiang replied cheerily.

His lip twitched again, deepening into a scowl. He lifted his hand and murmured. All the curse marks lifted off his body and began to rotate, swirling around him.

Li Xiang leaped back, calling her sword to her hand, and fell into a defensive stance.

The black marks swirled around him in an orb. They shredded the rock beneath him with an awful grinding roar, swirling faster and faster.

In the midst of the swirling marks, an un-marked Zhang Zhou stared at her with dark eyes. “The curse is broken. I cannot best you, and then Bai Xue, in a fair fight, and my tricks have been played. There’s no reason for me to remain. Tell Bai Xue she may have escaped today, but one day, I’ll return for my prize.”

“Eh? No fair! There’s no justice in retreating from an honorable fight,” Li Xiang protested.

Zhang Zhou blinked. The curse marks grew larger, blacking out the sight of Zhang Zhou, then condensed into a tiny ball and vanished, taking Zhang Zhou with them.

Li Xiang darted to the space where he’d been, but there was nothing. No hint of where he’d gone, no sign that he had been there at all.

Overhead, Bai Xue raced for the roof.

“Stop!” Bai Fenfeng shouted. She threw her sword at Bai Xue.

Bai Xue swirled midair, deflected Bai Fenfeng’s sword with her fans, and flashed past upward. She smirked back down as she flew. “If Auntie Fenfeng is trying to stop me, doesn’t that mean you’re nervous?”

She struck upward with her fan. For a second, the barrier resisted, straining upward to hold her blow in, but then the fan smashed through. The barrier sealing them in overhead shattered, raining down in shards of light. Bai Xue pointed her fan at the sky and snapped it shut. White light beamed off her fan and soared high in the night sky, exploding into a rain of frost and snow.

“Stop it!” Bai Fenfeng screamed, chasing after Bai Xue.

The two met in the sky. Blazing white frost and brilliant white sword light flashed back and forth as the two clashed.

Li Xiang glanced left and right, then ran over to the slowly blooming flower. She slashed with all her might at the lotus’ barrier.

Her sword aura flew off her sword. It cut through the air, keening fiercely. The silver light splashed across the barrier around the bud, unable to break it.

“So that has a different barrier,” Li Xiang said, nodding. She tipped her head, a hand against her cheek. “Does the lotus generate its own barrier?”

A splash caught her attention. She glanced down into the pond. Hui gasped for breath, mopping wet hair back from his face. He splashed over to the edge, fighting his sopping wet clothes and the weights in his robes and on his hip.

Li Xiang met him at the edge of the pond. She knelt and grabbed him under the armpits, then lifted him out of the water.

Hui blinked at her. “E…elder sister?”

“You’re all wet,” she stated, and set him down beside her.

Hui shook himself like a dog and wrung the water out of his hair. “Notice anything different about me?”

“You’re wet!” Li Xiang repeated. She put her hand on his head and used the clothes-cleaning skill. The water sloughed off his body and pooled on the floor.

Zhubi hissed appreciatively, giving a little shimmy as the technique passed over him.

“…anything else?” Hui tried, a little tired but very dry.

She squinted. All at once, her eyes widened. An earnest smile spread across her face. “You’ve broken into the next realm!”

Hui grinned and gave her a thumbs-up. “It takes battle to stimulate a true cultivator to progress!”

“Eh? Did you fight someone down there?” Li Xiang asked, tipping her head.

Awkwardly, Hui coughed. Battle did stimulate me, kind of, if you count breaking the barrier as a tactical part of this battle… anyways! “Let’s not worry about the details, elder sister. Have the barriers broken?”

“Only the one overhead. The other one… Either the lotus is sustaining the barrier, or it’s self-sustaining,” Li Xiang said.

“Mmm. That is troublesome,” Hui muttered. He frowned and looked around. There isn’t anything else that might support the barrier? Nothing leaped out at a glance. He turned back to the lotus, remembering the roots seething with death qi. It probably powers its own barrier, converting the death qi to power the same as the overhead barrier. But unlike the overhead barrier, the lotus is a living creature. It can consume and store the death qi as energy, and then use that energy for its own barrier, as opposed to the spell array-based barrier, which broke as soon as the energy was cut off. It’s like the difference between not watering a plant and yanking out the batteries. Without the batteries, the electronic dies almost immediately, but the plant can live on for a while without energy.

Eh—wait! Now’s not the time for theory!

Swords clashed behind him. Hui jumped and whirled to find Li Xiang battling a demonic cultivator. She stepped aside. Their sword grazed past her. She spun, robes swirling, and cut at their neck. The cultivator staggered back, a hand to their neck, blood rushing over dark robes.

“See anything?” Li Xiang asked, jogging over to his side.

I see you, elder sister! Remind me never to get on your bad side! He glanced behind her, at the other demonic and Bai clan cultivators. They rushed about, panicking, but none of them looked directly at him and Li Xiang.

Ah… I understand. I wouldn’t want to fight Li Xiang, either.

Looking around the cave again, he frowned. Nothing that would support a barrier stood out at a glance. Motion caught his eye, and he turned.

A slumped shape lying in a crater against the wall twitched. Hui craned his neck, then ran over. Li Xiang followed, sword drawn.

Jingwen twitched, her head swinging from her neck, feet shifting. Hui crouched beside her. He reached out and put a hand on her neck.

“Ah, cold!” Jingwen startled and bolted upright, away from Hui.

Hui grinned. Water sucked the heat out from without and death qi from within. I’m confident I have the coldest hands in this cave, even with the Bai clan cultivators all around!

Li Xiang darted at Jingwen, sword drawn. Jingwen fell back, hands out. “Wait, wait!”

“Li Xiang, wait,” Hui said.