“Release the seal, you dolt!”       

Yuyue took a step back in shock at the word, they had come from the senior inside the blade. She briefly recalled the instance in which she fought the blood-skin bear and attempted to breakthrough.

Yuyue had not cultivated the third step of Qi cultivation yet. This would activate and fill her upper Dantian and allow her the ability to use her divine sense.

The way she was currently meant that she was thoroughly unable to break past this “seal” in anyway.

Regardless, such a powerful sword probably had an equally powerful seal placed on it. Yuyue was unable to feel any sort of power emanating from it besides the sharpness of the blade.

“Senior… I can’t release the seal” she said her face reddening in embarrassment.

“So weak! Is that the limit of your dao heart, that your cultivation is the end of the story?” The voice instantly roared back.

Yuyue felt like she had been slapped in the face by the voice. It was indeed right, she had chosen the path of overwhelming power, if she was unable to cross this hurdle than what was the worth of her Dao oath.

Such weakness could even prevent her further cultivation by turning into a heart demon.

Yuyue decided to try something a little unorthodox. She began transferring the Qi in her meridians and directing it towards her upper Dantian.

The sensation of weakening was felt all over her body, and she was instantly met with a splitting pain in her head. She was trying to artificially manifest the third step of Qi cultivation while only being the first step.

Soon enough a small strand of divine sense appear in her upper Dantian, the pain in her head was near unbearable and veins could be seen pulsing all over her head.

The strand of divine sense could barely be called divine sense in the traditional way. It was little more than a singular thread, but it was enough to probe the sword which was in her hand, anything else was impossible.

Probing into the sword, Yuyue found an incredibly large array formation wrapping the sword, completely suppressing its aura. A thin strand poked through a gap, Yuyue assumed this was the senior who resided in the sword.

Gently, she prodded around the array formation looking for a small gap. Although she was unable to break the array, she would be able to perhaps grab the tiniest wisp of aura from the sword.

For even a first step Qi cultivator like her, that was enough!

Eventually she found such a hole and using her minuscule divine sense teased out a bit of the aura and attempted to connect it to herself. This amplified the splitting pain in her head tenfold and she nearly broke off the connection from the pain.

Gritting her teeth, Yuyue pressed forward, roaring in her heart and eventually connected to herself.

She instantly felt awash with power. Yuyue opened her eyes to see that her body was slick with sweat and a red aura emanating from her body

There was a dull pain in her head now, and a wet sensation coming from her ears. She put a finger to touch the wetness and realized that her ears had begun to bleed.

Not wasting another moment, Yuyue raised the sword and rammed it directly towards the head of the Jade tortoise.

SHAA!

She felt the sensation of her sword sliding easily into the armor on the turtle and felt the sword greedily begin to lap up blood.

Weng! Weng!

The blood aura on the sword grew stronger and then it reverted back to normal.

The turtle remained soundless, although it looked like nothing had happened Yuyue noticed the turtle’s body instantly relax and begin to twitch; she was shocked, she had killed the tortoise in one strike!

In an instant, Yuyue felt the connection between, her and the sword was cut. The attack she just made had drawn the ire of the array formation and it instantly closed the gap she had found.

As the aura from the sword left her body she was filled with even more weakness. In truth, she had overexerted herself pulling a whisp of a sword aura into herself, it was only because the sword aura was supporting her that she was able to remain standing.

Now that it had left, she felt all strength leave her body and she leaned against a nearby tree, catching her breath.

The tortoise remained still in front of her, unmoving. It was dead. The shell was a little damaged from her frustrated attacks from it, but there was still over 90% that was undamaged. Yuyue could almost feel the spirit stones in her hand as she looked at the tortoise.

She was surprised at how strong the aura was, just a little bit was enough to allow a first step Qi cultivator like her to kill a jade tortoise in one strike.

She looked at the sword in her hand, the mysteriousness of it growing even larger.