Despite the leader’s reasonable assessment of Lan Xiaohui’s state and the overwhelming advantage that they have in numbers, the female’s demeanor changes only on the surface.

Beneath that front of bravery, it is very obvious that she is very afraid. The gruesome way in which her companion died right before her eyes, and the casual and easy way that Lan Xiaohui did it — not to mention the fact that I consumed his corpse — are all things that weigh down on the female cultivator’s mind like a shackle tied to an anvil.

Then there is the fact that Lan Xiaohui possesses Sword Law and that Qianyan Kongju is a legendary entity in the folklore of this carbon-based lifeform. Even if Lan Xiaohui is correct — which she most likely is — and the Qianyan Kongju of old is dead and the one behind her is merely an imitation that inherited its Physique, there are still only two conclusions to make regarding Lan Xiaohui’s triumph over it: Either the Qianyan Kongju is weak, or Lan Xiaohui is very strong.

My owner understands the basic principles of psychological warfare. Against demonic beasts who do not understand human language, there can only be communication through projected might and power. Demonic beasts are difficult to kill; their Physiques give them a very strong advantage against cultivators, but their low intelligence and shallow spiritual cultivation leave them vulnerable to the two advantages that cultivators possess: tactics and martial arts.

Having extinguished thousands of demonic beasts within my Inner World, Lan Xiaohui has learned many lessons about the dynamics at play in a confrontation between two entities — things she would describe as “tempo” and “initiative” — and how to affect them through posture and demeanor.

That is why, even though she is heavily injured and exhausted, she still projects such a bubble of calm and confidence. Her life depends on it. If she shows weakness, they will cut her down without hesitation. It is entirely unintentional, but appreciated, that it also intimidates the two — though my [Tyranny] also plays a very large role in this.

The ability to think is also the weakness of cultivators.

They are overthinking this situation.

If they had slightly more experience in combat, or if they were injured in the past, they would know better than to hesitate here and attack with all their might and ferocity immediately, but it is exactly because they do not have this experience that Lan Xiaohui can take advantage of them like this.

Their frustration is the flaw in their overwhelming advantage.

“Kill her!” the leader shouts. “Attack!”

The female hesitates. The sword in her hand trembles briefly, but she still takes a step forward. Her stance was defensive before, but now the slight lean forward indicates her intention to become aggressive.

“They are from the Purple Bamboo Valley sect,” I tell Lan Xiaohui, referencing the memories of the cultivator I consumed. “They are poison specialists.”

Lan Xiaohui nods and shifts her stance to a more open one. She turns the dominant side of her body away from the two, as she pulls me out of the ground and conceals my vessel behind her back.

What her adversaries may perceive as a defensive stance is not at all what it truly is. With her left arm useless, and her ribs broken, she cannot move as well or generate much strength in her upper body; so Lan Xiaohui needs a lot of momentum — enough to overpower in one strike.

Her disadvantages are numerous, but even if this was a one-on-one duel, she would likely not survive a single technique from a Nascent Soul cultivator. The power gap is too great, and Lan Xiaohui is too wounded to even try playing the odds.

If they attack her together, as the man earlier stated, they could, indeed, kill Lan Xiaohui without too much effort.

But why would Lan Xiaohui ever allow such a thing to happen?

She leans forward and a burst of energy sends her hurtling toward the weaker of the two — the female cultivator — and my vessel basks in the black and red energies of the [Heartless Blood Lily] martial art.

The female cultivator’s eyes widen as if she hadn’t even considered the possibility that my owner would go on the offensive, and I can understand how or why she would come to such a conclusion. Lan Xiaohui’s initial attack was considered to be a sneak attack — surely, she would not have the guts to attack someone with an entire cultivation realm’s difference in strength, and head-on no less.

A pulse of green light emits from the female figure as she braces herself for Lan Xiaohui’s imminent action, disregarding her offensive stance and transitioning to a more defensive one. She is fast; much faster than Lan Xiaohui, but it is not enough to react to such a sudden attack when already committed to offense and not defense.

My vessel strikes the female cultivator’s sword, which she manages to raise just in time, and the blade of the offending, lesser-quality weapon bends away from my owner beneath all the transferred force and power. The tip of the blade nearly touches the female cultivator’s shoulder, bending at an angle of almost sixty degrees. I can feel the vibrations of the thin, green blade, which is now glowing with purple and green energy, but it does not snap. It slowly begins to bend back into its natural shape.

The female cultivator’s eyes widen once more, this time in satisfaction and anticipation of the coming triumph. If she can endure just a bit longer, and regain her footing, her counterattack would be difficult to avoid or block — especially against someone who has no use of their left arm.

Her companion, the leader, is also already reacting to Lan Xiaohui’s sudden offensive and rushes forward to also deal the killing blow, spear becoming shrouded in gold and purple energies, as a halo of pure gold appears behind him.

Lan Xiaohui lets go of my handle and steps to the side; a risky maneuver, but her confidence in executing it is iron-clad. Even while letting go of my possession, she gives my vessel a powerful nudge and sends me spinning around the axis of the green blade.

The female cultivator’s sword chops through the empty air where Lan Xiaohui just stood, and watches Lan Xiaohui slip to her right side, still following the momentum of her dash. My blade completes its first rotation around the cultivator’s sword once, producing an air-ripping sound. This sound is enough to cause the female cultivator to flinch, and pull her hand back slightly as a matter of reaction, and inadvertently brings me close enough to cut through her throat and send a shower of blood into the air.

She never stood a chance; when it comes to swordsmanship, Lan Xiaohui’s only equals are Wu Yulan and possibly You Huaming — at least beneath the Nihility realm of cultivation.

Lan Xiaohui confidently grabs my hilt, even though with her perception abilities it is just as likely that she might grab the wrong end of my vessel and lose her fingers — though she doesn’t show even a moment of doubt or hesitation.

Immediately after grabbing my hilt and neutralizing my rotations, she stabs me through the back of the dying cultivator and jerks her body slightly to the left. Then a spearhead plows through the back of the cultivator, threads of gold and purple energy peeling off from its surface. It reaches almost as far as touching Lan Xiaohui’s clothes, but no farther than that. Where the spear had penetrated and exited the female cultivator, who now stares in confusion at her “master”, the skin turns black, and the blood vessels rupture and disintegrate.

My vessel carves through the rest of the cultivator’s ribcage, as Lan Xiaohui tosses her body to the side, dragging the spear into an unrecoverable position to defend from. As my blade exits the cultivator’s flesh, it is not blood that sprays out from the wound, but black and red flower petals, just like that day when Lan Xiaohui fought her reflection in my Inner World.

She is just like that dark silhouette was back then. The calmness I detected back then; that sterile threat without any hatred; Lan Xiaohui resembles that figure now. Tyrannical and relentless.

Realizing what is about to happen, the leader of the group lets go of his spear, and dashes back, reaching into his sleeve, likely looking for another weapon, but there is only a look of pure shock when he finds Lan Xiaohui immediately upon him.

I understand the question in his eyes. How?

It is simple. First of all, space within Lan Xiaohui’s Void Boundary is not as it appears. The farther from the center they are, the more distance needs to be covered to gain further distance, while Lan Xiaohui can move through this space at will, as if it were normal Euclidean Geometry. But most importantly, at that time, Lan Xiaohui used Liminality Steps, the faster of her two movement techniques.

From beginning to end, Lan Xiaohui had predicted how this battle would go. From the leader’s intention to even use and sacrifice his intimidated comrade to score a blow, to only using Vanishing Steps to not betray her full speed. This latter point is the most important because had the leader of the three opted to lose an arm or receive a serious injury to stop Lan Xiaohui, instead of abandoning his spear and relying on his speed to retrieve a weapon, Lan Xiaohui’s chances at emerging victorious would’ve been highly unlikely.

“Junior, don’t…!”

— Limitless Stardust Blade, Third Form: Devil Flower Purgatory Sword!

I understand it now; the meaning of the Liminal Starflower, and the words Lan Xiaohui spoke back then: "Embracing the devil in my heart."

She wants to be a devil like me so that she can follow me even if I am dragged back into Hell.

The domain flickers, collapsing to the point of Lan Xiaohui’s sword, and then expands once more very briefly, however, this time the warping geometry is so extreme that when I slash into the cultivator’s body, it feels like I am cutting through and along a tiny, thin string. Though it felt like the contact was instantaneous and so effortless that it was ineffective, the cultivator’s body separates into several pieces, each one transforming into a flowing river of starflower petals that disperse into the air — the same technique that the Lan Xiaohui's silhouette used within my Inner World.

Lan Xiaohui’s training session that day has finally matured and has become completely absorbed.

The sword domain fails, the qi shrouding my vessel disperses and my owner, at that moment, is at peace in her heart.

“Yaoyue…” she whispers, but before she can say more, her energy almost completely evaporates, and she collapses to her knees, then her side, and before she completely loses consciousness, she merges a sliver of it within my Inner World — once more abusing the modification I made in unexpected ways — to stick like oil on top of my sea of consciousness and peacefully sleep.

What do I do with this monster?

I open my core to absorb the corpses and all their valuables while pondering my owner’s further training and development.