Chapter 90: A Battle with One’s Back to the River

Shen Duo stood at the riverbank, eyes narrowed as she watched the enormous crimson fox across the water.

“So it’s a swordsman!”

A young, sultry male voice drifted over.

Following the sound, Shen Duo was slightly startled. Yu Sha had once told her that a beast of illusion could only speak after it had reached the rank of divine beast or higher. It was indeed the fox on the opposite bank that had spoken just now—could its power already have surpassed that of an advanced divine beast of illusion?

“You’re a divine beast?” Shen Duo’s voice was grave, heavier than ever before.

At present, she was only a sword spirit, and her strength was at best comparable to a one-star divine beast of illusion. Yet the enemy before her stood many ranks above that. Yu Sha was in secluded cultivation, and Ben Yi had lost his fighting ability. If she wanted to rescue Feng Jun and Wei Dong as quickly as possible, she could only fight with her back to the wall!

The crimson fox on the far side flicked its five fiery tails. “At least you still have some discernment. But if you want to take my rose quartz, your strength falls a little short. Defeat me first, then talk!”

As soon as the words fell, flames surged over the fox’s body, turning it into a massive fireball. Even from more than ten meters away, Shen Duo could feel the wild, violent energy of heaven and earth pouring from it!

Her mind raced. Suddenly, she caught a thread hidden in the fox’s words and quickly shouted, “Wait! I have no intention of stealing your rose quartz. I only want to rescue my companions from the stone cave behind the waterfall.”

A flicker seemed to flash through the fox’s narrow eyes before it gave a contemptuous snort. “If you had no designs on my rose quartz, why would you be in the cave behind the waterfall? Cunning humans, do not delude yourselves into struggling. No matter what you say, I will not believe you!”

She had not expected this creature to be so unreasonable, not listening to a single word of explanation. Shen Duo clenched her teeth and raised her long sword across her chest in a fighting stance. Dense green sword qi gathered over the slender blade.

Before Shen Duo could even react, purple spirit-illusion energy glittered around the fox, and several fireballs came crashing toward her. Before they even drew near, she could feel the terrifying heat radiating from them.

A few sparks fell onto the water. Yet the flames did not go out upon touching the water; instead, they seemed to spread.

Shen Duo’s eyes widened in shock. Gathering every ounce of focus she had, she gripped the hilt with both hands and dodged the attacks at top speed.

After she cleaved through one of the fireballs, it did not disappear. Instead, it split into two. Each time she cut one apart, it divided again, and the fireballs seemed to possess a kind of life of their own, attacking her on their own accord. Yet when they brushed against the shrubs, trees, and wild grass along the edge of the pool, none of them caught fire.

Shen Duo had never seen such an eerie flame. Sword in hand, she stood straight-backed, the wound on her abdomen still aching, her forehead slick with sweat.

What had begun as a dozen fireballs had already multiplied into several dozen, enclosing her completely. Their red glow bathed her face in scarlet. They kept closing in, and Shen Duo felt her body growing hotter and hotter, as though she were trapped in a sea of fire, nearly suffocating her.

She closed her eyes briefly and drew on the Saint Radiance energy within her. Her nearly depleted sword qi instantly surged back into fullness. Faced with the fireballs, she had no choice but to resist. With a thunderous shout, she unleashed the Wind Severing Technique. The fireballs in front of her were all blasted away.

Shen Duo gasped hard. At last, she could breathe the fresh, cool air.

But the fireballs that had been sent flying split into two and swiftly returned to surround her once more.

There were more and more of them. She had no choice but to swing her sword again and again, but this could only bring temporary relief. It did nothing to solve the root of the problem.

When a fireball grazed her body, an unbearable scorching pain shot through her. Looking down at her arm, she saw mangled flesh and blood; even her illusionist’s robe was burned into tatters.

Shen Duo’s face was streaked and blackened in layer upon layer.

Soon, fireballs blocked every direction around her, as though the next second she would be swallowed whole by their searing heat.

Her body was covered with wounds, blood flowing from them, yet she still did not give up. The long sword in her hand, sheathed in green sword qi, still danced through the air as though it would never know exhaustion.

Ben Yi glared furiously at the crimson fox upon the water, roaring at it. Then, with all his strength, he forced himself upright and charged at it—but before he could even reach the fox, its forepaw gave a casual sweep, and he was sent crashing into the great boulder beside the pool.

In the face of such a powerful enemy, Ben Yi could not even withstand a single move. A deep sense of defeat rose in his heart!

The fox cast him an arrogant glance and said with scorn, “Not even a divine beast, and you still dare to resist me? Tired of living, are you?”

With that, it looked again toward Shen Duo, who was struggling bitterly within the fireballs. A sharp light flashed in the five-tailed fox’s eyes.

Shen Duo’s strength was obvious at a glance. She was nothing more than a mere sword spirit. What puzzled it was that after fighting its solar true flame for so long, the sword qi within this girl had still not been exhausted!

That was impossible.

Whether illusionist, swordsman, or beast, combat depended on the spiritual illusion energy or sword qi stored within the body. Once that energy was depleted, the battle was over. Without a sustaining artifact or heavenly treasure, one could only wait for one’s internal energy to recover naturally.

But such recovery was far slower than consumption. Just imagine: if an illusionist or a swordsman could possess an endless supply of spiritual illusion energy or sword qi, what a terrifying opponent that would be!

And the girl before it seemed to be exactly such a person...

The five-tailed fire fox found it hard to believe what it was seeing. It had deliberately unleashed its solar true flame to entangle Shen Duo, while refraining from acting itself, simply to test this girl’s limits.

The result left it astonished. Although the girl was wounded in many places and her illusionist robe was nearly ruined beyond recognition, the fighting spirit in her eyes still blazed high, and the sword qi on her long sword had not dwindled for a single moment. On the contrary, through her relentless struggle it had grown even richer. More terrifying still, it could feel that within this harsh battlefield, the girl’s strength was slowly, steadily increasing!

At first, it had suspected she carried some energy-storage artifact. But aside from the sword in her hand, which was indeed an artifact, it could not detect any other.

Suddenly, the red fox extended a paw. The fireballs surrounding Shen Duo seemed to answer its call as they gathered into one mass, then flew back to the fox’s body, merging with the flames around it.

Shen Duo leaned on her sword, panting hard, staring at the five-tailed fire fox not far away. She could not understand why, when she was already on the verge of collapse, this fox had chosen to stop.

Burns covered her body. The skin on her arms, back, and thighs had turned black and was bleeding. At a glance, Shen Duo looked like a figure drenched in blood.

With a few light steps, the fiery red fox came to stand before her. Beside this enormous creature, Shen Duo did not even reach half its height.

She had already considered it: if this fox truly intended to kill her at this moment, she would instantly shift to another plane together with Ben Yi!

No matter what, preserving her life came first.