She had come.

She had come!

Across the vast reach of water an unbroken sound rose from conch to conch, and along with it heavy, hurried breathing.

When the Crimson-Eyed Mysterious Phoenix had been beaten to death by inches a little before, the mourning cries and the calls for rescue it let out had not stirred the least ripple beneath this stretch of water.

And yet in the instant that aged figure appeared.

It was as though the whole stretch of water had come to a boil.

The figures hidden in it seemed never to have imagined that Su Hongxiu would truly come to this place in person.

And come so quickly, and in a state so weak.

She was like a madwoman; in that sword-heart there had never been a single one of the common man's misgivings.

“Seventh Dragon Grandson?”

The old turtle demon that matched the White Jade Capital held its conch and sent word — and discovered suddenly that even its fingertips were trembling.

Though it had been the first great general under Ke the Seventh's hand, and had built the whole turtle army with its own hands besides, Wu Rongbao's feelings still surged violently in the moment it truly saw Su Hongxiu.

There was a surging stretch of water still between it and that woman.

Tension and excitement wove together, and the momentum of this old turtle began to climb layer upon layer.

Wu Rongbao had never dreamed that with its birth and its strength it would ever have a chance to cross hands with a Heaven-Sword Sect Dao-son — that it would even have a chance to cut the other down with its own hands!

“Seal off the waters. Not the least word is to get out.”

Ke the Seventh's voice came through the conch, forcing itself calm, a thread of trembling faintly audible in it.

Even for a Nanhong dragon grandson, the price of striking at a Dao-son was on no account something it could bear; but by the same measure, the merit of cutting a Dao-son down was enough to lift it clear…