White River City, the sunken-ship graveyard north of the docks.

On the deck of a wreck that had been wrenched up out of the seabed by the Reverse-Surge Bubble, its broken hull jutting high above the waterline, a web powerful enough to bind a true dragon held a woman in white pinned fast. She was the prey Water Spider had finally captured after deploying two of her signature techniques — Liuye, the Pure Maiden from the Dragon-Soaring Continent on the Sky Tower’s first level.

The enemy struggled as helplessly as an insect caught in a web.

At the sight, Water Spider burst into gleeful, triumphant laughter.

“Little bug, hahaha, I think you finally understand the gap between us, don’t you? No matter how much courage you’ve got, there was never any way you could beat me. To take down a little bug like you, I only need one finger — hah, just one finger is more than enough to grind that little body of yours to powder.” Water Spider drifted down lightly, all arrogance, to hover in front of the bound Liuye, looking down at her with contempt. She slowly extended one finger, the nail stained a deep purple-black, and tilted it mockingly under Liuye’s chin.

“You really are a formidable opponent, to me.” Liuye admitted it plainly, but held her ground all the same. “But there’s one thing you’ve got wrong. With the courage to face death without flinching, faith as unshakable as a mountain, and wisdom as bright as the dawn — victory can arrive like a miracle.”

“A miracle?” Water Spider froze for a beat, then burst out laughing.

Ha ha ha ha ha…

She doubled over laughing.

She couldn’t stop, laughing until tears practically welled up in her eyes.

Once Water Spider finally managed to choke down her laughter, she forced herself into mock seriousness and nodded at Liuye. “Go on then, let’s see this so-called miracle of yours! I’m genuinely looking forward to it. Ahaha, sorry, I really can’t help myself — you have no idea, I’ve never in my whole life heard a joke this funny. A miracle? There are no miracles in this world. Only strength.”

“There are miracles in this world. They just won’t be landing on you.” Liuye’s expression stayed just as resolute.

“Oh really? Hahahaha, fine, fine, hurry up and let your miracle arrive then, I really want to see exactly how a miracle is supposed to happen!” Water Spider made an exaggerated “go ahead” gesture, then asked with false concern, “Does the little miracle girl need me to let her out of the net first?”

Before Liuye could even answer, Water Spider was off laughing again.

Finally, that purple-black fingernail flicked, seemingly by accident, across one of Liuye’s fingers.

Once the cut was made, Water Spider put on a show of deep regret, apologizing over and over. “Oh, my apologies, I was just so eager to see this miracle that I wasn’t careful and nicked the back of your hand. Don’t worry, it’s not a big cut — as long as you can survive venom potent enough to kill a hundred full-grown mammoths, you should be just fine in no time. Come on, never mind the wound and the venom, let’s get to the miracle already. Oh, and if you can hold out against venom that’ll dissolve your internal organs to liquid within five minutes, I suppose I’ll grant that your miracle arrived… haha, still looking forward to it, though!”

Water Spider studied Liuye the way a mother jackal might study a newborn lamb.

Her eyes brimmed with contempt and mockery.

And with killing intent.

Within seconds, as if she couldn’t wait to savor her prize, she started taunting Liuye again. “So? Has your so-called miracle arrived yet? Or do you need to warm up first? Fine, if you beg me loudly enough, I might consider letting you out of the net so you can properly prepare for your big miracle!”

“That won’t be necessary.”

Liuye shook her head gently. “He’s always taught me that when facing a bad person, there’s no need to give them a chance — better to kill them the moment you can, root and stem, so there’s no trouble down the line. But my heart’s still too soft. I always like to give people one chance, especially when it’s another woman.”

Water Spider’s jaw dropped. She actually dug at her ear in disbelief. “Did I hear that right? You’re giving me a chance?”

Liuye’s expression hardened, and she let out a stern huff. “That chance has already been given. You’re an enemy beyond redemption now. I won’t hold back a second time.”

That set Water Spider off completely.

A chance?

Holding back?

Who was giving whom a chance here, who was holding back on whom?

Was this Liuye still half-asleep and dreaming? Fury surged up in Water Spider in an instant. Her left hand curled into a claw, laced with vicious venom, and she tore it straight at Liuye’s soft, delicate little face. With other women — especially beautiful ones who’d crossed her — Water Spider rarely let them die easily. She liked to torment them thoroughly, dragging it out until they broke down and begged for mercy, only finishing them off once she’d savored every moment of the slow kill. And when she was in a particularly bad mood, like now, she made exceptions — finding ways to keep her victims from dying for as long as possible, leaving them to suffer worse than death until their bodies simply gave out.

For having successfully provoked her, Water Spider decided this Liuye would die a hundred times, a thousand times more painfully than anyone else.

Her claw whistled through the air.

Tearing forward.

Had it connected with that soft, delicate little face, it would have left nothing but mangled flesh and blood.

In the next instant, just as Water Spider braced herself to savor her enemy’s agonized screams, the sure thing suddenly went wrong. The claw tearing toward Liuye swept through empty air.

Liuye — bound just a moment ago in the web — had vanished, inexplicably.

Water Spider would have sworn that even someone of national-ruler-class Sky-rank strength would need real effort to break free of her web.

Unless she ran out of fresh webbing to reinforce it, not even a national-ruler-class fighter could easily slip free of the Dragon-Binding Net. This was, after all, the most prized of her life’s techniques — the Dragon-Binding Net, the Reverse-Surge Bubble, and her venomous Spider Toxin, the three signature techniques she was proudest of in her entire life. How could an enemy possibly escape it? And vanish without a trace, no less?

Liuye now stood lightly atop the shattered figurehead at the bow of the wreck.

Beside her was a new addition: the Barrier-Piercing Deer.

It was a shame Water Spider didn’t recognize it — if she had, she never would have tried using a binding, confinement-type technique against Liuye in the first place. With the Barrier-Piercing Deer and her synchronized one-body transfer ability, short of an absolute domain conjured by genuine divine will, there was no way to hold Liuye in place, let alone confine her for any length of time.

From the very first day she’d begun training under Yue Yang, Liuye had been destined to become the most elusive presence on any battlefield.

Lighter than the wind.

Faster than light.

Wherever her will could reach, no obstacle — no matter what kind, no matter what space needed crossing — could ever stand in the way of this girl who’d trained so diligently under Yue Yang.

“Trying to run?” Water Spider, beside herself with fury, lunged forward in a wild frenzy, claw slashing through empty air.

“You’re overestimating yourself.” Liuye’s figure vanished and reappeared ten thousand meters away, landing — without any perceptible gap in time — on the back of her life-guardian war beast, the Barrier-Piercing Deer. With synchronized transfer, no matter how fast or how far the deer ran, its master arrived right alongside it, faster than space and time themselves. If Liuye wanted to, she could transfer back and forth ten times, even a hundred times, before Water Spider ever closed the distance.

“AAAAH—” Water Spider shrieked, completely losing control. She lunged at Liuye again and again, but no matter how fast she moved, she couldn’t so much as graze the hem of her clothes.

Only now did she truly grasp how fast this Liuye actually was.

Fast enough to outrun thought itself.

As long as that deer was with her, there was no way to ever catch this irritating human woman.

Attack after attack came up empty, until Water Spider was left gasping for breath, unable to even brush Liuye’s skirt.

Faced with this enemy watching her so coldly, Water Spider shrieked in a fit of rage. “Don’t get cocky! No matter how fast you run, you’re already dead! My venom’s in you now, there’s no saving you — in less than a minute, your skin will look perfectly fine on the outside, but your organs and bones will have melted to liquid inside! And when that happens, I’m going to enjoy a wonderful feast, drain you dry, and keep that pretty skin of yours as my trophy!”

“I’m sorry, but that’s not going to happen.” Liuye held up the smooth, pale, jade-like back of her hand — the small cut Water Spider had pretended to accidentally make earlier had vanished without a trace.

Under Water Spider’s disbelieving stare, a ball of white light rose up in Liuye’s palm.

Wrapped inside that white light was a writhing patch of purple-black, spider-shaped venom.

As the white light flickered in Liuye’s hand, that thoroughly repulsive spider-shaped stain dissolved like snow falling into fire, melting away until nothing remained.

Liuye explained calmly, “Now it’s my turn to apologize to you, Water Spider. Sorry to disappoint, but I have the Barrier-Piercing Deer, which ignores every obstacle there is, and a purification gift that can cleanse any poison or curse. With your level of strength, there’s no method you could use that would let you defeat me. If anything, if I wanted to beat you, it would only take moving one finger.”

The moment she finished speaking, she and the deer had already appeared behind Water Spider.

Water Spider finally understood fear.

This Liuye was nothing less than her natural-born nemesis.

If she didn’t flee now, she was finished today. Terrified, Water Spider shot skyward, streaking toward White River City like a bolt of lightning, hoping to put as much distance as possible between herself and the graveyard, race back to the city, and get help from her allies.

But to Liuye, that lightning-fast escape looked about as pitiful as a tortoise crawling along.

The Barrier-Piercing Deer and synchronized transfer completely ignored space and distance.

She caught up in an instant.

Liuye cut Water Spider off, blocking her path, and gently pressed one slender, pale finger against the center of her forehead.

The touch carried no offensive force whatsoever — and yet Water Spider began trembling in agony, as if something of boundless power were steadily dissolving her body from within.

Water Spider shuddered, a poisonous black mist billowing out from her body, wrapping around her entirely in an attempt to shield herself. That terrifying black mist eventually coalesced into a grotesque, oversized spider shape. But even wrapped in that spider-form mist for protection, Water Spider immediately realized that the more violently she stirred up her venom, the more agonizing pain it caused her.

From the single finger Liuye held lightly raised, a faint white light emanated.

That light was exceedingly weak, barely perceptible.

And yet the spider-shaped venomous mist recoiled from it like a tiger fearing fire, dissolving away in great chunks at the slightest contact.

“This is a purification domain I’ve only recently come to understand. Since it’s not yet mature, right now it only works on a single target at a time. But that doesn’t change its nature — within my purification domain, anything negative, whether poison, curse, or malicious intent, gets restored back to its original, purified state. If you were a kind, good-hearted person, it would have no effect on you whatsoever. But the more negativity you carry, the more powerful its cleansing effect becomes. So you’d better hope you haven’t done too many terrible things.” The young woman explained it all calmly, then turned to leave.

“Mercy! Spare me!” Water Spider realized even her soul was steadily being purified, and sheer terror scattered what remained of her composure. She screamed, begging for her life over and over.

“Actually, this is a chance at a new beginning. Someone else has already gone through this same kind of cleansing — a complete rebirth, body and soul remade. She’s nearly cleared away every trace of negativity from her body and found herself a beautiful new life. As for you, I hope you can have a new beginning just like hers.” Liuye walked away without looking back, riding off on the Barrier-Piercing Deer, leaving only one calm, resolute sentence trailing on the wind: “And one more thing — you asked me earlier what a miracle was. Here’s my answer. This is what a miracle looks like.”

(End of Chapter)