Chapter 737: Still a Master?

Perspective shift.

Qingque stands on the back of a blue fish, one hand tucked behind, the ash‑gray long hair lifted by the airflow between the opening and closing Bubbles, a few strands drifting lightly behind the shoulder.

The teal‑green eyes shine astonishingly in the lapis‑blue light refracted by the Bubbles.

Above, the Bubbles push upward; below, the Bubbles press down, leaving a vast, pristine battlefield between the two lapis‑blue tides.

Directly ahead stands the trunk of the Golden Giant Tree, solitary between heaven and earth; its canopy is held up by the Bubbles Qingque pushes upward, its roots are crushed by the Bubbles she presses down, leaving only the thick central trunk, starkly exposed within her firepower range.

Full of vigor.

Qingque mentally pulls out this phrase and sticks it onto herself.

Just a Shuhuo, seize it, seize it.

Will we win?

She silently gathers three seconds of Qi for herself, and after that feels that the question she just asked was somewhat unnecessary.

Of course we will win.

The tone is so certain that even she herself believes it.

We've come this far: the white hair has changed, the Taixu Sword Heart has broken through, the Patrol Hunt's power has flooded in, and although the Imperial Bow wears an Aha Mask, the Light Arrow's power is genuine.

Now her whole body is covered with cards, none of which are useless.

If we lose all this, then we lose, I guess.......

She takes a deep breath of sea wind mixed with the sweet, briny scent of Abundance, reaches out and draws one of the floating jade cards before her.

The card spins once on her fingertip, a lapis‑blue glimmer leaking from its back, lighting her palm.

"First, test the water."

She snaps a finger.

The jade card, the moment it leaves her hand, transforms into a lapis‑blue streak of light, dragging a slender tail straight toward the trunk.

Mid‑flight, the streak suddenly expands, first the point of light exploding from needle‑size into a dazzling sphere, then the sphere stretches outward, pulling out the outline of a fish.

Every detail solidifies rapidly within the light.

It is not an illusion.

The previous giant whale was a light construct formed by Bubbles, its transparent skin revealing flowing light fluid; the koi before her has scales set onto its body, each scale edged with ultra‑fine golden light threads, the texture beneath each scale solid, and when the fins spread, each fin ray can be seen taut in the light.

The koi opens its massive mouth directly.

Deep in its mouth a lapis‑blue light core ignites, rotating, compressing, storing energy, then bursting out as a thrust so thick it pushes the whole fish body back half an inch, a lapis‑blue Light Pillar wrapped in spiral light patterns, solidly hammering the surface of the Golden Giant Tree trunk.

The moment the Light Pillar strikes, it erupts into a circular shockwave, the trunk trembling with fine ripples.

The bark begins to crack, fissures spreading outward from the impact point at a speed like a dried riverbed cracking under high heat.

The cracks interconnect, forming a dense spider‑web pattern; golden fragments peel from the edges, revealing a deeper‑colored wooden layer beneath.

The koi's thrust continues, the Light Pillar pushing the trunk inward inch by inch.

Lapis‑blue light blankets the trunk's surface, raising layer upon layer of ripples, golden wood shavings fluttering through the air like pollen blown by wind.

That feeling, Qingque tilts her head for a few seconds, as if digging a tunnel with a high‑pressure water gun.

She doesn't know how long has passed.

Qingque slightly furrows her brows.

No monster has been stripped from the trunk.

Earlier, when she smashed the trunk with a school of fish, the human faces on the trunk deformed on the spot, bone‑blade humanoids and centipede monsters sprang out like dumplings.

This time she blasted a large section of the opponent's bark, yet it remains quiet, not even one to come out and scold.

Something's off.

Being hit passively without retaliation—either they're out of strength or simply indifferent.

"Well, never mind."

Qingque shakes her head.

Whatever the situation, she'll just keep firing, after all her ammunition is plentiful now.

She lifts her hand and pushes forward, increasing control over the koi, her fingertips glowing a brighter lapis‑blue.

The koi's thrust thickens by a layer, the Light Pillar's spiral pattern spins faster, and the booming sound shifts from a low hum to a sharp howl.

The trunk's rate of being blasted open accelerates noticeably, the spray of fragments doubles in range, and the excavated cavity grows from a "tunnel entrance" to a "meteor crater" size, exposing layer after layer of tree rings.

The golden tree rings are tightly packed, each ring's spacing varying, resembling a geological cross‑section compressed over billions of years.

Qingque squints at the deepening cavity, a leisurely curve at the corner of her mouth.

One hand still behind her back, her stance relaxed, her toe lightly tapping a rhythm on the fish's back.

She feels she has entered a relatively comfortable rhythm; as long as the opponent stays still, she'll keep blasting until the trunk snaps—simple, brutal, effective.

Alert.

A subtle perception creeps up from the back of her neck.

The Sword Heart transmits a non‑translatable signal directly to her brain.

The signal's intensity jumps from yellow to red within a fraction of a second; she instinctively darts to the left, moving so fast a after‑image lingers behind, her ash‑gray hair flung by inertia before being pulled back, and she ends up several dozen zhang away.

A blade of light.

A blade of light thousands of meters long slashes diagonally from the direction of the trunk's cavity, cutting through where she just stood.

Where the blade passes, the air tears, forming a visible vacuum fissure; its edges swirl with golden‑red ember, igniting all surrounding Bubbles.

The sound of Bubbles bursting mixes with the roar of air rushing back, tightening Qingque's eardrums.

She looks back at her koi.

The koi that was still firing its thrust is now split vertically down the middle into two halves.

The two fish bodies slowly separate to each side, the cut smooth and glossy enough to reflect light.

The fish body's cross‑section was still oozing azure‑colored luminous fluid, scales peeled off one by one from the cut edge, falling into the Bubbles below.

The two fish bodies disintegrated into light as they fell, like two meteor showers raining down at the same time.

Qingque's eyes widened.

Another master?

She snapped her head toward the direction of the tree trunk.

In the massive deep pit blasted out by the koi, between the layered patterns of the tree rings, a tall figure was walking out from inside the tree trunk.

With each step, the surrounding tree rings were scorched in a ring by the aura emanating from his body, turning from gold to dark red, then from dark red to charred black.

When he fully emerged from the pit, exposed to the azure light, Qingque finally saw the whole form of this thing.

Its body was humanoid, its height roughly two to three times that of a normal adult man.