Volume 2, Chapter 38 – Copy

Blinding sword-light burst through the darkness—before her body had even fully turned, Bai Xiang drew ‘Feixiang Heaven’ and swung the blade toward Yu He’s face.

“Hm?” Yu He’s expression changed. He hastily hopped back a step to dodge, squawking, “What are you doing?!”

Bai Xiang held the sword in her right hand, its tip hanging in the air and pointed straight at Yu He. At the same time, she slid her left thumb across the screen, and immediately heard Yu He’s booming voice coming from the device.

[Where are you? Where are you?]

[This is messed up. How’d you disappear just while I went to pee?]

“I’m on the fourth floor,” Bai Xiang said.

“There’s another you right across from me.”

[…] The Yu He on the other end fell silent at once, goosebumps prickling all over his body.

[You haven’t noticed anything wrong?]

Bai Xiang carefully studied the face of the “Yu He” opposite her and replied, “Not yet.”

“We even chatted while we were coming up the stairs. He answered a few things I’m pretty sure only you would know.”

[…] [Wait for me to get up there!] Yu He’s face on the other end changed. [Whatever you do, hold the line!]

With a sharp “clang!”, metal rang out in the darkness.

Bai Xiang dropped the phone onto the floor—there was a case on it, it wasn’t going to break—and gripped her sword to block a slanting flash of cold light. In the darkness, she saw an old face looming closer and closer.

It really was Yu He’s face, but his eyes were a bloody red, his mouth twisted in a strange smile. Most of his body was submerged in shadow, and in his hand he held a sword drawn from inside his walking stick.

So it had copied not just his looks and build, but even his belongings.

Bai Xiang stared at the details of the sword’s hilt—it looked exactly like the head of that cane.

“That’s not me!” Red-eyed Yu He let out a cruel grin, his teeth grinding audibly. “That’s not me… that’s not me!!”

“Zheng!” Bai Xiang shoved him away with a single stroke.

His strength was nowhere near hers. Shoved aside, he staggered wildly and tumbled backward.

But suddenly—just as his body fully fell into the shadows, another him sprang out of the darkness behind Bai Xiang, sword hacking toward her as he bellowed, “That’s not me—!!!”

“Zheng—!!!”

Reαԁ οո ΚαtRеаⅾіոɡСafe

Bai Xiang didn’t even turn. She simply raised her sword upright in front of her, closed her eyes, and snapped her wrist in a sword-vibration. A harsh, restless hum surged out from the blade, and in the narrow corridor its effect was only amplified!

“Puff!” The shadow let out a muffled grunt of pain, as if it had slammed into an invisible wall of air, and was flung backward.

So Shenming really did have a restraining effect on a Demon Pool.

Once Bai Xiang confirmed the hit, she relaxed a little. She spun around quickly, bringing her other hand up onto the hilt mid-motion. Her left leg slid forward in a crossing step, and she raised ‘Feixiang Heaven’ high overhead, bringing it down in a vertical cut at the retreating enemy!

Boom!

She put seventy percent of her strength into that blow.

As the blade came over her head, blood-colored Qi miasma coiled around her body. As it fell, the miasma flowed toward the edge, almost dyeing the sword completely red.

She’d thought that swing would finish it, but to her surprise she saw—the falling shadow also seemed to take up a vertical guard posture. In the next instant, a cicada-sword hum echoed from that direction too!

Squelch!

Bai Xiang’s sword cut right into that wave of sound. The sword Qi stroked down from the top of the shadow’s head, splitting it cleanly in two and turning it into two black, writhing, shapeless masses.

Once split, the two blobs reformed into human silhouettes. One turned back into Yu He; the other transformed directly into Bai Xiang.

A perfect match—not only the face and robe, but even ‘Feixiang Heaven’ was indistinguishable from the outside.

“That’s not me… that’s not me…”

The newly formed “Yu He” kept up the same stupidity as before, sword upright and aimed at Bai Xiang, head shaking violently as he muttered like an epileptic.

“You’re not me… you’re not me…”

The fake “Bai Xiang” was the same, the only difference being the pronoun. She too shook her head frantically, sword in hand as she drew closer to Bai Xiang.

Sure enough, it was much like what she’d encountered before. A Demon Pool that hadn’t broken through the threshold of true wisdom wouldn’t have real intelligence.

Bai Xiang’s brows relaxed slightly.

Even if this Demon Pool could talk, those weren’t words from a conscious mind.

In other words, whether it was playing pranks, killing Zhao Shuyuan, or impersonating Yu He to attack her—everything was just the Demon Pool’s instinct.

“Ee-ya!”

The Yu He-copy lunged forward, sword in hand. Halfway through the swing, a burst of bloody Demonic Aura exploded from the cane-sword, condensing out of thin air into a giant sword outline as big as a door.

Reaⅾ oո KαtRеaⅾіnɡСαfe

“Clang!”

Bai Xiang raised her sword to block the strike. She stopped it, but frowned in the next heartbeat. Her wrist snapped again, sending the Qi miasma along the blade slashing diagonally out, colliding mid-air with the enormous phantom sword that had torn free of the cane blade and was flying straight for her face.

“Zheng!”

Her wrist turned again for another block—this time intercepting a strike from “herself.”

The same face, the same white hair flowing. Only one face was still cold and pretty; the other had red eyes and bared teeth.

For some reason, this Bai Xiang-copy was clearly weaker than the Yu He-copy. With a casual parry she knocked the blade aside, and with another vibration sent it flying backward. It hit the wall and shattered into shadow.

“Being able to show me another expression on this face is worth a bit of praise.”

Bai Xiang murmured under her breath.

“But I’m not that easy to copy, am I?”

She’d already sensed it from that earlier Shenming. This copy of herself was all surface and no substance. Inside, it was nothing like the real her.

It didn’t have Bai Xiang’s mental-flow circulation diagram, and it didn’t have her unique blood-colored Qi miasma. The ‘Feixiang Heaven’ it had condensed carried only pure Demonic Power, completely inferior in quality to sword Qi.

As long as you stepped into the Demon Pool’s range of influence, you could be copied. It was a very fascinating Demon Pool.

Bai Xiang thought back to the conversation she’d had with “Yu He” on the stairs, and the fact that Yu He had never shown any sword skills at all, yet the Demon Pool could still use those two “giant sword phantoms.”

So it could copy memories too…

Then I know how Zhao Shuyuan got hacked to death by his own sword.

If this were only about copying appearances, Bai Xiang wouldn’t have solved it so fast. But since memories were involved, then the soul was definitely part of it.

It was just that her soul was special. The Demon Pool couldn’t see her insides clearly.

Even if it simulated Bai Xiang and copied out her “shadow,” it still couldn’t grasp the essence of her fighting style.

Gurgle gurgle…

After the Bai Xiang-copy shattered, it scattered again into writhing black shadow, which quickly flowed onto the Yu He-copy and condensed once more. This time, Yu He and the shadow together morphed into Zhao Shuyuan.

Zhao Shuyuan also approached with a trembling sword, muttering, “Get out of Great Yu… get out of Great Yu…”

Rеαd oո ΚαtReaԁinɡCаfе

“Hm?”

Bai Xiang frowned.

Was that copied too?

“Get out! Get out!!!”

Zhao Shuyuan charged her with his wooden sword, his whole body shrouded in the phantom Aspect of a “horned deer.” As his sword cleaved down, the horned deer phantom bowed its antlers with it, taking on a savage posture as if it meant to rip Bai Xiang open.

She’d just about felt out its bottom line…

Faintly hearing footsteps, Bai Xiang did the opposite of what you’d expect—facing the oncoming Demon Pool, she closed her eyes.

In the next moment, just as the blade was about to cross into her defensive ring, she opened them again—two beams of golden light flaring in her yellow irises.

With her soul powering her up, the entire corridor changed in her eyes. It wasn’t concrete at all. From floor to walls… the entire building’s interior was overlaid with a layer of shadow, writhing and quivering like a living thing!

“Cover your ears!”

Yu He had barely stepped into the corridor when he heard his teammate’s warning. He reacted instantly, clapping his hands over his ears!

“Screee——!!!”

In the next instant, the world in his eyes exploded in blood-red.

A cicada demon formed entirely from blood-colored Qi miasma appeared out of nowhere in the shadows. Yu He felt his vision blur, and a terrifying wave of sound detonated along with that scarlet burst. He couldn’t even keep himself nailed in place—he was forced to slide backward step by step.

“Splurt, splurt!”

With one Shenming slash, the sword Qi roared from the fourth floor through the entire bare concrete building. The Demon Pool’s writhing shadows were shredded by invisible sword Qi, and large swaths of walls and floor were carved apart along with them.

The fourth-floor corridor in particular was a disaster zone, hacked into a chaotic mess, dust raining constantly from the ceiling.

“Bzz~”

Flicking the sword edge once, Bai Xiang used vibration force to knock away the falling dust. Then she stepped slowly out of the shadow and bent to pick the phone up from the floor.

“Cough, cough, cough—what the hell did you just do, cough, cough???”

Yu He glared at her through the ringing in his ears, then seemed to realize something. “It’s done?”

“Yes.”

Reαⅾ on КаtReаⅾiոɡСafе

Bai Xiang nodded.

No one could be more certain than she was. She could clearly feel that as she cut down the ghost-shadow Demon Pool, a surge of extremely pure Demonic Power was being drawn into ‘Feixiang Heaven,’ converted into brand-new blood-colored sword Qi.

As expected.

Demon Pools were a much more suitable “food” for her to devour.

Her soul ability was practically made to counter Demon Pool phantom-gods. Killing them was easy and effortless, and the Demonic Power she devoured and converted was much greater. One was worth a dozen outer-ring demon beasts.

Most importantly, there was no diminishing return.

That meant the Demonic Power from Demon Pools really was purer.

While she was still summarizing her gains, Yu He was in shock.

That fast… Had even a minute passed since I came up to the fourth floor?

No, how could you brute-force a weird-type Demon Pool like this?

What exactly did you do?

“Hm?”

Just as he was about to ask for details, Yu He suddenly frowned and, together with Bai Xiang, turned his head toward the doorway.

The bare building had no windows, so sounds from outside passed in easily. Both of them heard the clanking of metal, like a car had carefully nosed open the sheet-metal gate and slipped inside as quietly as possible.

“At a time like this?” Yu He frowned. “Is it Jinshui Construction?”

I don’t think so.

Sheathing her sword, Bai Xiang thought back to what “Zhao Shuyuan” had been muttering earlier.

Even if it was just a copied puppet shadow, that had still been his obsession in life.

“Leave Great Yu”… foreigners?

Moving quickly into a small room, Bai Xiang and Yu He stood together at the window and looked down, just in time to see a dark-blue sedan pull up downstairs and two men in suits step out.