Volume 1, Chapter 61 – Shenming

“Vile beast!”

With Huang Qian’s roar, Bai Xiang flashed sideways in an instant.

Dodging, she tried to read the shadow—only to see a big bug with a sandy-yellow carapace, plump and pudgy to the point of ungainly!

Over a meter tall and nearly three meters long, its carapace was smooth and translucent; belly fat and back broad; two pairs of spined, bladed fore-claws at the front; beneath the face a sharp long proboscis folded against the chest.

A tick, or a mole cricket?

No—more like… a cicada nymph?

The giant bug missed its pounce and hadn’t even landed when a broad-bladed war sword came down behind it. With a wet “puch,” the blade smashed deep; colorless, transparent bug-blood sprayed; its body collapsed by half and it lost all ability to move.

Couldn’t take even one strike from Huang Qian—this thing didn’t look formidable.

But neither Bai Xiang nor Huang Qian felt at ease, because it was obvious—one bug alone couldn’t have caused a tremor of that scale just now.

Rumble…

The tremor was even intensifying!

Shff!

A few meters ahead, the soil heaved open again, and an identical bug leapt out.

Shff shff shff!

And it kept happening all around! Yellow-brown carapaced bugs of all sizes kept boring up through the earth—more and more of them! In just a few blinks there were hundreds piled up, carpeting a patch of open ground!

They seemed to have no vocal organs; once out, they made no sound at all—heads all aimed at the pair in the middle, surging at them in a massed charge.

“Get behind me!” Huang Qian bellowed. “Cut our way out and link up with the others!”

At a crisis, he couldn’t hold anything back. A ring of red light rippled over the broad-bladed war sword, half-encircling his body, and out of thin air took shape as a three-meter-tall nightmare horse in armor with a black mane!

Demon Pool! Eight-Plated Nightmare Horse!

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Neigh—!

Before Bai Xiang’s eyes, Huang Qian suddenly withdrew the sword, gripped it two-handed point-down, and stabbed it into the ground. The nightmare-horse phantom shrouding him reared and slammed its forehooves down—triggering a violent cave-in!

This is—

Bai Xiang’s eyes widened.

Right… with so many bugs all coming up from underground, it meant they’d dug a network of tunnels; the strata were wrecked and riddled!

Now was exactly when a ground-shocking Demon Pool art would shine!

She wasn’t slow, already running with Huang Qian to the clearing’s edge. The loamy ground around them collapsed at speed, forming a hundred-meter sink of flowing soil that dragged the yellow-brown bugs down with it.

But it only slowed the encirclement briefly. Countless bugs flipped over and scrambled up the sides, locking onto them and giving ruthless chase!

And that wasn’t the worst.

Worse still… as the two sprinted through the giant trees, every footfall into soil and grass found the ground strangely loose beneath—as if earthworms had churned through everything.

Shff shff!

Bugs kept bursting up along the way.

They were everywhere!

As if this place had always been their kingdom!

“Puch!”

A few that lunged mid-run were cut apart midair by Bai Xiang’s sweeping blade.

But on her next strike, her brow twitched; the edge no longer carved straight—it traced a curve into a bug’s belly, costing just a little extra time.

What’s going on?

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She was startled, because the reason she’d done that was the bugs seemed to learn—adapting to the trajectory and angle of her previous cut.

Those two spined fore-claws were like a pair of serrated, thick-backed war swords; when they swung, there was faintly a feel of sword forms—and that feel was strangely familiar!

Suddenly, the earth bulged hard before her. A giant bug over four meters long burst out, fore-claws hacking at her as it came!

Clang! Clang!

Bai Xiang’s charge was checked for the moment; she met the claws midair for a few exchanges, then coolly slipped past its guard—one thrust to pierce the head.

But just then! The giant bug sprang back on its legs. Not only did it narrowly dodge the thrust, it reared most of its bulk up, pressed both claws upright to its chest, and struck a bizarre pose…!?

“Only Regret Summer Is Short”?

Bai Xiang’s mind flashed to a strange form from the Shenming Sword. Before she could react, the giant bug’s body began to keen.

Vmm—~~~~~!!!

Its carapace and both claws vibrated at a terrifying frequency—thousands of oscillations a second. The vibrations merged into a fearsome surge that blasted outward in all directions with the giant bug at its center!

Whoosh!

Dust, pebbles, dead branches, fallen leaves—everything was hurled back and up. Bai Xiang’s thrust was forcibly arrested; the shock pressed her out of the air and drove her to brace hard against the ground just to hold her stance.

A great wave rose in her heart. She locked her gaze on the bug standing proudly ahead, dissecting every cut its claws had made—assembling in her mind a unique sword art.

This was the Shenming Sword!

So that’s how the Shenming Sword is used?

Summer insects cannot speak of ice…

Only Regret Summer Is Short… Only Regret Summer Is Short!!!

Vmm—~~~!

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Vmm vmm—~~~~!!

The giant bug’s drone was like a bugle for the charge. At once, every bug in the woods stopped, reared up, and, imitating it, set their carapaces trembling together.

The result was terrifying… even Huang Qian—his Demon Pool true form, the “Eight-Plated Nightmare Horse,” condensed with effort—shattered in an instant before the gathered surge. He was blown bodily backward, slammed into a tree, and crashed down!

“Puh!”

Blood hissed from between Huang Qian’s teeth. When he landed, he ducked behind the trunk at once—he didn’t dare take that sound-wave head-on.

Horrifying!

Middling individual strength, yet together they raised such a tide of sound! One cry to shock the heavens! A second to shake the spirit!

Unheard of… what on earth were these demon beasts?

Right—the Bai girl?

Catching a glimpse, Huang Qian saw Bai Xiang standing alone in the sound-surge, white hair whipped loose and streaming madly in midair.

What is she doing?

Take this head-on and your bones will shake to pieces!

Move! Get clear!

Vmm—~~~

Vmm vmm—~~~!!

Endless Shenming swept in from all sides, crushing Bai Xiang alone in the center, leaving not the slightest room to dodge.

At the brink of life and death, Bai Xiang braced into the roaring sound and suddenly drew back into a planted stance, blade lifted upright before her in a strange pose.

Her wrist seemed to blur.

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That was vibration.

High-frequency oscillation of forearm and wrist, carried into the gripped blade, transmitting the frequency along it.

At first, the motion was still clumsy.

The blade’s vibration was off—like a chorus of summer insects where she was the one painfully out of tune.

But gradually, as the sound-surge washed her again and again, she used the firsthand experience to feel it, to mimic it… her vibration drew closer to the bug demons’, her “call” more and more like theirs… until it was indistinguishable!

Her whole self—body and mind—and the sword in her hand, everything about her, seemed through this singular performance to merge with heaven and earth, and out of nowhere she sensed the spirit within “Shenming.”

She seemed to see a tiny bug, breaking the soil after a summer thunderstorm, climbing a trunk, shedding its shell to unfurl glorious cicada wings, and crying sharp to the summer sun!

At the first cry, wind and cloud dimmed.

At the second, mountains and beasts fell silent to listen.

It was the spirit realm of “ten thousand years is too long—seize the day.”

As if a voice rose within it to roar: I ask not to see winter—only to startle summer’s blaze!

Boom!

The vision shattered.

Bai Xiang’s awareness plunged into the starry cosmos; from the river of stars a scroll flew and unfurled before her.

She focused: upon it a wing-spread cicada demon was painted, margins crammed with inscriptions.

Countless streams of information fused in her heart and finally formed three words: The Startling-Spirit Cicada.

They became the scroll’s name.

Branded upon her heart.