The slash of black light that Feng Qi sent out wasn't sharp—it was more like a crushing mountain.
The black glow surged into the sky and slammed straight into the floating energy structure.
It was like smashing an egg against a wall—the compressed black light burst apart and spread outward with a bang.
But the energy structure didn't come out unscathed. It began to tremble violently, and its previously stable internal energy structure twisted and warped.
The whole structure started collapsing at a speed visible to the naked eye. Everything stored inside the energy building tumbled out along with its destruction.
That included the altar—and the little girl on it.
As the structure fully collapsed, the energy conduits that had been connected to it snapped like tightened cords suddenly cut loose, jerking and retracting in all directions.
Feng Qi was dragged forward by inertia, sliding over twenty meters before stabilizing his stance.
When he looked up, he saw three floating ghost-type figures in the sky.
Their gazes locked. Feng Qi grinned viciously.
Before they could move, he twisted his body and slashed at the sky again.
That swing leapt like a flood dragon breaking out of the sea. The sonic boom was like the dragon's roar, and the black energy arced into the sky, forming a crescent slash.
The three ghostly figures still held their triangle formation, palms connected—they couldn't break formation in time. They could only stare as the slash closed in.
Boom!
The three figures exploded at once, turning into a gentle blue rain falling all around.
Feng Qi remained in his slashing stance, panting heavily.
The power of the Demon Blade was beyond question.
Its only flaw... was that it was too damn heavy. Swinging it full-force nearly threw out his back.
"That's not my flaw. It's your flaw."
Feng Qi: …
That line from the Demon Blade hit right where it hurt.
Totally just calling him weak in a roundabout way.
Standing up straight again, Feng Qi hoisted the Demon Blade back onto his shoulder and looked ahead.
The collapsed structure was still breaking down, like a blooming flower spewing out points of light in every direction.
At the center of the energy burst, a little girl with gray hair was staring at him cautiously, her eyes full of fear and confusion.
"Is that her?"
"That's the one."
Confirmed by the Demon Blade, Feng Qi stepped forward and reached out with his left hand to pick up the girl from the crumbling wreckage.
"Ah."
The girl suddenly pointed anxiously back into the collapsing ruins.
Curious, Feng Qi stepped two paces forward to where she pointed and kicked apart a crumbling pile of debris.
Beneath it was a tattered gray straw hat.
Realizing this was what the girl wanted, Feng Qi picked it up and gently placed it on her head.
As soon as the hat touched down, the little girl visibly relaxed, no longer flailing nervously.
"Can you talk?" Feng Qi asked.
But the girl just looked at him, still scared and confused, saying nothing.
Feng Qi switched through several different domain languages, but she didn't respond to any of them. She just kept that same timid, dazed look.
"This little one probably never received any formal education. Looks like the ghosts were raising her like a sacrifice. They only cared about something specific in her, not about teaching her how to grow properly."
The Demon Blade's guess matched what Feng Qi was thinking.
Carrying the girl, Feng Qi hoisted the Demon Blade again and started walking west.
He planned to leave this domain field as soon as possible.
The war was over, but the ghost army would be back soon. Once they arrived, getting out would be a lot harder.
Feng Qi wasn't afraid of fighting ghost-type creatures, but against a massive ghost army... he was self-aware enough to know when to retreat.
The smartest move now was to get out fast.
Along the way, the little girl remained tense, occasionally glancing back toward the collapsed energy structure, eyes still full of confusion.
A gust of wind blew past. She reached up to press her straw hat down and peeked cautiously at Feng Qi.
…
Half a year later.
In front of a waterfall deep in the mountains and forests—
Water thundered down from the peak, crashing into the stream below.
Feng Qi, shirtless, stood beneath the waterfall, swinging the Demon Blade.
Two thousand swings a day—that was the training regimen he had set for himself.
It was how he was improving his control over the Demon Blade.
He'd chosen the waterfall for a reason: the pressure limited his swing speed and strength, making it an excellent resistance training method.
After a long while, his practice ended. Feng Qi stepped out of the torrent.
Upstream, a little girl in a straw hat stood on a red boulder, holding a sharpened wooden spear, spearing fish falling with the current.
Her expression was tense with focus, but her strikes were precise.
The boulder beneath her was already piled with fish.
When she saw Feng Qi walking out of the waterfall, her face lit up with a smile. She called out loudly—
"Boss!"
Feng Qi nodded.
He stopped at the pile of branches nearby. A slight tremor ran through the Demon Blade, and a thin stream of black seeped from its tip, instantly igniting the firewood into a blazing campfire.
The girl ran over and dumped her catch of fish on the ground beside him.
Feng Qi picked up a stick and began skewering the fish one by one from mouth to tail, placing them over the campfire to roast.
The little girl stood quietly at his side, eyes locked onto the dancing flames.
Feng Qi reached out and rubbed her head. She immediately smiled innocently and said:
"Boss, I'm hungry."
Over the past half-year together, he had taught her how to speak human language and helped her learn how to think.
But when it came to defining their relationship, calling himself a "father" didn't feel quite right.
Since he planned to build an elite team of his own, he had the girl call him "Boss" instead.
Now, she was completely used to it.
During their travels, Feng Qi had asked the girl about her identity and why she'd ended up as a sacrifice for the ghost-type creatures.
But she had no clue.
She just said that, for as long as she could remember, she had lived in that world.
Back then, there were no ghost-type beings—only a skeleton covered in scars and wearing a straw hat who stayed by her side.
She didn't know how much time passed, but eventually, a large number of ghost-type creatures appeared in her world. They started constructing energy structures and imprisoned her.
Later, they built an altar beside her. From time to time, they came to activate it, extracting power from within her.
All of this was described by the girl after she'd learned to speak.
Her memories didn't seem short—she might already be over ten years old. But for most of her life, she'd lived in confusion and solitude, even mistaking the ghost-type creatures for family.
Based on her account, Feng Qi could more or less piece together what happened.
Her story was somewhat similar to that of the Mist Lord.
Since the girl was the original inhabitant of that domain field, she must have come from the Path to the Heavens.
It seemed that before her kind migrated to the human world, they had encountered a warrior from the Path to the Heavens. In the end, only one warrior survived, carrying the infant girl into the human world.
But due to his grave injuries, that warrior eventually died. The girl, still just a baby, ended up growing up alone in that domain field.
As for how an infant could survive without care, Feng Qi didn't find it strange.
The offspring of domain creatures—especially those of high-potential species—were born with extremely robust bodies, nothing like the fragile physique of humans. Even as infants, they could survive by instinct alone.
According to her, whenever she was hungry, she would eat the wildflowers that grew everywhere. That had been her only food.
As for why the ghost-type creatures showed up...
That was easy to explain. In the domain world, racial migration was almost a tradition.
When a race was defeated or overwhelmed, in order to preserve their legacy, the survivors would choose to flee.
Most likely, the ghost-type beings were a once-powerful race that had been crushed by invaders. After abandoning their homeland, they wandered for a long time.
By sheer luck, they discovered the unclaimed domain field where the girl lived—and decided to settle there.
That's when they discovered the girl's unique constitution and began trying to extract her power through some special method.
Of course, all this was just Feng Qi's theory, pieced together from what he had seen and the fragments the girl provided.
The real truth had likely been buried along with the warrior's corpse long ago.
The fire crackled, and the wood popped as it burned.
Feng Qi handed over a perfectly grilled fish.
"Xiao You, eat."
That was the name he gave her.
He'd found her in a domain field overrun by ghost-type creatures.
"Ahem... stole me."
Feng Qi: …
Thirty-eight grilled fish—gone in no time between Feng Qi and Xiao You.
After lunch, Feng Qi walked to the lakeside and began washing Xiao You's hair.
She obediently lowered her head, staring at her reflection in the water, feeling like this whole past half-year had been a dream.
The endless pain was gone. The crushing loneliness was gone. She had someone beside her now.
It was a strange feeling—a deep sense of belonging.
She turned to look at Feng Qi behind her.
"Boss!"
"What is it?"
"Just calling you."
"Oh. Turn back around. I haven't finished rinsing."
"Okay, Boss." With that, Xiao You turned her head back, behaving like a model student.
While washing her hair, Feng Qi was deep in thought.
How should he help Xiao You grow?
He had gained some understanding of her talent.
Inside her body was a core of ghostly green energy. It had a high degree of plasticity and was extremely high quality.
But the problem was, he didn't have a compatible cultivation method to accelerate her development.
He had considered letting her try the Blood Refinement method developed by the Mist Lord, but during testing, Xiao You's body had shown signs of rejection. Forcing her to cultivate it would only hurt her.
Clearly, her physical makeup wasn't suited for a body refinement path.
As for solving this issue, the Demon Blade had offered some ideas.
It had gone through many wielders and blade slaves, encountering various cultivation systems—among them, spiritual cultivation methods.
So for now, Xiao You would build her foundation using those methods.
But those methods were only barely compatible with Xiao You.
He had also considered using the same approach he took with Zhang Daowen—cultivating through knowledge and structured guidance—to help Xiao You grow and find her own cultivation path.
But her case was different.
Zhang Daowen had been smart since childhood, able to infer and adapt from everything he learned. Xiao You, clearly, was not like that.
Her attitude toward learning was poor. She often spaced out in the middle of lessons, staring blankly into space. When asked questions, she would suddenly blink, confused, and say:
"Boss, were you calling me?"
Training Xiao You was way harder than training Zhang Daowen.
After finishing their wash-up routine, Feng Qi resumed teaching her the foundational knowledge of the cultivation system.
She looked serious for the first ten minutes, but soon her eyes started to wander. Then came the vacant stare—spaced out again.
With such awful learning efficiency, Feng Qi had no choice but to keep nudging her back on track every few minutes.
The two of them continued living by the waterfall for another three months.
Then, just as Feng Qi was preparing to leave, he suddenly noticed ghostly green mist swirling from Xiao You's hands.
Surprised, he watched her raise both arms, carefully controlling a cloud of green energy that danced around her.
As he moved closer, Xiao You flinched in surprise, and the mist instantly dispersed.
"Xiao You, what just happened?"
She scratched her head and said, "Boss, I think... a bunch of stuff popped into my head. It's got ways to control the energy inside me."
Feng Qi's heart skipped a beat.
That's when the Demon Blade's voice echoed in his mind with a low chuckle:
"If I'm not wrong, the last surviving member of Xiao You's clan realized their legacy would vanish with their death. So, before dying, they compressed the inheritance and sealed it deep in her memory. Thanks to your care, her body has finally recovered enough to trigger its release."
"So you're saying she's got a matching cultivation method now?"
"Exactly."
Hearing that, Feng Qi was thrilled. He immediately began asking Xiao You what kind of knowledge she had in her mind.
Her explanation confirmed what the Demon Blade had said.
So, instead of leaving, Feng Qi chose to extend their stay by the waterfall, giving Xiao You time to explore and master her abilities.
The adaptable energy inside her quickly began showing its potential.
It was like threads that could be woven into tangible energy constructs.
Clothes, shoes, weapons... everything Xiao You crafted had special attributes, and their inner structures were incredibly complex.
The knowledge in her mind resembled blueprints—schematics for creating energy constructs.
In the days that followed, she crafted a purple dress and a pair of shoes for herself.
Though made of energy, they were extremely stable and didn't break down easily.
More importantly, they had built-in effects. The purple dress, for example, had an auto-guard function—it generated an energy barrier when attacked.
Her shoes had a complex formation carved into them. They greatly reduced her weight and could be activated by thought to propel her body for short-range flight.
And this was only the most basic level of energy crafting in her mind.
There were still tons of high-level blueprints waiting for her to unlock and master.
Feng Qi suddenly realized he hadn't just found a hidden treasure—he'd picked up an entire armory.
As Xiao You started learning on her own, her personality also grew brighter and more cheerful.
One day, training by the waterfall ended as usual.
When Feng Qi walked out from beneath the rushing water, carrying the Demon Blade on his shoulder, he spotted Xiao You standing on a boulder in the stream, wearing a white mask.
The mask had a red flower painted on it, one that resembled a red spider lily.
Xiao You lifted both hands, and ten threads of energy appeared at her fingertips. With a wave, they wove together in the air to form a butterfly made of pure energy. Another wave, and the butterfly fluttered forward.
"Ha!"
She suddenly pressed her palm forward. The butterflies exploded all at once, and the burst of energy sent her flying.
But she didn't fall.
Her body floated in midair, suspended above the stream.
Feng Qi's eyes widened, and he quickly asked, "Xiao You, how are you flying?"
"Boss, this new mask I made has a flight function!"
"Amazing!"
Hearing the praise, Xiao You bashfully scratched her head.
"Boss, can I help you now?"
"Not yet. Keep working hard."
Feng Qi grinned brightly. Xiao You's journey of growth had truly begun.
"Yes, Boss!" she saluted midair, standing tall in the sky.