The phantom of Scarlet bore down with a world-shattering force, its blood-red radiance flooding my vision with crimson. Even my breath tasted of copper and rust.

"The power of the Foundation Establishment realm....." I gritted my teeth, old man Zhang's words flashing wildly through my mind. "No — wait! Everyone from Baizhen Pavilion uses wicked pills to force their cultivation higher. Their foundations are unstable...."

Unstable foundations!

The thought struck me like a bolt of lightning splitting through fog. Scarlet may have been several realms above me, but he'd clawed his way there through corrupted pills — like stacking a tower on sand. Imposing to look at, but one good push would bring it all down. The question was: how could I exploit that flaw? My spiritual energy was under twenty percent. The dark-gold runes on the meteoric iron cutting board had gone dark. And the Wave-Breaker Saber had been blasted clean out of my grip, buried tip-first in a slab of concrete not far off.

"Ethan Lu, prepare to die!" Scarlet's voice rolled out from within the phantom, laced with manic laughter. "Once I've killed you, I'll hunt down your wife and son and render them into blood pills too — hahahaha!"

Those words punched straight through every rational thought I had. I snapped my head up. "You're the one who's dead!"

At that exact moment, the Old Man of the System's voice exploded inside my mind: "You greenhorn! Now! The incomplete manuscript of the Evil-Breaking Sword Art — I'm force-feeding it to you right now. Whether you can comprehend it is entirely on you!"

Before I could react, a vast torrent of information crashed into my sea of consciousness like a dam giving way. Pain split through my skull as though my head were about to burst. Countless insights into sword techniques, stances, and the paths of spiritual circulation blazed through my mind in a frenzy —

"The Essential Principles of the Evil-Breaking Sword Art — Clarity of heart, purity of intent, the sword points toward the unblemished; righteous energy takes form, the sword's will stands as a mountain; the Three Stances of Evil-Breaking, using righteousness to strike down corruption; the sword-heart communes with the profound, resonant with the Dao."

"First Stance: Dawn's First Light — draw upon the righteous energy of heaven and earth, condense it upon the blade, and cleave through all darkness...."

"Must be activated through a mind of solemn righteousness, in conjunction with a weapon imbued with the sword-will of the Dao Ancestor...."

"Sword-will of the Dao Ancestor.... The meteoric iron cutting board!" I jerked my gaze to the board at my feet, then to the Wave-Breaker Saber in the distance. With a single thought, the spiritual energy of the ninth layer of Qi Refinement surged out recklessly. I thrust a finger toward the saber: "Return!"

The Wave-Breaker Saber shuddered violently, wrenched itself free of the concrete, and streaked back into my hand as a bolt of blue light. In nearly the same instant, I slammed the saber down hard against the meteoric iron cutting board. Blade met board with a crystalline, resonant ring — like the cry of a dragon.

No time to think. The blood phantom was already pressing down over my head, its fetid stench nearly enough to make me retch. I drew a single deep breath and poured every fragment of understanding about "Dawn's First Light" into the board and the saber. Jade Lin's smiling face flashed through my mind. Little Chuan holding up his Ultraman cards. Old man Zhang. Uncle Hai. The weight of every expectation those elders carried for me.

I cannot die.

"Evil-Breaking Sword Art — Dawn's First Light!"

I swung with every last ounce of strength I had. There was no earth-shattering blast as I'd imagined. Only a faint thread of golden sword-light — like the very first ray of a morning sun — shot forth from where blade and board met. It moved with absolute speed. It didn't even stir the air.

The moment the blood phantom collided with that sword-light, time seemed to stop. The crimson radiance dissolved at a visible rate, as though it had met its natural nemesis. Scarlet's horrified face emerged from within the dissipating shadow, his eyes wide with disbelief: "Impossible — what technique is this?!"

Thud.

The sword-light pierced through the phantom. It pierced through Scarlet's chest. He looked down at the bloody hole above his heart, then looked at me, his lips parting as if he meant to say something. In the end, all that came out was a gush of fresh blood. He was hurled backward and crashed hard into the base of an abandoned tower crane.

I stood where I was, every ounce of strength gone from my body, barely keeping myself from dropping to my knees. The weapon — saber and board fused as one — gave a dull clang as it fell to the ground. The Wave-Breaker Saber and the meteoric iron cutting board came apart, both of them dim and lightless. The drain had clearly been immense.

"Cough, cough...." I coughed up two mouthfuls of blood. My organs felt like they'd been shifted out of place. That single move had stripped me of nearly all my spiritual energy and mental strength. My sea of consciousness throbbed in agony from the force-fed sword art.

"Greenhorn — hold on!" The Old Man of the System's voice had gone thin and frail. "Take a Blood-Nourishing Pill, quick! Mid-grade — the effects are strong!"

With trembling hands I fished out the bottle of mid-grade Blood-Nourishing Pills I'd won at auction, popped the stopper, and without a second thought tipped the entire contents into my mouth. Warm medicinal energy dissolved instantly through my body like rain falling on cracked earth, seeping into my parched meridians and battered organs.

End of Chapter 44: The Dawn Breaks the Evil