A magical journey of a sharp-tongued woman and a goofy man

The shockwave from the collapse of the protective array sent debris flying, and the phoenix tail mark on the back of Ye Shuli's neck sizzled against her tactical uniform.

Jiang Ye gripped the bronze door's animal head relief with one hand, while his other hand tightly clutched the hidden clasp of her belt: "The key's burning hot!"

"Nonsense!" Ye Shuli swung her nine-section whip, which wrapped around the crossbeam, and swung twenty meters away using the suction force of the collapsing space.

The dark purple giant hand grazed the afterimages of the two people and slammed into the stone wall, instantly covering the entire ley line with spiderweb-like cracks.

The Void Key trembled in the dark compartment, tearing through the leather, and the trail of golden blood suddenly turned and pierced the keyhole.

The black bird totem exploded with a bang, revealing a passageway beneath which starlight flowed.

Jiang Ye kicked aside the fallen bronze lamp stand, his tactical boots sliding into the tunnel, brushing against the surging dark purple energy flow.

Ye Shuli inserted the key into the densest part of the starlight with her other hand, and the phoenix tail suddenly contracted into a light membrane that enveloped the two of them: "Hold on tight!"

The dizziness from the spatial displacement lasted for three breaths.

When I opened my eyes again, what was flowing all over the ground was no longer lava, but liquefied star fragments.

Jiang Ye's tactical belt had a hole burned through its hidden compartment by the key, and he was currently grimacing as he pulled at the half-melted metal buckle: "This thing is hotter than Old Chen's sweet potato roasting oven..."

"Shut up." Ye Shuli flung away the nine-section whip corroded by starlight, her fingertips tracing the burning phoenix mark on the back of her neck.

The Void Key hovered above their heads, its projected beam of light containing tadpole-shaped runes.

She suddenly grabbed Jiang Ye by the back of his collar and pulled him back: "Back off!"

The dark gold barrier cracked and exploded half a meter in front of him.

The Void Rift Guardian stepped out from the distorted light curtain, its Xuan Iron Heavy Sword dragging stardust that plowed scorched marks into the ground.

The man wore half a broken bronze mask, his exposed jawline covered in dark purple veins: "Key holder?"

Ye Shuli's fingertips already gripped three Rain of Pear Blossom Needles: "If you're going to fight, then..."

"Bear seven blows, and you will be granted the right to behold the power of the void." The Guardian's Greatsword suddenly liquefied, and the boiling starlight condensed into twelve floating sword arrays. "First move, Shatter Star."

The sword formation, accompanied by the sound of space tearing apart, rushed towards us.

Jiang Ye threw his tactical dagger past Ye Shuli's ear, accurately striking the starlight node at the core of the sword formation.

The sword light that was supposed to explode suddenly collapsed into specks of light, and Ye Shuli took the opportunity to pull him and roll into the protruding starlight rock on the right.

"How do you know where the flaw is?" Her back was pressed against the scorching rock wall, and the runes projected by the key were leaving scorch marks on the rock surface.

Jiang Ye pulled out a spare black iron dagger and put it in his mouth, mumbling, "That bastard's left little finger twitched when he set up the sword formation—he had the same problem with the sword formation puppets we encountered in the Valley of Ten Thousand Beasts."

The second move, "Sky-Splitting," followed immediately.

The crack cleaved by the Guardian's greatsword instantly swallowed the starlight within a five-meter radius. Suddenly, a grappling hook popped out from the sole of Ye Shuli's tactical boots, using the suction force of the crack to throw herself into the Guardian's blind spot on the left.

The beam of light projected by the key swept across the sword's edge, refracting the trajectory of the Sky-Splitting Slash by a full thirty degrees.

"Third move." The guardian's voice was completely calm as the greatsword suddenly shattered into hundreds of stardust fragments.

These shimmering, dark fragments formed a flowing nebula, instantly sealing off all escape routes.

Jiang Ye suddenly ripped open his tactical jacket, and the seventy-two mystic magnets sewn into the lining activated simultaneously.

The nebula was pulled away by the magnetic force by half an inch, and Ye Shuli took the opportunity to insert the key into the intersection of the starlight veins on the ground.

The golden light erupting from the Phoenix Mark resonated with the key, causing the Nebula Array to freeze momentarily.

"It's time for the fourth move..." Before Jiang Ye could finish speaking, the guardian suddenly abandoned his sword and clasped his hands together.

Boiling stardust condensed into a giant bell that loomed overhead, and the missing runes of the key projection appeared on the bell's surface.

Ye Shuli's pupils shrank suddenly, and she pulled Jiang Ye to slam into the bell wall: "It's a space displacement rune!" The moment the two passed through the bell, the key branded a phoenix pattern into the core of the giant bell.

The starlight, which should have crushed their bones, suddenly lifted them up gently, placing them steadily within the starting range of the fifth move, "Return to Nothingness".

The guardian finally showed a look of surprise, dark purple light seeping from the cracks in his mask: "You can actually see through the illusion?"

“Every killing move you make contains a way out.” Ye Shuli wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth, the key spinning in her palm, leaving afterimages. “The starlight concentration on the right side of the Sky-Splitting Slash is abnormal, and the ground runes in the Return to the Void opening move are arranged according to the Fibonacci sequence—the person who designed this test is probably not just a guardian, is he?”

The sixth move, "Annihilation," swallowed the voice.

Jiang Ye suddenly tackled Ye Shuli, and the black iron dagger pierced the ground three inches from her ear.

The reflective stone inlaid in the dagger hilt refracted the light of the key, tearing a golden passage through the annihilation storm.

As the two rolled out of the killing formation along the passage, the backs of their tactical uniforms were burned through by the starlight.

"The final move." The Guardian's voice, for the first time, carried an emotional tremor, his greatsword pointing towards the swirling star map in the sky. "Dawn."

Ye Shuli suddenly grabbed Jiang Ye's hand as he reached for his hidden weapon pouch: "Don't move!" The phoenix mark on the back of her neck suddenly detached from her skin and floated into the air, forming a three-dimensional star map with the runes projected by the key.

The starlight gathered at the tip of the Guardian's sword touched the pattern, and its killing intent vanished as if spring snow were melting away.

The Void Key clicked into the core of the star map, and a stream of silver-blue light flowed out from the cracked space.

Ye Shuli pulled Jiang Ye back ten steps, watching as the Guardian's Greatsword crumbled into stardust: "You deliberately revealed a weakness..."

"Only those with eyes that can see through illusion are qualified to wield the void." The guardian's last half of the mask peeled away, revealing features that bore a striking resemblance to Jiang Ye. "The seventh move wasn't meant to be a killing move."

The white light of spatial displacement swallowed the unfinished words.

Jiang Ye was about to speak, rubbing his bruised arm, when Ye Shuli suddenly grabbed his wrist.

The star map projected by the key is spreading across the ground, with tiny remnants of attacks floating between each star track—the lingering spiritual energy of the seven killing moves from just now.

“Something’s not right.” She ran her fingertips over a spot of intersecting star marks. “The decay period of these attack trajectories…” Ye Shuli’s fingertips hovered above two intersecting star marks.

The phoenix mark tingled faintly at her collarbone, and the lingering spiritual energy reconstituted into a three-dimensional model on her retina—a pentagram structure whose decay frequency would show a phase difference of 0.3 seconds every three breaths.

"Thirty-seven degrees." She suddenly pulled Jiang Ye half a step to the side, narrowly avoiding the stardust vortex that appeared out of nowhere. "Every attack is filling the blind spots of the previous move, but..."

Tactical boots crushed the liquid starlight, leaving charred marks on the starlit ground.

Ye Shuli suddenly flung out the molten remnants of the nine-section whip, and the black iron chain precisely wedged into a gap in the collapsing star orbit.

The annihilation beam that was supposed to strike suddenly veered to the right, blasting a crack in the sword array that the guardian had just formed.

"The spiral angle of the Fibonacci sequence!" Jiang Ye wiped his tactical gloves against the scalding stardust, then suddenly grabbed a dark purple crystal and tossed it into the air. "Three o'clock position, seventy percent force!"

The crystal shattered three inches from the Guardian's greatsword.

The originally tight defensive formation suddenly revealed a gap the size of a bowl. Ye Shuli's Rain of Pear Blossom Needles, wrapped in phoenix golden flames, pierced through the gap and exploded into a bloody flower on the guardian's left shoulder.

Dark purple starlight gushed from the wound like venomous snakes, and the guardian's bronze mask shattered completely.

The face, resembling Jiang Ye's, twisted into a cold laugh: "I underestimated you..."

The star map on the dome suddenly reversed, and the liquid stars transformed into billions of sharp spikes hanging overhead.

Jiang Ye popped out a folding shield from his tactical belt, but was forced to kneel on the ground by the sudden increase in gravity.

Ye Shuli's phoenix mark on the back of her neck detached from her skin and floated into the air, while golden flames burned a charred escape route on the starlit ground.

"His forced increase in spiritual pressure caused a break in the arrangement of stardust." Ye Shuli dragged Jiang Ye into the passage burned by golden flames, three bloody scratches appearing on the back of their tactical uniform from the star spikes. "The density of the nebula in the southwest is abnormal—it's the energy core!"

Jiang Ye suddenly ripped open his tactical jacket, and seventy-two hidden magnetic stones inside the lining exploded simultaneously.

The chaotic magnetic storm disrupted the nebula's flow, and Ye Shuli took the opportunity to insert the Void Key into a crack in the ground.

Phoenix golden flames flowed along the key's pattern into the star veins, turning the starlight within a five-meter radius into a crimson gold.

"Using their strength against them?" The guardian's sword-wielding motion suddenly faltered.

The phoenix flames he had scattered did not disappear; instead, they regrouped along the star veins and formed chains that bound the heavy sword.

Ye Shuli bit her fingertip and drew a talisman on the surface of the void key. Modern physics formulas and ancient formations collided in her mind, sparking a synergy: "Gravity acceleration superimposed on spiritual energy tides—Jiang Ye!"

The folding shield grazed the edge of the heavy sword and was thrown out, transforming into a spinning blade amidst the resonance of the magnetic storm and golden flames.

The moment the guardian was forced to let go and discard his sword, Ye Shuli poured all her spiritual power into the key.

The golden light erupting from the Phoenix Mark, carrying the residual power of the seven previously collected killing moves, transformed into a spiral beam of light that blasted towards the energy core.

The entire space suddenly fell into absolute silence.

The dark purple nebula seemed to have been paused, and the hovering liquid spikes turned into dust.

The guardian stared blankly at the bowl-sized hole in his chest, the flowing starlight rapidly draining from the wound: "So this is... the true dawn..."

The Void Key suddenly broke free from Ye Shuli's control and automatically embedded itself into the core of the Dome Star Chart.

Silver-blue light cascaded down like a waterfall, condensing into a translucent cocoon-like substance around her.

Jiang Ye was thrown ten meters away by the blast wave, and only managed to stop himself after his tactical boots plowed two scorch marks into the ground.

"Shuli!" He saw familiar phoenix patterns appear on the surface of the cocoon of light, and the essence of the demon beasts that had been absorbed in the Valley of Ten Thousand Beasts was frantically merging with the power of the void.

He was completely unaware that his tactical gloves were being scorched by the starlight until his fingertips touched the warm surface of the cocoon of light.

The moment the light cocoon exploded, Ye Shuli took three steps in mid-air.

With each step, a star map blooms beneath my feet, and the phoenix mark on the back of my neck has transformed into a dark gold color.

She reached out and caught the falling Void Key; her gentle grip caused the entire star vein to tremble.

"Come here." She turned to Jiang Ye and stretched out her hand, the last traces of starlight still lingering in the corners of her eyes.

Beneath the tattered cuffs of his tactical uniform, dark gold veins were slowly flowing down his forearm.

Jiang Ye grimaced as he moved his bruised shoulder, but froze the moment his fingertips touched her palm.

All the playful, teasing remarks stuck in his throat; he could only stare blankly at the starlight emanating from their intertwined fingers: "You..."

"Shut up." Ye Shuli dragged him into the silver-blue light stream, and the power of the void flowed into their meridians along their touching skin.

The tears on Jiang Ye's tactical uniform began to repair themselves, and half a charred sweet potato suddenly popped out from the hidden compartment of his tactical belt.

In the space where starlight flowed, Ye Shuli suddenly chuckled softly.

She reached out and brushed the stray hairs from Jiang Ye's hair, her fingertips lingering for half a second on the collar of his tactical uniform before she simply patted it lightly: "Well done."

The whispers of the guardian of the void rift before its dissipation suddenly echoed in the dome: "Since the key has recognized its master, it must bear the consequences..." Before the words were finished, the entire space suddenly trembled violently.

The originally docile star veins began to twist into ferocious snake shapes, and the absorbed void power emitted a sharp buzzing sound in Ye Shuli's meridians.

Jiang Ye grabbed her wrist with his backhand and tried to pull back, but the sole of his tactical boots stuck to the suddenly liquefied Starlight ground.

The phoenix mark on the back of Ye Shuli's neck burst forth with dazzling golden light, and the star map projected by the key was spinning wildly in the dome, with fine blood-red cracks appearing on each star track.