More Sand Blades

As she expected, the Sand Hawk turned out to be yellow level creature. Shin Sumi waited patiently in the crater's shadow for the little nut to refine the sand colored core and read all the magical book had to say about the creature.

Refining cores and spirit stones was definitely the primary advantage of having the little nut around.

Nevertheless the informations about the creature whose core was refined was something Shin Sumi was always passionate about. Besides it often revealed the weak points of the beast, which would be very useful if she encountered a stronger one of the same kind.

It was precisely that little bit of information that had allowed Shin Sumi to run around the Rising Star Tournament mostly without danger. Whenever she came across a creature she knew of, she always managed to strike its weak points first, giving her a better chance.

"Senior Sister Xiao, are you safe? The fourth ring sucks up all the Yin Shinsoo of a cultivator, do you have enough energy to progress?"

Now that she reached an open area and with the improvements to her cultivation base, Shin Sumi could send divine sense messages way further than before. She knew that Xiao Yue had received it when her identification jade vibrated with a message back.

"I know. The creatures here are weak to Yin Shinsoo though. But I'm sure you're fine if you have the time to worry about me."

Shin Sumi's jaw fell on the floor. She didn't know whether to laugh or cry at the sharp response.

"Aaaah... Would it kill you to be nice to someone else once in a while, Yue?" Shin Sumi thought in a low voice.

After cultivating with the aid of plenty of red and orange refined cores, Shin Sumi was soon back at full strength. The bleeding of her arm had stopped. Like always she marvelled about the fantastical abilities that came with being a cultivator.

Compared to the underground maze of the third ring, crossing the vast yellow expanse of sand of the fourth ring was a piece of cake to someone like Shin Sumi.

With the Copper Bell and the insane amount of spirit beast cores she had in her bag of holding, it was relatively easy to maintain the Shinsoo signature of a male cultivator all the time. This way she reduced the drainage of her energy.

Only when a sub-trial or a spirit beast crossed her path did Shin Sumi switch her use of Shinsoo to that of Yin type.

She was becoming more and more efficient with it and soon with enough practice, Shin Sumi could go from one type to the other in less than a single breath of time.

"I have had many encounters with red level beasts recently, but since the Sand Hawk I haven't found another yellow one... Could it be that the Vein of Hell Fire was all the way back at the start of the fourth ring??!"

Shin Sumi felt that she was getting close to the inner ring. In fact she could almost see the mountain range in the distance. That was the delimitation between this one and the final ring of the floating continent.

She was starting to get anxious at the fact that the Vein of Hell Fire was nowhere to be seen. Because each domain was a ring, she was starting to feel that maybe the Vein was on some other side.

"That or I have gone too far already..."

Completely lost as to where she should go, Shin Sumi started walking in a circle. She was set on finding the source of Shinsoo, not having any other choice with regards to her cultivation.

She had previously opened fifty eight of the total sixty four Shinsoo Doors. It would be a pity to stop there even if that was already unprecedented in history.

"I am so close to completing the great circle of the Shinsoo Gathering Realm, I can't finish the tournament before I open all sixty four."

According to her calculations though, the amount of Shinsoo necessary to surpass all the consecutive bottlenecks of each door was so high that finding the remaining two Veins of Hell Fire was the only option.

She would have to spend years in the training dimension in order to gather enough cores to break open the eight doors left, whereas the purity of the high quality Shinsoo from the Veins could burst effortlessly through many at a time.

Shin Sumi had almost completed half of a circle around the mountain range in a few weeks. For a tournament like this spanning many months it wasn't a long time, but the anxiousness in her heart started to grow with each passing day.

"Still no trace of the Vein..." she was thinking. And the scarcity of the spirit beasts even made it so she was draining her stock of resources faster than she was replenishing it, simply by maintaining her energy levels high enough.

On her path, she made sure to check each and every dark red rock formation that split open the yellow sand, in search of a tunnel or a crevice leading to the underground.

As far as she knew, all the Veins of Hell Fire were located in the center of the floating continent, but once again she seemed to have ran out of luck.

"Somebody, please help!! Anyone! We are trapped by a real monster!! Please somebody save our lives!"

Shin Sumi froze in place, almost letting go of the vibrating piece of jade in her hand.

Normally in order to send a divine sense message, one would target exclusively one jade medallion. This was the reason why people would exchange identification jade imprints, to communicate privately without worries of somebody intercepting the message.

But Shin Sumi knew that this particular broadcast had been sent at large to whoever it could reach.

She did not know who originated the message, but she knew it had to be from not too far away.

Shin Sumi considered not responding to the call for help but dismissed the idea almost immediately.

"Maybe this is the thing I have been looking for. At this point in the trial, the message has to come from at least an orange robed disciple."

She picked up speed, following the fluctuations of Shinsoo that allowed the source of the signal to be found.

"A real monster? What could that be?" she was intrigued. This whole time she had been looking for strong beasts, following the idea that being close to a Vein of Hell Fire nurtured better and stronger beasts.

Her theory had even definitely been proven by the low level blood wolf that had chased her to the source, eventually even mutating into a Silver Blood Wolf strong enough to possibly contend with her.

Shin Sumi's red dress blurred across the desert with incredible speed. As it turned out, the divine sense message had come from a location roughly halfway between mountain range bordering the fourth domain.

She felt that she was getting closer and closer when she spotted an array of gigantic pillars of stone in the distance.

From an angle, they looked like any other rock formation. Same tone, same size, same strange silhouette shaped by the sandy wind.

A bird's eye view from the area would have revealed that the dozen rocks formed a perfect spirit formation, the dunes in between tracing lines from pillar to pillar.

Shin Sumi was about the step over the first line when her wrist hurt with a familiar feeling.

"Ouch!"

The little nut bit her. It was something she hadn't felt for quite a while. As her strength grew, the warnings from the nut became more and more scarce. But that also indicated that what was going on there was a real danger.

Upon closer inspection, Shin Sumi realized that a faint glow was visible above the dunes she was about to cross, going from rock to rock.

This was an illusory barrier purely made of Shinsoo. Although Shin Sumi's divine sense could still go further beyond, her sight was slightly affected by it.

Only because she had been warned did she spread out her divine sense in a straight line ahead.

Her eyes were only seeing an immovable desert but her Immortal sense was picking up movement, faster and faster the further she went.

"This is a giant whirlpool of some sort. The sand dunes turn all around the center point. I can't quite pick up what's going there but my guess is that the message came from someone trapped in it!"

From where she was, at the border where the sand's movements were the slowest, she felt that she could at least go a bit further. Even entire dunes couldn't keep her from turning back with that speed.

Ignoring the nut, her intuition telling her that she was about to find clues as to where the Vein was located, Shin Sumi stepped across the almost invisible line.

The first sensation that assailed her was a brutal increase in Shinsoo pressure. From where she had been standing, half a step behind, to where she was now, the difference was so strong she couldn't put it into words.

"The Vein has to be here somewhere!" she knew it. But a stronger sense of danger kept her from becoming too overjoyous.

A simple look ahead was all it took to understand the danger. In a circle ten kilometers across was the biggest whirlpool Shin Sumi had ever seen.

A slope that could be considered gentle ran from the exterior where the sand was slow to the center, located hundreds of meters below where she was standing.

Shin Sumi stopped for a second to try to ascertain the speed of the sand further down when a prick hurt her ankle lightly.

The sand was moving under her feet. A tiny dune was even forming on one side of her shoes. But inside the sand Shin Sumi could see dark grey blobs with a long tail, swimming like fish in water.

"A sand leech! Ewwww!!"

The small crawling sucker had stuck its teeth in her pale skin right where her robes ended. Somehow it reminded her a lot of the circular rows of teeth marks that the nut had left on her wrist numerous times.

Shin Sumi jumped to the side where a small uneven rock platform was staying above the sand.

She removed the leech with her hand. The grey tail instantly withering and turning a disgusting shade of black. The moment the teeth stopped being in contact with her skin, a light puff of invisible smoke rose from the dark blob.

"Shinsoo fluctuations... Urgh of course the leeches here are only interested in sucking Shinsoo out of me."

Shin Sumi was disgusted but she didn't dare think too lightly of the leeches. In an environment that was already harsh on people's energy resources, even tiny buggers could become a major problem if she wasn't careful.

Following the circular flow of the sand, the small grey leeches would bump into the rock she was standing on before disappearing underneath. Shin Sumi was relieved to see that they couldn't reach her as long as she stood where she was.

She observed the leeches for a while, considering picking one up carefully and have the little nut try to refine it. Somehow Shin Sumi was dying to know more about them, especially their Shinsoo sucking abilities.

She was ready to put her hand down in the sand as fast as possible to catch one before it could latch on to her, but to her dismay the grey blob disappeared to the side.

"Stange, I though for sure that the flow would push it towards here. All the previous ones hit the rock..."

Lifting her head, Shin Sumi came to the abrupt realization that the red stone pillar that had been about ten meters away from her was now... about twelve meters?!

"Oh no, even the rocks are moving slowly with the sand?!"

It was now obvious how a disciple had managed to get trapped there while exploring. Nevertheless Shin Sumi could see many platforms like the one she was standing on along the whirlpool, but there was no sign of anyone.

"What happens when you reach the center of the vortex?"

The speed of the sand down near the middle was enough to make any yellow crystal sharper and more powerful than a normal blade. In fact, after one point, Shin Sumi could see the rocks being cut down slowly by the abrasive flow.

The sheer speed of the sand made it fly into the air, blurring the middle of the vortex. In fact Shin Sumi could not discern anything past a certain point.

Still in the safety zone where Shin Sumi was sure to reach the outside of the magical whirlpool in one or two jumps, she stayed for a bit longer.

Something wasn't right, in her eyes.

"This pressure isn't due to the spirit formation. It feels a lot more like a powerful beast."

It wasn't as strong as the mother Blood Wolf's spiritual pressure, but the overall feeling shared many points with it.

A normal disciple would probably not be able to feel the difference but for Shin Sumi that had repeatedly felt the influence of strong creatures and raw Shinsoo like that of Veins of Hell Fire, it was obvious like the nose on the face.

"The broadcast talked about a monster. I'm guessing there is indeed something under the sand. Something that must be close to the center."

The way the rocks started to shatter close to the epicenter of the vortex didn't make sense. The rock would crumble piece by piece with the sand, it would not be cut like it was at the exact same radius.

"It's more like a spinning blade rather than a vortex... Is there any spirit beast that does that?" she asked out loud, not really expecting an answer.

The closer she got to the center, the stronger the waves of sand became. Whatever was spinning it was doing it fast and continuously.

She also felt like the rocks that formed gigantic spirit lines had maybe been placed there by someone. Not as a trap but as an enclosure for whatever was dwelling under the sand.

Still going further in, Shin Sumi still kept track of behind herself. For every movement she made forwards, she made sure that there were easily reachable platforms in the vicinity, in case she needed to escape.

She was getting closer and closer to the center, and the platform she was on was getting covered by sand on one side. Another leap or two and she would be able to reach the point where the first rocks started to shatter.

The diameter of the vortex at this point was only a couple hundred meters. Calculating in her head, she estimated the speed of the sand to be about a rotation per second.

Slowing down her breathing to concentrate, Shin Sumi finally decided to put to execution the plan she had been forming in her mind for the past hour or so.

She first made use of the moon crescent blade, throwing it in an arc as high as she could. To her relief, the blade travelled across the barrier of sand and back. By doing that multiple times, each iteration a bit lower, she was able to determine that the 'blade' that was cutting the rocks was not as tall as it seemed.

It even was possible to jump over it.

Shin Sumi took to the air, her golden sword in hand. The sword didn't cut the air as brilliantly as normal, its color lacking luster after being powered up by Yin type Shinsoo.

While in mid-air, Shin Sumi concentrated all the power she had into the sword before letting it go weakly.

The technique, if you could even call it that, was something she had never tried for real. She had only seen Xiao Yue use it once with her Black Devil Spear, but she figured it would be her best option at the time.

The Gold Tyrant Flying Sword was a powerful Yang type weapon but she had just charged it as much as possible with Yin Shinsoo.

Using all of her mental concentration, Shin Sumi forced the sword to remain stable for the time it took to fall.

What Xiao Yue had done was release all the energy stored inside her weapon in one short burst, a wave of powerful and dense Shinsoo washing over the weapon's surroundings.

But Shin Sumi's version was even more powerful. Because the sword was unconsciously rejecting the Yin attributes, the Gold Tyrant Flying Sword really wanted to blow all of the excess energy away.

Shin Sumi reached the apex of her vertical jump just as the sword reached what would be the center of the vortex.

Shin Sumi's divine sense let go of her grasp to the sword at the exact right moment.

The Gold Tyrant Flying Sword shone brightly for a split second, having expulsed the invisible fluctuations of Shinsoo in all directions.

For any onlooker, nothing had happened at all. The true genius of the technique was that the blast was only spiritual, not physical. The sand didn't even ripple and the rocks didn't tremble.

But Shin Sumi felt her divine sense being repelled instantly, almost tearing her unconscious.

Landing back on the same platform, Shin Sumi stabilized herself, swallowing a mouthful of blood forcefully.

"Damn it, I was too close. The backlash on my meridians is intense, especially from Yin Shinsoo while I am posing as a man."

All the energy release having come from her own dantian, she had kind of expected the force to leave her without damage.

Even at her distance, the invisible Shinsoo fluctuations were powerful, but at least she was still conscious.

The same could not be said for whatever creature had caused the vortex.

For an all-yang type creature, a blast of Yin was akin to the most painful of burns for a mortal.

For the first time in however long the beast had been alive, it stopped moving.

The centrifugal force stopped, all the sand rushing back to the middle of the giant crater.

The force and speed of the sand dunes was unbelievable, but Shin Sumi's eyes were quicker. Right before it got covered completely, Shin Sumi spotted a giant silvery mass.

Along the oblong body, numerous thin silver fins were erected, slicing across the sand like a hot knife in warm butter. The back fin especially was more than three meters long, straight and vertical.

Putting to action the last part of her plan, Shin Sumi threw the moon crescent blade with all her remaining strength, aiming for the eye she could discern near the pointed and sharp nose that looked like metal.

The boomerang sword entered the soft part of the beast's skull with frightening accuracy right as the sand washed over the twenty meters long Silver Desert Swordfish.