Chapter 1353: A Sharp Surge of Lust

Yuzuki stepped forward like she could feel his conflict and drew her sword with one smooth motion; the steel whispered free while her posture changed so naturally that even Phei had to admit she looked damn good doing it. Her shoulders settled, her breathing shortened and every trace of casual irritation disappeared behind the calm of someone who had wielded a sword for longer than Phei had been a cultivator.

The thought that followed was considerably less respectable.

’Unsheathed sword.’

For some stupid reason, the words kept echoing inside Phei’s head while his gaze remained on the woman holding that weapon. The cool composure on her face should have encouraged mature thoughts about technique, timing and exactly how dangerous that sword looked in her hand.

Instead, his attention wandered along the line of her arm, caught briefly on the confidence in her posture and then dropped toward the short skirt hugging her hips and leaving enough thigh exposed to murder the last respectable thought trying to survive inside his skull.

Yeah... combat analysis was losing badly.

Phei’s eyes lingered for perhaps half a second too long; there was something unfairly attractive about a beautiful woman holding a weapon with that calm expression, all lethal grace and bare legs, as though somebody had taken one of his more questionable fantasies and politely armed it.

A gold light flickered through his eyes.

The change lasted barely a second but both women felt it.

A pulse of Lust had slipped from Phei before he composed himself; it was warm, heavy and wickedly intimate as it rolled through the space between them. It carried none of the crushing pressure of cultivation and nothing resembling an attack, yet the effect was somehow more embarrassing precisely because of how softly it touched them.

The air seemed to grow warmer around their skin.

Breathing became suddenly noticeable and the faint brush of clothing against flesh sharpened into something impossible to ignore, while every trace of attraction already present inside them was nudged awake and dragged considerably closer to the surface.

Yuzuki’s entire perception of him shifted.

For one heartbeat, the young man she had been regarding as an inexperienced Sky Sovereign suddenly became dangerously difficult to look away from. Her attention caught on the sharp line of his jaw, then those strange golden eyes, then the depth behind his presence that she had somehow failed to appreciate from a distance.

Something domineering rested beneath his relaxed posture, vast enough that her instincts warned her the person standing in front of her was not remotely as harmless as his lazy behavior suggested.

Her gaze dipped lower to the bulge of on his pants before she could stop it; she immediately looked back up.

The swordswoman’s fingers tightened around her weapon.

Her expression did not break completely, but Phei had caught the smallest hitch in her breathing and the faint warmth beginning beneath her cheeks. Her thighs pressed together almost imperceptibly before she seemed to realize what her body had done, and the look she gave him afterward carried enough offended accusation to suggest his continued survival had become negotiable.

Sienna reacted differently.

Her violet eyes narrowed almost immediately as the Lust brushed across her, but the coldness in her stare did very little to hide the subtle warmth gathering beneath her pale skin. Her lips parted around a quiet breath, and Phei’s gaze betrayed him again by dropping toward them before common sense finally returned with a chair and struck him across the soul.

He shut the pulse down instantly.

Silence settled for perhaps one dangerous heartbeat.

One second!

That was all the surge of lust had lasted, and it had already made her mind wander somewhere it had no business going during a duel.

Yuzuki’s fingers tightened around the hilt.

If Phei had allowed that strange power to remain for five seconds, she suddenly doubted she would still be thinking about swordsmanship.

Sienna, meanwhile, had experienced the surge while possessing far more memories to connect it to while they were still in the Primordial Zone, and the reaction that passed through her body made her press her thighs.

After what Phei had done to her for the past week, the idea of recovering fast enough so she could have another round had suddenly become much less unreasonable.

The gold in Phei’s eyes withdrew entirely leaving the little golden hue on the amethyst and looked toward Yuzuki again.

She walked forward until only several meters separated them, and there was something more challenging in her expression now. Whatever danger she had sensed from that single pulse had not frightened her. If anything, it had irritated her because part of Yuzuki had already decided Phei was benefiting from strange abilities and powers the Young Dragon possessed and overwhelming gifts rather than the sort of polished combat skill she respected.

She had spent years cultivating mastering the sword; years learning movement, timing, distance, Essence control and the small details that separated cultivators who possessed power from cultivators who knew how to use it.

She could fight ordinary Demigods despite being beneath that Realm.

Against Half-Divines, she could handle five simultaneously and still control the battle.

Phei had only recently become a Sky Sovereign—

—Powerful bloodline or not, strange abilities or not, there was a difference between reaching a Realm and mastering it.

Yuzuki intended to teach him a cold and humbling lesson of that difference—

"How about this?" she asked as the edge of her blade lowered slightly. "If you can land one attack on me, you can go."

Sienna’s head turned toward her sharply. "Yuzuki?"

Yuzuki glanced toward the Nether Goddess and immediately bowed, although confidence remained unmistakable in her voice:"Goddess, it’s fine. He clearly wants to return home, so the faster we finish this, the better. I was hoping to make it easy for him."

Phei slowly looked at her.

Easy...

—for... him!

The words irritated something that had become considerably less patient over the past year.

Yuzuki straightened again and regarded him with the composed confidence of someone who genuinely believed she had been generous. In her mind, she was giving him the easiest possible condition so she could teach him a lesson and put in place that arrogance oozing off him.

—Phei did not need to defeat her, force her to surrender or even withstand a prolonged battle.

He merely had to touch her once.

She expected him to fail several times before succeeding.

Perhaps she should just evade all his attack with a hand behind her back and let him understand the difference between the two of them. Then she could intercept, counter and eventually allow the spar to become more educational before granting him his escape.