In an instant, Yaoyue realized the purpose of Dongfang Bubai's actions.

And the result was exactly as Yaoyue had predicted.

Once Yaoyue begins to mobilize her true energy, Dongfang Bubai, who is hidden in the blood mist, will either attack Yaoyue with sword energy or suddenly appear and attack her from a tricky angle.

With the surrounding blood mist difficult to dispel, Yaoyue was once again put on the defensive.

As the initiative was regained in Dongfang Bubai's hands, his voice also came from within the blood mist.

"So what if you've cultivated the Mingyu Technique to the ninth level? You can easily reveal your trump card. You've been by Qinghe's side for so long, and you still haven't grown a single brain."

Faced with Dongfang Bubai's provocation, Yaoyue sneered inwardly and replied, "Hiding your head and showing your tail, what a despicable act."

No sooner had these words fallen than Dongfang Bubai, emerging from the blood mist, suddenly spoke up: "That's right. After all, we've been out for so long, this leader is too lazy to keep playing with you."

After this voice entered Yaoyue's ears from all directions, Dongfang Bubai's figure suddenly appeared from the blood mist to Yaoyue's left.

The moment she sensed Dongfang Bubai's movement, Yaoyue's hands were surrounded by true energy.

However, before Yaoyue could launch an attack on Dongfang Bubai, she saw Dongfang Bubai's figure appear simultaneously in the blood mist behind her, on her right, and even in front of her.

Upon realizing this, Yaoyue knew perfectly well that three of the four figures rushing towards her were merely afterimages created by Dongfang Bubai using extreme speed and a small amount of true essence to deceive her.

Despite knowing this, Yaoyue's thoughts were still inevitably affected by the four figures around her, each emanating true energy and rushing towards her at the same time.

For a moment, it was unclear which figure belonged to Dongfang Bubai's true form.

Because of this momentary delay, Dongfang Bubai, who was rushing towards Yaoyue from behind, suddenly experienced a surge of true energy within his body.

As he slapped Yaoyue's back with his right hand, his entire hand turned fiery red as his true essence condensed.

Seeing that his hand was less than three inches away from Yaoyue, Dongfang Bubai's lips curled into a smile.

However, just as the palm was about to strike Yaoyue's back, a slightly smug voice suddenly entered Dongfang Bubai's ears.

"Got you?"

Upon hearing the voice, Dongfang Bubai's smile instantly froze.

The next second, before Dongfang Bubai could react, his body, which was rushing towards Yaoyue, suddenly stopped.

At the same time, feeling unable to move, Dongfang Bubai quickly shifted his gaze and was shocked to find that his palms and even his entire arm were somehow wrapped in semi-transparent threads.

Not only his arms, but even all parts of Dongfang Bubai's body were wrapped in dense silk threads.

And there were also some extremely faint sword intent and true essence on these threads.

It was clearly formed by Yaoyue condensing her sword intent and true essence.

This is the ability of a martial artist to condense their true energy into threads once they have mastered the control over it to a certain degree.

"when?"

Upon noticing the threads on his body, Dongfang Bubai's eyes narrowed sharply.

With Dongfang Bubai's current six senses and perception abilities, if Yaoyue had used the threads condensed from true essence and sword intent to approach Dongfang Bubai, Dongfang Bubai would have immediately noticed something was wrong, let alone let the threads condensed by Yaoyue completely wrap around his body.

"unless......."

As his thoughts raced through his mind, a conjecture suddenly occurred to Dongfang Bubai.

Noticing Dongfang Bubai's expression, Yaoyue said smugly, "Do you think I didn't use the Sword Domain technique when I faced your attack just now? At the very beginning of our battle, I secretly mixed my true essence and sword intent together and condensed them into these threads."

"In other words, within my thirty-zhang radius, the area is filled with these threads of true essence and sword intent. It's just that the aura of these true essence and sword intent is masked by the fluctuations of other true essence and sword intent within my sword domain."

"Your continuous movement has already wrapped your body dozens of times around these threads."

Hearing what Yaoyue said, Dongfang Bubai said coldly, "So this is what you've been researching during your cultivation?"

Yaoyue smiled and said, "Not bad! And when I mastered the true essence to such an extent that I could condense the qi into threads with every move, the Mingyu Gong also stepped into the ninth level."

At this point, a smile appeared on Yaoyue's face.

In fact, Yaoyue never expected that the ninth level of the Mingyu Gong was not simply about achieving a higher level of true essence quality, but rather about the ultimate control over true essence.

If one can cultivate the control of true essence to the level that Yaoyue is at now, one will naturally be able to advance the Mingyu Gong to the ninth level.

This is why, for hundreds of years, no one else in the Yihua Palace has been able to cultivate the Mingyu Gong to the ninth level of perfection.

After all, martial artists in the world pay attention to their control over their true energy, but at most they can only achieve a state of "being able to control it as if it were an extension of their own arm".

How could anyone be like Yaoyue, who went to such lengths to study the control of her own true essence in order to counter Dongfang Bubai?

Then, when Yaoyue looked at Dongfang Bubai, a cold smile appeared on her lips. "You just said it yourself, how can you easily reveal your trump cards? The ninth level of the Mingyu Technique has never been my trump card."

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