'Red Stone! Help me control this flying sword!' Zhi Xuan hissed, his jaw clenched tightly.

  The Blue Sky Sword, although a valuable low-grade flying artifact, felt like a wild horse beneath his unaccustomed feet. Its movement in the air was awkward and sudden, demanding his full Taiyin Essence focus to maintain balance and speed.

  Every maneuver felt like a struggle, and he knew that Young Master Gu's two agile Consciousness Transformation cultivators would soon catch up if he did not quickly improve his control.

  'A low-grade Flying Sword! Damn it, they did not even give you a decent one!' Ruo Xianxue scoffed, her voice slightly distorted by the wind speed. 'This is just a Wind artifact; it is not meant for you who has not reached the First Ember yet, Monkey!'

  Zhi Xuan clenched his jaw. 'I have no choice! If I wait for the First Ember, I will die here!'

  Behind him, the two Consciousness Transformation guards, Jin and Shu, leaped from the last stone cliff, entering the forest. They pulled out their own flying swords—mid-grade artifacts—and shot into the air, their speed far superior to Zhi Xuan's.

  "He will not get far with that trash artifact! Target his feet, Jin! We must bring him back alive to Young Master Gu for torture!" Shu shouted, his voice cutting through the night wind.

  Zhi Xuan felt the energy rapidly approaching. He knew he could not fight it. Two Eclipse-level Consciousness Transformation cultivators meant instant death for him, even if he were at his peak strength.

  'Oh god, their flying swords are so fast!' Zhi Xuan's mind screamed in panic.

  The Blue Sky Sword suddenly tilted right without warning, and Zhi Xuan was almost thrown off. He clutched the edge of the artifact with trembling hands. Instead of flying straight, he was flying in a chaotic zig-zag pattern, resembling a drunken bee learning to fly.

  'Control your Taiyin Essence, Monkey!' Ruo Xianxue roared, sounding like a desperate training master. 'Do not treat it like bamboo in the river! Treat it like... like a sensitive beautiful woman! Touch it gently!'

  'What kind of sensitive beautiful woman suddenly grumbles in the air and tries to throw me off?!' Zhi Xuan countered. The sword plunged down again, almost kissing the top of an ancient tree. Zhi Xuan hurriedly pulled it up, causing him to be thrown backward and almost lose his balance again.

  Behind him, guards Jin and Shu watched the spectacle with a mixture of anger and contempt.

  "Look! He is flying like a swimming frog!" Jin mocked, gliding smoothly on his Gold Sword. "He cannot even control the lowest-grade flying artifact! He wasted jade coins only for a useless artifact!"

  "Do not scoff, Jin! He ruined Young Master Gu's reputation! Speed up!" Shu yelled.

  They easily closed the distance. Zhi Xuan, seeing their shadows growing larger under the moonlight, knew he had to do something. He could not run in a straight line; they were too fast.

  "Maneuver!" Zhi Xuan shouted internally. He forced the cold Taiyin Essence—which should have been used for healing wounds and freezing enemies—into the Blue Sky Sword.

  The sword reacted, but in a way he did not expect. Instead of turning smoothly, the Blue Sky Sword suddenly reversed itself, pointing straight at Jin and Shu.

  "Whoaa!" Zhi Xuan was shocked, now facing the two stunned guards head-on.

  Jin and Shu, who expected a frontal escape, were surprised to see their target suddenly turn around and shoot toward them. They only had a fraction of a second to avoid a collision.

  "Get out of the way, idiot!" Jin shouted.

  Zhi Xuan did not intend to hit them, but his Blue Sky Sword seemed to have a mind of its own. It shot past them by mere inches, his tattered robe almost brushing Jin's face.

  "Damn it! He is absolutely crazy!" Shu gasped. "Is he trying to commit suicide by crashing into us?"

  As he passed them, Zhi Xuan managed to catch the expression of horror on Jin and Shu's faces. He wasted no time. With them now in front of him, he forced the Blue Sky Sword to turn again.

  Again, the maneuver was not smooth. The sword spun three times in the air like a thrown frisbee, making Zhi Xuan nauseous. He held on tightly, his robe flapping violently and his hair whipping his face.

  'I am going to vomit, Ruo. This is worse than the Cold Blood Pill!' Zhi Xuan complained, feeling dizzy.

  'Hold on, Monkey! That... that was a good maneuver, despite being terrible! They are behind you again!' Ruo Xianxue said, now sounding slightly amused, as if watching a circus spectacle.

  Jin and Shu, having managed to stabilize themselves, turned around angrily. They were respected Consciousness Transformation cultivators, and being played by a Divine Wheel flying like a broken kite was an unforgivable insult.

  "Do not let him escape this time! We must attack from two sides!" Jin commanded.

  They sped up, this time more cautiously. Zhi Xuan, who had become slightly accustomed to the Blue Sky Sword's quirks, decided to use the environment. Jin and Shu glided on two sides, trying to corner Zhi Xuan between the steep forest cliffs.

  They no longer bothered with their Gold Swords; they knew they had to attack simultaneously to overcome Zhi Xuan's insane unintentional maneuvers.

  "Echoing Sword Formation!" Jin shouted.

  "Paralyzing Poison Talisman!" Shu exclaimed.

  Golden spiritual Essence exploded from Jin's Gold Sword, forming five illusory swords swirling in the sky, creating a shrinking circle of swords, aiming at Zhi Xuan's path. At the same time, Shu threw three dark green paper talismans. The talismans released a thin but deadly poisonous mist, enveloping the area around the sword vortex.

  Zhi Xuan's Blue Sky Sword, already tired from the cruel exploitation of Taiyin Essence, staggered at the sight of the approaching sword vortex.

  'He is attacking with poison! This is dangerous, Monkey!' Ruo Xianxue hissed.

  'The poison is not important, Ruo! The swords are what matters!' Zhi Xuan countered. He saw the golden sword circle approaching, cutting the air with a deafening sound.

  Besides the physical attack, the two Consciousness Transformation cultivators also launched a more subtle assault. They focused their superior Divine Sense, a wave of pure spiritual energy pressure, and pierced it directly into Zhi Xuan's Sea of Consciousness.

  "Die, rat!" Jin shouted, channeling all his killing intent.

  For a cultivator who had just reached the Divine Wheel, a Divine Sense attack from a higher realm was like a giant hammer hitting the skull. Zhi Xuan's Sea of Consciousness violently trembled. The pain immediately caused his control over the Blue Sky Sword to collapse. The Blue Sky Sword, losing direction, instantly spun uncontrollably. No longer a drunken zig-zag, but now spinning in place like a top thrown by a child.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  "WHOAAAAAAAAA!" Zhi Xuan yelled, his voice caught in his throat.

  The surrounding scenery turned into a swirling mix of green and black. He felt his stomach turning up and down, and he reflexively released his grip on the Blue Sky Sword and clutched it with both hands, his knees severely bent on the blade.

  BLUERP!

  Zhi Xuan vomited his spiritual breakfast, the tea and some dried fruits he had eaten in a hurry before the auction, into the air. His vomit, filled with newly absorbed spiritual Essence, formed a faint green mist swirling around him. Jin and Shu, witnessing the scene, were stunned. Their golden sword circle was about to cut the target, but now the target was spinning like a human tornado, and even worse, he was vomiting in the air.

  "Get out of the way, idiot! His vomit will hit my sword formation!" Jin shouted.

  "How can he spin like that?!" Shu gasped. "He cannot possibly control that rotation speed! That is a completely unintentional spin!"

  Ironically, the chaotic spin became Zhi Xuan's best defense. The golden swords in the Echoing Sword Formation, programmed to hit the center point, kept missing because the target kept shifting a fraction of an inch in the insane rotation. The Paralyzing Poison Talisman only enveloped empty space.

  'Now! Monkey! Push the Taiyin Essence to the center! Use the rotation momentum!' Ruo Xianxue roared, although her voice was filled with a mix of disgust and excitement. 'Consider yourself a launched bullet!'

  Zhi Xuan, almost fainting from dizziness, heard Ruo Xianxue's words. He had no time to think. He only knew he had to survive. He forced every drop of the cold Taiyin Essence in his Sea of Consciousness.

  The Taiyin Essence, instead of trying to stabilize the sword, pushed it into the insane rotation momentum. The force of the rotation, combined with the Blue Sky Sword's cruising momentum, turned into an explosive forward thrust.

  SWOOSH!

  Zhi Xuan shot out of the Echoing Sword Formation vortex like a bullet just fired from a slingshot. His speed, driven by momentum and Taiyin Essence, far exceeded the Blue Sky Sword's maximum speed. He flew in an unstable straight line, but with a sudden speed that crippled his pursuers.

  Jin and Shu, whose Sword Formation had just been passed, could only stare at Zhi Xuan's figure shooting away. Zhi Xuan's spiritual vomit mist slowly disappeared in the air, becoming a brief monument to the most embarrassing escape in Cultivation history.

  "He... he used his vomit and that spin to escape?" Jin was speechless.

  "I... I cannot believe it. That was the Echoing Sword Formation! He is only Divine Wheel!" Shu trembled with anger and confusion.

  They quickly chased, but the distance created by the sudden thrust was too great. Zhi Xuan, now flying straight and stable for a while, glided over the forest canopy, heading toward the Demon Mist Swamp.

  He was still trembling, and the dizziness had not subsided, but he was safe. He had spent almost all his Taiyin Essence, and he knew he had to find a hiding place immediately.

  'See, Monkey? Who says a sensitive beautiful woman cannot be a bullet?' Ruo Xianxue scoffed, her laughter crackling in Zhi Xuan's Sea of Consciousness.

  Zhi Xuan did not answer. He just tightened his grip on the Blue Sky Sword, hating the artifact, but grateful that the chaos it created had saved his life. He disappeared into the deeper darkness, leaving two stunned Consciousness Transformation cultivators behind him.

  "This damn Blue Sky Sword, this is a Red Stone Sword!" Zhi Xuan growled, yet as if the sword had a mind, it turned left again and almost hit the branch of an ancient tree. "WHOAAA!"

  The Blue Sky Sword, having just received cold praise from the Taiyin Essence, seemed offended by the labels "Red Stone Sword" and "damn." It dramatically trembled, flipping itself sideways as if sulking, and glided unexpectedly toward the man-sized branch of an ancient tree that stretched out in the darkness.

  'I did not give you a stupid name, I gave you life!' the Blue Sky Sword screamed in Zhi Xuan's mind, although it was merely a projection of his collective panic with Ruo Xianxue.

  Zhi Xuan screamed, panicking. He could not pull it away again; the branch was too close. He released the Taiyin Essence, intending to jump off the sword and fall onto the tree.

  However, before he could jump, Ruo Xianxue took a deeper control of the Blue Sky Sword. 'NO! You are not falling off the Flying Artifact we just got, you Extravagant Monkey!'

  Ruo Xianxue, with much finer control, extended a red thread from the Monument which slapped the Blue Sky Sword at its tip. The sword suddenly jolted, no longer sulking. It did not turn. It did not shoot up. Instead, it stopped abruptly, then with a very inelegant movement, plunged down like a thrown log, avoiding the branch by only a few centimeters.

  "GRRRR!" Zhi Xuan snarled. He clutched his already torn robe and landed—or rather, crashed—onto the back of the Blue Sky Sword as it returned to flat flight.

  The Blue Sky Sword returned to flat flight, but this time at a lower speed and with excessive caution, as if it had just been scolded. Zhi Xuan held his breath, staring at the ancient tree branch he had just avoided. His heart was still pounding, and the residual nausea from the insane spin earlier still lingered.

  'You need to give it a better name, Monkey. This artifact has self-respect,' Ruo Xianxue scoffed, her tone returning to flat and professional, as if she had not just intervened.

  'Self-respect?! It tried to kill me because I called it Red Stone!' Zhi Xuan countered internally. He glanced back, ensuring Jin and Shu, who now felt like small dots on the horizon, could no longer catch up.

  'And what do you mean it has self-respect? It cannot even talk! And Red Stone is you!' Zhi Xuan hissed, channeling the Taiyin Essence with excessive caution, as if he were holding a very expensive egg. This time, he channeled the Essence not to the tip of the sword, but to the middle, trying to calm it.

  The Blue Sky Sword responded, gliding smoothly for a moment, cutting a straight and stable path over the dark canopy of the ancient forest.

  'See, Monkey. Gentleness. That is the key,' Ruo Xianxue said, her voice filled with an instructional tone. 'Low-grade Flying Artifacts are very basic tools. They do not have an artifact soul, but they have an intuitive response to the spiritual will of their user. Your will was chaotic and panicked; the sword responded with panic.'

  'My will was chaotic because two Consciousness Transformation cultivators were trying to kill me after I vomited in the air!' Zhi Xuan countered. He sighed, trying to calm his strained nerves. He closed his eyes for a moment, letting the coldness of the Taiyin Essence envelop him, stabilizing his Sea of Consciousness from the remnants of Jin and Shu's Divine Sense attack.

  When he opened his eyes, he saw the expanse of ancient trees beginning to thin out and reveal a vast grassland under the starry night.

  'I have to descend, we will continue this journey tomorrow.' Zhi Xuan hissed. Zhi Xuan channeled a little more Essence into the blade, this time with a high level of caution.

  "Descend... slowly... like... like a falling leaf," Zhi Xuan whispered, trying to match his Essence with the gentleness he imagined.

  The Blue Sky Sword, apparently wanting to show off that it could mimic a falling leaf, immediately responded. Instead of gliding gradually, it suddenly performed a 'Dizzy Falling Leaf' maneuver. The sword began to sway left and right in a slow but wobbly motion, like a leaf truly hit by a strange wind.

  "I said a falling leaf, not a broken kite!" Zhi Xuan exclaimed, immediately losing his balance again and having to squat down, both hands clutching tightly.

  'Oh my god, Monkey! That is not how it is done!' Ruo Xianxue roared. 'You are too subtle! Now the sword thinks you want to do a dance! Hold on!'

  Zhi Xuan forced himself to resist the swaying. He looked down. The grassland below was close enough. He had to make an emergency landing before the Blue Sky Sword decided to perform a deadly ballet move. He ignored the gentle advice and chose instinct. With the remaining Essence, he gave a strong and rough push—like pulling an emergency brake—to the Blue Sky Sword.

  WHUMPH!

  The sword, shocked by the sudden roughness, plummeted sharply down at an unexpected speed, passing the grassland and hitting a dense bush with an embarrassing "CRAGH!" sound.

  Zhi Xuan, unprepared for the sudden, meteorite-style landing, bounced off the sword and landed on a pile of dry leaves with a soft "THUD" sound.

  The Blue Sky Sword, as if angry and offended by the rough treatment, stuck upright in the ground about five meters away from him, its blade vibrating with a faint hum that sounded like a protest.

  Zhi Xuan coughed, spitting out a little mud and some dry leaves. He lay there for a moment, staring at the stars, feeling every muscle in his body screaming in pain from the brutal healing and the much more brutal journey.

  'An... effective landing,' Ruo Xianxue commented with a neutral tone that clearly hid mockery. 'At least we are not dead, and you managed not to vomit again.'

  'Shut up, Red Stone,' Zhi Xuan hissed, trying to get up. Every movement was stiff. He crawled slowly, picked up the still-sulking Blue Sky Sword, and pulled it out of the ground. He cleaned the sword with his tattered robe, apologizing internally to the artifact that was now his lifesaver.

  Zhi Xuan immediately moved to find shelter. This grassland was still very far from the edge of the Demon Mist Swamp. However, the faint scent of damp soil and rotting moss was already in the air, mixed with a faint demonic aroma—proof that he was in a dangerous area.

  "The Demon Mist Swamp's smell reaches even here," Zhi Xuan mumbled, inhaling the pungent scent. "What about the Demon Fire Abyss in Zhao Kingdom, and where is Zhao Kingdom?"

  'Zhao Kingdom? That is far in the center of the Xingluo Plains, Monkey. Where everyone wears luxurious silk clothes and rides spiritual beasts with gold-plated horns,' Ruo Xianxue countered with an irritated tone. 'And the Demon Fire Abyss is where they bury the most embarrassing spiritual problems—like those trash artifacts probably, but on a national scale. The coffin and furnace must have come from there.'