Is the Swordsman's Ultimate Skill a Beam Cannon

As the city fell.

Black dust.

No—it was more like the remnants of something burned to ashes, pouring down from the sky in overwhelming waves.

Carrying a malice that did not belong to this world.

At the first contact, Yun Huang felt a stinging pain on her skin, like needles pricking her, followed by a scorching, fiery burn.

Then, she inhaled a mouthful of the deadly "ash."

Scalding, acrid—as if countless tiny, red-hot blades sliced through her throat and flooded her lungs.

Her vision was quickly swallowed by this eerie ash, reducing visibility to less than ten meters.

What unsettled her even more was that the ash seemed to carry a sinister force capable of corroding the soul, seeping through the pain in her skin and creeping into the depths of her spiritual sea.

Yun Huang didn’t dare hesitate. She immediately slowed her breathing.

At the same time, she desperately channeled spiritual energy to form a faint protective aura around her body, trying to keep the ash at bay.

But the effect was minimal. The ash was insidious, finer than she had imagined, and still managed to slip through her defenses, inflicting continuous damage. The rate at which her spiritual energy was being depleted far exceeded her expectations.

"Cough… cough…"

Her lungs burned violently.

The surroundings were deathly silent, save for the soft rustling of falling ash.

She had to leave this area—fast.

Yun Huang forced herself to stay calm.

Relying on memory and the fleeting sense of direction she had glimpsed during the fall, she trudged forward with difficulty.

She didn’t know how long she had walked—maybe minutes, maybe longer. In this gray world, time became indistinct.

Her stamina was draining rapidly. The burning pain on her skin was gradually turning numb—a bad sign.

And then…

She witnessed something utterly absurd.

A sword light.

It erupted from the endless ash, blazing defiantly!

No known color could describe its radiance. It seemed to belong to another dimension, carrying a purity of destruction.

The sword light swept horizontally.

The thick, suffocating ash ahead was violently pushed aside, as if cleaved by an invisible, colossal hand!

The black ash, which had clung like parasites, was instantly purged from a vast area in the wake of that strike.

Though the sky remained shrouded in gloom, she could now see clearly for about thirty meters—maybe even farther.

The stinging pain on her skin and the scorching torment in her soul were significantly alleviated by that single slash.

The pressure lifted!

A tall, imposing figure clad in pitch-black armor stood not far ahead.

The obsidian greatsword in its grip was simple in design, yet remnants of energy still coiled around its blade.

Clearly, that breathtaking sword light had come from it.

Yun Huang recognized this card.

But…

During the martial exam’s arena tests, it had displayed mostly "physical" combat prowess.

Compared to what she had just witnessed, the difference was like heaven and earth!

Perhaps back then, it had only been using ordinary attacks—or maybe it had deliberately suppressed its true power.

This was its full strength.

Was this really something a fifth-tier Card Wielder could control?

She had thought the seventh-tier Origin Realm creature she had barely managed to defeat earlier was already terrifying enough—a foe that forced her to exhaust all her trump cards just to kill.

But compared to the ash that the Black Knight had effortlessly dispersed with a single swing, those so-called seventh-tier creatures would probably be nothing more than cannon fodder. A single slash could wipe out five or six of them.

She had always believed that the essence of being a Card Wielder lay in strategy—in the meticulous control of battle conditions and the seamless switching of card combinations.

But now, it seemed…

In the face of absolute power, all flashy techniques were meaningless.

This card…

Was practically cheating!

Yun Huang swallowed hard, her throat still dry and tight, though it was far better than the sensation of swallowing knives earlier.

After cleaving through the ash, the Black Knight made no further movements. It simply stood there, silent and unmoving, like a statue shielding those behind it within a relatively safe space.

Then, a figure stepped forward with light footsteps.

Yun Huang’s pupils contracted almost imperceptibly.

Liu Yuan’s custom-fitted combat suit remained astonishingly pristine despite the corrosive ash, as if an invisible barrier kept all filth at bay.

Her hair was still smooth, with a few stray strands brushing against her cheeks, swaying gently with her movements.

In contrast, Yun Huang was covered in soot and grime, her face dusted with ash. Though her clothes hadn’t torn yet, her exposed skin was dotted with tiny red marks, burning painfully.

The difference between them was like night and day.

One looked like she had just crawled out of a battlefield, while the other seemed to be out for a leisurely stroll.

Liu Yuan stopped a few steps away from Yun Huang. There was no trace of pity or superiority in her expression—just pure inquiry.

"Sister Yun Huang?"

"Can you still move?"

Yun Huang forced a strained smile, but her facial muscles felt stiff.

"I’m fine," she rasped.

"That’s good." Liu Yuan nodded.

Then she asked, "Do you remember the direction of the signal point…?"

Her thoughts aligned with Yun Huang’s.

They couldn’t recklessly rely on the sheer power of their cards in such a bizarre environment.

Too many unknown dangers lurked, and a single misstep could spell doom.

Specialized tasks were best left to specialized personnel. Right now, their priority was survival—not playing the hero and deluding themselves into thinking they could save everyone.

"I remember," Yun Huang replied, her voice still rough. "The signal flare’s sound came from… roughly that direction."

She pointed toward a vague area, her wrist twinging slightly.

"But," she glanced at the silent Black Knight, "the ash on the way… might require its help to clear a path."

Liu Yuan blinked, a hint of confusion flickering across her face, as if she didn’t quite understand. "Clear a path?"

She tilted her head slightly. "Can’t we just… blow the ash away?"

Yun Huang nearly choked.

Blow it away?

This wasn’t ordinary dust—it was highly corrosive and disrupted energy. Normal wind wouldn’t even budge it. Even her spiritual shield could only slow its invasion, and over time, it would still wear through.

Clearing such a vast area of ash in an instant required far more than just "wind."

But Liu Yuan’s words weren’t meant to sound arrogant.

She simply lacked a frame of reference.

Since the Black Knight had effortlessly dispersed the ash with a single slash, she assumed that a strong enough gust could do the same—just like scattering ordinary dust.

As for Yun Huang’s sorry state, Liu Yuan didn’t attribute it to the ash.

She figured Yun Huang had either exhausted herself fighting that seventh-tier Origin Realm creature earlier or had been ambushed by other creatures.

After all, Yun Huang still had traces of blood from that seventh-tier creature earlier, along with signs of battle.

Yun Huang didn’t bother explaining further, simply nodding. Now wasn’t the time to dwell on such things. "Then help clear a path. I’ll guide the way."

"We should head south, but I can’t be sure of the exact distance. Visibility is too restricted."

At Yun Huang’s words, the Black Knight raised his massive sword once more.

This wasn’t another wide, sweeping slash like before.

This time, he lifted the sword single-handedly, its tip pointing straight ahead.

A concentrated beam of light—no, it could hardly even be called a sword beam anymore—more like a solid, pure stream of energy shot forward in a straight line!

Where it passed, the black ash silently disintegrated, vanishing into nothingness.

A perfectly straight path was forcibly carved through the suffocating world of ash, stretching endlessly in the direction Yun Huang had indicated.

On either side of the path, the ash was held back as if by an invisible barrier, unable to encroach even slightly.

Inside the passage, the air grew relatively fresh, the stinging and scorching sensations greatly diminished.

Though the ominous twilight sky still loomed overhead, at least the path beneath their feet was now clear.

Yun Huang’s lips twitched into a strained smile.

Oh…

So that earlier sword strike, the one that had cleared a thirty-meter radius, was just a casual swing? A basic attack?

But seriously, what kind of swordsman’s ultimate technique is firing a literal energy cannon? That’s just… not the right aesthetic.