The First Woman to Abolish Perpetual Taxation

Wu Lingxiao raised her hand and grasped the sword hilt with an air of indifference.

“My plaything, running errands for others, thinking he was doing something grand.”

Her voice remained calm, even distant, yet within that calmness lurked a suffocating cruelty:

“How… tedious.”

“Clang!”

The Tai’a Imperial Sword was drawn, and a golden radiance suddenly flared.

“Wait…”

Yeh You’s words trailed off as he sensed something amiss.

He erupted with the demonic energy he had long suppressed within himself.

Torrential black mist surged forth like a bursting dam, billowing from his body, blotting out the sky and covering the sun, dyeing the surrounding hundred zhang in a deathly, dark pitch. This was the demonic path he had cultivated with half a lifetime’s accumulation and countless blood sacrifices—his final and strongest trump card.

Yet…

The next moment, a strange sensation crept through his limbs.

It was like sinking into a bottomless pool of black water; every limb and joint grew slowly, ever so slowly, heavy and sluggish.

He tried to raise his hand, but his arm felt as if it bore a thousand-pound weight. He tried to step back, but his legs seemed rooted to the ground.

The surging demonic energy still blazed, his divine sense still screamed for his body to move…

But his body no longer obeyed him.

The golden sword light advanced unhurriedly toward him.

Could this be… the power of time?

Yeh You’s pupils contracted.

She had sealed time itself into this sword strike.

It was not a forbidden art, not a desperate gamble, not anything he could comprehend or resist.

She had simply and calmly executed an imperial sword technique, yet within the reach of that sword light, even time itself bowed to her will.

The golden light pierced through his chest.

Yeh You looked down at the sword light that had run him through, unmoving for a long moment.

He had traveled the world, seen countless powerful beings—demon patriarchs who crushed the heavens with raw strength, sages who schemed through the mysteries of fate—but never had he seen power like this.

A power so great it required no anger, no full effort; just a casual strike, like divine punishment from the heavens, leaving no room for struggle.

As his nascent soul began to shatter, he used his last shred of divine thought to look at the woman calmly sheathing her sword.

There was no trace of him in her eyes.

All his life, he had hated, schemed, and fought against her…

And she had never even considered him worth noticing.

Never, ever.

A Great Vehicle stage cultivator, the Holy Son Yeyou, slain by Wu Lingxiao with one sword strike—his soul scattered into oblivion!

The blood mist dissipated in the wind.

Wu Lingxiao watched where Yeh You had vanished, her expression unchanged.

After a moment, she sheathed the Tai’a sword, turned slowly, and gazed toward the endless sea of clouds on the horizon.

She hovered in midair, her robes rustling violently in the gale.

She did not descend in haste.

She simply stood there, her demeanor proud, her back straight as a mountain.

“Ye Xuan.”

The name slipped from her lips, calm, light, devoid of any emotional fluctuation, as if she were merely reciting the name of an ordinary object.

“I… must still find you.”

The moment these words fell…

Behind her, the void rippled silently, like a still lake disturbed by a tossed pebble.

Then, a faint shadow slowly emerged from that ripple.

It had no solid form, no aura, no trace of any cultivation fluctuation—as if it were merely a part of the air, as if it had never truly existed.

But Wu Lingxiao did not turn around.

She had sensed it long ago.

The shadow came to a stop three steps behind her, its outline blurry and features indistinguishable, save for a pair of eyes faintly visible deep within the shade, carrying an ancient meaning beyond the passage of time, quietly observing her back.

A moment of silence.

The shadow spoke, its voice as if coming from a great distance, carrying a faint echo:

“I have already lifted the ‘Single Conquest, Eternal Conquest’ for you.”

“Why are you still obsessed with him?”

Wu Lingxiao did not answer immediately.

She cast her eyes downward and offered a faint smile, the corners of her mouth twitching slowly.

It was a cold smile—shallow, restrained, yet carrying a bone-chilling certainty.

“‘Single Conquest, Eternal Conquest.’”

She repeated the four words softly, a hint of casual mockery in her tone, as if evaluating an insignificant trick: “What does it matter whether you lifted it or not?”

She finally turned around slowly, facing the wind, looking down at the shadow.

Her hair was tousled by the gale, half-covering her face, but not the something deep within her phoenix eyes.

It was not infatuation, not attachment, but a colder, clearer obsession.

“Do you think I cling to him because of the lingering aftereffects of a forbidden technique?”

She gave a short, soft laugh, brief yet brimming with undeniable arrogance:

“You underestimate me.”

The shadow remained silent, waiting for her to continue.

Wu Lingxiao withdrew her gaze from the shadow and turned once more toward the vast sea of clouds.

Her voice rang out in the wind, calm and clear, each word heavy:

“I want to capture him for two reasons. First: no one deceives me and gets away without paying the price.”

She paused for a moment, then continued, her tone flat yet carrying a chilling clarity and cruelty:

“Second…”

She turned her face sideways, half of it bathed in the blood-red glow of the setting sun, her expression proud and steady as a mountain:

“Ye Xuan’s talent is too astonishing.”

When she said this, her voice held not a shred of emotion—only pure, almost ruthless assessment and calculation:

“The geniuses I have seen are countless. Sect masters, thousand-year-unique sacred bodies, prodigies blessed with extraordinary bloodlines… I have seen them all and broken them all with my own hands.”

“But Ye Xuan is different.”

“If this man falls into my hands, used to the fullest, with my methods and the foundation of Great Xia…”

Wu Lingxiao turned fully around to face the shadow, her cold smile widening slowly, carrying the composure of one who is determined to succeed:

“He can make my Great Xia Immortal Dynasty rule over all heavens.”

These four words, spoken lightly from her lips, struck the silent ruins like a thunderbolt.

The shadow remained silent for an even longer time.

Those eyes deep within the shade trembled slightly. Then, a long-suppressed emotion finally seeped into the voice—not anger, but a deeper, tragic concern:

“You have lost your mind.”

The voice was low, carrying a grave seriousness:

“Wu Lingxiao, listen to me.”

“What you see now is only Ye Xuan’s starting point.”

“Once this young man grows, breaks through his shackles, the heights he reaches will be beyond your imagination.”

“He will surely kill you.”

“This is not my guess—it is the inevitable outcome.”

“You, Wu Lingxiao, are the only true threat to him in this world. When his wings are fully spread, do you think he will remember any kindness from you?”

“He will only turn back and cut you down with his sword.”

“He will never allow anyone in this world to threaten him. Even less will he allow anyone to have broken the ‘Single Conquest, Eternal Conquest.’”

These last few words, carrying a suppressed urgency, trembled within the howling wind.

Above the ruins of the temple, only the sound of the wind remained.

Wu Lingxiao quietly listened until the end.

She did not interrupt, did not refute, nor showed any sign of wavering.

She merely lowered her gaze, looking down at the imperial city that had turned to scorched earth beneath her feet, at the broken walls and crumbling structures, at the golden specks of light left over from the shattered fortunes of the Great Xia kingdom, flickering out one by one in the twilight.

A long moment passed.

She raised her head.

And sneered.

This sneer was deeper and more indifferent than any before, yet it also carried a certain... almost perverse composure.

“Then let’s see who grows faster—him or me.”

“Ye Xuan, you belong to none other than me.”