It was a woman with long black hair that reached to her waist. She was wearing a rustic mask that looked to be made out of wood. The mask had no other discerning features other than two small openings for the eyes.

She wore cyan clothes which catered to efficient movement rather than appearance. Her clothes were laden with dirt and torn in some places too, probably as a consequence of her extended fight.

In her right hand was a sword. The sword moved at such speed that Yun Fei was only able to even see it when she stopped the movement of her hand and dodged the equally nimble tail of the snake.

As the woman was fending off the tail of the snake, it's head moved towards her from the back. Yun Fei almost raised his voice to warn her but then was stunned as the woman just disappeared in front of his eyes.

Yun Fei's view changed and his hair fluttered in the wind. He was stunned for a moment and then realised what had happened.

He was currently up in the sky, being held by the scruff of his shirt by the woman that had suddenly appeared right next to him.

A pleasant to hear voice entered his ears as he tilted his head to look towards her.

"What were you doing inside the snake?"

Before he could say answer, Yun Fei had already been transported to a place away from the battlefield of the snake and the woman. With a sentence left behind,

"Stay here for now, I'll talk to you later."

Shui Ling had already started fighting with the snake again.

All of this happened so fast that Yun Fei couldn't even say anything. He was completely shocked by her speed.

His eyes were fixated on the mythical scene playing out in front of him. It was a giant beast vs a human; a matchup that was very common in lore.

Shui Ling and the snake were familiar with each other after tussling over the past days. They knew each other's moves, but this didn't change their strategy.

The snake used its tail to launch fast glancing attacks on Shui Ling as a setup to swallow her. However, she was far too nimble to fall for that.

It was a master in the manipulation of the earth. With every sweep of its tail the land rose to meet its wishes.

Spears, boulders and spikes flew out from the deformed ground. A grounded fighter would've had his work cut out for him, just traversing the battlefield.

Both the fighters were far beyond Yun Fei's level, even with his great eyesight he could not track their movements. More often than not, they seemed to vanish before his eyes.

The head of the enormous snake didn't even leave afterimages when it struck, a flicker of the tongue… a chilling pause… and BAAM!!! the place where Shui Ling stood would erupt in a shower of dirt.

But she was even faster than the snake. In contrast to the bursts of preposterous speed, her graceful footwork in the air confused reality; blending into tangible looking clones.

Shui Ling flew circles around it like a fish in water. She constantly vanished from Yun Fei's sight and landed slashes on the giant body of the snake.

Every time her sword moved, there would be a blue flash of light that extended outwards and landed on the snake's body.

It was clear that the she had the higher agility and was landing more blows on the snake. Nevertheless, it was extremely hard for her to deal adequate damage to the snake.

It was at this point in the fight, the exhaustion of both the parties was on display. Earlier, Shui Ling could at least damage the snake with her sword techniques. But now, due to the lack of Qi, it was hard for her to get past the glossy scales.

This was also the snake's advantage. Although it used its Qi for extra defence, at its core, it was still a demonic beast. Its greatest asset was its own body and that was clearly proving its worth.

Although there was no damage being done currently, Yun Fei had to turn his eyes away from the fight and even hunker down against the shockwaves coming from the battle. A battle at this level was proving to be too much for him.

Moving further away, he wondered why the snake even stopped to deal with her. It could simply keep running and it wouldn't even suffer a lot of damage.

Just as he had this thought, he immediately received an answer.

The pattern repeated once more and Shui Ling lashed out with uncountable number of swift slashes as she dodged and parried the snakes head and tail.

Innumerable azure coloured rays curved into different parts of the body of the snake. The serpent actually moved to dodge some of them and was successful despite its gigantic body.

However, the sword lights that struck true made it shriek. A hole similar to the one where Yun Fei had escaped from formed where one of the slashes hit.

'She is indeed capable of hurting it.'

Shui Ling had a strained look. The move just now hadn't been as easy as it looked. It wasn't something she could execute again and again in this condition.

Yun Fei was completely dumbstruck by their display of strength. This fight was virtually unobservable for him. He was overextending himself in trying to decipher all the information his vision was providing him.

When he lost focus for even a moment. All he could see were phenomenon caused by their clash. The trembling of the earth, the debris that flew through the sky and the burst of light and sound that assaulted his senses were everything.

Even at his best, the only true moves he could see were blurry stills of past moves. It was as if he was running at a different time from them.

Even the fragments of debris that rolled across the earth contained a killing intent that nearly drove him to freeze up like a deer in the headlights.

Their fight picked up again and finally, the snake's tail triumphed over Shui Ling's swift and evasive movement technique.

After it had sprayed a fog of venom from its mouth; she got struck with the tail directly, even though she was successful in avoiding the venom.

She was launched across the sky and rolled on the ground for some distance. The snake's head followed rapidly behind her to end the fight, once and for all.

Along with it came waves of earth. It wanted to bury her so she couldn't escape before it reached her.

Yun Fei even prepared himself to just run away from here as far as possible. In case misfortune befell his saviour.

But suddenly, the hard wall of earth that had almost covered her separated into hundreds of pieces. The snake's head could only swallow dirt.

She was standing in the sky with her sword raised high. The sword shined with a radiant azure light. The snake felt danger and its head and tail moved towards her with maximum speed. It only had the option to face her head on, there was no time to dodge.

A very ragged Shui Ling lowered her hand and an azure slash carrying incomparable lethality reached the snake's open jaw.

Simultaneously, she was once again hit by the whip like giant tail. She was thrown far away once again, but this time she recovered much faster.

She could see the end. Although it cost her the sword light she had nurtured for some time, if she could kill the snake, it would be completely worth it.

Yun Fei felt that the end of the fight was near.

The slash had cleanly landed on the head of the snake. A portion of its upper jaw and one of its giant fangs fell to the ground. Blood spurted out of the wound to the air as it writhed in pain.

As soon as she was close to making the final move. The blood that had been discharged into the air from the wound expanded like steam. Covering the snake completely, It blocked her divine sense from locking on it.

Her sword split up the blood mist into two then from two to four. There was nothing inside the mist. The snake had managed to escape.

Shui Ling felt regretful that she couldn't put an end to the serpent. However, at least she had gained a fang. Its worth wouldn't be less, it would at least make up for the sword light she had nurtured.

Landing on the ground, Shui Ling took a deep breath to suppress her injuries and then moved towards her prize. She had to collect and preserve her trophy.

After she stored it, presumably in some kind of storage device. She moved towards Yun Fei.

Just as she came near, he instantly cupped his hands and bowed.

"Junior Yun Fei greets senior."

Shui Ling was startled by his enthusiastic greeting. She grilled

"What were you doing inside that snake? And How did you even get there?"

Shui Ling was really perplexed. She was fully concentrating on her fight with the snake but then she suddenly noticed that a human had come out of the place where she had slashed the snake.

What surprised her even more was that it was just a guy in the lower levels of Qi Condensation. She didn't think that someone on this level could survive inside the snake and then actually escape.

Although it was because of her that he was able to escape, it was still a respectable feat. She knew that the wound she made wasn't deep enough to reach the stomach. It only reached to the muscle layer at best.

This meant that this guy standing in front of her who was completely drenched in snake blood and looked like a beggar had actually dug inside that snake to at least reach the muscle layer.

This undeniably made her curious about what had happened. So she directly asked the junior for his story.

Yun Fei couldn't discern what expression the woman in front of him had below her mask.

He composed himself and told her how he was attempting the examination in Sungong city and had gotten swallowed by the snake while on the cliff.

"When I almost reached the stomach of the snake. I started digging outwards so that I could escape from the snake.

Since I could hear the snake being chased around outside, I thought that I wouldn't have any more chances of escaping after this.

This junior's vision was too narrow. After watching seniors grand battle, I realised that I couldn’t have escaped from the final scaled layer of the snake no matter how much I dug. It is only by senior’s grace that this body stands here today.

It may be presumptuous but this Yun Fei will go through fire and water if senior needs me in the future."

Yun Fei was actually very grateful. He truly believed what he had said and he also believed in not being indebted to anyone. If the senior in front of him actually needed him, he would do all in his power to help her.