Within a thick, dense forest.
Xia Mengyao stood, her slender frame draped in red robes trimmed with pristine silver silk.
In her right hand rested a slender blade forged from thousand-year profound spirit iron.
Her breathing was imperceptible, as tranquil as an unmoving as a calm lake, her spiritual sea locked in harmony with the Dao of the sword.
Finally, she sheathed the sword.
The crisp, resonant clack of the crossguard meeting the mouth of the scabbard was no louder than a dry twig snapping beneath a boot.
Yet, the moment the blade vanished entirely into its dark sheath, the delayed consequence of her solitary strike detonated across the landscape.
SHIIIIING!
There was no sound of tearing wood, no splintering branches, and no gust of destructive wind, but across an unbroken radius of ten full miles, every ancient pine, ironwood trunk, and twisted mountain cedar was simultaneously severed at the exact same horizontal plane, precisely three feet above the forest floor.
