Chapter 936: Life-saving
Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
Wild Horse took seven steps forward, and the disciples around him retreated seven steps at the same time. Even those who were already against the wall nervously shuffled their feet, trying to move backwards.
The less seriously Wild Horse treated the lives of the people around him, the more the crowd revered him.
The discussion had ended and the killing had resumed, and Wild Horse had pointed his sword at his first target.
Old Man Mu’s expression immediately changed. After moving a few steps closer to the Dragon King, he chuckled. “I’ve never practiced the so-called Waning Moon Swordsmans.h.i.+p or the Death Sutra Swordsmans.h.i.+p, so you’d better find someone else to practice your sword technique on.”
Wild Horse’s sword moved along with his target. Waves of warmth rushed up to his head from his feet. Today, he would finally shut up that annoying big mouth forever.
“Dragon King, you haven’t spoken for a long time. The Master Commander already said that she invited you here to kill Wild Horse. It’s getting late. Why not make a move now?” Old Man Mu simply hid behind the Dragon King. He wasn’t the kind of person who would calmly accept death when he knew that he would definitely be defeated.
“No.” Gu Shenwei refused Old Man Mu’s request for help. “Wild Horse’s swordsmans.h.i.+p isn’t powerful enough. You have to help him to improve it further.”
“Ah?” Old Man Mu believed that he was smarter than most of the people in the hall but even he couldn’t understand the Dragon King right now. “Improve it further? So that he can kill everyone here? Besides… Besides, I’m too weak to help him.”
“You are the most obvious choice.” Gu Shenwei grabbed Old Man Mu from behind him and put him in front of Wild Horse.
In the face of danger, Old Man Mu’s mind spun even faster. “The Dragon King wants Wild Horse to improve his swordsmans.h.i.+p further. Does the Dragon King want him to kill himself again?”
“Hmm.”
Gu Shenwei hadn’t been idle when Old Man Mu had been speaking with Lotus. The various experiences that he had had when practicing the Death Sutra Swordsmans.h.i.+p had rushed through his mind one by one.
The two golden-crowned rocs had first brought Servant Huan that magic ancient book. Frightened by the horrible figures and esoteric words in the book, he hadn’t taken it too seriously at that time, but neither had he begrudgingly thrown it away either.
In contrast, Lotus had urged Servant Huan to practice it as soon as she read the Death Sutra. At that time, she probably wanted to use this odd kung fu to harm people. For this purpose, she had even put herself at risk by learning the swordsmans.h.i.+p together with Servant Huan.
It was with this sword technique of unknown origin that the two had completed the training of a killer disciple and successfully survived Golden Roc Castle. In order to not be noticed by the killers, they had carefully controlled how quickly they improved at the swordsmans.h.i.+p and therefore, hadn’t die unwittingly to a backlash.
After the monks of the Four n.o.ble Truths Temple had deciphered the outline, which was written in a weird language, Gu Shenwei and Lotus had both realized that they were on a road of no return. The more they killed, the stronger the swordsmans.h.i.+p. And the stronger the swordsmans.h.i.+p, the more they had to kill strong rivals. There was no end. In the end, the one they would be able to kill would only be themselves.
The only solution was to delay the progress of the practice as much as possible.
This was a strange and cruel martial art in every way, but it was called the “Grand Enlightenment Sword Sutra.” Both Gu Shenwei and Lotus thought that it was more appropriate to call it the “Death Sutra.” For a long time, Gu Shenwei had felt that he had neglected something. The outline of the Daoless Scroll had then filled one of the most important loopholes.
Gu Shenwei had accidentally found the outline in the Underground Palace of the Khan and had read it many times since then. What impressed him the most was the story of “sacrificing the body to achieve enlightenment.” A monk who studied and cultivated hard couldn’t free himself from his mortal shackles. To prove his sincerity to Buddha, he had committed suicide, but in that same moment of death, also been enlightened.
Both the Daoless Divine Power and the Death Sutra Swordsmans.h.i.+p were martial arts skills pa.s.sed down from Golden Roc Castle. The two were probably created by the same person, so naturally, there were many similarities between the two. And it was exactly from this story that Gu Shenwei had comprehended the true meaning of the “Grand Enlightenment Sword Sutra.”
Practicing one’s swordsmans.h.i.+p was like cultivating oneself according to a religious doctrine. The first step was to have infinite faith in the swordsmans.h.i.+p as believing in something made it happen. The following path was also similar. The ascetic had to strengthen his belief in the endless cultivation. For a swordsmans.h.i.+p pract.i.tioner, it was to kill over and over again. The pract.i.tioner would be amazed by his swordsmans.h.i.+p over and over again and his swordsmans.h.i.+p would improve to corresponding higher levels.
In the end, like the ascetic, when the belief of the pract.i.tioner grew to the utmost, they needed a more direct and powerful proof of his conviction, which was to “sacrifice the body to achieve enlightenment.”
Gu Shenwei’s conviction was far from that strong, but as soon as he saw Wild Horse, he knew his theories could be tested on this man.
Old Man Mu was dumbfounded. Placing his hopes of defeating the enemy on the other side’s committing suicide was like using another person’s saber to kill them. It didn’t seem to be a feasible tactic at all. “Dragon King, Wild Horse has already ‘killed himself’ once before. Will he do it again?”
“To sacrifice the body to achieve enlightenment,” Gu Shenwei casually said. “Wild Horse has only killed the body but didn’t receive enlightenment. Thus, he will do it again for the second and a third time until he dies.”
The Dragon King’s confidence didn’t have an encouraging effect on Old Man Mu. Instead, it made him even more frightened. “A third time? So it means that I may not live to see it? Ehh, look, Wild Horse is smiling, and it’s really ugly. He’s being disdainful of the Dragon King. I don’t think that he wants to commit suicide at all. I’d guess that he doesn’t even know what “enlightenment” means.”
Wild Horse was indeed smiling. This was exactly the Servant Huan that he remembered, a man of great eloquence, a complete lackey who was good at flattering his master. Now, even though Servant Huan was in power, he was more eloquent than ever. Unlike Old Man Mu’s meaningless nagging, Servant Huan’s words usually hid some truth in them and the listeners would be deluded if they didn’t pay any attention to it.
Unlike the ordinary disciples, Wild Horse had long since known of the consequences of the backlash from the very beginning. But instead of shrinking back, he had risen to the challenge. At that time, he had not even considered sacrificing his partner, the old man of the Essence Pavilion.
Wild Horse thought that he had grasped the true meaning of the Death Sutra. As a ground-breaking swordsmans.h.i.+p, each and every one of its training methods went to extremes from the very beginning. Ordinary people would be frightened. Servant Huan and Lotus had carefully maintained a balance. But he would bravely stride forward, break through the ultimate extremes, and enter a whole new world that he had utmost faith existed.
This new world would definitely not begin with suicide.
As for the death of the old man of the Essence Pavilion, it was just a small detour which he would never take again.
Wild Horse took a step forward. Old Man Mu saw the murderous sword coming at him, but he couldn’t even move an inch. It were as if his feet had been rooted to the ground.
The three moves shown by Servant Huan were quite useful. Wild Horse wouldn’t refuse them. Instead, he decided to use them on Old Man Mu.
Old Man Mu looked back at the Dragon King and said, “Is the Dragon King really not going to help?”
Gu Shenwei shook his head. “I’m sure you have a way.”
Old Man Mu smiled wryly as he turned to Lotus. “What about you, Master Commander? You want to kill Wild Horse, and this is your best chance.”
“If I could kill him, then I wouldn’t have invited the Dragon King here.” Lotus was even more determined than the Dragon King. “And I also want to see what the end of the Death Sutra Swordsmans.h.i.+p is like.”
Old Man Mu sighed and said, “If I had known this, then I would have kept my mouth shut.”
Han Fen comforted him. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of your funeral affairs.”
“Heh heh…” As soon as Old Man Mu’s laughter rang out, Wild Horse’s sword had already lunged at him.
The sword wasn’t too fast. Old Man Mu felt like his feet could move again, but he didn’t. Wild Horse’s sword move changed again. Not only did it have a heavy killing aura, but it also became more flexible. Such a simple move had actually hidden countless subsequent changes.
Old Man Mu had nowhere to hide. Wild Horse’s sword seemed to be coming from all directions, so he could only hide in ‘himself.’
Under the watchful eyes of the crowd, Old Man Mu suddenly crouched into a ball – not squatting on the ground, but rather ‘floating’ in the air like a spineless hedgehog, ready to take Wild Horse’s blow with his body.
Wild Horse hit his target. Old Man Mu fell to the ground, still curled up in the shape of a ball. No one knew whether he was dead or alive.
Wild Horse didn’t make another move. He had used the pure form of the Death Sutra Swordsmans.h.i.+p and he would only attack once. There was no backlash which meant that the stroke had been a success, but he didn’t smell the shroud of death.
Old Man Mu suddenly rolled back several paces and rose up near the Dragon King. He touched his chest and said, “What a formidable swordsmans.h.i.+p. I’m not even bleeding.”
In the eyes of others, it had seemed like a very ordinary sword move, but when the sword stabbed into the target, it had been extremely fast. Little to no bleeding indicated that Wild Horse’s swordsmans.h.i.+p had improved yet again. But Old Man Mu somehow hadn’t died, which seemed to indicate that the swordsmans.h.i.+p has failed.
The disciples around were all puzzled.
Wild Horse knew why. His eyes narrowed slightly. He had forgotten about Old Man Mu’s life-saving skill.
“Heh heh, Dragon King, you are awful. You’ve heard about the Amber Power of my sect so you wanted to see it for yourself, right? To satisfy you, I’ve lost some of my power again. Alas, if I do it one or two more times, I’ll become a complete wreck.”
The Amber Power was one of the unique skills of the Jade Pure Sect left in the Norland. It did not help improve one’s internal energy, but it could save the pract.i.tioner’s life in times of crisis. Old Man Mu had used the Amber Power to survive several sticky situations. The only drawback was that using it consumed a lot of internal energy, and part of it would disappear forever.
When they had been in the Norland, Old Man Mu had introduced this martial arts skill in detail, so Gu Shenwei knew that he would not die easily. “You don’t need too much internal energy. The weaker your kung fu is, the more trustworthy you are,” Gu Shenwei said.
“The Dragon King sounds like the Good Girl…” Old Man Mu shut up hastily. He’d be better off not mentioning Shangguan Ru in front of Lotus. “My job is done, isn’t it? Do not make me do it again. I’m not sure if I can perform the Amber Power again with how much internal energy I have left.”
“You may step down now,” Gu Shenwei said, “Wild Horse, let me pick another opponent for you. I guarantee that you will still not be able to kill him.”
Obviously, Gu Shenwei was goading Wild Horse into action, but Wild Horse accepted it. He would let Servant Huan play all his tricks to his heart’s content before killing him with one blow.
“Shangguan Hong.”
When Shangguan Hong heard his name be called out, he was staggered for a moment and almost fell to the ground, but he still walked out with his soft sword and stood opposite Wild Horse. He forced himself to look the other side straight in the eye, but he only managed to hold on for a moment before he looked down.
Wild Horse smiled again. Shangguan Hong had a vigorous Qi and blood, so the Dragon King was probably thinking that he couldn’t kill him. But his swordsmans.h.i.+p had surpa.s.sed the stage of bloodletting. He would hit the opponent’s vital point in one blow, and the other side would not even feel pain when they died.
Gu Shenwei asked, “Do you want to live?”
“Yes,” replied Shangguan Hong with a trembling voice.
“I’ll teach you one move. Master it now and you’ll live. One mistake and you’ll die.”
“I… I’ll try.”
Gu Shenwei performed a very complicated move in front of everyone which involved dozens of subsequent changes. It was so dazzling that most of the people there even found it difficult to see it clearly, not to mention imitate it.
Shangguan Hong looked at it with his full attention, but he only remembered twenty or thirty percent of it. “Can you show it again?”
“No. One time is enough. If you don’t understand it, then you won’t understand it no matter how many times you watch.” Gu Shenwei said. Then he looked at Lotus and saw that she had already understood.