Chapter 806: The Whetstone
Translator: Transn Editor: Transn
When Gao Qianyuan used the escaping technique, the invisibility of his body was not consistent because of the gaps in the fog at the exit of the tunnel. Knowing that his trace had been found, Gao Qianyuan revealed himself. Holding a sword-shaped token in his right hand, he too let out his furious aura and stared into the eyes of Meng Qi in the dark.
In an instant, four streaks of electric lights were colliding with each other and releasing sparks in the void.
Gao Qianyuan took a step forward, looking alert and cautious. He then said in a calm and steady voice,
“It’s true that you’re strong, but you’re not strong enough to overpower a person from the guru domain. Moreover, I have the Token of Sword Spirit in my hand. It’s hard to tell who will win in the end. Why don’t you leave me alone?”
Gao Qianyuan had witnessed how Meng Qi stayed calm in front of the Demon of the Realm of Self and got the information he wanted eventually. Therefore, he already had a whole new understanding of the power and state of mind of Meng Qi. Putting aside his pride and the disbelief of the young enemy’s power, he understood that the rumors were true. Meng Qi had already grew into a powerful figure who was feared by many gurus. However, Gao Qianyuan was an experienced guru. Given that he was aided by the Token of Sword Spirit that was almost similar to a Heavenly Weapon, he could even escape from a Dharmakaya of Half-Step, let alone Meng Qi.
Meng Qi was still sitting cross-legged on top of the tent. His right hand was grasping at the blade handle at a slow speed, but he was giving people a false feeling of moving quickly. His movement had let out an oppressive aura that felt like the proverb, “The whirling wind forebodes an impending storm.” He then spoke in a calm voice,
“You’re not placing your hope on your own ability. Instead, you place it on a weapon. This is your first problem.”
“Something is wrong inside your body, hence you’re not fit for a long fight. This is your second problem.”
“You appear to be tough on the outside, but on the inside you’re thinking to escape from the battle. This is your third problem.”
Meng Qi put his right hand on the blade handle and looked at Gao Qianyuan with deep and quiet eyes.
“With these three problems, killing you is as easy as killing a chicken or a dog.”
Stung by every single word of Meng Qi, Gao Qianyuan felt that the words were like a huge hammer striking on the bell. At first, he wanted to sneer at Meng Qi, but he was stunned after he listened to the end. His body shook slightly and his countenance got serious. He felt as though all his problems were exposed and nothing could be hidden from the eyes of Meng Qi.
It was true that the body of Gao Qianyuan had been having some hidden problems, therefore he had to draw support from the Token of Sword Spirit in order to attain the Formless Sword Spirit of a higher level. This fact could be known from the previous battle between them. However, a few moments ago, he had just came out with an idea to escape from this battle. He was planning to strike an attack as a way of defending himself, then retreat far away immediately after that. How could Meng Qi possibly know his plan?
Was this the Ancient Heart mentioned by Meng Qi and the Demon of the Realm of Self?
Gao Qianyuan calmed himself down. Without showing a sign of cowardice, he said, “Humans are different from the beasts in a sense that they are good at making and using tools. I don’t find any problem with me using the Token of Sword Spirit.”
“It’s so powerful that it can almost be transformed into a Heavenly Weapon and make a great guru feel threatened. I can’t find a reason for not using it.”
As Gao Qianyuan enunciated each word slowly, his aura had resurged and confronted Meng Qi.
“It’s not wrong to make use of the tools, but you need to be able to gain control over them. Otherwise, the tools will be manipulating you, as opposed to you manipulating them. Would a three-year-old kid be able to use a two-thousand-kilogram hammer as his weapon? It might be hard for me to defeat the Token of Sword Spirit, but defeating its owner – which is you – is as easy as turning over my palm.” As Meng Qi grasped the blade handle, purple electric lights and blue thunder – which looked like flowing streams – were clinging tightly to the body of the blade.
After some time of adjusting his mindset, Meng Qi had been clear about two things that needed to be done. The first one was to secretly seek for the opportunities to get rid of the mighty people. Secondly, he would nourish his heart and blade through battle experiences. By winning the powerful people, an invincible bladesmans.h.i.+p and an invincible faith would be formed. He would be refining his own spirit with the victories. In this way, when the opportunity came, he would be confident to wield the blade in his best state of spirit. Using the sharpest long blade, he would cut off the casual connections and karma and live a carefree and unrestrained life!
He would start the journey of forming the invincible bladesmans.h.i.+p and invincible faith by defeating Gao Qianyuan!
Zeng!
The body of the blade was shaking and making a sound of a dragon roar. Meng Qi leaned his body forward and pulled out the long blade with his right hand. The thunder was overflowing from the blade like several blinding streaks of lightning.
The first strike!
Attracted by Qi Ji, Gao Qianyuan was holding the Token of Sword Spirit in his hand. Along with the appearance of a form of a giant blue maggot on his back, his body had collapsed, as though he was a sand sculpture that had broken up into just sand. Every grain of sand had become a light-blue maggot that was inhaling the sword power. In a split second, they had turned transparent and merged themselves into the Vigor Ocean.
Instantaneously, the area within dozens of miles was filled with killing intent. The maggots were gathering at the areas that had strong vigor. Some of them were spewing sword power in all directions, whereas the others were trying to invade Meng Qi’s body through his breathing. On the other hand, a few of the maggots were swimming away from the battle area silently to escape to the other places.
Just then, Meng Qi had slashed his blade, the Heaven’s Pain. The slash – with a shape of a lightning bolt and an extremely sharp edge – went across hundreds of feet of distance. It cut through the air silently.
The speed of the slash was fast at the beginning. It gave a feeling of breaking free from the constraints and seeking for freedom. However, the further it went, the slower the speed was. As the speed got slower and slower, the surrounding had gradually become darker. The void was shrinking toward the long blade. At the same time, the vast energy of the Vigor Ocean was also circulating, contracting and crumbling on Meng Qi who had been united with his blade as a whole. It was as though the energy of the Vigor Ocean was going to be condensed into a small point. A point that was not placed anywhere, nor did it have a past or a future.
The surrounding was dim and dark. The energy was compressed in layers and condensed rapidly into a solid substance, which then turned into ambers that trapped the maggots. Gao Qianyuan felt that the void around him had been obstructed, which made it impossible for him to escape. As his sword power could hardly move an inch forward, the power had dissipated quickly. The Vigor Ocean had completely merged together with Meng Qi as Gao Qianyuan could not even access a tiny bit of it. The realm of Meng Qi had supported with his bladesmans.h.i.+p perfectly!
Gao Qianyuan thought to himself, I can’t let this slash evolve anymore! Just then, he felt a sharp pain in his Primordial Spirit. Knowing that the current situation was extremely dangerous, he had no choice but to harm himself by condensing his body forcefully and unleas.h.i.+ng the full power of the Token of Sword Spirit.
At the next second, the highly condensed energy of the Vigor Ocean had been released. It turned the surroundings into a broad ocean of cyan-blue color. Every drop of the water in the ocean had been transformed into maggots. With the help of the contraction force, all the maggots had surged toward Meng Qi in a way that was more aggressive than a thousand swords striking at once. The maggots were like sharp-edged weapons that were capable to wipe out vitality.
It was indeed a threatening counter-attack of Gao Qianyuan. The previous slash of Meng Qi that had already slowed down was going to be a big trouble!
With his feet stepping firmly on the ground, Meng Qi had left deep ravines on the ground for dragging his feet along. There seemed to be no way to dodge the attack. He would need to endure the attack of the Maggot Ocean that was almost the same as a hit from a Heavenly Weapon!
All of a sudden, Meng Qi had disappeared from the sight of Gao Qianyuan. He could not be seen in the cyan-blue Vigor Ocean anymore, nor could his traces be tracked. The connection between him and Gao Qianyuan had been cut off in an incomprehensible way!
In the next moment, continuous sounds of banging could be heard, as the sword power spewed by countless maggots had hit on the core of the Golden Tent where Meng Qi was originally standing. A streak of blazing white light was then produced. It was so bright to the point that the surrounding had become a colorless background. The huge collision had also caused a lot of cracks on the ground which were hundreds of feet in depth. It was as though a large spider web was grown on the ground.
If Meng Qi were still standing at the core, he would undoubtedly be cut into tiny pieces of flesh.
“Where is Su Meng? Where is Su Meng?” Since Gao Qianyuan had already made an all-out effort to the point of harming himself in order to launch the attack, he was utterly frustrated to see his enemy disappear just before the attack reached him.
Suddenly, a heavy pressure was imposed on Gao Qianyuan. The Earth seemed to have grown an invisible hand to pull him down to the ground.
A blade beam that shone brightly like a sun was shooting out of the cracks on the ground. For a moment, Gao Qianyuan could not see anything else but the dazzling and magnificent blade beam.
Meng Qi was using the Seal of the Fifth and Sixth of the Ten Heavenly Stems and the Earth-Conveyance technique! As opposed to flying, he had chosen to step on the ground to draw support from the earth and the Seal of the Dao. He had dodged an all-out strike of the Token of Sword Spirit by making use of the Earth element to restrict the Water element and hide the Metal element. No matter how strong a weapon was, the attack would be useless if it failed to hit an enemy.
The second strike!
As the blade beam came close, Gao Qianyuan quickly held the Token of Sword Spirit in his hand and broke up into countless maggots that had no form and shape. The maggots had merged into the void while trying to avoid the sharp edge of the blade beam. To prevent the blade beam from hurting his Primordial Spirit, a huge amount of maggots were left behind to sacrifice by blocking the attack with their bodies.
Dang dang dang dang! The sounds of weapons cras.h.i.+ng into each other were emitted at a frequency that was hard to be distinguished by the ear. The blade beam seemed to be made up of innumerable tiny blade powers. They were sweeping up like a hurricane that swallowed up the void within dozens of miles and slashed the maggots apart.
Somewhere away from the attack area of the blade beam, dozens of light-blue maggots emerged and condensed rapidly into Gao Qianyuan. After wrapping himself with the light of the Token of Sword Spirit, he was about to escape.
Even though Meng Qi had just struck his blade twice, Gao Qianyuan – who had been depending a lot on the Token of Sword Spirit – had already lost confidence in the battle. On top of that, he was afraid of the scorching heat when Meng Qi transformed into a sun. Knowing that his attacks would not work, he had decided to escape from the battle while bearing with the bad injuries.
Just when the conveyance light appeared, Gao Qianyuan suddenly saw a longsword in Meng Qi’s left hand. While the previous blade beam was still flas.h.i.+ng upward, Meng Qi had slashed the sword toward the blade beam in a calm manner. The heavy slash crashed into the blade beam.
Light!
Light was everywhere!
Faster than anything, the blazing white light was sweeping toward Gao Qianyuan. With his Primordial Spirit tightened, Gao Qianyuan attempted to speed up the conveyance process to escape from the attack area. However, how could he be faster than light? Moreover, Meng Qi’s attacks seemed to be well-planned. The sword attack had blended perfectly into the residual blade beam and formed a joint attack. Although it was not too powerful, it happened too quickly so Gao Qianyuan had no time to react to it!
The third strike!
Boom!
With a loud noise of explosion, the blazing white light had spread to every corner and swallowed up Gao Qianyuan. The explosion had gasified the tents and the ground at the core, ignited the ruins of the Golden Tents within dozens of miles and turned everything into a sea of fire.
After the explosion of light stopped, a cyan-blue light was wrapping around the pale-looking Primordial Spirit of Gao Qianyuan and attempting to soar to the clouds. However, Meng Qi had slashed on it with his heavy long blade and it ended up falling into the dust.
Nevertheless, Meng Qi did not plan to interrogate Gao Qianyuan as he did not want to displease the mighty people. He lifted the longsword and crushed his Primordial Spirit into pieces.
As the consciousness of Gao Qianyuan got weaker, the last thing he heard in the world was the voice of Meng Qi saying,
“You don’t deserve to be called a guru.”
“That’s true, I don’t deserve to be called a guru. I couldn’t even take three strikes from Meng Qi even though I have the Token of Sword Spirit in my hand…” thought Gao Qianyuan as he laughed bitterly. Not only his aura was suppressed by the enemy, but his state of mind had also become weak. The biggest mistake was to unleash the full power of the Token of Sword Spirit in such a hurry. He regretted making so many mistakes in the battle!
Looking away from the dead body, Meng Qi kept the Token of Sword Spirit and the storage bag. He then said silently in his heart,
“The first one.”
Just then, a bird – with a note tied to it – had flown over and landed on the left shoulder of Meng Qi.
Without opening the note, Meng Qi activated his sense naturally to read the words written inside.
“Traces of Hasula and the Golden Tent Warriors are found at the edge of the Icy Plains.”