Chapter 922: Is My Sword Sharp?

It did not matter that the flames themselves were ineffective. Fire Phantom Shadow Escape was, by nature, an exquisite deception technique that combined offense and defense. Concealed behind the illusion, with the opponent unable to tell true from false, the user could launch the real killing strike amid the chaos.

Yet Niu Youdao stood with his sword planted before him and his eyes closed, calm as though he would simply let the winds blow from east, west, south, or north. That composure made Kunlin Shu deeply wary. Coupled with everything Niu Youdao had said before the match, it placed a measure of pressure on him and kept him from acting rashly.

While directing the fireballs in a constant assault on Niu Youdao, Kunlin Shu, hidden among the swiftly weaving flames, repeatedly tried to draw closer, waiting for an opening to launch the strike that would decide victory or defeat.

Amid the continuous booming impacts, Kunlin Shu approached Niu Youdao for the first time. Niu Youdao did not react.

The second time he drew near, Niu Youdao still did not react.

The third time, Kunlin Shu came extremely close, and still Niu Youdao gave no response.

He made several more passes at very close range, yet never provoked the slightest reaction. His opponent simply stood there with his eyes closed and let him come and go.

The distance was close enough to pose a fatal threat to Niu Youdao, close enough that it should have forced him to counterattack.

After probing again and again, Kunlin Shu became convinced that Niu Youdao could not detect him. At last, he launched the decisive attack.

Among the fireballs pounding Niu Youdao in rapid succession, one came rushing from behind. At the instant it crashed toward Niu Youdao's back, Kunlin Shu emerged from within it with a vicious strike.

At that exact moment, Niu Youdao—who had stood calmly with his eyes closed amid the raging flames, his back to Kunlin Shu—suddenly opened his eyes.

A palm strike came from behind him, carried forward on the violent momentum of the fireball's assault. Niu Youdao still did not move.

Joy surged through Kunlin Shu. Ten bitter years—everything had been for today!

Boom!

A palm suddenly burst from the flames and smashed toward Niu Youdao's back.

At last, through their Dharma Eyes, the spectators saw what was happening. Beneath the cover of countless fireball attacks, Kunlin Shu had finally launched his decisive strike.

Delight flashed in Fire Phoenix's eyes, and the corner of Qian Fucheng's mouth lifted in a fierce smile.

Gong Lince's eyes widened sharply. The people from Zijin Cave felt their hearts jump.

Guan Fangyi's lips parted in shock, and the round fan she had been slowly waving froze in her hand.

It happened too suddenly. Even those who wanted to intervene and save Niu Youdao had no time.

Wu Zhaoxing alone narrowed his eyes slightly. He had caught it. He had noticed that before the man inside the fireball launched his attack, Niu Youdao had opened his eyes first.

What did that mean? It meant Niu Youdao had already sensed the incoming attack. In that instant, he should have had a fleeting moment in which to respond.

Yet Niu Youdao still did nothing.

Only after the palm struck him did Niu Youdao finally move, as though reacting a beat too late. He spun around abruptly.

The instant Kunlin Shu's strike connected, he also sensed Niu Youdao beginning to move. But Kunlin Shu had attacked first and was certain to land first. Even if Niu Youdao reacted, he would still be one step behind. Kunlin Shu was not going to withdraw and dodge at this point. He would not stop until this one blow took effect.

Boom!

Kunlin Shu's palm landed squarely on Niu Youdao's back.

The people from Zijin Cave were all startled. Fire Phoenix nearly cried out in excitement. Senior Brother had hit him!

Yet the instant his palm struck Niu Youdao, the shock Kunlin Shu felt was impossible to describe.

Niu Youdao, after taking that full-force palm, was like a mountain—utterly unmoving. Like a boundless sea—impossible to fathom.

Not only had the fire attack failed. Even this palm, which had plainly struck Niu Youdao solidly, felt as though it had hit cotton. The force he sent out was like water striking the tip of a cone, instantly splitting and pouring away to either side.

The blow did not even give Kunlin Shu any force to borrow in order to spring backward. It felt as though there was nothing there to push against.

In that instant, Niu Youdao's earlier words flashed through his mind: No one knows the true depth of my abilities. And everyone who has fought me was just like you—full of confidence in himself!

His momentum was spent and could not be recalled.

This was precisely the instant Niu Youdao had been waiting for.

He spun and countered with a palm in the same breath.

Let your techniques transform a thousand ways; he would answer myriad changes with constancy!

Kunlin Shu wanted to decide victory with a single strike. Niu Youdao wanted exactly the same.

He knew how formidable the Heavenly Fire Limitless Art was, and how sophisticated the Fire Phantom Shadow Escape was as a deception technique. If this strike failed and Kunlin Shu slipped away again, there might never be another opportunity to catch him. So Niu Youdao had used his own body as bait and lured the enemy deep!

His hair and robes whipped through the flames as he deliberately took one palm in exchange for the chance to counter during the brief instant when their bodies crossed.

To him, taking that palm was nothing. No matter how strong Kunlin Shu's attack had become, it could not surpass Yan Baoru, the expert ranked second on the Golden Core Ranking.

His Qiankun force-dissipation technique had endured a strike from the Holy Rakshasa in the Butterfly Dream Illusory Realm. It had endured a strike from a Heavenly Sword Talisman. Compared with those, what did one blow from Kunlin Shu amount to?

At the place where the two collided, the dense flames burst apart.

Fire Phoenix, who had nearly cried out in delight a moment earlier, saw Niu Youdao take her Senior Brother's palm as though nothing had happened and immediately strike back. This time she truly screamed, "Senior Brother!"

The fierce smile had not yet left Qian Fucheng's mouth when his eyes opened wide. Even with his own cultivation, taking Kunlin Shu's palm head-on would never leave him completely unaffected. He could not tell whether Niu Youdao's turning movement was caused by the blow itself or something else.

All he could see was Niu Youdao spinning around like a top under Kunlin Shu's palm and returning a palm strike of his own.

They were too close—far too close to evade.

Niu Youdao's response was too fast. It linked seamlessly with Kunlin Shu's attack and left Kunlin Shu nowhere to escape.

Still, Kunlin Shu was not completely caught off guard by the incoming palm.

He had fought Niu Youdao before. Their palms had collided once before, and he knew exactly how terrifying the consequences were.

After his defeat years ago, no matter what his sect asked, Kunlin Shu had remained silent. He had not wanted to make excuses. But the agony of taking that palm from Niu Youdao was something he would never forget for the rest of his life.

Now he faced it again.

Yet at such close range, with no time to withdraw or evade, he was not Niu Youdao. He could not simply use his own body to absorb the strike.

Instinctively, in his haste, he thrust out his other palm to meet it.

Bang!

The impact rang out—and it was that same sensation, exactly the same as ten years before.

The force Kunlin Shu sent out seemed to run off along Niu Youdao's arm, while the bizarre power driving through Niu Youdao's palm tore directly into his body.

The clash blasted Niu Youdao's long hair and robes violently backward, as though he were about to spread his wings and rise from the flames, light as an immortal. Yet in truth, his feet had not shifted even an inch.

Kunlin Shu, striking from midair, was blown bodily out of the fire-shadows by Niu Youdao's palm and sent flying backward.

That one hard collision told Kunlin Shu everything.

When they had fought at Heavenly Mirror Lake years ago, Kunlin Shu's cultivation had been higher than Niu Youdao's. Now, although Kunlin Shu had broken through to the Golden Core Realm, Niu Youdao's cultivation had already surpassed his—and not by a little.

Kunlin Shu had spent ten years in secluded bitter cultivation, cutting himself off from every distraction in the outside world and devoting himself entirely to cultivation. Niu Youdao, meanwhile, had spent those same ten years entangled in one chaotic affair after another.

Yet Niu Youdao had still overtaken him in cultivation.

The grief and resentment that surged through Kunlin Shu at that realization was something no outsider could understand.

As he flew backward, he spread both arms and directed the surrounding fireballs to shoot in and cover him.

At that exact instant—

Clang!

A clear ringing note echoed across the training ground.

The hand with which Niu Youdao had been leaning on his sword finally moved. With a blur of motion, he lifted—and drew the blade!

Swordlight flashed.

Reflected through the firelight, strange glimmers scattered from it, as though the blade had blossomed into hundreds upon hundreds of crystalline rainbows.

The sword moved. The man moved.

The Taiyi Light-Splitting Sword was unleashed in the direction in which the fireballs had converged to cover Kunlin Shu's retreat.

Niu Youdao's figure finally left its place.

Until then, he had not moved at all; once he did, he was like a startled swan.

He shot forward in an instant, his sword blooming into bewildering phantom light as it pierced straight through layer after layer of fiery illusion.

The rumbling across the training ground stopped.

Every fireball weaving at high speed suddenly collapsed at the same time.

Everyone outside the grounds searched frantically with their eyes, desperate to see clearly what was happening within the lingering glow.

Without mana sustaining them, the flames slowly faded into nothingness. The two figures inside the firelight gradually came into view.

In everyone's ears, the clear note of the sword leaving its sheath seemed still faintly to linger, pure and penetrating.

The firelight vanished completely.

Amid slowly drifting dust and smoke, the two men stood face-to-face.

A breeze arrived.

Niu Youdao's long hair streamed in it. His face was expressionless. He held his sword horizontally, its bright edge resting against Kunlin Shu's neck.

He had shown mercy. He had not killed him.

"Is my sword sharp?" Niu Youdao asked mildly.

Kunlin Shu said nothing.

A bloody cut from the sword ran across his chest. There was another on his back, with wounds on his leg and arm as well. His arms hung at his sides, and blood dripped steadily from his fingertips.

His body trembled.

Inside him, two bizarre interwoven currents—one cold, one hot—were rampaging through his body, tearing and colliding as he endured the agony by force.

Yet the pain in his body was nothing beside the pain in his heart. His face was desolate as he stared at Niu Youdao across from him, until a bitter, ruined smile slowly emerged.

Lost?

He had actually lost?

How could he have lost? How had it come to this?

Qian Fucheng stared with eyes wide open, almost unable to accept the reality before him. He stood there as if turned to wood.

"Senior Brother!" Fire Phoenix suddenly gave a heart-rending scream and tried to flash forward.

Someone beside her moved at once.

Yun Ji, who had already received secret instructions, struck before Fire Phoenix could rush out. She restrained her on the spot, rapidly placed restrictions on her body, then seized her by the throat, looking as though she could snap Fire Phoenix's neck at any moment. Fire Phoenix could no longer even make a sound.

Yuan Gang had watched coldly from the side throughout, looking as though none of this concerned him. Not the slightest abnormality showed on his face. He had never been worried about the match at all.

He knew Niu Youdao too well. Master Dao was not someone who casually took risks. After all the maneuvering beforehand, if Master Dao had ultimately agreed to this match, Yuan Gang had originally been too lazy even to come watch the result. He had only come because he wanted to see what Master Dao was actually trying to accomplish.

Beside him, Yuan Fang, dressed as a monk, finally stopped the prayer beads that had been flying rapidly through his fingers. He let out a huge breath of relief. Kunlin Shu's fierce and bizarre offensive had genuinely startled him earlier.

Now he could relax. A cheap, smug smile appeared on his face as he added insult to injury with a contemptuous snort. "Blind fool. Doesn't even look at who he's dealing with, yet he dares provoke our Master Dao."

Shang Shuqing was both shocked and delighted. She tried asking, "Sister Hong, is it over? Did Master Dao win?"

Guan Fangyi smiled. "His sword is already at the man's throat and the opponent can do nothing but wait to die. Of course he won. The Commandery Princess can finally relax and be happy now, can't she?"

[End of Chapter 922]