Chapter 868: A Sword Descends from Heaven!

A red sheen flowed across Longyuan as it hovered in midair, like a vicious beast choosing whom to devour.

Among the Hundred Schools, swordsmen had always been regarded as first in combat strength.

Whether facing Martial Artists, Qi Refiners, or most other paths, if both sides possessed the same Grade and fought one-on-one under normal circumstances, the swordsman usually held the advantage.

Naturally, this was not because one man and one sword looked especially graceful and carefree.

Prince Pingxi had seen through that long ago and once sighed that, in the end, this was also an age that judged by looks—but only after strength had established the foundation.

A swordsman's strength lay in the sharpness and overwhelming momentum his path could produce.

Liu Dahu obediently drew his saber and began digging into the ground. A saber was not especially convenient as a shovel, but fortunately the soil here was loose.

Across the river...

Baili Sword said to the Swordsmith:

"I'll go first?"

"Please."

Baili Sword smiled and nodded.

A lifetime spent carrying a sword naturally nurtured a certain arrogance.

Who was stronger?

Who was weaker?

What did jianghu legend matter?

What did universal opinion matter?

Exactly how high you stood... had to be measured personally with my own sword.

Of course, the two of them were not insisting on a fair one-on-one duel first merely to pursue some artificial balance or preserve their Dao hearts.

Precisely because they stood high enough on the Sword Dao, they understood better than almost anyone how dangerous the ground beneath them truly was.

If a hundred armored soldiers stood here in formation, then naturally it would be best to attack together.

But right now... there was one sword.

Adding a second sword did not fundamentally change the meaning of this confrontation.

Because whether it was Baili Sword or the Swordsmith... neither had come here intending to die for country, people, or family, much less to play out some mutual-destruction drama with the Sword Saint of Jin.

Neither wanted to die.

In fact... neither even wanted to suffer injuries severe enough to make his cultivation fall.

One would go first.

The other would wait nearby.

That was to guard against Yu Huaping opening by trading life for life—or using his own life to ruin one opponent's cultivation. If all three stood inside the battle at once and Yu Huaping chose one of them, the third man could certainly seize the opening and stab him through.

But for the man Yu Huaping chose... that would no longer mean very much.

And both of them understood perfectly well that if the one chosen happened to be the other man, neither would feel much "brotherly loyalty" about it.

If anything... he would be pleased to see it happen.

The Sword Dao was lonely.

It was rare to meet someone walking the same road who truly understood you.

But the premise allowing two such men to appreciate one another... was that neither possessed confidence in defeating or killing the other.

The Sword Dao was lonely.

At heart, that meant:

I can stand at the summit forever, sighing about my loneliness and lamenting how cold it is at the heights.

But if you want to drag me down and give me warmth... then you... can die.

When the Sword Saint saw Baili Sword step forward alone with his sword while the Swordsmith remained still, he immediately understood their plan.

They were afraid... that he would start by staking his life?

The Sword Saint suddenly found it a little funny.

The funny part was that whenever jianghu people saw him now, they almost instinctively said something like:

"Who would have thought the mighty Sword Saint of Jin would become Prince Pingxi's hunting dog?"

What did "hunting dog" actually mean?

A man gathered around someone else and accepted his commands in exchange for wealth, status, glory, or some other benefit. Genuine loyalty was hardly expected.

Yet these two opposite him clearly seemed convinced that, for Prince Pingxi's safety, the Sword Saint would willingly pay any price.

The Sword Saint was curious.

Why did these two think that?

Then... he understood.

Perhaps in his own eyes, Zheng Fan was still simply Zheng Fan.

What had Zheng Fan looked like in Shengle City?

To the Sword Saint, he seemed much the same now.

There had been some growth and change, certainly, but nothing that felt especially dramatic.

That did not mean Zheng Fan had made no progress over the years.

It was because from the Sword Saint's perspective, Zheng Fan and those gentlemen around him—their personalities, their ideas about life, the way they lived and, using their own word for it, their "aesthetic"—seemed to have understood from the very beginning exactly what kind of people they wished to become.

And they had simply continued being those people.

So in the Sword Saint's understanding, Zheng Fan was still Zheng Fan.

In Shengle City, he would deliberately visit the Sword Saint's little courtyard to watch him carve wooden swords for the children.

In Fengxin City, he would wander over to the neighboring courtyard to tease the Sword Saint's newly born child.

But in other people's eyes... the Zheng Fan of Shengle City and the Zheng Fan of Fengxin City—

No.

The Zheng Fan who had just personally orchestrated the fall of Shangjing—had already undergone a heaven-and-earth transformation.

Some people had always said the jianghu could not take a place at the great table.

In truth, it was not the jianghu that lacked a seat there.

Most of the people inside the jianghu were the ones who did not qualify.

And clearly, whether the Swordsmith or Baili Sword... both men belonged at that table.

The Swordsmith's Dugu Clan was one of Chu's Four Great Noble Clans.

The Baili Clan was a great sword family of Jiangnan, while Baili Sword himself served as martial instructor to the Crown Prince—effectively one of the Crown Prince's tutors.

The Zheng Fan they saw was not the minor city commander of Shengle.

They saw Great Yan's Prince Pingxi, who dominated eastern Jin and had successively dealt crushing blows to both Qian and Chu.

A Prince Pingxi who, in practical terms, stood only one step from founding his own state and becoming its ancestor.

And whether that final step was taken... depended almost entirely on whether he himself wished to take it.

This was not some simple matter of taking a blade for a friend.

Both men also understood that mere wealth and glory could never influence the Sword Saint.

So there had to be some other reason.

Perhaps the restoration of Jin?

Perhaps something else?

Whatever the cause... in their eyes, Zheng Fan had apparently become a man worth Yu Huaping, Sword Saint of Jin, willingly dying for.

Once he thought this through... the Sword Saint frowned slightly.

Instinctively, he felt uncomfortable.

Was that... really how they saw him?

All these thoughts passed in only an instant.

Baili Sword stood at the riverbank with the water before him.

He pointed forward.

His sword slipped straight into the river.

An instant later, it shot back out at terrifying speed, dragging behind it a curtain of water filled with murderous sword intent.

The Sword Saint's eyes narrowed.

Longyuan howled downward.

The water curtain split apart.

The two swords collided dozens of times in the blink of an eye, producing a single continuous shriek to ordinary ears.

Then... both swords flew backward to their masters.

The first exchange... had been nothing more than an appetizer.

Yes.

To outsiders, sending swords through the air and clashing from a hundred zhang away was already close to a divine miracle.

To the two men fighting... it was closer to a polite greeting.

The next instant...

Baili Sword seized his hilt.

His figure shot forward.

He rushed straight toward the Sword Saint.

The Sword Saint gripped Longyuan and leaped as well.

The two met above the river.

In an instant... the sword flowers erupting from both blades resembled two flood dragons fighting one another.

There was none of the dull clangor of armies killing on a battlefield, yet the released force seemed capable of tearing apart everything around them.

Baili Sword was famous for speed.

His sword forms were fierce and incisive.

One man with one sword somehow produced the crushing pressure of "ten thousand arrows loosed at once."

The Sword Saint's sword carried far less flourish.

It emphasized ancient simplicity and condensed force.

And from the very beginning, both sides appeared to have divided their roles with remarkable tacit understanding.

Baili Sword attacked.

The Sword Saint defended.

Of course, this temporary offense and defense did not mean one side possessed an advantage over the other.

They had simply entered different stages of the exchange.

The Swordsmith's seven blades continued hovering beside him.

His gaze drifted toward the young man still laboriously digging a pit with his saber.

He had no intention of threatening Yu Huaping through the man's son.

First, doing so would be far too lacking in character.

Second... if Yu Huaping dared bring his son here, then clearly he did not expect himself to be restrained by that threat.

Baili Xianglan stood not far away, watching the duel between her brother and the Sword Saint.

For a swordsman, witnessing a battle like this was an opportunity that might not appear even once in ten years.

The two fighters descended from the air to the surface of the river.

Their shoes rested on the water.

The river was not frozen.

That made no difference.

Some time ago... the Sword Saint had seemingly grown accustomed to meeting troublesome opponents by simply opening Second Grade and crushing them by force.

But fundamentally... that was only because those opponents had not been strong enough to deserve his full concentration.

So he chose the fastest and most effective method to shorten a boring process.

The man before him now... was different.

For ordinary powerful experts, opening Second Grade might resemble heavenly punishment.

But for these two men... whoever opened Second Grade first or whoever forcibly opened it first—would expose a flaw.

Still... their stalemate did not last long.

In truth, clashes between swordsmen rarely dragged on for long.

This was not two peak Martial Artists standing there endlessly grinding away at one another's blood qi.

Baili Sword suddenly pulled backward.

His essence, qi, and spirit condensed into one.

His sword screamed through the air.

Following the downward motion of Baili Sword's fingertip, the weapon crashed toward the Sword Saint like a ten-thousand-jin hammer.

The river around them suddenly sank away.

For an instant... the Sword Saint stood in an empty valley carved into the water.

He stomped once beneath his foot.

Holding Longyuan in his right hand, he swept the blade upward from below.

It was like scooping the moon from the bottom of the sea.

And somehow... the movement forcibly shattered every restraint Baili Sword had built across this space.

The river surface returned.

A great wave of force surged upward with it.

Boom!

The sword flew backward and returned once more to Baili Sword's hand.

The Sword Saint held Longyuan and flicked the tip a few times, shaking away the beads of water.

The second stage of their confrontation... ended there.

"Heh-heh-heh..."

Baili Sword laughed.

In truth, he was very handsome.

Of the Four Great Swordsmen, the man who most perfectly fit the image of an "immortal swordsman" was actually him.

"Could it be that Brother Yu has spent these past years walking the road of a Martial Artist?"

Baili Sword attacked through sharp, concentrated points.

The Sword Saint instead seemed to "bear all things through thick virtue," using breadth and weight to dissolve his enemy.

Taken together with the earlier exchanges, where the Sword Saint had remained almost entirely on defense, Baili Sword had begun feeling less like he was fighting another swordsman and more like he was fighting a Martial Artist.

The only difference was... this "Martial Artist" happened to use a sword.

Of course, telling a swordsman to his face that he resembled a Martial Artist was actually an insult.

You look like a Martial Artist!

Your whole family looks like Martial Artists!

Crude Martial Artists!

Yet the Sword Saint merely nodded.

"We haven't met in years. Naturally, I should steady myself first."

"Oh? And has Brother Yu steadied out anything useful?"

"Yes."

"May I ask for instruction?"

"You can't break through my defense."

Baili Sword found the answer absurd.

"I'm a swordsman."

"But you still can't break through my defense."

"So?"

"When you cannot break through me, it means I already stand undefeated."

Confusion appeared in Baili Sword's eyes.

"Brother Yu didn't speak this strangely in the old days."

The Sword Saint shook his head.

"I don't find it strange."

"That is the strangest thing of all."

"Are we sparring, or are we killing one another?" the Sword Saint asked.

"The three of us each have our own objective, and those objectives conflict. Naturally, we are killing one another."

"If we're killing one another, then shouldn't the first thing be making sure I don't lose?"

Far away, the Swordsmith, who still had not acted, brushed aside the long hair the wind had blown loose.

"How vulgar."

The Sword Saint sighed.

"Yes."

In truth, what the Sword Saint wanted to say was:

Perhaps the two of you have stood too high for too long.

Ordinarily, even when you need to act, what you call killing is barely different from sparring.

But real killing... has its own appearance.

Once, someone had defeated him using precisely this sort of completely inelegant, utterly vulgar method.

The Sword Saint had been unconvinced at the time.

Being defeated that way felt even more humiliating.

But gradually... he himself had begun silently using the same method.

He had joined them.

"Brother Yu, if you only defend and never attack, how long are we supposed to fight? Don't tell me we'll repeat your spar with Li Liangshen in Beifeng Commandery and fight for three days and three nights?" Baili Sword asked.

"You want to kill someone. I want to protect someone. If I can keep both of you here for three days and three nights, haven't I already succeeded?"

"That makes considerable sense," the Swordsmith agreed.

"Are we fighting or not?" the Sword Saint asked. "If we're fighting, hurry up. If not, sit down and watch my son continue digging."

"The pits are already being dug. If nobody ends up lying in them, wouldn't all that work be wasted?" Baili Sword asked.

"It won't be wasted."

Baili Sword snorted.

His sword floated in front of him.

Immediately afterward... a golden current of Qian-Kun qi appeared behind him.

Faintly... a dragon's roar could be heard within it.

"I heard Zheng Fan say that inside Yanjing's imperial palace stands an alchemy furnace, and beneath it is suppressed an old Pixiu that cannot quite die. It survives by relying on the incense of national fortune. Brother Baili... how have you managed to live more and more like a beast?"

The Swordsmith immediately said:

"Excellent question."

Baili Sword laughed.

"Beneath Heaven and Earth, what true difference is there between humans and beasts? Brother Yu, watch closely. Behold... my Qian-Kun Sword!"

Buzz!

Wrapped in golden radiance, the sword appeared before the Sword Saint almost instantaneously.

The Sword Saint raised Longyuan and blocked.

The sword was knocked aside.

Then immediately attacked again.

"So fast!"

The Sword Saint continued blocking and retreating.

He grew more and more disheveled.

His retreat accelerated.

Sword qi gradually sliced apart his clothes and hair.

Baili Sword remained behind, one hand forming a sword seal.

His sword led.

He followed.

Man and sword pressed forward step by step.

Golden light circulated through Baili Sword's eyes.

The manner in which he controlled the flying sword was completely different now.

He had not opened Second Grade.

Instead, he was borrowing some special opportunity to drive the sword.

No sword, however fast, could truly be faster than thought.

But Baili Sword had compressed the lag between thought and movement almost to nothing.

A fraction faster.

An inch deeper.

At this level of battle... that was enough to force the Sword Saint into retreat again and again.

Yes.

This was no act.

One careless instant and the Sword Saint really could lose his life to the blade.

Baili Sword himself remained at a safe distance.

A distance too great for the Sword Saint to trade life for life.

Although the Sword Saint was being driven backward in increasingly ugly fashion, it did not stop him from speaking.

"What sort of coward's sword art is this?"

This sword art had clearly been designed through cleverness to prevent an opponent from dragging Baili Sword down with him.

Of course... it had also carried Baili Sword's "speed" to an extreme.

Using a flying sword to attack looked elegant and carefree.

In truth, it greatly reduced a sword art's raw power.

But the Sword Saint was not a Martial Artist.

A swordsman's greatest weakness was the fragility of his body.

So what if the attack lost some power?

Against a peak Martial Artist, the man might forcibly endure several blows.

Against a swordsman... one sword was enough to tear an enormous hole through the body.

"Heh."

Baili Sword merely laughed.

Golden light continued circulating through his eyes as he controlled the sword.

One could only say... this man truly deserved to be called a genius among geniuses.

Qian was vast and rich.

It had never lacked astonishing talents.

The fact that Baili Sword could immediately devise this sort of countermeasure under these circumstances proved that his reputation as the most naturally gifted among the Four Great Swordsmen was entirely deserved.

At that moment, Liu Dahu looked back from the pit he was digging and stared anxiously at his father.

"Father..."

"Dig your pit properly."

The Sword Saint answered irritably.

No father wanted his son watching him look miserable.

Liu Dahu nodded and obediently continued digging with his saber.

Baili Sword spoke again.

"Brother Yu, are you still not going to attack?"

Only if both sides genuinely attacked could they guarantee mutual attrition.

There were two men on Baili Sword's side.

In a war of exhaustion, they would always possess the advantage.

"All right, then."

The Sword Saint extended a finger.

A thread of sword qi condensed into existence.

In the same instant... that sword qi and Longyuan switched places in midair.

Baili Sword was controlling his blade from far away.

At this distance, what men at their level called "seeing" was often not truly sight at all.

Their reactions depended more upon sensing and controlling the opponent's qi.

The sudden appearance of the sword qi disrupted that control to some degree.

If Baili Sword had been holding his weapon, naturally he could never have "mistaken" one for the other.

Unfortunately... he was not holding it.

The flying sword collided with the sword qi.

Its trajectory shifted slightly.

The blade grazed through the Sword Saint's right arm and tore away a strip of flesh.

At the same time... the Sword Saint stomped one foot into the ground.

His entire body shot forward like an arrow released from a bow.

Holding Longyuan... he stabbed straight toward Baili Sword!

Baili Sword had never imagined the Sword Saint would use this method to break his sword art.

And when the Sword Saint did not attack, he did not attack at all.

The instant he moved... it was with genuine killing intent!

Baili Sword's weapon was still behind him.

There was no time for it to return.

And before Longyuan, personally wielded by the Sword Saint, mere condensed sword qi did not even qualify to serve as an obstruction.

Baili Sword did not hesitate.

There was no concern for bearing.

A drop of essence blood emerged from between his brows.

The golden radiance in his eyes suddenly blazed.

Essence blood served as guide.

The qi of the firmament condensed.

His own body became the lid of the furnace, nurturing and storing the medium.

Above them... an aura belonging to a Second Grade sword strike... was drawn down with a thunderous roar!

Yet at that moment... the Sword Saint simply lifted Longyuan and swept it upward.

It was exactly the same motion he used back home in the courtyard when chasing hens away from the single duck they were fighting with for food.

Whenever a hen refused to listen... he slapped its backside with Longyuan.

Only this time... the backside he slapped... belonged not to a hen... but to Heaven.

Longyuan's blade smacked through the void.

The Sword Saint chuckled.

"Good. Back to your coop."

[End of Chapter 868]