Chapter 990: The Master’s Lineage—Borrowing a Sword Across a Thousand Li!

The world was unpredictable.

And absurdity and comedy always seemed to accompany the unpredictable.

The two women had only just come down from the battlefield in Chu.

They had intended to try their luck in Jin, scout things out, and randomly recruit one or two powerful swordsmen along the road.

Instead... in a party of four... half turned out to be traitors.

A pity the paper man was not here.

A pity the master and disciple from Gourd Temple were not here either.

Otherwise, they absolutely would have seized the chance to sing the Regent Prince’s praises.

*Your Highness, look.*

*Isn’t this...*

*proof that Heaven’s Mandate belongs to you?*

Otherwise... how could anyone possibly explain why these women were this unlucky?

Hero Chen still had those same thick brows and big eyes.

He still remembered himself ten years earlier.

Back then, because of the friendship born from two bowls of noodles, he had traveled personally into Yan territory to find Zheng Fan and seek revenge for the villagers.

In those days, he had carried a sword in hand and worn a long robe that moved in the wind.

He could not compare with the citywide sensation created when the Baili Sword entered Shangjing in white years earlier.

But combined with his own powerful aura as a Fifth Grade swordsman, Hero Chen still possessed that ethereal bearing people imagined when they pictured a swordsman of the jianghu.

Now... he had genuinely become ordinary.

That ordinariness did not mean the years had ground away his edges.

Rather... he had lived until he himself became part of the years.

Blood qi had to be tempered again and again.

Sword qi had to be hammered and polished repeatedly.

Living as a person, looking at the world, walking through life... were the same.

Some people climbed from a valley to the mountainside and exhausted every bit of strength doing so.

They could go no farther.

They no longer wanted to.

So they simply stopped and rested there.

Others climbed all the way to a summit and looked down upon the lesser peaks.

Then, when they noticed an even taller mountain in the distance, they pretended not to see it.

Some even actively searched for clouds to block their own view.

But there were still some people... who climbed a mountain.

Then descended.

Then climbed again.

Then descended again.

Not descending merely for the sake of climbing.

Not climbing merely for the sake of descending.

What they pursued... or perhaps what Hero Chen had learned from the Sword Saint... lay somewhere inside that endless movement up and down.

The mountain was still there.

Before your eyes.

Under your feet.

Behind you.

But inside the heart... there was no mountain anymore.

And once there was no mountain in your heart... wherever you happened to stand... could be the summit.

Hero Chen opened one hand.

A strip of bamboo from his conical hat was pulled free.

It first wound around his fingertip.

Then instantly stretched outward, becoming a light and flexible bamboo-serpent sword.

He made no effort to conceal himself.

The aura of a Third Grade swordsman emerged directly.

The little girl formed seals with both hands.

Layer after layer of swirling qi appeared before her.

Seven barriers in all.

In the next instant...

Hero Chen’s sword stabbed forward.

Seven barriers shattered in succession.

The girl’s body flew backward.

The window behind her burst open beneath a gust of wind.

She shot out through it.

Hero Chen followed immediately.

As the girl’s body began dropping... his sword caught her again.

Three clouds of blood mist appeared at the girl’s fingertips.

They transformed into three savage beasts.

One cunning.

One vicious.

One weeping.

Their exact forms were impossible to identify.

One could only tell they were not human.

Nor was there any way to know what had been sacrificed and refined to create them.

All three beasts lunged toward Hero Chen.

The first, the cunning one...

Hero Chen did not defend against at all.

He simply let it pass through his body.

Yao Zizhan had once said there were two kinds of people in this world who were difficult for external things to deceive.

One kind possessed understanding so far beyond ordinary people that illusions found them difficult to shake.

The other kind... had minds so simple, straightforward, and stubborn that there was simply nowhere for the illusion to enter.

Hero Chen clearly belonged to the second kind.

But sometimes... if he took one step backward... he also became the first.

However it changed... his sword-heart remained clean and unstained.

When the next two beasts lunged at him, Hero Chen had no choice but to change moves.

One sword.

Then another.

Each beast was split apart.

Then a third sword thrust forward.

The girl landed.

She did not stop moving.

She continued retreating.

A ring of light appeared beneath her feet.

Inside that ring lurked endless strange colors and grotesque visions.

Hero Chen stepped into it.

His body stopped.

He began to sink into the illusion.

But his sword... had already been thrown.

In the space of a breath, Hero Chen’s face displayed greed, anger, obsession, hatred, disgust, and every other emotion.

But the flying sword still forced the girl to slap it away with her palm.

Sword qi sliced open her hand.

Blood flowed.

The ring of light vanished with it.

Hero Chen closed his eyes.

Then opened them again.

His gaze returned instantly to its usual clear simplicity.

He did not bother retrieving the sword he had thrown.

Instead, he opened one hand.

Another strip of bamboo was drawn from his conical hat.

It transformed into a fresh sword.

Without delay...

Hero Chen sprang forward again and stabbed toward the girl.

The girl wanted to widen the distance.

Throughout the earlier exchanges, she had already used method after method for exactly that purpose.

But Hero Chen always chose the appropriate response with startling speed and broke through whatever barrier stood before him.

For a swordsman... if the sword was fast enough and strong enough... that alone could force the opponent into a state of constant panic and reaction.

Once you swallowed that first mouthful of winning momentum... you could keep swallowing... all the way until the opponent died.

...

BOOM!

A huge hole exploded through the wall of the inn.

The Sword Maid slid down from above.

Before touching the ground, she released sword qi and shifted her body sideways through the air.

The woman dropped immediately afterward.

One fist smashed into the spot where the Sword Maid should have landed.

A deep crater appeared directly in the ground.

From the perspective of pure jianghu combat... the woman was clearly much more difficult to deal with.

She was a genuine Third Grade Martial Artist.

And an excellent one even among Third Grade Martial Artists.

The Sword Maid had not chosen her because she wanted to show off.

Nor because she wanted to preserve some “senior sister” dignity.

She was a jianghu person herself.

Naturally, she understood the habits of powerful jianghu experts.

More importantly... these two women had already revealed their temperaments earlier.

They did not like trouble.

If the fight were simply soldier against soldier, king against king... then after exchanging enough moves, they could calmly disengage and leave.

Only an unequal matchup could truly pin them down.

So... the stronger “junior brother” was sent after the girl, the Qi Refiner who was less suited to direct fighting.

The weaker “senior sister” took responsibility for holding back the Martial Artist.

That was why Hero Chen pursued relentlessly, hoping to decide his battle as quickly as possible.

And that was why the Sword Maid kept retreating, refusing to let the woman close the distance.

The two battles looked different.

But the pattern was actually identical.

The woman’s aura suddenly locked onto Hero Chen.

She seemed ready to intervene on the other battlefield.

The Sword Maid attacked first.

The woman smiled.

She forcibly broke through the sword-qi barrier.

But just as she intended to close the distance... she discovered the Sword Maid had already appeared even farther away.

The woman released a low roar.

One leg kicked against the ground.

Her body shot toward Hero Chen’s direction.

She had stopped pretending.

The Sword Maid did not rush after her.

Instead, she stopped moving.

Her left hand formed a sword seal.

At the fingertip of her right index finger... a bead of blood appeared.

Yu Huaping was a good master.

Although he already possessed two spirit children inside the Residence as his closed-door disciples... he had always treated the Sword Maid with great affection too.

Years ago, the Sword Maid entered the Grades far too early.

The Sword Saint personally stripped away that cultivation to prevent her foundation from being ruined by premature growth.

When she later traveled outside, he still worried she might be bullied.

So he condensed sword intent from his own essence blood and gave it to her for protection.

The essence blood dissipated.

Sword qi served as the guide.

As the woman rushed forward, she suddenly sensed an unusual sword intent rippling into existence above her head.

It felt faintly familiar.

The Sword Maid pressed her fingertip downward.

Then shouted:

“Fall!”

Hum!

A streak of white sword qi descended from the darkness.

The woman shifted aside.

She avoided most of it.

But the edge still grazed her.

A wound opened across her right arm.

It was not deep.

Yet one had to remember she was a Third Grade Martial Artist.

With this kind of body and blood qi protecting her... even the edge of that sword intent had still cut through.

“You are his disciple!”

The woman finally recognized why the aura had felt familiar.

Back when she accompanied Xie Zhuyang to the cliff and tried to recruit Gou Moli... she had once exchanged a move with the swordsman standing on the other side.

At the time, she had reflected that even though the swordsman had never entered the sect... a sword beneath the sunlight was still far sharper than a sword hidden inside a sect that never dared see daylight.

She had not sought that swordsman out for a true duel.

First because a battlefield lay around them.

Amid the killing of thousands upon thousands of troops, the strength of one Martial Artist had limited impact on the larger battle.

Second... because instinctively, she had avoided the possibility of meeting that man directly.

At their level... sometimes one exchange alone was enough to taste far too much information.

So much that there was no need to continue fighting afterward.

“You know my master?” the Sword Maid asked.

She had no objection to chatting.

Every moment they talked gave Hero Chen more time to chase down the girl.

If the woman wanted to talk all night... the Sword Maid was perfectly willing.

“Didn’t you say your master was killed by that Yan Prince?”

The woman did not believe the girl’s probing had been wrong.

Unless this young swordswoman had prepared against it beforehand.

But how could a swordsman’s preparation possibly deceive a truly high-level Qi Refiner?

Different paths.

A thousand-li difference.

“My first master was killed by him.”

“I cannot understand why you would still choose to stand on his side. You clearly want to kill him too. Do not tell me this is all because of some ridiculous rule of the jianghu!”

The Sword Maid smiled faintly.

“He killed my first master. But he also raised me for ten years. Of course the hatred has to be repaid. But those ten years... also deserve an explanation. I owe that too... an accounting.”

“Heh.”

The woman sneered.

“You’re something.”

Her body trembled.

She originally intended to head toward the other battlefield again.

But when she saw two more beads of blood rise from the Sword Maid’s fingers... she hesitated.

In the end... she gave up on helping the girl.

Instead, she charged directly at the Sword Maid.

All defense abandoned.

This was a true hard clash.

Trading wound for wound.

The Sword Maid continued retreating.

Sword qi formed barrier after barrier between them.

But the woman smashed through them without caring about the cost.

All at once... the Sword Maid’s defenses became fragile.

“If this body were not limiting me, do you think you could have held me back this long?”

The woman shouted.

One fist smashed through the Sword Maid’s final sword screen.

BANG!

The Sword Maid was sent flying.

She rolled a long distance across the ground.

The woman did not hesitate.

She closed the distance again.

Another fist came straight down toward the Sword Maid’s head.

Lying on the ground, the Sword Maid raised all ten fingers.

Two beads of blood appeared.

They split apart instantly.

“Retract!”

The woman released a piercing scream.

The two blood beads that had been about to explode with the Sword Saint’s sword intent were forcibly compressed back inward.

Then they dissipated completely.

Several cracks appeared across the woman’s fist.

But those wounds meant nothing.

Without sword qi supporting you... how was a swordsman supposed to block her fist?

The Sword Maid’s right hand was already spasming.

But her left hand swept upward.

What she released was not sword qi.

Because this time... she threw a punch.

BANG!

To the woman’s shock... the descending fist was actually intercepted.

The Sword Maid had captured the opening in her force.

At the most precise possible point... she neutralized the strength in that punch.

“Pfft!”

The Sword Maid coughed blood.

Fighting from a weaker realm against a stronger one meant that every single exchange demanded a terrible price.

But after cancelling that punch... the Sword Maid sprang up.

Her right hand was still spasming.

She did not attempt to gather sword qi with it again.

Instead... she turned the hand itself into a blade.

Five fingers closed tightly together.

The hand slashed diagonally toward the woman’s neck.

The woman raised a hand to block.

She even tried to seize the Sword Maid’s wrist.

But in the next instant... a ripping sensation tore through her palm.

The Sword Maid’s hand blade had actually cut her open.

Shock flashed through the woman’s heart.

Instinctively, she tried to widen the distance.

But after slicing open her palm... the Sword Maid released a streak of sword qi from her fingertips.

The sword qi went directly through the wound and entered the woman’s body.

The woman kicked.

BANG!

The Sword Maid was hurled away again.

But the woman could not seize the chance to follow up and finish her.

She remained where she stood.

Her left arm had swollen like a bladder full of air.

With no choice... she forcibly drove her own blood qi.

The sword qi inside her body was expelled.

A burst followed.

The arm returned to normal size.

But the entire limb was now soaked in blood.

Most of the white sleeve had been torn apart.

“What kind of... hand blade was that?”

The woman could not believe it.

Earlier, she had assumed the female swordsman, in desperation, had simply abandoned herself and flailed out a hand.

Who could have imagined it would possess this kind of force?

The Sword Maid slowly climbed to her feet.

She raised her head.

Blood still leaked from the corner of her mouth.

But it could not hide the smile there.

“That was a hand axe.”

“A hand... axe?”

“My man’s axe.”

The woman drew a deep breath.

She rolled her neck several times.

The aura within her body began rising again.

The Sword Maid opened one palm.

The sword she had dropped earlier returned to her hand.

But this time... she did not hold it in one hand.

She gripped it with both.

Her stance changed.

No longer light.

Heavy.

In the woman’s vision... the Sword Maid suddenly seemed to merge with the world around her.

“My master taught me swordsmanship from when I was little. My man... taught me to play with axes from when I was little too.”

The Sword Maid swallowed.

Her upper body leaned backward.

In that instant... clear cracking sounds came from the space around her.

Person.

Sword—or axe.

Grass.

Trees.

Everything around her seemed to fall into a strange harmony.

“You are a Martial Artist. But this body does not belong to you. Compared with having a sword damage your body, you fear brute force shattering your blood qi even more, because you are afraid this body will break. A Qi Refiner’s borrowed-corpse resurrection... yet infused with the blood qi of a Martial Artist. What exactly... are you people?”

“If you choose to follow us, you may have the chance to see. For ordinary people, sixty years is already a lifetime. But for us, one life can be stretched into depths ordinary people could never measure.”

The Sword Maid opened her mouth.

She laughed without sound.

“What are you laughing at?”

“I have never cared about depth.”

“Mm?”

“Because I already possess a length beyond anything you could reach or even dare imagine.”

“Wordplay? Buddhist language? Daoist scripture?”

The woman was trying to connect the sentence to some deeper meaning.

The Sword Maid spat out blood.

Then cursed:

“I’m bragging.”

The woman did not understand.

The Sword Maid shouted:

“Idiot! Your mother here is pitying you!”

The woman still did not understand.

But she could tell she was being despised.

She raised her other hand.

Her body launched forward again.

One fist struck.

The Sword Maid swung her sword.

Fist and sword crashed together again and again.

Every impact seemed to make the earth around them thunder.

There were very few people in this world who had received sword instruction personally from the Sword Saint.

Counting Hero Chen, the nominal disciple... only four.

But... there were even fewer people in this world who had received direct transmission from a Demon King.

Set aside the Heir Prince in the Residence, surrounded by stars orbiting the moon.

There was only one.

The Sword Maid.

Impact after impact followed.

The Sword Maid coughed more and more blood.

Every swing of her sword grew slower.

At the same time... the woman’s attacks were forced to slow too.

But in the end... her pool of blood qi was simply deeper.

Her realm stood higher.

That was the reality.

The final punch landed.

The sound of roof tiles shattering rang around the Sword Maid.

For the third time... she was sent flying.

Her body crashed into a tree behind her.

Then slowly slid down.

“A swordsman who actually managed to walk a Martial Artist’s road.”

The woman approached step by step.

On the other battlefield in the distance, Hero Chen did not come to help.

He continued chasing the girl.

A voice transmission from the girl reached them:

“I’m almost finished over here! Hurry up!”

“Stop rushing me. She is an opponent worthy of respect. I want to enjoy the moment I kill her.”

The woman lifted her chin slightly.

Then... she saw the female swordsman, already beaten into serious injury... quietly raise one arm.

Weakly.

Almost feebly.

The finger pointed forward.

Toward the woman.

Yet not the slightest trace of sword qi remained at the fingertip.

“You can still gather sword qi?” the woman asked.

She understood a swordsman’s internal condition very clearly.

The Sword Maid shook her head.

“None left. But I... can borrow some. This disciple is useless. I ask the master’s lineage... to lend me a sword!”

...

“Why did you suddenly stop eating?”

Zheng Fan had been eating hotpot.

He watched the Sword Saint put down his chopsticks and sit cross-legged with an unusually serious expression.

In that instant...

Great Yan’s Regent Prince almost assumed an assassin had infiltrated the area.

The Prince hurriedly set down bowl and chopsticks alike.

His hand immediately went to Wuya.

Seeing this, the Sword Saint found it somewhat amusing.

“My disciple is fighting someone outside. As her master, how could I still sit here eating?”

“The Sword Maid?”

“Yes.”

“Isn’t she traveling the jianghu?”

“Yes.”

“You can sense her even from here?” Zheng Fan asked in surprise.

“Every time a Fangshi dares act against Tian Tian, Tian Wujing can sense it. Why should I be unable to?”

“Oh. You’re copying him. Hahahaha.”

Years ago... outside the old Jin capital... the Sword Saint of Jin had been defeated by Tian Wujing.

From that defeat onward, the Sword Saint understood how one ought to fight.

Now... he was doing the same thing again.

Following the same pattern.

Zheng Fan teased him:

“You’re crossing the river by feeling Old Tian.”

The Sword Saint showed neither anger nor embarrassment.

He answered calmly:

“Once you reach Second Grade, you will discover that many things in this world change from impossible... to possible.”

“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear you mocking me.”

“She can’t win,” the Sword Saint said.

“And then?”

“My disciple asked the master’s lineage to lend her a sword.”

A streak of blue sword qi appeared at the Sword Saint’s fingertip.

Then... his aura began rising violently.

He was opening Second Grade!

The Prince stared with his mouth open.

He praised:

“Damn. That’s practically divine. As expected of my neighbor.”

The Prince guessed that even from this far away... that sword would probably be vicious beyond belief.

Then... he suddenly said:

“Wait. Old Yu, this is damned cheating.”

The Sword Saint did not care.

He remained perfectly calm.

“This is... the master’s lineage.”

Street thugs had to learn to pay respects to the local powers.

Black or white... everyone needed to be greased.

Ordinary jianghu sects could call people over to fight when someone came seeking revenge or smashing their gate.

The Sword Saint’s school... even counting Hero Chen... had barely enough people to fill one hand.

It looked tiny.

But it could still do this: borrow a sword... across a thousand li.

...

The woman stopped walking.

Somewhere in the sky above... a terrifying aura seemed about to descend.

Using the female swordswoman herself as the guide... a sword was coming through the void!

“Second Grade... Second Grade!”

Tension appeared on the woman’s face.

She understood perfectly well that the body she currently occupied... even if it had never been damaged in the earlier battle... could not withstand a direct clash against a Second Grade sword.

From such a great distance, some flying-immortal sword descending from beyond the heavens could not truly kill her.

But the sword intent... might be able to sever the connection between her and this body.

A smile appeared at the corner of the Sword Maid’s mouth.

...

Inside the command tent... the Prince suddenly saw the Sword Saint’s expression change violently.

The terrifying aura that had just risen from him... collapsed in an instant.

The blue sword qi he had prepared to send away remained hovering exactly where it was.

The Sword Saint’s eyes widened.

His expression was... difficult to describe.

“What happened?” the Prince asked immediately.

“Someone intercepted it.”

“What?”

The Prince looked baffled.

“Who intercepted it?”

“Your daughter.”

...

Near Zhennan Pass... inside a carriage traveling south beneath the protection of a large mounted escort... two children had been sleeping.

One of them suddenly woke.

Zheng Lin opened his eyes as well.

He looked at his elder sister.

“What happened?”

Big Girl’s face was grave.

“Senior Sister is in danger. She is borrowing a sword from the master’s lineage.”

Zheng Lin looked confused.

“Why can’t I sense it?”

After all... he had also learned swordsmanship from the Sword Saint.

At that moment, Big Girl was anxious about her school and worried for her senior sister.

So her words became slightly more direct.

“Little Brother, you don’t even recognize your own family. How could your heart possibly contain a master’s lineage?”

Zheng Lin did not become angry.

Instead... he thought his elder sister’s words made a great deal of sense.

Big Girl formed a sword seal.

Longyuan flew from its sheath.

It hovered in front of her.

Big Girl seized Longyuan.

Then pointed it directly toward the carriage window.

At that moment...

Zheng Lin suddenly realized one possibility.

He immediately shouted:

“Borrowing a sword from the master’s lineage should mean borrowing one from Mas—”

But Big Girl’s heart was already completely fixed on the school.

She had no attention to spare.

Before Zheng Lin could finish...

Big Girl shouted:

“Senior Sister! Catch the sword!”

A streak of crimson sword intent shot from Longyuan.

It flew through the carriage window.

Then vanished into the distance.

“Little Brother, what were you saying? I didn’t hear.”

“Elder Sister, I said that if Senior Sister is borrowing a sword from the master’s lineage... shouldn’t she borrow it from the Sword Saint, our master?”

If you were borrowing money... obviously you went to the richest person.

If you were borrowing a sword... obviously you went to the strongest.

“Mm!!!”

Big Girl froze.

Then immediately covered her mouth.

But before she could say anything else... she had already exhausted nearly all of her sword qi sending that strike away.

Fatigue engulfed her.

She fell unconscious on the spot.

...

The woman stood frozen.

Then suddenly... a crimson sword qi carrying what seemed to be the cry of a Fire Phoenix erupted from the Sword Maid’s fingertip.

The woman screamed.

She raised her defenses in panic.

Then... the flames disappeared.

The sword qi vanished.

She had blocked it.

The woman remained standing where she was.

Disbelief spread across her face.

The scene just now had clearly carried the aura of a Second Grade sword intent descending from afar.

So how had she managed to receive it this easily?

The woman looked confused.

Then asked:

“That’s it?”

“...” the Sword Maid.

[End of Chapter 990]