Chapter Eighty-Four: The Might of the Sword Cultivator

The newcomer was dressed in a moon-white robe, a Confucian cap upon his head, a sword at his waist, his features warm and refined. It was none other than Zhuo Bufan, a disciple of the Alchemical Pulse!

The streaking rainbow strike had missed. It arced back through the air and hovered beside Zhuo Bufan, humming with a cold, metallic resonance.

The Light-Suppressing Sword!

Liang Yan was struck with alarm. All the doubts he had carried until now were answered the instant he saw Zhuo Bufan.

“So that is how it is. Senior Brother Zhuo, what a calculation.”

“Heh.”

Zhuo Bufan smiled faintly. “You flatter me, Junior Brother. In truth, I admire you tremendously. I never imagined even the Reversal of the Heavenly Cycle Array could not trap you. If anyone dares say you are not a once-in-a-millennium genius of formations, I, Zhuo, would be the first to disagree! Ah, such talent, such a pity. Such a pity.”

He repeated the words twice, and the meaning beneath them was clear: he already regarded Liang Yan as dead.

Liang Yan pressed his fingers against the wound on his left arm and barely managed to stop the bleeding. Then he gave a bitter laugh. “Let me guess. There were never any seven trials at all. To enter this place, there was only one path, and that was through the killing formation, wasn’t it?”

Zhuo Bufan smiled but said nothing, which was as good as admitting it.

Liang Yan glanced upward again and asked, “So you used me to break the array because you wanted the treasure here? Was it that iron book?”

Following his gaze, Zhuo Bufan looked toward the iron tome suspended in midair. He murmured, “You mean the Vault of Righteousness Iron Scroll? No, no... Though it is indeed a rare treasure, it is far beyond what I can command right now. What I want is merely the Sword Canon of Righteousness engraved upon it.”

As he spoke, an unprecedented feverish light appeared in his eyes.

“Hmph. With a great sect like Star-Plucking Pavilion, the Scripture Repository contains only one set of the Dust-Falling Sword Art. To reach the sword embryo stage with it is already to thank heaven. I, Zhuo Bufan, possess what talent, and yet should I willingly remain trapped in this shallow three-foot pond? The Sword Canon of Righteousness on that iron scroll was left by the ancestral founder of Star-Plucking. It is said to allow cultivation all the way to the golden core stage. It was made for me!”

After hearing this, Liang Yan said in a strained voice, “Isn’t your own uncle an inner hall elder? What in this sect could you not ask him for, that you must scheme to take it yourself?”

“You do not understand.”

Zhuo Bufan shook his head. “These three things were all left behind by the ancestors of Star-Plucking Pavilion. They are not some earth-shaking wonders, but they concern the sect’s fortune and cannot be used lightly.”

Then his expression turned hard. “My uncle has grown muddled. With my talent, it would not be too much to call me the sect’s hope for the next hundred years, and yet he would still bind me with these rules. Heh. Since it is so, he cannot blame me for coming to take it myself.”

Liang Yan nodded after hearing this. “So as long as I die now, you can pin every crime on me, and you will merely be the disciple who happened to pass by and slew a traitor, gaining merit for it?”

He stressed the words happened to pass by, but Zhuo Bufan only chuckled. “What happens after you die, I shall arrange perfectly. Junior Brother Liang need not trouble himself with that.”

As soon as Zhuo Bufan finished speaking, Liang Yan had already sprung up from the ground. At the same time, he urgently formed seals, and a pitch-black wooden staff spiraled out of his storage pouch and landed in his palm.

Gripping the staff with both hands, Liang Yan swept it toward Zhuo Bufan’s crown. Though he had never fought a sword cultivator before, he had observed a move or two from Zhuo Bufan and knew his flying sword struck with terrifying sharpness. Only by striking first would he have any chance of victory.

Liang Yan had tempered his body through the Black-Evil Arts, and his explosive power was several times greater than that of a pure body cultivator of the same rank. Seeing the staff descend with such weight and force, nearly reaching Zhuo Bufan’s brow in an instant, Zhuo Bufan remained unhurried. He raised his right hand before him and formed a sword seal.

Only then did the Light-Suppressing Sword, like a beast long starved, let out a deafening crack in midair and vanish from its place, transforming into a streak of silver-white moonlight.

Though Liang Yan was only at the fifth level of Qi Refinement, he had undergone repeated life-and-death battles since entering the path of cultivation. Unknowingly, he had developed an instinct for seeking advantage and avoiding harm. The moment Zhuo Bufan formed the sword seal, he felt a fatal crisis and his body twisted instinctively to the left.

A flash of painless light!

A moon-white radiance brushed past his lower abdomen and dantian. Liang Yan reflexively reached down and found his entire palm stained red with blood. Looking down, he saw a long, gruesome wound crossing his right waist, flesh turned outward and blood streaming freely.

Only then did a searing pain finally explode through him. His steps faltered, and the mighty blow of the staff skewed off course, striking half an inch beside Zhuo Bufan.

Zhuo Bufan’s face remained calm, without the slightest trace of panic. He lightly tapped the ground with the tip of his foot and drifted back three zhang. Then, with another sword seal, the moon-white radiance slowly dispersed in midair, revealing the flying sword within once more.

Suspended in the air, he pointed at Liang Yan. The Light-Suppressing Sword circled back, then swept in from behind to slash at him.

The strike was impossibly fast, drawing a broken rainbow through the air like a blade of white moonlight, accompanied by a piercing sword cry.

Liang Yan’s ears rang. The fine hairs on his back stood on end. Though he had no time to turn and look, he knew this strike held terrifying power; even a brush from its sword-light would leave flesh and blood flying.

In that moment of peril, he bent backward, feet never leaving the ground, and let his body fall straight back in a move resembling the “iron bridge” of common martial arts.

At the same time, he flung his right hand upward, hurling the Nine-Dragon Staff into the air in an attempt to block the Light-Suppressing Sword for an instant.

There was no clang of sword against staff as he had expected. Instead, it was as though a knife had sliced through tofu. The Light-Suppressing Sword merely paused a fraction before gliding over the Nine-Dragon Staff, silently severing it into two pieces.

What!

Liang Yan was shaken to the core. Since obtaining the Nine-Dragon Staff, he had used it in battle many times, and it had earned repeated distinction. He knew better than anyone how sturdy it was. Yet the Light-Suppressing Sword had casually cut it in two with a single sweep through the air.

Fortunately, the staff had still delayed the sword slightly, nudging its course by a fraction of an inch so that it passed almost grazing Liang Yan’s chest.

Liang Yan rolled across the ground and sprang up again, clutching the two broken halves of the staff while gasping for breath.

“Hm? I didn’t expect Junior Brother Liang, at mere fifth-level Qi Refinement, to have a few tricks.”

Zhuo Bufan looked at Liang Yan with mild surprise. Since entering the sword path, he had already overwhelmed cultivators of the same realm in battle. Over the past few years, in preparation for his future advancement to the sword embryo stage, he had even suppressed his cultivation to strengthen his foundation.

Do not be fooled by the fact that he had not yet crossed the second threshold of Qi Refinement. In a duel, so long as his opponent had not reached Foundation Establishment, even a peak ninth-level Qi Refinement cultivator would not concern him.

As for cultivators whose level was below his, he could kill all of them with a single sword strike. No one had ever before withstood two blows from him at fifth-level Qi Refinement and remained alive, as Liang Yan had.

He was astonished, but he did not know that Liang Yan’s own heart was likewise in turmoil. Having comprehended the divine arts of both Buddhism and Confucianism, Liang Yan could crush cultivators of the same rank with near-overwhelming force. Even those like Nangong Xiaomei and Fan Xunmei, both at the seventh level of Qi Refinement, were not his match.

Thus, though he had long known the might of sword cultivators, he had trusted in the marvelousness of the Two-Fish Twin-Form Array and thought that even with a two-realm disadvantage, he should still be able to fight to a standstill. How could he have known that the other party, wielding sword alone, with just one thrust and one slash, only two strikes in all, would nearly take his life?