Chapter 109: Chapter 109
【Deducible martial art detected: Scripture of the Divine General Who Gazes into the Void and Illuminates the Heavens. Proceed with Deduction?】
“Yes!”
Shen Xiuhan’s mind roared the command.
Before his eyes, the half-month’s worth of accumulated points — together with those extracted from the Purple-Beaked Duck — plummeted like water through a broken dam.
BOOM!
The entire reed marsh went utterly silent.
The rustle of wind across the grass-tips, the distant slap of waves on the shore, even the crackling pop of firewood in the campfire — in this instant, all of it vanished.
The space between Shen Xiuhan’s brows burned like fire, the searing heat drilling from his glabella straight into the marrow of his brain.
Inside his mind, countless golden seal-script characters emerged from the void like drifting fireflies. They wove together, converging, gradually condensing into a blurred human figure — head touching the blue sky, feet planted on the void.
The figure pressed two fingers together and touched them to the space between its brows. From its lips poured an ancient, arcane chant. Every syllable struck Shen Xiuhan’s consciousness like a hammer-blow.
【You spent ten years in bitter cultivation of the Scripture of the Divine General. The scripture was vast and inscrutable, like reading the language of heaven itself. Day after day you quenched your eyes with qi-blood, your sockets burning, reddened as blood, vision blurring, nearly going blind. Ten years of toil, and still you could not find the door.】
【In the eighteenth year, you greeted the purple qi of dawn each morning and bid farewell to the dying sun each evening. You ceased striving to see objects, and instead learned to see qi, to see wind, to see the shifting play of light and shadow, the flux of the real and the illusory. One day, the qi-blood in your pupils reversed its flow. A phantom layer took shape behind your retinas. At last, you entered this divine power.】
【In the twenty-fifth year, you penetrated the scripture’s true essence and grasped the original meaning of the character “miao” — the utmost clarity of sight, the perception of all phenomena. You were no longer bound to surface and outer form, but merged willpower with the force of the heart, using spirit and mind to peer into the ultimate truths of heaven and earth.】
【In the thirtieth year, you finally awakened the divine power. The radiance between your brows shifted from active to still, withdrawing entirely into your left eye. Your left eye underwent a fundamental transformation — gold replacing black. It was no longer a mortal eye, but the divine power that sees through illusion and pierces the death-points of all things: the Void-Gazing Eye!】
BOOM!
An ancient, arcane, ocean-vast torrent of energy — like the waters of the Milky Way pouring in reverse — crashed into Shen Xiuhan’s left eye.
“Ngh!”
Shen Xiuhan let out a pained grunt, his hand clamped over his left eye.
The eyeball felt as though it had been plunged into a furnace. Scalding, magma-hot qi-blood flowed along specific meridians, converging on the Bright Palace of his left eye — compressing, reorganizing, rebuilding.
The searing pain persisted for half a cup of tea’s time before it slowly ebbed.
The reed marsh returned to silence. Only the dying embers of the campfire flickered in the wind.
Shen Xiuhan lowered his hand and opened both eyes.
FLASH!
In an instant, it was as though a bolt of brilliant, cold lightning had pierced the void.
Had anyone been standing before him at that moment, the sight would have sent chills crawling across their scalp.
Because the pupil that had been ink-black… had turned pure gold.
Deep and luminous, like molten gold frozen solid — at once uncanny and regal, radiating a majesty that did not belong to the mortal world.
And the pupil itself was no longer a simple circle. Along its edge, a single reverse-stroke had appeared.
Its shape resembled…
A comma-jewel.
“Hoo…”
Shen Xiuhan drew a deep breath and slowly rotated the golden comma-jewel.
The world transformed.
Wind was no longer formless and invisible. He could see it — plainly, crisply.
Currents of air rising from the lake, spiraling past the tips of the reeds, bending the seed-heads and releasing them — every last trajectory laid bare in perfect clarity.
In the distance, a dragonfly beat its wings in passing.
To his eye, the frequency of its wingbeats slowed by a factor of dozens. Each stroke played out like a slow-motion replay. He could even count the minute scales on its wings.
See through illusion. Perceive the source.
With the Void-Gazing Eye, any martial art performed in his presence — its cultivation circuit, its qi-blood pathways, the weak points and death-points of every technique — would lie open before him like lines on the palm of his hand. Nothing could hide.
And this was merely the divine power’s initial form.
“Once I achieve Astral Strength and attain the second comma-jewel, I’ll be able to replicate any art under heaven… And should I ever set foot in the God’s Advent realm and forge the third comma-jewel, only then will this divine power reach its full potential.”
Shen Xiuhan murmured to himself, the scripture’s descriptions surfacing in his mind.
“According to the text, at its ultimate stage, the Void-Gazing Eye can even forcibly replicate — or strip away — another’s divine power, their fate-root, even their innate talent…”
He exhaled a long breath. A thought stirred, and the golden comma-jewel rotating in his left eye gradually faded. The pupil returned to ink-black, indistinguishable from any ordinary person’s.
“Worthy of being a divine-power method. The mysteries are truly endless.”
Shen Xiuhan marveled inwardly. “I wonder what kind of marvels the other three divine powers of Diaohailou hold…”
The thought had barely formed when his expression changed abruptly.
The qi-blood inside him ignited like a barrel of gunpowder, surging into a sudden boil.
Shen Xiuhan launched himself to his feet, landing on a jutting reef-stone like a great roc spreading its wings. His feet sank into the mud, anchoring him firm.
He sank his waist, set his stance. The great dragon of his spine reared. He assumed the opening form of the Golden Vulture Soaring Wind Art.
Arms half-spread, ten fingers hooked, his entire bearing surging skyward — a golden vulture about to take wing and seize the heavens.
SWISH! SWISH! SWISH!
One stance-set after another flowed from him like water.
Slow at first, each movement crisp and distinct. But as his qi-blood circulation gained momentum, his speed climbed, and his motions blurred into chains of afterimages — half-real, half-phantom in the moonlight.
His blue robe snapped and billowed. Pebbles at his feet were swept up by the force-wind and flung in every direction.
Inside, qi-blood surged like a raging ocean tide, charging forward in a relentless assault on the second of the five major sinews — the Belt Vessel!
BOOM! BOOM!
Qi-blood hammered like a battering ram, slamming into the invisible barrier again and again. Every impact set his bones humming.
The force rose from his dantian, surged along the meridians, and crashed against his chest — leaving his ribcage tight and his throat tasting sweet.
Dozens of impacts in succession!
CRACK!
A sharp snap — like ice fracturing, like shackles bursting apart.
The Belt Vessel barrier…
Had finally been breached.
“Glorious!”
Shen Xiuhan tipped his head back and roared, the sound shaking the reed marsh, startling waterfowl into flight.
He rose to his feet. His bones sang in unison, his entire body crackling in a staccato fusillade.
Five days ago, he had brought the first of the five major sinews — the Surge Vessel — to Initial Mastery, and had expected another month of hard work before he could break through the Belt Vessel.
He hadn’t imagined that today, riding the momentum of the Void-Gazing Eye’s Deduction, he would blast through it in one rush.
With this, of the five major sinews in the Sinew Tempering stage — Surge, Belt, Conception, Governor, and Yang Heel — he had opened two.
Only the Conception Vessel, the Governor Vessel, and the Yang Heel Vessel remained.
The Conception and Governor Vessels were linked and typically opened together.
At his current pace, two months at most would see all three cleared, reaching Sinew Tempering Perfection.
And then… he could begin his assault on the Hidden Strength barrier.
Just then, Luo Feng’s voice carried from the distance. “Patrol Envoy — the garrison commander requests your presence!”
“…Coming!”
Shen Xiuhan called back, a swell of gladness rising in his chest. He gathered his things, shifted his footing, and his figure blurred from the spot.
Half a month of waiting — and at last, he could go home.
…