Chapter 169: Severing the Tide
When Kong You saw his thunder technique shattered and Li Yi watching from the sidelines, a grave light flickered in his eyes. He changed his stance immediately, and the blue radiance of the pendant at his chest shifted abruptly.
He pressed two fingers together before his chest.
“Ren form…”
“Thousand-Fathom Rain!”
The thunderclouds in the sky condensed instantly into countless fine water blades, pouring down like a deluge!
Song Yan frowned slightly.
The black-robed youth in the distance gave him an extraordinary feeling. Perhaps temporarily avoiding battle was the “wise” choice.
Unfortunately, Song Yan desired nothing more than to settle this.
He wanted to win! And moreover…
He wanted to keep winning!
Avoid the edge for now?
As a sword cultivator, whose edge should he avoid?!
Mindless retreat would only drain his resolve. What he needed to do now was end this swiftly!
He made his decision without hesitation. From within the sword box, a streak of black-and-white sword light finally shot forth.
At the same moment, beneath the Town-Dao Sword Manor, sword qi poured forth in a torrent, and the Green Snake Within the Sleeve erupted without warning.
A tide of sword qi followed that black-and-white sword light, condensing upon it.
Song Yan traced a distant arc with his sword finger and murmured softly.
“Sever the Tide.”
That black-and-white sword light raced like lightning, carving an arc through the air.
Hummm—
The cyan sword qi was flung outward by the black-and-white sword light, like ink splashed across a scroll!
Before the stunned eyes of all, the sword qi surged forth like a fierce gale cutting through heavy fog.
In a single instant it annihilated the downpour and severed the thunderclouds gathered overhead.
The dense water and thunder spiritual energy Kong You had summoned was like weathered clay…
Scattered by this sword qi as though it were nothing.
“…”
This killing formation within the rain was truly far inferior to Senior Yu Zhen’s Rain That Holds the Guest.
An unprompted thought arose in Song Yan’s mind.
In this moment, whether it was the cultivators within the Grotto Heaven realm or the spectators beyond its borders, all had fallen into a brief silence.
Beyond the boundary, Li Qingfeng was receiving treatment from several other disciples.
He stared blankly at the battle unfolding in the arena.
“…”
Even Li Yi revealed a trace of astonishment.
But only for a moment before his delight returned. That beaming smile was brighter than before.
In this instant, his desire to face Song Yan in a decisive contest had reached its peak.
This single sword strike could almost be called the ultimate expression of Song Yan’s current mastery over sword qi.
The Green Snake Within the Sleeve held a great many variations of sword qi technique. Yet with his present cultivation and attainment in the Sword Dao, he was still far from the level where a single condensed strand of sword qi could annihilate an opponent’s water-blade technique.
Fortunately, the Seed Planting Art and the Sword Technique Compendium also recorded numerous methods for deploying sword qi.
Thus, the technique of merging his natal flying sword with the sword qi of the Green Snake Within the Sleeve could be attempted.
He admitted that this also held a measure of imitation of the Sect Master’s display on the Path-Entering Terrace, that single sword stroke that cleaved through the clouds.
It was merely a clumsy imitation by a Qi Refining Stage “ant” upon a great cultivator of the Core Formation realm.
Yet this strike had nonetheless displayed the power it should have.
It had left Kong You nearly devoid of the will to fight head-on.
“How is this possible…”
He fell into a brief daze.
Was this truly the strength a seventh-level Qi Refining cultivator could possess?
Most crucially, how many more such sword techniques could he unleash?
Kong You did not know.
The struggle against a sword cultivator had always been thus, from ancient times to the present.
When most cultivators fought a sword cultivator, facing those Sword Dao techniques, they invariably felt the might was staggering, that they could not contend by force.
And so, from the very outset, the fierce resolve for a head-on confrontation diminished.
They would begin to think about how to defend against the assault, how to evade the flying sword, how to secure more room to maneuver in the battle.
Little did they know, this only served to give the sword cultivator freer rein.
The Untethered Vessel, shimmering with black-and-white luminescence, hovered at Song Yan’s side. He did not pause. With a flick of his sword finger, the flying sword shot forth.
Kong You snapped back to awareness, spread both hands, and pushed outward.
A blue spiritual radiance blazed to life in his palms, and a heavy mass of water-attribute spiritual energy swirled around him.
Utimately different from the vast water screen he had deployed on the Debate Stage before, this water-attribute spiritual energy condensed into a spherical cocoon.
The rapid currents flowing across the surface of the great cocoon revealed the churning water-attribute spiritual energy within.
“This Song Yan’s sword qi is already fiercely sharp. If I wish to win, I can only overcome hardness with softness.”
Kong You deliberated, and the blue spiritual light between his palms continued to expand rapidly as the water cocoon swelled and thickened.
He was a rational man. Though he understood that there was always someone above, and a sky beyond the sky, he would never abase himself needlessly.
Within the sect, among cultivators below the eighth level of Qi Refining, there were few who could fight him to a standstill.
So what if this Song Yan was an uncommon prodigy?
His cultivation at the seventh level of Qi Refining was an undeniable fact.
With sword qi like that, he absolutely could not unleash a second strike of such magnitude!
His wisest course now was to prolong the battle, wait until the opponent’s spiritual energy was depleted, when sword qi could no longer be condensed, and even controlling a flying sword would become difficult.
That was how he could win…
Kong You’s reasoning was not wrong.
Beneath Song Yan’s Town-Dao Sword Manor, there was very little sword qi remaining. He truly could not unleash another strike of such overwhelming force.
But he had failed to grasp one thing.
That a sword cultivator’s entire skill resided in the flying sword.
Not in the sword qi itself.
Hummm—
The flying sword transformed into a streak of black-and-white spiritual light and pierced through the water cocoon with almost no resistance.
What?!
Kong You’s expression remained unchanged, but inwardly he was terrified.
The violent water currents did deflect the Untethered Vessel’s trajectory by a fraction, and because the flying sword had never intended to seriously injure its opponent, it did not wound Kong You.
In that instant, the water-attribute spiritual energy collapsed with a thunderous roar, dissolving into a sky full of mist.
Kong You’s pupils contracted sharply. The pendant at his chest suddenly flickered with a blue-violet radiance as he instinctively tried to condense a bolt of lightning for protection.
He had placed too much faith in the defensive capability of his water cocoon technique. So much so that he had not even formed a protective layer of spiritual energy at this moment, hoping to conserve his strength for a counterattack against Song Yan.
But Song Yan did not continue his assault.
He slowly closed his eyes and actually sat cross-legged in meditation, as though the battle had already ended, seizing every precious moment to recover his state.
“?”
Just as Kong You was bewildered, the black-and-white flying sword returned to Song Yan’s side.
Dangling from its hilt, swaying back and forth, hung a spirit-inscribed jade token.
“Forty-seven.”
Kong You’s expression froze. He slowly lowered his head. The spirit-inscribed jade token at his waist had vanished without a trace.
He was speechless.
The Ancient Vine Forest lay in utter silence.
Song Yan reached out casually and removed the spirit-inscribed jade token. As the spiritual light exchanged, the number upon it shifted from sixty-nine.
“One hundred and sixteen.”
The spectating cultivators in the distance were struck collectively dumb.
Some among them were shocked by the sharpness of that flying sword.
Some had not even seen clearly what had happened.
And others quietly speculated in their hearts.
Had Song Yan intended to seriously wound Kong You, and only taken the jade token by some fortuitous accident?
Or had the deflection of that water technique been within Song Yan’s calculations all along?
The answer to that question seemed self-evident.
It was simply… rather difficult to accept.