Chapter 322 – The Appearance of a Sword Intent (1/2)
Chapter 322 - The Appearance of a Sword Intent
The surface of the water began to ripple faster and faster, more and more frequently. The ripples that spread in all directions were slowly pushed together, knocking and tearing at each other. In the end, they transformed into countless drops of water and were knocked from the surface of the water, combining with the bits of grass that were ground into dust. It formed a faint green mist which was slightly transparent. In the light from far away, an extremely faint shadow could be vaguely seen.
The shadow was very thin and straight, like a straight stroke that had not been finished. It was as if an infinite amount of lake water had been poured into the ink that drew the line, giving one a feeling that although the thin shadow was in the mist, it seemed to be elsewhere. Although it was clearly before their eyes, it was as if it did not exist. Even if it seemed to exist in another world, it was only the shadow of a real object in the Garden of Zhou.
The green mist was the boundary between the real world and other worlds. Logically, this barrier that separated space should have been extremely stable. However, in the next moment after it had appeared, the green mist dispersed. The speed at which it dispersed was so fast that even the surrounding space could not react in time. As a result, a terrifying hurricane formed in the grassland.
—In an extremely short amount of time, the thing expanded rapidly. Actually, it was an explosion. To describe the scene at that moment in simpler words, it should be said that the green mist exploded. However, this explosion did not create any sounds, other than the whistling of the wind; the silence was abnormally terrifying.
Being silent did not mean it was soft and powerless. Countless terrifying Qis and an unimaginable, shapeless cutting edge dispersed with the green mist, expanding into the surroundings of the grasslands. They easily caught up with and surpassed the hurricane caused by the distortion of space, and came in contact with the living and non-living things in the grassland first.
No matter if it was the wild reeds or special golden bells in the southern swamps, countless bushes were cut into shreds, transforming into a wave of fluttering green rain. It fell everywhere with swishing sounds. Even the rocks within the bushes were cut, turning into pebbles the size of fingernails. They were blown into the water of the wetlands like arrows, knocking the frogs and fish hidden in the mud unconscious. Closely following, those frogs and fish were also torn into pieces. No matter if it was scales or fish fins, they were all ground into dust. The ground of the wetlands were also broken into pieces, as if it had been plowed seventy-two times by a hard-working but dumb farmer. In the end, the water broke, transforming into countless droplets of water. The air also broke, transforming into countless soft breezes.
The green mist dispersed, and the thin shadow finally revealed its true appearance.
In a range of over ten li in the grassland, everything was chopped into pieces. It was a piece of flat wilderness, with everything ground into fine dust.
The true appearance of the shadow was still a shadow. It seemed extremely blurry, and could not be clearly seen, but it could be roughly seen. It was a… sword.
This thin shadow was not the sword itself, but the shadow of a sword. In other words, it was a strand of sword intent.
When the sword intent appeared and chopped everything, the entire Plains of the Unsetting Sun, or even the entire Garden of Zhou could feel it. An extremely profound tremble spread out from the depths under the Mausoleum of Zhou. In the black ocean formed by the monster tide, it caused countless wild swells. This was the reaction of the countless monsters to the sword intent. The terrifying shadow in the sky grew even lower, as if it was going to envelop the entire grassland. Before the main entrance of the Mausoleum of Zhou, Nanke suddenly turned around and gazed into the depths of the grassland. She squinted her eyes, and her normal indifferent or even lifeless expression became extremely sharp. Afterwards, no matter if it was the innumerable monsters or her, or even the shadow in the sky, all could see the flat wilderness that had a circumference of ten li. However, they could not see the sword.
It was because before this, a breeze arose from the area of grassland.
The sword intent travelled with the wind and disappeared with the wind. It was quiet without a sound, and could disappear without a trace, so naturally, it could not be seen.
No one had felt the strand of sword intent traverse the dusky grasslands with the soft and long breeze. It entered the dark clouds, ignored the rain that fell from the sky and arrived before Zhou Dufu’s mausoleum. Afterwards, like a stamen of winter sweets, it fell onto the ground that was covered in a thick layer of snow, and—just like the first flow of water from upstream that flowed into a riverbed that had been dry for thousands of years—it disappeared into the mausoleum.
Naturally, no one had discovered where the sword intent went.
Chen Changsheng raised the umbrella with his left hand at an angle. He did not block the rain, and was only preparing to block Nanke’s attack. His whole body had already become wet from the rain.