936 Life-saving (1/2)

Wild Horse took seven steps forward, and the disciples around him retreated seven steps at the same time. Even those who were already against the wall nervously shuffled their feet, trying to move backwards.

The less seriously Wild Horse treated the lives of the people around him, the more the crowd revered him.

The discussion had ended and the killing had resumed, and Wild Horse had pointed his sword at his first target.

Old Man Mu's expression immediately changed. After moving a few steps closer to the Dragon King, he chuckled. ”I've never practiced the so-called Waning Moon Swordsmanship or the Death Sutra Swordsmanship, so you'd better find someone else to practice your sword technique on.”

Wild Horse's sword moved along with his target. Waves of warmth rushed up to his head from his feet. Today, he would finally shut up that annoying big mouth forever.

”Dragon King, you haven't spoken for a long time. The Master Commander already said that she invited you here to kill Wild Horse. It's getting late. Why not make a move now?” Old Man Mu simply hid behind the Dragon King. He wasn't the kind of person who would calmly accept death when he knew that he would definitely be defeated.

”No.” Gu Shenwei refused Old Man Mu's request for help. ”Wild Horse's swordsmanship isn't powerful enough. You have to help him to improve it further.”

”Ah?” Old Man Mu believed that he was smarter than most of the people in the hall but even he couldn't understand the Dragon King right now. ”Improve it further? So that he can kill everyone here? Besides… Besides, I'm too weak to help him.”

”You are the most obvious choice.” Gu Shenwei grabbed Old Man Mu from behind him and put him in front of Wild Horse.

In the face of danger, Old Man Mu's mind spun even faster. ”The Dragon King wants Wild Horse to improve his swordsmanship further. Does the Dragon King want him to kill himself again?”

”Hmm.”

Gu Shenwei hadn't been idle when Old Man Mu had been speaking with Lotus. The various experiences that he had had when practicing the Death Sutra Swordsmanship had rushed through his mind one by one.

The two golden-crowned rocs had first brought Servant Huan that magic ancient book. Frightened by the horrible figures and esoteric words in the book, he hadn't taken it too seriously at that time, but neither had he begrudgingly thrown it away either.

In contrast, Lotus had urged Servant Huan to practice it as soon as she read the Death Sutra. At that time, she probably wanted to use this odd kung fu to harm people. For this purpose, she had even put herself at risk by learning the swordsmanship together with Servant Huan.

It was with this sword technique of unknown origin that the two had completed the training of a killer disciple and successfully survived Golden Roc Castle. In order to not be noticed by the killers, they had carefully controlled how quickly they improved at the swordsmanship and therefore, hadn't die unwittingly to a backlash.

After the monks of the Four Noble Truths Temple had deciphered the outline, which was written in a weird language, Gu Shenwei and Lotus had both realized that they were on a road of no return. The more they killed, the stronger the swordsmanship. And the stronger the swordsmanship, the more they had to kill strong rivals. There was no end. In the end, the one they would be able to kill would only be themselves.

The only solution was to delay the progress of the practice as much as possible.

This was a strange and cruel martial art in every way, but it was called the ”Grand Enlightenment Sword Sutra.” Both Gu Shenwei and Lotus thought that it was more appropriate to call it the ”Death Sutra.” For a long time, Gu Shenwei had felt that he had neglected something. The outline of the Daoless Scroll had then filled one of the most important loopholes.

Gu Shenwei had accidentally found the outline in the Underground Palace of the Khan and had read it many times since then. What impressed him the most was the story of ”sacrificing the body to achieve enlightenment.” A monk who studied and cultivated hard couldn't free himself from his mortal shackles. To prove his sincerity to Buddha, he had committed suicide, but in that same moment of death, also been enlightened.

Both the Daoless Divine Power and the Death Sutra Swordsmanship were martial arts skills passed down from Golden Roc Castle. The two were probably created by the same person, so naturally, there were many similarities between the two. And it was exactly from this story that Gu Shenwei had comprehended the true meaning of the ”Grand Enlightenment Sword Sutra.”

Practicing one's swordsmanship was like cultivating oneself according to a religious doctrine. The first step was to have infinite faith in the swordsmanship as believing in something made it happen. The following path was also similar. The ascetic had to strengthen his belief in the endless cultivation. For a swordsmanship practitioner, it was to kill over and over again. The practitioner would be amazed by his swordsmanship over and over again and his swordsmanship would improve to corresponding higher levels.

In the end, like the ascetic, when the belief of the practitioner grew to the utmost, they needed a more direct and powerful proof of his conviction, which was to ”sacrifice the body to achieve enlightenment.”

Gu Shenwei's conviction was far from that strong, but as soon as he saw Wild Horse, he knew his theories could be tested on this man.

Old Man Mu was dumbfounded. Placing his hopes of defeating the enemy on the other side's committing suicide was like using another person's saber to kill them. It didn't seem to be a feasible tactic at all. ”Dragon King, Wild Horse has already 'killed himself' once before. Will he do it again?”

”To sacrifice the body to achieve enlightenment,” Gu Shenwei casually said. ”Wild Horse has only killed the body but didn't receive enlightenment. Thus, he will do it again for the second and a third time until he dies.”

The Dragon King's confidence didn't have an encouraging effect on Old Man Mu. Instead, it made him even more frightened. ”A third time? So it means that I may not live to see it? Ehh, look, Wild Horse is smiling, and it's really ugly. He's being disdainful of the Dragon King. I don't think that he wants to commit suicide at all. I'd guess that he doesn't even know what ”enlightenment” means.”

Wild Horse was indeed smiling. This was exactly the Servant Huan that he remembered, a man of great eloquence, a complete lackey who was good at flattering his master. Now, even though Servant Huan was in power, he was more eloquent than ever. Unlike Old Man Mu's meaningless nagging, Servant Huan's words usually hid some truth in them and the listeners would be deluded if they didn't pay any attention to it.

Unlike the ordinary disciples, Wild Horse had long since known of the consequences of the backlash from the very beginning. But instead of shrinking back, he had risen to the challenge. At that time, he had not even considered sacrificing his partner, the old man of the Essence Pavilion.

Wild Horse thought that he had grasped the true meaning of the Death Sutra. As a ground-breaking swordsmanship, each and every one of its training methods went to extremes from the very beginning. Ordinary people would be frightened. Servant Huan and Lotus had carefully maintained a balance. But he would bravely stride forward, break through the ultimate extremes, and enter a whole new world that he had utmost faith existed.

This new world would definitely not begin with suicide.

As for the death of the old man of the Essence Pavilion, it was just a small detour which he would never take again.

Wild Horse took a step forward. Old Man Mu saw the murderous sword coming at him, but he couldn't even move an inch. It were as if his feet had been rooted to the ground.

The three moves shown by Servant Huan were quite useful. Wild Horse wouldn't refuse them. Instead, he decided to use them on Old Man Mu.