Chapter 220: Stake your Life on your Blade, Sever Heads a Thousand Miles off with your Flying Sword (1/2)
Chapter 220: Stake your Life on your Blade, Sever Heads a Thousand Miles off with your Flying Sword
Translator: TransnEditor: Transn
”I am Yu Tianyang, a disciple of Golden Lights Cave. I've known of you for quite some time, Elder Zhou of the Wu Family. Today, I've come to ask you for advice.”
His voice was sonorous and forceful. He didn't beat about the bush, but immediately explained the purpose of his visit.
The whip in the hands of the Wu family's stable groom stopped in midair.
As the stable groom of the Wu Family, he naturally had an discerning eye and knew a lot about the goings-on within the Jianghu. When he heard that the man standing before him was a disciple of the Golden Lights Cave, he could not follow through on his whip strike.
A Golden Lights Cave disciple?
Junior Leopard frowned slightly. So did Wu Yansheng and Lyu Yiyue. They never expected to meet a disciple from the Golden Lights Cave in Qinlingjun City, let alone a disciple that would blatantly stand in their way.
These three people were fairly clever. With just a moment of thought, they all realized the cause of their current situation.
The Mingyi School and Golden Lights Cave had greatly suffered under Wang She's hands and definitively wanted to reclaim their former turf. However much they wished to reclaim their turf, though, accomplishing it was no easy task.
Setting aside the fact that Wang She was already a Level Nine expert, his actions that day had set off the extermination of Northern Yuan and earned him great fame.
No matter how his actions were viewed before, people from all walks of life in Great Jin were now forced to admit that Great Jin had only exterminated Northern Yuan thanks to Wang She's contribution. On top of that, the three Grandmasters of Northern Yuan had joined forces to hunt him down and rumors had spread across half the Jianghu that Junior Leopard had carried the then-severely injured Wang She on his back. Currently, troubling Wang She was not wise.
If they couldn't make trouble for Wang She but also couldn't let their grievances go, who else could they bother?
Zhou Bao!
No one could figure out the exact nature of the relationship between Zhou Bao and Wang She, but everyone knew they had an intimate bond. Otherwise, Wang She would never have given Junior Leopard 19 Spiritual Stones and Junior Leopard wouldn't have carried Wang She on his back.
Though they couldn't make trouble for Wang She, they could vent all their frustrations on Zhou Bao.
This was known as ”pinching the soft persimmon”, i.e. bullying a pushover.
”Interesting. I am being treated like a soft persimmon!” Junior Leopard thought, laughing in his heart. Lifting the curtain of the carriage, he poked his head out and said, ”You've come to ask me for advice? Sorry, but I don't take disciples!”
”Pffft---!” Behind him, Wu Yansheng and Lyu Yiyue both burst out laughing.
”Ask you for advice” had several meaning in this world. Usually when people in the martial arts world encountered each other, this phrase meant ”to challenge you to a duel” rather than ”to seek education”.
Yu Tianyang was a handsome fellow roughly 17 or 18 years old. He had a face that gave off an air of pure indifference and a body honed like a sword. He stood ramrod-straight in the middle of the road, radiating an attitude of arrogance and refinement. At first glance, Junior Leopard thought he had met another Lu Shaoyou, but Yu Tianyang had a much sharper attitude.
A Level Four cultivation?
Junior Leopard obviously had no interest in this interloper's temperament. What did interest him was Yu Tianyang's cultivation, which had only reached Level Four.
The man dares to challenge me with just a Level Four cultivation?
It was important to remember that Junior Leopard had bombarded a Level Seven and Level Eight expert to death. In the current martial arts world, even an ordinary Level Seven expert wasn't guaranteed to win against Junior Leopard, let alone a Level Four warrior.
Even though he had seen Yu Tianyang's cultivation, Junior Leopard was no less cautious. Somebody who dared to challenge him with only a Level Four cultivation must have some kind of trick up their sleeves.
”Yu Tianyang, disciple of the Golden Lights Cave, pays his respects to Elder Zhou!”
Yu Tianyang cupped his hand and fist together to show respect, ignoring Junior Leopard's facetious words. Junior Leopard's mood quickly grew serious as he sensed the incomparably sharp Qi Power emanating from Yu Tianyang's body.
In that moment, Junior Leopard began to have doubts. The man before him seemed less like a human and more like a sword that had just been unsheathed.
A faint feeling of danger stirred in Junior Leopard's heart, urging him to keep his guard up. He slowly disembarked from the carriage and faced Yu Tianyang.
He smiled softly and said, ”It seems you're not here to become my student, are you?”
”Don't play dumb, Chief!” Yu Tianyang said with a snort. ”You know what I've come here for!”
”True!” Junior Leopard said, lips curling as he lost the last of his respect for this humorless stick in the mud.
”If you're so interesting in 'asking me for advice', get on with it and attack,” he said in a seemingly casual tone.
Yu Tianyang raised his brows. ”If that's the case, pardon me for giving offense!”
A stream of searing white light suddenly shot from his fingertips towards Junior Leopard's face, an attack so swift that Junior Leopard barely reacted in time.
”What the h*ll is this?”
Junior Leopard made a strange sound and jerked his head back, awkwardly evading the blast of white light. Before he could regain his bearings, he felt the sharp, cold pressure of Sword Qi shooting towards his back.
”D*mn! It's a Flying Sword!”
In that instant, Junior Leopard finally figured out what his opponent was using against him.
He spread his arms and darted into the air, body soaring like an arrow flying away from the bowstring. He cursed himself for not bringing his Big Iron Hammer along.
A Flying Sword!
This type of weapon may as well have been an enigma to the people of this martial arts world. Even if they'd heard about Flying Swords, they paid no mind to them.
This term was very obscure. If he hadn't just heard about the concept from Wang She, Junior Leopard would have never guessed that Yu Tianyang had refined a Flying Sword.
In the early period of the middle ages, sword practitioners had dominated the whole world. At that time, the precious talents and treasures from the times of antiquity had already vanished, while the rich essence of the world was growing sparse. Some practitioners were forced to abandon the ancient ways of practice. They sought out alternative practice styles, which led to the appearance of various celestial devices.
Unlike those magic weapons from the times of antiquity, most celestial devices from the middle ages could only be used after being refined and fused with divine thoughts. For that matter, their power could not be compared to the strange magic weapons forged before recorded history.
The Flying Sword was the most infamous of these celestial devices.
In the early period of the middle ages, various schools focused on the mastery of sword practice, supplemented by other celestial devices. They focused all their cultivation efforts on the sword, for the Flying Sword was powerful and swift. However, as time passed, they ran into the same problems the people from the times of antiquity had encountered with their magic weapons and cultivation methods.
They suffered a shortage of the mineral veins needed to create Flying Swords.
It is said that during the golden age of sword practitioners, Flying Swords soared across the sky in droves. Each warrior could fly around on a Reining Sword as soon as they cultivated to Level Four. The biggest schools of sword practice, such as Shushan and Emei, had over 10,000 disciples, each of which possessed a Flying Sword. As time elapsed, though, their resources were exhausted. Worst of all, other people would seek to refine these Flying Swords if their previous owners died, expending a large amount of energy and mineral ore to remove the brands on these inherited swords. As a result, the number of swords and sword practitioners gradually declined over the next 10,000 years, leading to the loss of various sword formulas. In later ages, even those who acquired a Flying Sword and its formulas would only use it as an ordinary auxiliary celestial device. They would no longer invest their life and cultivation energy into their sword like the sword practitioners of the Middle Ages did.
Celestial devices led to a new peak of prosperity. For the cultivators of the current martial arts world, there was little difference between magic weapons and many of the powerful celestial devices from the middle ages.
Whether your cultivation was high or low, or your status a Grandmaster or a beggar, you abided by universal rules. Celestial devices and Flying Swords were no different; both required world essence and various kinds of materials to refine them. After the boom in sword practitioners, all the materials required to forge Flying Swords were exhausted. The materials to forge celestial devices were also exhausted after more than 10,000 years of popularity. How could people deal with such an absolute lack of resources?
All they could do was strengthen their body!
In Junior Leopard's era, even the most ordinary celestial devices of the Middle Ages had become wildly popular items...and a Flying Sword was far from ordinary.
Enough digressions!
In truth, celestial devices were rarely seen in this era, let alone Flying Swords.
Junior Leopard never thought that Yu Tianyang would possess a Flying Sword. More precisely, he never thought this guy would be a sword practitioner!
A sword practitioner!
Such a thing had not been seen since the Middle Ages...until now.
Without a doubt, sword practitioners did not decline due to a lack of power but due to a lack of swords.
No one could deny the might of sword practitioners. They were cultivators who staked all their cultivation and faith on the sword. With a good sword in hand, they could show you miracles.
Sword Practitioners were most admired for their ability to challenge people higher than them in rank. A Level Three Sword Practitioner with a good sword and a set of brilliant formulas could challenge warriors several ranks higher than them. In the medieval period, many disciples among the supreme schools would rampage all over the place, hacking and slashing with the unique and brilliant swords they bore. Even Elders of the small schools who had reached the Mysterious Realm could not run or hide from the mighty attack force of the Flying Sword. No matter how strong you were, merely reinforcing your body wouldn't protect you from the lethality of a Flying Sword.
This was the power Yu Tianyang had at his disposal.
Junior Leopard had managed to kill a Level Eight expert despite having only cultivated to Level Four at the time. With the Flying Sword in his hands, Yu Tianyang was confident he could replicate Junior Leopard's feat and kill him with just his Level Four cultivation.