Chapter 263 – Stolen Martial Skill
Watching all this from the side, Zi Mo couldn’t help spitting disdainfully.
These two were clearly anxious to slaughter each other as soon as possible, crush their enemy’s bones to dust and rip his corpse into ten thousand pieces. They had just been engaged in a life or death struggle, fighting all out, mercilessly trying to kill one another, but in the final moments of their battle, both of them had actually taken a moment to praise the other and remind each other to be careful.
[Men… they really are strange creatures.]
As a woman, a scheming manipulative one at that, Zi Mo understood that men were often even more arrogant than women. There were times that even in the face of death, they would refuse to discard their own pride!
It was Wu Cheng Yi’s pride that made him confident that his attack would crush Yang Kai, so he was not worried that what he said and explained to him would have any impact on the battle’s outcome.
Yang Kai’s pride was what stopped him from taking advantage of Wu Cheng Yi while he was preparing his attack, instead choosing to face him head on.
This was the way men fought!
As a woman… it just did not make sense.
Amidst his more than two thousand Sword Qi blades, Wu Cheng Yi suddenly moved.
At that moment, his appearance became very different; his image suddenly became dignified and solemn; it was not just a simple Sword Martial Skill, but an attack that he seemed to have practiced his entire existence for.
Assuming a stance with his sword, its tip began radiating light.
At the same time, the surrounding Sword Qi blades began trembling, emitting a humming sound as their sword aura seemed to pierce the Heavens.
All of a sudden, from the more than two thousand Sword Qi blades, half instantly disappeared, condensing down into only a thousand, and soon after, the number of blades halved again, leaving only five hundred … …
Three hundred Sword Qi blades… two hundred… one hundred… ninety…
As the Sword Qi blades stabilized, a faint sigh leaked from Wu Cheng Yi’s mouth, one that seemed full of regret and helplessness.
However, fter releasing this sigh, Wu Cheng Yi’s expression brightened, his face displaying a look of overwhelming confidence.
As his sword flickered, the ninety remaining Sword Qi blades shot towards Yang Kai!
Strike of Ten Thousand Swords!
Nine Star Sword Sect’s Ultimate Martial Skill. It had only ever been taught to those who made outstanding contributions to the Sect, and with Wu Cheng Yi being the only member of the younger generation who had learned it, it was quite clear how highly the elders of the Sect valued him.
This sword skill, if practiced to the Grand Accomplishment Stage, could create ten thousand Sword Qi blades and condense them into a single one. The resulting blade would have the strength to cut through the world, destroying mountains and rivers with a single slash. Unfortunately, with Wu Cheng Yi’s current strength, even though he had exhausted all of his True Qi, he was only able to condensed slightly more than two thousand Sword Qi blades, and ultimately could only condense that number down to ninety.
But despite only being able to display it to such an extent, this sword skill was still extremely powerful.
Zi Mo shivered. Even though she was more than two thousand meters away, she could still clearly feel the radiant sword aura piercing her to her core. The air around her felt like it had been transformed into a razor edge, cutting into her skin; it was like a million tiny mosquito were all biting her at once, causing her to wince in pain.
This sword skill… it was far beyond what she was capable of understanding.
If Wu Cheng Yi had used this Sword Skill to deal with her, Zi Mo was certain she would have been powerless to resist.
Shifting her gaze towards Yang Kai, she wondered if he had the strength to counter.
However, what she saw was Yang Kai’s figure completely obscured by black gas, almost all of his original features impossible to make out. The only thing that remained clear was his pair of scarlet eyes, which exuded a piercing light; these eyes were filled with madness while still remaining eerily calm.
This contradictory combination brought about a strange feeling of incongruity.
In the face of the ninety attacking Sword Qi blades, Yang Kai did not attempt to dodge, instead clenching his hand around the Asura Sword, exerting all of his strength into a single forward slash, causing all the Demonic Qi the Asura Sword had just swallowed to burst forth.
A wave of heart stopping explosions erupted with Yang Kai as the center. The Earth around him seemed to rend and tear, sending sand and stone flying about.
However, from the Asura Sword itself, no Sword Qi, no Sword Wave, nothing at all seemed to appear.
The profoundness of this sword strike had also exceeded the limits of Zi Mo’s imagination.
After unleashing this sword slash, Yang Kai straightened himself up. His mouth still showing a strange smile, he raised the red sword in his hand onto his shoulder.
His casual smile fully displayed his unbridled confidence.
Wu Cheng Yi’s pupils rapidly contracted. Although he had not seen any attack, his heart still filled with a strong throbbing, like he had just heard the call of death.
In the blink of an eye, the ninety Sword Qi blades released by Wu Cheng Yi had flown up to Yang Kai, but suddenly, a bowl sized dark void appeared mid-air.
This scene was incredibly strange; it was as if someone had accidentally spilled a drop of ink onto a picture of the sky.
The instant this dark void appeared it suddenly began to madly spread around, like it was trying to consume everything around it. With the strange black light covering everything in front of her, Zi Mo suddenly founder herself in the dark, unable to see anything around her.
Inside this endless darkness, she suddenly heard the sound of something bursting, like someone had just been struck by a blade of Sword Qi.
Zi Mo heart trembled, because the location she had heard the sound originate from was where Yang Kai had been standing, but before she could react, another burst of noise rang out from Wu Cheng Yi’s side.
After the sounds rang out, the Heavens and Earth once again became calm.
A long moment later, Zi Mo suddenly saw traces of light, everything in front of her gradually reappearing.
Looking ahead, the world was bright once more, the sun setting in the distance, dying everything from the horizon to earth beneath her a blood red shade of crimson.
From within her chest came a violent heartbeat, Zi Mo quickly looked around for Yang Kai, seeing him still standing in the same place, all the clothes on his upper body torn to shreds, revealing his indomitable figure.
It was not a particularly muscular image, but instead one that seemed full of explosive potential; she also saw more than a few bright red scars, which after a breath of time began gushing with blood.
These were wounds he had just received from the Sword Qi blades.
[Did he lose?] Zi Mo involuntarily covered her mouth, her beautiful eyes staring in disbelief. [How could such a strong, Heaven-defying man like him suddenly lose, just like that?]
Looking towards Wu Cheng Yi, Zi Mo saw him also standing exactly in the same position as before, as if everything that had just transpired never even happened, his body standing straight like a javelin, eyes filled with a free and uninhibited look.
His sword still held straight in front of him, his clothes gently swaying in the light blowing breeze.
A red spot on his chest slowly appeared, gradually expanding.
His lips trembled a few times, like he was desperately trying to say something, but ultimately he remained silent, his expression gradually becoming stiff.
The uninhibited and dauntless light in his eyes slowly faded, eventually become hollow and empty.
[He died!]
Zi Mo screamed to herself, suddenly feeling extremely complicated.
In the end, did they both perish?
*Cough cough…” Suddenly, from Yang Kai’s direction, a light cough rang out, causing Zi Mo to jump up in surprise; turning her gaze towards him, she saw Yang Kai supporting himself with the Asura Sword, his body trembling as he slowly collapsed.
“My Fair Beauty…” Yang Kai turned to look at her, his mouth still showing a light smile, “Can you come help me?”
[This smelly brat really didn’t die!] Zi Mo heart skipped a beat; her eyes darted about as she hesitated about what to do, eventually beginning to walk over towards him.
Crossing the thousand or so meters between them only took Zi Mo about twenty breaths or so.
As she directed a look towards Yang Kai filled with complex emotions, Zi Mo’s heart pounded.
If she were to strike now and kill him here…
The days of her needing to worry about the brand placed on her Soul would truly be over.
But once, when they were inside that isolated world, this young man had stood up in front of her and faced down that despicable Bi Xiu Ming and his Junior Brother. He had also risked his life to save her’s during the time they had been besieged by Monster Beasts. The memory of these events made Zi Mo hesitate to attack, not to mention this time, if not for his swift arrival, she would never have been able to escape Wu Cheng Yi’s grasp.
If she counted all of these instances up, this young man before her had already saved her life three times.
[Ai… what a headache…]
“Grab that thing on the ground for me!” Yang Kai said between his gasps for breath.
Yang Kai’s words suddenly interrupted Zi Mo’s thoughts. Looking down, she saw a small bag lying on the ground nearby and bent over to pick it up. Handing it to Yang Kai, she asked curiously, “What is this?”
“Nothing, just a little artifact.” Yang Kai chuckled, placing the Universe Bag into one of his pants pockets, beckoning Zi Mo over, placing his arm onto her delicate shoulder, and then resting more than half of his weight onto her.
“Bring me over to Wu Cheng Yi!” Yang Kai ordered.
Zi Mo angrily glanced at him, but still obediently brought him towards Wu Cheng Yi.
Arriving at Wu Cheng Yi’s side, Yang Kai reached out and began searching his clothes, a moment later finding and pulling out a small bottle that was half filled with liquid.
“Ha ha ha!” Yang Kai burst into laughter, his previous guess really not wrong. Wu Cheng Yi also possessed a bottle of Brilliant Flame Liquid, and it even contained more than the one he had acquired before.
“What is that?” Zi Mo asked as she watched somewhat helplessly, although she knew that this bottle certainly contained something good, she also knew that it was not likely she would be able to obtain any of it.
“I’ll tell you later!” Yang Kai said as he grinned happily. “First take me some place secluded, I need to heal!”
…
In the depths of the wilderness, in a cave dug into the side of a slope, the bare chested Yang Kai sat cross-legged barely on the ground.
During his battle with Wu Cheng Yi, the injuries he had sustained were actually not that heavy, neither the physical trauma nor the lingering Sword Qi were significant impediments to him.
What caused Yang Kai to enter retreat was instead the Sword Dao!
Wu Cheng Yi’s Ten Thousand Swords Piercing One Sword Skill had penetrated into Yang Kai’s body!
When he was holding the Asura Sword at that time, Yang Kai had suddenly understood the will of this sword.
After acquiring the Asura Sect’s artifact, Yang Kai had only used it once, the time when he had confronted Bai Yun Feng in the High Heaven Pavilion.
At that time, he had just finished refining the Asura Sword and was still not too familiar with it, so his awareness of it was only at the level of him knowing it was a heavenly slaughtering weapon.
But over the past year, the Asura Sword had been tempered by his Yuan Qi while residing within his dantian, slowly blending with him.
Until now, the two had finally become one.
This time, when Yang Kai used the Asura Sword, he discovered that it was not just a slaughtering artifact; it had also possessed a unique ability.
It could absorb and steal an enemy’s Sword Skills, allowing him to use them for himself!
However this effect only applied to Sword Skills!
During his last clash with Wu Cheng Yi, the Asura Sword used a lot of Demonic Qi from within Yang Kai’s Golden Skeleton in order to form a void which engulfed all the lethality from Wu Cheng Yi’s Sword Skill, leaving behind only the Sword Dao.
So Yang Kai did not dodge, instead allowing his body to bear the full brunt of this Sword Dao.
But even if it was just Sword Dao, it still ended up piercing through Yang Kai’s body, so from an outside perspective he appeared to be heavily quite injured.
Sword Dao, it was like the spiritual embodiment of the sword, similar to a cultivator’s Divine Sense. Without a sword or Sword Qi behind it, Sword Dao alone was only an ethereal concept, unable to fully display a Sword Skill’s power.
At that moment, Yang Kai was absorbed in the feeling of Wu Cheng Yi’s Sword Dao, trying to glean the mysteries of the Ten Thousand Swords Piercing One Sword Skill from it.
Once he succeeded, Yang Kai would be able to assimilate and use this Sword Skill. In addition to that, this Sword Skill’s rank was by no means low.
The Nine Star Sword Sect’s Ultimate Sword Skill, it was definitely a Mysterious Grade Sword Skill.
With the Asura Sword’s strange ability, it was no wonder it had become Asura Sect’s Hallowed Treasure; however, using the Asura Sword to steal a Sword Skill was also extremely dangerous. If any mistake was made during the process, rather than seizing the enemy’s ability, one would likely be struck by it instead.
Yang Kai did not act anxiously, slowly absorbing the insights he obtained into his mind, continuously reviewing all of Wu Cheng Yi’s actions and True Qi fluctuations when he cast his Ten Thousand Swords Piercing One. While he was in this state, the Asura Sword also seemed to release a joyous hum, the two of them, man and sword, forming a kind of resonance.
Meanwhile, Zi Mo stood at the entrance to the cave, bored, looking over towards Yang Kai every now and then with complex eyes.
Fiddling with her hair as she bit her lips, constantly considering whether to attack Yang Kai and kill this hateful smelly brat. Nevertheless, as she continued thinking about it, her determination would waver back and forth, causing her heart to feel like it was being tangled in knots.