Chapter 596: Sweeping Calm
[V6C126 – Sorrow of a Silent Parting]
Qianye focused his mind and finally recovered from the suppressive might of the sword.
As the sword stance condensed within the Book of Darkness, its basic arts also appeared within Qianye’s consciousness. He promptly memorized its moves and patterns of force application, then began pondering a different issue—the profundities of the Book of Darkness.
It was when Qianye was practicing the basic sword stances that the Nirvanic Rend had appeared. At that time, his foundations were stable but had no powerful combat art inheritances. He had East Peak in hand but no mighty killing move. Hence, the Book of Darkness had condensed Nirvanic Rend from hundreds of basic sword stances, forming a move that best suited Qianye and East Peak. This move would surely be weaker in any other person’s hand.
A new move had appeared at the moment and it was clearly made for group combat. Connecting this to the most recent experiences, Qianye came to the conclusion that his recent lethal battle against the dark race—in addition to being hunted down by fierce beasts and midgets—had triggered the Book of Darkness to produce this killing move.
This sword strike was similar to Nirvanic Rend in that its momentum was massive. One could see at a glance that it was made solely for East Peak—lighter swords would never be able to produce such a powerful attack.
However, there were many unclear parts in this newly refined move. Qianye pondered the move repeatedly and compared it to the cultivation process of Nirvanic Rend, finally realizing that the sword arts produced by the Book of Darkness weren’t perfect. Its overall power was more or less equal to a major clan’s secret arts.
An inheritance of this level couldn’t be considered excessively valuable since it was available to all lineal scions and other important descendants. There was a higher level of core inheritance above this. For instance, Zhao Jundu’s Omniscient Seal was one of the Zhao clan’s core inheritances, and its power was clearly superior to the arts refined by the Book of Darkness.
But arts like Nirvanic Rend produced by the book had a fair amount of room to grow. This required Qianye’s constant cultivation and comprehension to bring it up step by step. Presently, Nirvanic Rend’s might had grown significantly compared to the outset and was edging closer to the level of those secret major-clan arts.
After pondering about this, Qianye came to a general understanding of the requirements involved in the Book of Darkness’ refinement process. It required not only essence blood but also a trigger. At the same time, there was also an upper limit. Nirvanic Rend wouldn’t have been sparked If he hadn’t practiced the basic sword moves. If he hadn’t engaged enemies in a large scale battle, the current move wouldn’t have become available. He would need to analyze this new-found power in depth to reach a state of perfect comprehension.
This meant that the Book of Darkness was only giving Qianye a pointer at the critical juncture. This result greatly discounted from the book’s perceived uses, but it was still extremely important nonetheless.
The secret arts of the major clans came mostly from the first awakening of daybreak origin power and had gone through 1200 years of polishing. If Qianye had to fumble about on his own, who knew how long it would take for him to figure out a move like Nirvanic rend?
Qianye pushed his emotional thoughts away and began studying the new sword technique.
This move slashed in the eight directions—both its technique and origin power circulation methods were fairly concise. The key lay in its outstanding power and surging aggression. Runic words had emerged on the Book of Darkness during Nirvanic Rend’s birth, but there was nothing this time. Perhaps it was due to the lack of essence blood or some other reason.
Qianye pondered for a while. “Let’s call it Sweeping War—no, let’s name it Sweeping Silence.”
War and Order, just one word’s difference had changed the concept entirely. It felt as though merely coming up with the name improved one’s comprehension by a level.
Moments later, he had grasped the basics of Sweeping Silence. As such, he got up to try out the new move.
With East Peak in hand, Qianye focused his mind, calmed his energy, and slashed straight forward with a sudden shout!
The origin power in Qianye’s body discharged abruptly like flowing water. East Peak grew several times heavier—moving it was almost like carrying a small mountain. This single strike drained a good chunk of Qianye’s origin power. The second strike lashed out toward his left front side. At this point, half of his origin power had been depleted. He barely managed to finish half of the third swing when East Peak sank down and pierced diagonally into the ground and the sword momentum dispersed like clouds in the wind.
Qianye had long since known that Sweeping Silence wouldn’t be that easy but the results still astonished him greatly. There were eight strikes in Sweeping Silence to cover every direction without leaving any openings. A single strike to erase all life—that was the true meaning of Sweeping Silence. Ignoring its power, for now, the consumption was truly shocking. Even someone with Qianye’s cultivation could barely produce three swings?
Qianye heard a series of pitter-patter at this moment. He immediately looked over and found the source of this sound. To the front and left of him, the purple substance within a ten-meter radius had been blanketed in a layer of grey, its original vitality nowhere to be found.
A large swathe of purple substance began to transform into a deathly ashen hue with countless minute cracks appearing on the surface. Soon afterward, the affected substance turned into a puff of smoke and scattered into the air, revealing the naked soil beneath.
The ground didn’t recover either. Traces of dense sword intent weaved through the ground—even a mouse might be cut into ten-pieces if struck.
There was a giant tree ten meters in front of Qianye. Its branches trembled constantly amidst life-like cries of mournful agony.
By the time Qianye looked over, a grey line had already appeared on its body. It stretched out rapidly, and soon, turned into a wide grey belt. Afterward, this belt broke apart and shattered into countless air-borne fragments which slowly fluttered down.
The giant tree trembled with greater intensity as though it were in great pain. The giant trees nearby also began to shake and scream.
Qianye was still in a daze when he suddenly thought of something. He quickly looked up at the treetops and found the lifeforms there struggling with all their might, on the verge of breaking out of the membranes.
Moreover, it wasn’t just the giant tree. All the other trees nearby were also in the same state.
This scene was inexplicably eerie and caused Qianye to sweat profusely. Before he could make a decision, the surrounding treetops opened up, sending thousands of midgets and beasts raining down.
How would Qianye dare to stay after seeing this? He immediately picked up East Peak and fled as the thousands of creatures chased after him like a rolling tidal wave.
Qianye ran with every ounce of strength he could muster, no longer caring about hiding his aura. His main reason for cultivating the Sweeping Calm was to deal with such situations. But now, he couldn’t even calm a single direction—all he could do was run for his life.
He had expended his daybreak origin power at the moment, but he still had his blood energy. Add to that his ancient first-rank viscount constitution and speed, he was able to flee like the wind. He finally managed to throw off the pursuers after an unknown length of time. But he didn’t dare act too recklessly. He kept on running for several dozen kilometers after the sounds behind him had vanished before stopping to rest.
Qianye leaned upon a giant tree and finally managed to catch his breath, his heart still beating fast as he recalled the tidal wave of beasts. He then glanced around at the giant trees nearby and was overcome by odd emotions.
Qianye hadn’t stayed in Misty Wood for very long during his last excursion into Giant’s Repose. He had passed through quickly and arrived at the central caverns.
As far as Qianye could remember, he had fought a couple of battles in this place and also damaged the giant trees during the process. However, the giant trees showed no reaction back then. For some reason, the forest produced a large wave of creatures only when all the experts had entered the cavern maze. These creatures poured into the underground caverns and caused the two factions to suffer severe casualties.
Qianye rested for a while and stood up after recovering a fair amount of origin power. Then, he reached out to knock on the tree beside him.
Just as before, there wasn’t the slightest reaction and the peculiar tree top was also excessively quiet. If Qianye hadn’t witnessed it many times, he would find it hard to believe these treetops were actually gestating so many creatures.
Qianye circled the giant tree a couple of times as a notion gradually formed in his heart. No matter what had caused this forest to become so dangerous, he could make use of it. If even he himself had to run so miserably from the tide of creatures, his opponents among the dark races and the empire would naturally find it pretty difficult to handle. Additionally, they probably didn’t have Qianye’s speed and skills like Bloodline Concealment—if he could manipulate the forest well, this place would become their grave.
Qianye had lost track of his bearings after the frantic run and had no idea where he was. But the Misty Wood was circular in shape, so he would surely find a way out as long as he kept going in one direction. At that point, he could use the outside geography to find out where he was.
Qianye advanced in a certain direction. After half a day, he suddenly heard faint sounds coming from up ahead. He quickly halted his steps, retracted his aura, and approached the source under cover of the giant trees.
Everyone’s perception within the Misty Wood was grossly limited. Being able to hear sounds meant that the other party was within a thousand meters. Qianye’s senses indeed far surpassed that of ordinary experts, but he didn’t dare act carelessly as this was a war of national fate. There were experts everywhere, and there should be no lack of those possessing secret arts or special talents in this regard.
After moving close to a hundred meters forward, a row of silhouettes finally appeared in his True Sight. These figures were moving in a strict arrangement with their steps falling in tandem. They were actually in battle formation amidst such a densely forested area.
Several dozen wolves roamed the area around the central squad. Upon closer inspection, those were werewolves in combat state, standing guard on the periphery. A number of large arachne brought up the rear of the formation, followed by a dozen or so woodland spiders loaded with cargo.
Rustling sounds echoed through the forest. Qianye looked down and found a fist-sized spiderling crawling past his feet and into the distance. These spiderlings were the eyes and ears of the arachne and were frequently employed as scouts on the battlefield.
But Qianye, who had activated Bloodline Concealment, was no different from a lifeless tree or rock to them.
That spiderling was only the first. Tens of thousands of critters swarmed over in a dense formation and moved forward along with the army.
Qianye stood still and quietly gauged this squads’ numbers.
It was a force of close to a thousand soldiers. It was perhaps not too great in terms of numbers but the members were all soldiers of the dark race regular army and its core was made up of vampire warriors. Such a force would be accompanied by tens of thousands of cannon fodder on the battlefield. Back when Luther had attacked Blackflow City, his force was more or less the same. Moreover, the combat strength of Luther’s main squad might even be slightly inferior to the one here.
Without a need for further assessment, Qianye knew that this bone was too difficult to chew on. Moreover, a disciplined force like this surely possessed great fighting power, likely on par with elite imperial corps like Red Scorpion and Broken-Winged Angels.
Qianye made no movement. Only when the entire force had passed by did he lift his leg and stomp the last spiderling to death. The dozen or so spiderlings around him sensed something wrong and immediately became restless. They began moving about in all directions, but they couldn’t sense anything even when crawling over Qianye’s feet.
By the time Qianye moved his foot away, the spider had already turned into meat paste and its fluids had fallen onto the purple substance. This immediately stirred up a reaction and the purple substance began to wiggle as it absorbed the spiderling’s blood. However, the other spiders didn’t stir up a reaction.
Now, this wasn’t normal.