Chapter 67: The Imperial Sword
On the outskirts of Silves City, amidst the desolate hills.
Though this region was typically a temperate zone, a biting, frigid wind now howled through the valleys.
This desolate, rarely visited region was currently surging with temperatures far beyond the bounds of natural law, accompanied by majestic fluctuations of soul power.
"Emperor’s Sword: Peerless Ice!"
A clear, youthful voice rang out amidst the biting wind.
Jiang Bai stood upon a patch of exposed, grayish-white bedrock, his entire body shrouded in a swirling mist of icy blue.
He formed a cupped grip with his right hand; as soul power surged into it with frenzied intensity, ice elements—like a hundred rivers flowing into the sea—converged toward his palm.
A longsword—crystalline and translucent as blue quartz—gradually materialized in his grasp, shifting from pure void into solid form as it slowly took shape!
The blade was not forged of solid metal, but rather compressed and condensed from the purest, most extreme ice crystals.
The blade had yet to move, yet the surrounding air had already spontaneously crystallized into a flurry of fine snowflakes and ice shards, swirling and dancing all around.
The Ice Emperor, standing in confrontation with him, saw her emerald-green eyes suddenly narrow.
"???"
A look of unmistakable astonishment flashed across her face.
This kid... had he truly mastered it this quickly?
Although she could sense that the Emperor’s Sword Jiang Bai was currently manifesting—in terms of both scale and solidity—fell far short of the version wielded by the Snow Emperor...
...that nascent sword intent, that method of summoning the ice elements of heaven and earth, that sense of absolute control in compressing extreme cold into razor-sharp keenness... it was, without a doubt, the true essence of the Emperor’s Sword—one of the Snow Emperor’s Three Ultimate Techniques!
It had been only two and a half months!
While he certainly owed much to the Snow Emperor’s meticulous guidance, surely he shouldn’t have been able to pick it up this fast?!
In the very instant the Ice Emperor’s mind reeled in shock...
The hand Jiang Bai held the sword with moved.
There were no flashy maneuvers—merely the simplest, most direct vertical slash.
The arc of his descending arm was clearly visible; indeed, it even appeared somewhat slow.
Yet, as that deep-blue ice-crystal longsword sliced through the air, it left behind a magnificent, fan-shaped trail of light and shadow.
It shifted from the deep blue of the blade itself, to the lighter blue of the dissipating sword-light, then to the pale blue of the surging frigid aura—until, at the very tip of its trajectory, it resolved into a pure, pristine white.
It was not the white of light, but the white of absolute void—the color of absolute zero that manifests when extreme cold freezes all matter and energy into stillness!
Wherever the sword-beam passed, the air groaned under the strain, emitting sharp, cracking sounds.
"!!!"
The Ice Empress’s pupils constricted sharply; she dared not show the slightest hesitation or delay.
Her slender arm shot up instantly, emerald-green light flowing beneath her skin. Her delicate fingers pressed together like a blade; she did not dodge or evade, but instead met that terrifying sword-beam head-on!
"Boom—!!!"
A deafening roar erupted through the valley. The shockwave spread outward as if it were a tangible force, shaking the accumulated snow from the distant mountain slopes, sending it cascading down in a rustling avalanche.
The razor-sharp edge of the crystal longsword struck squarely against the Ice Empress’s raised arm.
The deep-blue sword-light and the emerald-green protective soul-force clashed violently—entwining, eroding, and annihilating one another.
A bone-chilling cold burst forth from the point of impact; the ground instantly became sheathed in a layer of solid ice half a foot thick, which then spread rapidly outward.
The standoff lasted for less than a single breath.
The sword-beam dissipated, and the crystal longsword itself—unable to withstand the force of the recoil—began to shatter inch by inch from the tip inward, dissolving into a swirling cloud of crystalline ice-dust.
Yet, the arm with which the Ice Empress had parried the blade—from wrist to elbow—was now encased in a thick, opaque layer of deep-blue ice crystals.
Upon the surface of the ice, the lingering, razor-sharp sword-intent from Jiang Bai’s strike could faintly be seen circulating, actively resisting the melting effects of the Ice Empress’s own soul-force.
The Ice Empress remained expressionless, though a fleeting flicker of astonishment flashed deep within her emerald eyes.
With an air of utter composure, she gave her arm a slight shake.
"Crack... shatter..."
The ice crystals encasing her arm instantly shattered and fell away, revealing the skin beneath—unscathed, and still as fair and flawless as jade.
However, the hand she held behind her back quietly—and tightly—clenched into a fist; her knuckles turned faintly white, and any trace of a tremor was ruthlessly suppressed.
"Ahem," the Ice Emperor cleared her throat, striving to project the composed demeanor of a seasoned master; she clasped her hands behind her back, her chin tilted ever so slightly upward.
"Very well, let us bring this training session to a close. It was... reasonably productive. You have—barely—managed to cross the threshold of the Emperor’s Sword. However, you remain a far cry from achieving the true ’Peerless Ice Extremes’! Keep up the hard work!"
Not far away, seated upon a smooth, massive boulder, the Snow Emperor observed this scene.
Unable to suppress her amusement, she raised a sleeve to cover her mouth, letting slip a faint, melodious chuckle.
"Indeed, quite impressive, Jiang Bai."
The Snow Emperor lowered her hand, her exquisite features radiating an expression of undisguised admiration.
"Your aptitude—in all my long years—is the most...excellent. To think you could, in such a short span of time, preliminarily grasp both the form and the intent of the Emperor’s Sword."
Her gaze drifted—subtly, almost imperceptibly—over the Ice Emperor’s right hand; still held behind her back, it was clutched tightly by her left. The smile in her eyes deepened.
She had clearly witnessed the power behind that recent sword strike.
Although it could not inflict actual injury upon Bing’er, the sheer intensity of the cold and sharpness that erupted in that instant—bolstered by the soul power granted through Jiang Bai’s Ice Dragon Possession, and fused with his nascent grasp of the "Emperor’s Sword’s" true essence—was sufficient to shake the defenses Bing’er had erected, even causing her arm to suffer a momentary stiffness and numbness.
Within the Snow Emperor’s heart, a sense of profound sentimentality inevitably arose.
How fleeting was the lifespan of humans compared to that of them—Soul Beasts whose lives were measured in units of tens of thousands of years.
A being like Jiang Bai—barely twelve or thirteen years of age, even by the most generous count—would, in the world of Soul Beasts, likely not have even had enough time to open his eyes and truly perceive the world around him.
Yet, within this very brevity of life—spanning merely a dozen or so years—they could, through cultivation, study, and inheritance, master powers that took Soul Beasts tens of thousands of years of ceaseless struggle and contemplation to attain.
Talent, heritage, diligence, and that unyielding obsession with the pursuit of power... it was the intertwining of these very factors that forged the brilliance—and the formidable nature—of human Soul Master civilization.
The Snow Emperor’s gaze settled once more upon Jiang Bai.
Two and a half months ago—shortly after arriving in Silves City—Jiang Bai had approached her and put forward a bold request.
He wanted to learn her Three Ultimate Techniques of the Snow Emperor.
At the time, she was quite taken aback.
She could have simply refused him outright.
Yet, gazing into Jiang Bai’s clear and resolute eyes—and recalling that miraculous pocket dimension within his Martial Soul capable of accelerating the growth of Soul Beasts and seemingly evading Heavenly Tribulations, as well as that binding pact between them...
The Snow Emperor ultimately decided to begin by teaching him the Emperor’s Sword—the technique that was, relatively speaking, the "simplest" of the three.
Of course, this notion of "simplicity" was purely relative—relative to the Emperor’s Palm, with its profound mastery lying in unadorned simplicity, and the Emperor’s Frozen Heaven, with its boundless and majestic domain.
The Emperor’s Sword: Peerless Extreme Ice was, in and of itself, a lethal combat art that pushed the concepts of extreme cold and razor-sharp precision to their absolute limits.
She had not expected Jiang Bai to master it quickly; indeed, she had even mentally prepared herself to spend several years allowing him to slowly cultivate the necessary insight.
Reality, however, presented her with a delightful surprise.
In just two and a half months, he had preliminarily manifested the Emperor’s Sword and unleashed a strike imbued with the true essence of "Peerless Extreme Ice."
Such a pace—even from the perspective of her own seven hundred thousand years of accumulated experience—could only be described as nothing short of breathtaking genius.
Naturally, the Snow Emperor was well aware that Jiang Bai’s ability to reach this milestone was the result of a confluence of factors.
First and foremost were his own innate talent and exceptional aptitude for comprehension, coupled with his steady temperament and diligent dedication to cultivation.
The second factor, she believed, was the spiritual possession and augmentation provided by that one-hundred-thousand-year-old Ice Dragon.