Chapter 98 - Rooting The Dragon Will
It did not operate at the level of laws, where one could simply manipulate and bend the physical rules of the world. It was only a projection of a concept, powerful enough to influence the local space. For sword cultivators, the sword was simply the medium through which that will manifested, a physical conduit to project their soul’s intent onto the physical world.
His own Dragon Will had started as nothing more than a simple imitation.
He remembered the Soul Shattering Sea Trial back in the Thunder Fire Secret Realm. Every roar of the ancient dragon soul had hammered his spiritual senses and rattled him to his core. Under the Halo of Insight’s influence, and with every ounce of his soul force and cultivation, he had simply mimicked it. It was a Pseudo Dragon’s Will that was barely enough to match that dying dragon’s power, projected into a shape through his comprehension.
Even after the dragon soul merge, when he had gained the Void Dragon Soul Constitution, the skill remained the same. His Dragon Will became the skill through which he channeled the constitution’s power, but it was never something that belonged to the constitution itself. The constitution was simply the fuel, a deeper reservoir of power to draw from whenever he projected the Will.
Wang Tian’s Shattered Sword Physique was also classified as a Forged Physique, very much like his own Void Dragon Soul Constitution, but unlike the Immortal Sword Physique, it did not grant him any innate skill. His Void Dragon Soul was simply the pure essence of the dragon soul that had been forged into a soul constitution.
Under the Halo of Insight, together with the Sword Pool’s crushing weight, all falsehoods and deceptions were stripped away. Su Ming stopped reaching for the Dragon Will the way he always had, externally. For the first time, he let it fall inward instead.
It found the Void Dragon Soul Constitution waiting in the depths of his soul, quiet and ancient, with its slit eyes emanating a raw power. The Will sank deeper into the constitution without resistance. The will that he had spent so long imitating a dragon settled into the one place that had never needed the imitation at all.
Something within his soul went quiet. Like something he had been clenching his whole life, he had finally let it go.
When he opened his eyes, the three moves of the Cloud Dragon Sword Technique no longer felt like three separate things. The three moves of his Cloud Dragon Sword Technique had always shared a name, but never, until now, a root.
Now a single Dragon Will ran beneath all three.
It began with disruption. A void pressing into something whole, breaking its rhythm apart. Then it went further, with a clear direction. It became not just disruption, but unmaking. It left behind nothing. And it ended where it had always been heading. A complete erasure of existence.
Three moves. One will. Finally allowed to move as one.
As the Dragon Will took root in the Void Dragon Soul, he sensed something deeper emerging from its depths. It was not just the unmaking of existence. He sensed a faint, mysterious pattern underneath. It was an array of complex runes tied to fate and karma.
True void did not just mean the unmaking of existence. It meant severing the thing’s thread of fate, erasing its destiny.
This came from the Samsara Resin that forged the soul essence, poured into its core directly, back when the Void Dragon Soul Constitution took shape.
He understood now what his Dragon Will really was. It was not a force that struck, but a will that unmade. It did not break what it touched; it simply stopped making that thing exist. Every thread of fate tied to it was severed, and destiny erased.
Su Ming did not understand these fate related forces completely. He only felt his Dragon Will answering to something ancient and terrifying, older than space and time. He instinctively pulled his mind back, refusing to probe any deeper.
He let out a slow breath, his chest rising and falling as he stabilized this newly anchored Void Dragon Will. The violent silver liquid around him calmed, returning to a steady, silent ripple.
Above him, the mist stopped drifting at random. Wisp by wisp, it curled inward, gathering toward a center it had finally chosen. A faint, unmistakable shape of a coiled dragon settled above the water, still and silent.
Over the next few days, Su Ming slowly went deeper into the Sword Pool. Each step was a battle of endurance. The roiling silver liquid grew darker and denser, turning into a heavy metallic gray that clung to his robes like liquid lead. The ambient pressure grew exponentially with every step he took; powerful and piercing waves of Sword Qi coursed through his meridians, pushing his focus to its absolute limits.
On the shore, the scattered elite disciples and the visiting elders of Heavenly Sword Peak watched his steady progress with disbelief. To them, the deep zones of the Middle Pool were a death trap where a single thread of leaking sword Qi could endanger a cultivator’s life.
On the seventh day, a Sword Peak elder, refusing to accept that an Outer Peak Master from the White Lotus Peak could outlast him, attempted to match Su Ming’s depth. The elder stepped into the dense metallic grey zone, his sword Qi flaring in a desperate attempt to resist the pressure.
He did not even last five breaths.
Under the crushing suppression of the Sword Pool, his protective Qi shattered like thin glass. The elder stiffened, his face instantly draining of color. He gritted his teeth, but the internal backlash was too violent. He coughed up a mouthful of blood that splattered across the pool, slowly vanishing. Gasps echoed from the shore as the elder retreated immediately, his breathing ragged and his chest trembling in pain.
Su Ming remained entirely still. He did not look back. He kept his focus locked inward, using the pain of the pool’s pressure to temper his own Sword Wills.
Su Ming shifted his focus entirely to his Sovereign Will.