Chapter 265 - 263: Unexpected
Zuo Tianyuan hadn’t fought openly in years, not since he established the Nine Swords Alliance.
He had already made a name for himself back when he roamed the Central Plains Martial Arts, so no one questioned his strength.
Therefore, after founding the Nine Swords Alliance, he could recruit Martial Artists simply by relying on his reputation and his respectful attitude toward the worthy. Why would he ever need to resort to force?
Only a desperate, life-or-death situation like this could force Zuo Tianyuan to unsheathe his Cyan Blade Sword and reveal its edge once more.
The instant Zuo Tianyuan finished speaking, his Cyan Blade Sword was already out of its sheath. He aimed a thrust at Chen Yuan. The strike seemed deceptively light, but it concentrated countless points of sharpness, suddenly erupting in a deafening, piercing shriek of a sword.
In a flash, the strike seemed to tear through the very fabric of the world, its sharp Sword Qi reaching Chen Yuan in the blink of an eye.
Zuo Tianyuan’s Nine Cyan Blade Swords had nine stances, each encompassing a different variation of the Sword Dao.
Someone like Zuo Feiyu could only execute them one by one, but Zuo Tianyuan had already reached Great Success in the Sword Dao, long ago merging the nine swords into a single, unified whole.
But at that moment, a Beheading Saber as black as ink suddenly angled in. A single downward slash intercepted Zuo Tianyuan’s strike, unleashing a thunderous boom.
Chen Yuan raised an eyebrow at Zuo Tianyuan. "Alliance Leader Zuo, I came to kill you today, not to see who’s the better fighter."
When Zuo Tianyuan founded the Nine Swords Alliance, his cultivation was at the Early Stage of the Primordial Pill Realm. But that strike just now revealed he had already reached the Late Stage.
Chen Yuan would have to be an absolute fool to fight him to the death here. Of course he would have Duan Hengshan step in.
Zuo Tianyuan took a deep breath, his expression twisting slightly.
This Chen Jiutian was just like him: an unscrupulous and ruthless man!
His talk about settling Jianghu grudges within the Jianghu was a deliberate attempt to provoke Chen Yuan into settling things with him personally.
Although the Nine Swords Alliance was at a disadvantage, he, Zuo Tianyuan, had been a Primordial Pill Realm master for many years. He refused to believe he couldn’t defeat a mere Condensing Truth Realm Martial Artist.
Even if his opponent was famous on the Hidden Dragon Rankings, Zuo Tianyuan didn’t believe he could leap an entire major Realm to kill him. But to his dismay, Chen Yuan didn’t take the bait at all.
For Chen Yuan, settling the grudge didn’t require him to act personally. All he wanted was Zuo Tianyuan’s death!
"Alliance Leader Zuo, you’re a Primordial Pill Realm Grandmaster who’s been famous for ages, yet you’re trying to bait a junior into a one-on-one duel. You’re truly shameless."
"From Yandang Mountain, I heard of your great name. They all said you were courteous to the worthy and broad-minded."
"But seeing you today, I never thought you’d be such a petty man. It seems the reputation was better than the reality."
Duan Hengshan shook his head, his face expressionless. But it was this exact display that made Zuo Tianyuan feel utterly humiliated.
"A common horse bandit, chased into the deep mountains by the Murong Family, dares to spout such nonsense? You think you’re worthy of judging me, Zuo Tianyuan?"
He, Zuo Tianyuan, may have had to act subserviently before the Murong Family, the Sun-piercing Alliance, and even Wei Chaoge, but he had only bowed his head for the sake of the Nine Swords Alliance’s rise.
Now, backed into a corner, with even a horse bandit like Duan Hengshan daring to mock him, Zuo Tianyuan could no longer be bothered to conceal his rage.
With a thunderous roar, Zuo Tianyuan became the sword. A storm of bitingly cold Sword Qi condensed around him as he shot straight toward Duan Hengshan!
Duan Hengshan’s expression remained perfectly calm, but his Beheading Saber was already shrouded in boundless Demonic Qi. His Qi Blood surged and roiled as he clearly pushed his power to its absolute limit.
Zuo Tianyuan was a petty man, but he was no weakling.
Saber and sword crashed. The boundless, sharp Sword Qi collided with the Mountain-shaking Power, erupting in an earth-shattering boom.
Duan Hengshan was inferior to Zuo Tianyuan in terms of cultivation. As an Independent Martial Artist, his Martial Arts Secret Techniques were somewhat unrefined, no match for a Sword Dao Grandmaster like Zuo Tianyuan, who had even been praised by an Elder of the Lifting Heaven Sword Pavilion.
However, he possessed Innate Divine Strength and a formidable physique. He met the biting, sharp Sword Qi head-on with his own supreme power. Even though countless small cuts appeared on his body, Duan Hengshan remained completely unfazed.
Meanwhile, Feng Tianbao and Wei Chaoge had also begun to fight.
Wei Chaoge was a Fierce Battle General. Though he had crossed paths with Feng Tianbao in the Capital City, in his eyes, how much fighting strength could a damned eunuch possibly possess?
Only when they truly clashed did Wei Chaoge realize how wrong he was. Terribly, utterly wrong!
The Nine Dragon Spear in Feng Tianbao’s hand pulsed with battle intent. His spear strikes were wide and sweeping, incomparably fierce and powerful. He seemed even more like a Fierce Battle General than Wei Chaoge himself.
And though he was a eunuch, he had cultivated a Vajra Indestructible Secret Technique. The Qi Blood in his body was so immense that it was only slightly inferior to Duan Hengshan’s Innate Divine Strength.
Seeing the shock on Wei Chaoge’s face, Feng Tianbao sneered. "Wei Chaoge, did you really think I was a pushover? Did you think only you, the Eagle General, earned your rank through military merit, while I, the Steward of the Flying Dragon Institute, got here by kissing ass?"
"Twenty years ago, during King Qi’s rebellion, it was I who led the charge through the rebel army in the Prince’s Mansion to capture the rebel king."
"Fifteen years ago, on a diplomatic mission to the Hachal and Lin Khanate, I single-handedly fought a gauntlet against nineteen of their Wanhus and Meng’an, beating those Grassland Barbarians so badly they didn’t dare make another peep."
"Ten years ago, when the Six Western Border Tribes rebelled, I happened to be on a mission to the Western Border to procure warhorses. It was I who, all alone, held off the rebel army at Cold Water Pass for a day and a night until reinforcements finally arrived."
"You think only your Vigorous Martial Army has served the Court, and that my Flying Dragon Institute is full of useless parasites? You should know that this empire of Great Xia wasn’t just conquered by your Vigorous Martial Army—we are the ones who guard it!"
As he finished speaking, Feng Tianbao’s spear struck out like a dragon. His True Qi surged majestically, and the roar of a tiger and cry of a dragon echoed across the summit of Qifeng Mountain.
Seeing this, Zuo Tianyuan’s heart sank even as he was locked in combat with Duan Hengshan.
Previously, Wei Chaoge had shamelessly boasted that dealing with that damned eunuch, Feng Tianbao, would be as easy as flipping his hand.
He had claimed that while he couldn’t act freely in the Capital City, here in You Province he could easily cripple the man, and that leaving him alive at all would be a gesture of respect for Chief Eunuch Gu Chaoyen.
But who could have predicted that when they actually fought, Feng Tianbao would be a perfect match for Wei Chaoge? It would be a miracle if Wei Chaoge could even defeat him, let alone cripple him.
Moreover, Zuo Tianyuan realized he too had underestimated Duan Hengshan.
He had thought Duan Hengshan was just some horse bandit who had fled to Yandang Mountain to eke out a pathetic existence. Who knew he was actually such a rare expert?
Although Duan Hengshan was only at the Middle Stage of the Primordial Pill Realm, his Innate Divine Strength, combined with his vast combat experience and unnerving calmness in battle, meant that Zuo Tianyuan couldn’t get the better of him anytime soon.
At this moment, Chen Yuan had begun to slaughter the other Condensing Truth Realm Martial Artists of the Nine Swords Alliance.
With Chen Yuan’s current strength, the Condensing Truth Realm Martial Artists of the Nine Swords Alliance were no match for him. He cut down two of them in an instant.
Zuo Tianyuan’s heart bled as he watched. He roared, "Elder Sun! Stop him!"
Chen Yuan had just lopped off the head of a Nine Swords Alliance Martial Artist when he heard the shriek of a sword from behind.
He spun and slashed with his saber, only to see an old man with seven longswords on his back. The man was forming a Seal Technique with his hands, using it to control a sword from a distance. A golden Foil shot from behind the old man, slashing toward Chen Yuan.
"Insolent junior!"
The old man snorted, formed another seal, and a deep blue Long Sword unsheathed itself, stabbing toward Chen Yuan wrapped in a cold glint of light.
Chen Yuan had previously ordered Lu Li to gather intelligence on the Nine Swords Alliance. While the files weren’t detailed enough to cover every single member,
the information on its Vice Alliance Leaders was quite comprehensive.
The Nine Swords Alliance had two Vice Alliance Leaders. One was He Hongxiu, who had already died at Chen Yuan’s hands. The other was the old man before him now: Sun Qian, the ’Seven Extremes Sword’.
He was a Swordsman who had been famous in You Province for years, renowned throughout its Jianghu for his mastery of the Sword Control Technique.
The Sword Control Technique was a niche branch of the Sword Dao. The Blazing Sect had its Celestial Extreme Swordsmanship, and the Heaven-Encompassing Daoist Sect had its Heaven-Encompassing Swordsmanship, both of which were extraordinarily powerful.
But the reason the Sword Control Technique was so niche was that it required an incredibly strong foundation of power to sustain.
When holding a longsword, power is transmitted directly to the blade.
But controlling a sword with True Qi requires transmitting power from a distance. While this allows for more versatility and a longer attack range, it puts an extreme demand on a Martial Artist’s control and reserves of power.
That was why ninety percent of the Sword Control Technique methods in the Jianghu today were held by the top Major Sects on the Jianghu Wind and Cloud Rankings.
Other Independent Martial Artists were either unqualified to learn it or had tried and given up, finding that their insufficient power reserves and control made it even less effective than ordinary Swordsmanship.
Sun Qian was one of the rare Independent Martial Artists who had managed to cultivate the art of the Sword Control Technique to such a profound level.
At this moment, his golden Foil was incredibly sharp, while his other deep blue Long Sword moved unpredictably. The Cold Ice Sword Qi it emitted could even interfere with and freeze Chen Yuan’s True Qi Power.
But in the next instant, as the Karma Fire Red Lotus bloomed, a boundless, scorching Li Yan Blood Fiend erupted forth.
With a series of loud cracks, the two longswords were instantly swallowed by the boundless Blood Fiend, their blades shattered into several pieces by the Blood Sea Listening Tide Slash!
"If you don’t have the backing of a Major Sect, don’t mess around with high-level toys like the Sword Control Technique. You’re using a pile of Profound Soldiers to do this? Do you really think that junk has any real power?"
"You’ve reached your age and still don’t recognize your own limitations. How utterly clueless!"
Chen Yuan sneered, his words stabbing into Sun Qian’s heart like daggers, and the old man’s face instantly turned foul.
But Chen Yuan wasn’t just mocking him; he was speaking the truth.
To practice the Sword Control Technique, one needed many swords. It wasn’t like being an ordinary swordsman, for whom a single, trusted longsword was enough.
Only the top Major Sects could afford to provide their disciples with so many Earth Soldier-grade longswords to be consumed by the technique.
For a Martial Artist of Sun Qian’s level, Earth Soldiers were out of the question. At best, the swords he could get his hands on were Profound Soldiers.
If one couldn’t even guarantee the quality of the swords one was using, how powerful could their Sword Control Technique possibly be?
It might be enough to deal with ordinary Martial Artists, but to Chen Yuan, who wielded a Celestial Soldier, Sun Qian’s longswords were no different from scrap metal.