Chapter 207: Competitions (Part Three)
Translator: Sheryl Editor: Hitesh
Turning her head to look for Ye Chen, Guo Lanyue thought to herself, ‘You see? This is the power of our Seven Nights. Each one of them is the top of the top young generation. In the whole South Rudra region, even the rank 6 martial institutions could not compete with the Moon Pavilion. The Seven Nights are destined to become famous around the world.’
“Hey! Executive Guo! Stay with us!”
The Sixth Night took care of a rank 6 beast that was attacking towards Guo Lanyue who was looking for Ye Chen, reminding her that she was still in a battle.
Guo Lanyue smiled with a little bit of embarrassment. There were too many people and beasts, and Ye Chen seemed to prefer to lay low. She could not find him anywhere.
“Death Typhoon!”
Among the younger generation, the person with the highest profile was indeed the warrior who was ranked twenty-five in the last Hidden Dragon Rank – Wu Liangyu. He moved his wings, as the pitch-black light brightened. Endless angled attacking waves were layered together, forming a typhoon like attack. It kept attacking the beast wave after wave.
“That is so crazy! This one attack killed at least hundreds of beasts, which included three rank 6 beasts.”
“The Crow Man had become so famous around the South Rudra region because of his Black Crow Great Art, and now Wu Liangyu has become even stronger than the young Crow Man. A typical peak-level Late Clasping Yuan Realm warrior could probably not beat him.”
“The tenth level of Black Crow Great Art, how depressing it is for the rest of us?”
Looking at those deep marks all over the ground, all the warriors nearby could not help but think. ‘How impressive! This guy is the top warrior of the young generation that had come to the Gold Tripod City after all. This Hidden Dragon Rank, he could probably reach the top twenties, maybe even top fifteen! It will shock the whole South Rudra region!
“Huh! Murong Qingcheng, in the competition of that last Hidden Dragon Rank, I knew you did not use all your strength. You had only used the sixth realm of your Sky Demon Great Art instead of the seventh realm that you had already reached. And right now, you should probably be at the eighth realm already. Although the Sky Demon Great Art is only a top rank Earth Realm martial skill, there should not be too big of a gap. With the tenth level of my Black Crow Great Art, I will definitely beat you for real this time. Not only will I beat you, but I will also show you my power and make you mine! As for the upcoming Hidden Dragon Rank competitions, I will definitely make it into the top ten. Moreover, with the secret arts that I had prepared especially for that competition, who in the top ten could be my opponent?” Wu Liangyu could not be more proud. The Black Crow Man had three disciples. The other two had only trained the Black Crow Great Art to its seventh or eighth level. He was the only one who had reached the tenth level. Mastering a top rank Earth Realm Martial Art to its tenth level within two years of time, it was definitely a short time for it.
Imagining himself in that competition of Hidden Dragon Rank, Wu Liangyu could not help but roar out.
BOOOM!
A black blasting wave spread out from Wu Liangyu’s body. All of the beasts that had surrounded him were all blown away. Their bodies had all been shattered while they were in the sky.
“Lone Peak Kill!”
Giving up on the wide-range attacks, Ye Chen focused on the preparation of fusing his Lone Peak Thirteen Swords. His body shifted everywhere; each step he took he would throw out a sword attack with his Star Scar Sword. And with one sword attack being thrown out, a beast would be killed, even those at rank 6 level.
“Faster! Faster! It has to be faster!”
Directly starting from the sword movement was quite slow for the fusing part, so Ye Chen thought of another way. He wanted to use his fastest speed to perform his Lone Peak Kill, and then maybe he could sense that extreme Zen from that extreme fast speed. And his Lone Peak Kill was just lacking that little Zen. Only by understanding the Zen would he be able to fuse the Lone Peak Kill faster.
Shoo! Shoo! Shoo!
Ignoring people’s confusion, Ye Chen had performed his Separating Flying Art to its limit. His sword light kept flashing like the stars in the sky. Each sword had been stabbed out at different angles, but one could easily tell the similarity between each sword attack.
Beasts after beasts fell down, each wound on their bodies being fatal.
“What a sharp sword art this person has? One sword attack takes out one beast?”
“Yah, you are right! If I were his opponent, I would not be able to dodge that sword attack. And although those sword attacks seemed to be thrown at a regular speed, it still somehow gives me the thrills.”
“It was regular speed? Why would I feel it was so fast that I could barely follow?”
“Yah! It was super fast!”
“It was not that fast, I reckon…”
The beasts in the front were not high ranked ones, and the rare rank 6 beasts that had attacked towards them had also been killed by the mighty warriors. So, a lot of the warriors were not stressed out at all. They started to put their attention onto the young generation. There were a lot of people watching Ye Chen. But soon, they began to argue whether Ye Chen’s sword attacks were fast or not. Some of the people thought it was extremely fast, while the others disagreed.
“No! I feel like his sword attacks are getting faster!”
“Me too!”
“That’s weird. Why do I feel it’s getting slower and slower?”
Soon, they started another argument.
Ye Chen did not care for people’s discussion. He carried on doing whatever he was doing.
Swoosh!
A rank 6 beast did not react on time, and a couple of holes appeared on its neck while the blood kept shooting out.
“Indeed. It is working.”
Ye Chen did not put in too much thought when he threw out the last sword attack. However, its speed and power were surprisingly powerful, and even a rank 6 beast was not able to react before it got killed.
“But, I am still stuck at learning the extreme Zen. Maybe, I should start thinking in the opposite direction… learning the extreme fast from the extreme Zen.”
Ye Chen somehow seemed extra calm while thoughts kept flashing through his brain. It was like he was his own audience, that he was only watching himself performing the Lone Peak Kill. Listening to his own voice in his mind, he could not feel more at peace.
Shoo!
In most people’s eyes, the sword in Ye Chen’s hand had disappeared. That beast in front of him had lost the hope to live, and all the other beasts around them had become slower and slower. The only thing that had not slowed down was the sword in Ye Chen’s hand, which even though was invisible at this point. If it wasn’t for the fact that each sword he threw out would bring up small patterns in the air, there was no way that the crowd would be able to tell if there was a sword in his hand or not. And the most frustrating thing was that even though a lot of people were able to see through the route of that sword attack, somehow those beasts seemed to be even faster than them, jumping in front of the tip of the sword.
“How bizarre! Have you noticed that?”
There were a lot of Clasping Yuan Realm warriors that had come to the Gold Tripod City, which included a lot of peak-level Late Clasping Yuan Realm warriors who were even more powerful than most of the young Hidden Dragon Rank warriors. Some of them could even kill the top rank 6 beasts such as Wind Wolf, Demonic Bear. Ten meters away, there were indeed two people like that watching Ye Chen at the moment. The guy on the left said as he frowned after killing a rank 6 beast casually.
“His sword art is sometimes fast sometimes slow… he must be trying to figure something out!”
“My old pal, I think you are wrong this time. Actually, his sword art was at the same speed the whole time. Maybe only one sword attack sometimes was super fast.”
“Eh? Let me see.”
After hearing his friend’s opinion, the person on the right was intrigued.
Soon, he said as he forced a smile, “Indeed, you were right. It turned out I had been fooled by the intent of that sword art. Most of the times, his sword art had not changed at all… I wonder what kind of intent is that?”
“Making people feel it is sometimes fast, sometimes slow… I think it would be the poetic prospect.”
“The Poetic Prospect?” That person looked at the speaker in shock. The two had a similar cultivation which was the peak-level Late Clasping Yuan Realm. But he knew that the other person was able to kill the Ancient Breed Wind Wolf, who was also way more experienced. With his eyes, he would be able to tell more then he knew. So he was really intrigued and wanted to hear the explanation.
The other person shook his head, “The mountains and the rivers are sometimes far or sometimes close, and the sword art would seem sometimes fast and sometimes slow. In another word, it indicates the illusion of space. If you are standing close by, the sword would obviously arrive faster; if you are standing quite far, then the sword would arrive one step slower. The young man had used the poetic prospect to perform his sword art, which would create an illusion of the conception of space. It could confuse its opponent and make them make a bad judgment, which is quite scary. Think about this, if a warrior was temporarily confused about the space around him, what would happen?”
The person on the right let out a breath and said, “It will lead to his death, of course.”
“Indeed. If this man keeps growing at this rate, his sword art will grow to an incredible level which would be unimaginable.”
“That magical? Weren’t you able to tell the trick by only a single look?”
“Guilty. I was once honored to talk to a sword artist who had mastered the sword intent. He said that holding a sword in one’s hand would create a distance between him and the opponent without weapons and that distance would represent space. Therefore, sword artists should train to use that space. If they don’t put the effort in training the sense of space, then their sword intent would just be like beasts locked in the cages. Their whole life would be limited.”
“Sword artist with fully mastered sword intent?! Umm…these people are mental. Well, they are still quite rare. They all say that there are three thousand primary styles of martial arts, but each style has a different developing path. Among those three thousand, the sword art is definitely focused on killing. One sword attack kills one person, ten sword attacks kill ten people, which would be the killing machine as it’s expected.”
“The sword artists who truly master the sword intent would be the true sword artists. Only they would be able to train their sword art to the higher level and only they would be able to see through the sword intent.”
Ye Chen did not hear the two. If he could hear them, he would have been surprised. He had just learned about the illusion of space after he fused his Lone Peak Thirteen Swords. He would have been shocked if he learned about the fact that they knew about this already, and even in greater detail.
Actually, Ye Chen had no idea about who powerful he truly was. The real sword artist would only realize the use of the illusion of space after they mastered the sword intent. However, he had only trained to forty percent, and had already made a breakthrough in his sword intent. If that sword artist who had mastered the sword intent knew about this, he would have been even more shocked. Only people who did not use the sword and had little idea about this would not pay any attention to it at all.
“Fast as it was slow, slow but still fast. I think I have already reached that poetic prospect. I still need a little bit something before I am able to combine the two.”
Before he realized it, Ye Chen had already fused the tenth movement of the Lone Peak Thirteen Swords, which brought the power of the Lone Peak Kill to the next level. It also allowed him to have a deeper understanding of the fast-slow illusion also known as the Poetic Prospect. Unfortunately, space never changed, what changed were the people. When facing a powerful opponent, it would be harder to fool him; when facing a sword artist when the same level of sword intent, its effect would also not be as efficient, which would not be able to kill the opponent with one sword attack.
“Faster! Faster! Faster!”
“Slower, slower, slower!”
Ye Chen was slightly confused. He kept performing that one sword attack repeatedly, hoping to make some new discoveries in order to have the opportunity to make a breakthrough.
All the beasts who were trying to attack Ye Chen were quite frustrated. If Ye Chen was using all his power to kill them, they would only feel powerless. However, now Ye Chen would not give them any chance, throwing out causal attacks as all the beasts would just be killed without knowing how. Their darkened pupils reflected all their fellow beasts’ figures continuously being killed and falling down onto the ground just like themselves.
The battles lasted from the noon to the evening. Millions of beasts had been killed, and so did a lot of warriors as well. The ground was covered by unrecognizable flesh and broken weapons. The blood was flooding the area like a river, dying the ground around the Gold Tripod City a bloody red, which looked extremely frightening.
Ye Chen, who never seemed to be tired, was still flying everywhere. And wherever the sword light touched, there would be the manifestation of death.
One could easily realize that his sword art had made some improvement, giving people a really casual feeling. It looked like Ye Chen did not spend any effort at all. Right then, Guo Lanyue had finally found Ye Chen.