Chapter 217: The Best Assassination
Translator: Sheryl Editor: Hitesh
“Separate!”
Ye Chen suddenly tapped on the bed. His body started to float in the air, after which his body shook as a couple of shadows burst out like lightning. After circling around the bedroom for a couple of laps, they melted back into Ye Chen’s body. Because of its extremely fast speed, it gave people a weird sensation like ghosts were flashing across the room.
Landing on the ground smoothly, Ye Chen talked to himself, “As my cultivation grows, the Separating Shadow Flying Art has been performed to its extreme. Too bad that it will still take me some time to reach the second realm of the Flo Rudra Three Spell. Otherwise, I would be able to increase the rank of the Separating Shadow Art to top rank Earth Realm. Once the movement art reaches the top rank, it would be unimaginably fast. At that time, even if I face a peak level Late Clasping Yuan Realm warrior, I would still be able to fight against him.”
Ye Chen was very clear that he right now would not be able to fight Wind Wolf at its peak since the Lone Peak Kill that had infused with One Sword Kill could not be performed casually. And if he could not perform that sword attack, then the chance of him killing the Wind Wolf would be no greater than ten percent. Since he would not be able to increase his fighting power in a short period of time, then focusing on increasing his movement art would be the best option. Once his Separating Shadow Art reached the top rank Earth Realm, people with even higher cultivation would still have a hard time catch up with him, and killing him would be even harder.
“I wonder how the remaining two sword-shaped plants are going to help me.” Giving it a little bit thought, Ye Chen took out a sword-shaped plant from his storage ring.
The sword-shaped plant had only gotten one leaf, and it was almost one meter long, extremely sharp. There was the spine of the sword in the middle, then the top part which was triangle shaped. Holding the bottom of the Sword-shaped plant, Ye Chen looked like he was holding a great sword. And the sword intent was urging to burst out and kill everything it sensed.
“What a brutal sword intent!”
Ye Chen was caught a bit off guard and was immediately affected by the sword intent from the plant, feeling extra passionate. If it were some ordinary warrior with a weak mind, under the sword intent’s effect, he or she would have already using the sword-shaped plant to kill people, losing control of themselves.
Putting away the plant, Ye Chen thought to himself, ‘there was only one small amount of sword intent in there, but it still had such a strong effect. I cannot imagine how exactly powerful the Battle King was back in the days.’
It was already quite late at night, so Ye Chen took off his coat and light armor, leaving one percent consciousness awake and fell asleep.
…
For the next couple of days, Ye Chen had focused on his Flo Rudra Three Spell. As for increasing his sword intent, it was currently not in his plan. He had just increased his sword intent by fifty percent a short while ago, and it would be quite impossible to make any huge improvement even with the help of the sword-shaped plant and the Battle King’s sword intent. Plus, there was only a small amount of sword intent in those plants. Once he used the sword-shaped plant, it would not last long. Without the right timing, he planned to try to keep it for as long as he could.
Another couple of days had passed, and Ye Chen was finally getting somewhere.
One day.
Ye Chen and the Fourth Night started battling on the practice field of the Moon Pavilion branch.
The Fourth Night wanted to just exchange a couple of moves, and there was no need to have a winner. Ye Chen happened to be quite frustrated with his training right now. Therefore, instead of training aimlessly, battling with someone was definitely more fun. After knowing their thoughts, Guo Lanyue wanted them to do it on the practicing field so the young apprentices could watch and learn.
Ye Chen’s weapon was a low-rank great weapon – the Star Scar Sword; the Fourth Night was using a low-rank great weapon as well – the Scary Fist Set. Because of the geographical concern, the two did not use any wide-range attacks. They were purely competing with their sword and fist skills.
Ye Chen shook his Star Scar Sword. Suddenly, a sky full of starlight burst out, each “star” being highly condensed. It flashed once before disappearing completely. Ye Chen, who was in the center of the star mist, moved around without any pattern. He even purposely changed his route in order to mess up his opponent’s rhythm.
Judging on the fighting power, the Fourth Night was not weaker than Ye Chen. Her fist art had an unstoppable power. Each fist attack of hers was aimed at the weakest part of the star mist. Each time after being hit, a huge piece of the star mist would be shattered. Her fist power was like a twisting tornado, attacking towards Ye Chen.
Seemingly slowly but at a fast speed, Ye Chen flashed past the attacking range of the fist power, then changed his attacking style. The star mist turned into clouds. It was sometimes slow, sometimes fast, sometimes there was thunder, and the next second there would be wind and rain. He had performed the Poetic Prospect of the Sky Cloud Sword Art to its best and even beyond.
The Fourth Night was already quite tired when she was dealing with Ye Chen’s previous sword attacks. Right then after the attacking style had changed, the Fourth Night could feel herself struggling. She felt like she had been swallowed by the sky of clouds. Even if she pushed harder and harder, it could only make the clouds move away a bit. However, the next second, there would be more clouds surrounding her.
“The Sword of Emptiness!”
In that sea of clouds, a sword attack showed up out of nowhere. It was shapeless and invisible, but one could feel it with their every bone that it was coming.
Ding!
With years of battling experience, the Fourth Night barely blocked that sword attack.
“The Sword of Fleetness.”
The clouds had no shape, no pattern. After this sword attack, the sword power had increased rapidly, attacking the Fourth Night’s weakest parts continually. It looked like each tiny mistake she made would be attacked.
Shoo!
The clothes on her arm had been torn apart, but the Fourth Night did not move at all.
“This person is so powerful, even the Fourth Night has lost.”
“The Fourth Night is also really powerful. When that fist power spread, I even stopped breathing.
“The Seven Nights are the most powerful seven people of our Moon Pavilion, and they are our goal. One day, I will be one of them!”
Most of the apprentices here were younger than Ye Chen and had never seen the top of the young generation fighting against each other before. They were all quite passionate and excited right now.
Guo Lanyue saw that her plan had succeeded, so she said to the youngsters, “There is always someone out there stronger than you, more powerful than you. If you want to succeed, you would have to set your goals higher. Being one of the top members in the branch here is nothing, the geniuses out there are countless. As long as you are willing to work as hard as you can, one day, you will also have what they have.”
After the lecture, Guo Lanyue asked them to scatter. They went back to training or their missions, and it still looked exactly like a small martial institution.
“I lost. Not to your fighting power, but your technique.” The Fourth Night’s pretty eyebrows frowned as she studied Ye Chen.
Ye Chen said, “What’s wrong?”
“You seem quite young, how come you look like you have already been training for dozens of years? I have battled with the Second Night and the Third Night, however, their techniques are also similar to my level. Even though I have not battled with the First Night yet, but he would still not be at your level.”
Ye Chen knew what she was trying to say. He thought about it and said, “The martial arts are supposed to serve the warriors, so just performing it to its best is not enough. Although your fist art was really powerful, and your technique is quite impressive, however, you have still not gotten to the stage where you are able to do whatever you want yet. It is because you are tied by the fist art itself. You have to know that no matter how hard a martial art is, it was still designed by other people so it might not fit you completely.”
“So I will have to create my own martial arts?” The Fourth Night was a bit confused.
Ye Chen shook his head, “No, it is way too early to invent your own martial art. I meant that you would have to find your own style. The first step is to take something from the others and make it yours, taking out the things that do not fit you.”
After hearing the explanation, Guo Lanyue understood immediately.
She and the Sixth Night were all quite surprised. They had not expected Ye Chen, who was only seventeen, to have this deep understanding.
After thinking about it for a while, the Fourth Night had learned something. But she still could not help but ask, “Speaking of which, I really hope to see you and the Second Night have a battle. Her Sky Demon Power is like a turtle shell, there seems to be no way for me to crack it open. I wonder if your technique would break it.”
“Sky Demon Power? Is she a disciple of the Sky Flying Demon Martial School?”
Guo Lanyue laughed, “The Second Night is the second disciple of the Sky Flying Demon Martial School – Murong Qingcheng. Her Sky Demon Power was indeed mysterious. She could ignore all kinds of techniques and skills. Just like the Fourth Night had mentioned, it would be interesting to see you two battling.”
“Murong Qingcheng is the second night of the Moon Pavilion?’ Ye Chen froze a little, then he soon shook his head. ‘Her power was indeed strong, and the Sky Demon Power could reverse all kind of attacks. So she definitely has the upper hand. Then there are her brutal Sky Demon Palm attacks. She is at the top of both defense and attacking, which makes her a tough opponent. Judging from this, her rank in the last Hidden Dragon Rank – No. twenty-seven – was definitely not accurate for her power. Top fifteen would be more like it.’
…
One month had passed. The Fourth and the Sixth Night had already gone back to the headquarters. Even after Guo Lanyue’s best persuasion, Ye Chen still left the Gold Tripod City.
In the forest that was right outside of the city, the sun shone on the ground through the gaps in the trees.
Crack! Crack! Crack!
Walking on the small path that was covered with fallen leaves, Ye Chen quietly spread out his soul power, detecting all the movements in a one thousand meter radius.
After reaching the Condensing Reality Realm, the warriors would be able to spread out their zhen qi, and along with the soul power, they would be able to sense everything that was going on around them. Once they reached the Clasping Yuan Realm, the radius would expand once again. Within the few hundred meters, one would basically know everything. However, a lot of people had trained anti-detecting tricks or techniques that would hide their traces which made them extremely hard to spot. A lot of powerful warriors could sneak up without one noticing it at all.
However, Ye Chen had a different kind of soul power. No matter how smart or powerful one’s skills were, under the scanning power of the soul stone, everything would show its true power even if one were invisible. Unless one disappeared from this dimension and appeared from another. But obviously, facing this kind of people, there would be no point for Ye Chen to hide since being able to space travel had not been heard of in this world.
According to Ye Chen’s understanding, the soul power was already quite a high level of existence which was so much more powerful than the so-called spirit power, by at least ten times.
“There’re enemies on big trees in the rear right five hundred meters away.” Without stopping, Ye Chen sneered. His body suddenly separated into two. Leaving one of them still walking, the other one sneaked into the deeper part of the forest. If they had not directly looked at Ye Chen from a close distance, there would be no way for them to realize Ye Chen had already made the switch.
The low-rank Earth Realm body boosting Qi spell had worked wonders. From a long time ago, Ye Chen had already trained it to the top level it could reach. Not only was he able to hide one level of his cultivation, but he also could easily hide his qi and traces, which was way stronger than the other people’s tricks.
Five hundred meter away, a middle-aged man in black was standing on a big branch of a tree. He kept closing his eyes to sense something. Soon, he smiled. ‘The target is still in position.’
Without any signs, a light shadow appeared right behind him.
Swoosh!
A cold light flashed once. A bloody line appeared on the neck of the middle-aged man in black. His head slowly slid down his body, blood spilling everywhere.
Putting his sword back into its scabbard, Ye Chen took out a jade bottle from his storage ring. Unplugging the lid, he poured some white powder over that blood, hiding the smell.
After doing that, Ye Chen took off the storage ring from the man in black and put it away nicely as he thought to himself, “This man was a Late Clasping Yuan Realm warrior.”
‘If fighting face to face, it would at least take me a couple of attacks to kill him. Unfortunately, he had encountered me. In this complex environment, the most powerful peak-level Late Clasping Yuan Realm warriors would not be my opponent. As for the powerful Astral Reaching Realm assassins, I should not think about that now.’
A wave of wind blew over the forest, as Ye Chen disappeared completely.