Chapter 706 — Reflections in the Blade

Qi Jiuyi wore a smile on his face, yet his gaze was cold and severe, and at this moment his aura climbed to its peak.

His will to fight towered to the heavens.

For a very long time now—two or three years, perhaps—he had been searching for an opportunity, an opportunity to defeat Shen Mu flawlessly. He was a darling of heaven, blood of the Vermilion Emperor of the Southern Heaven, a young prodigy who practiced the arts of two Emperor-throne cultivators, and he had descended into the lower realm bearing dreams and ambition—yet no sooner had he arrived than Shen Mu, together with Zhe Huali, had set upon him in a pack.

After that, he had been defeated by Shen Mu in single combat as well. Two defeats—a monstrous humiliation.

And now, having shaken Shen Mu's Dao-heart, he had his grand chance to wash away that shame.

He had waited for this chance; he had built this chance.

"Those who learn from me live; those who resemble me die.

" Shen Mu motioned the Dragon Qilin back and said gravely, "In a duel between masters, striking the heart comes first.

I have always been good at breaking an opponent's Dao-heart.

You, Zhe Huali, Xu Shenghua, and the Great Venerable besides—all of you are figures who took my blows and still lived to this day. You are all talents; I have watched you grow. But there is one thing you got wrong. Instead of striking directly, you chose to imitate my art of striking the heart. The moment that thought took root in you, your defeat was already sealed—because I am better at it than you.

" Flames leapt and swirled around Qi Jiuyi, taking the form of the strange vision of a phoenix perched upon the Cangwu tree, and he strove with all his might not to think about those words. He sneered, "Your arts and your divine abilities are no match for the peerless Emperor-throne learning of my Qi clan.

One move of my great divine ability is worth three of yours! " His divine ability whirled faster and faster, many times faster than before.

Clearly, after his last defeat at Shen Mu's hands, he had taken the pain to heart, studied and cultivated with bitter diligence, and made terrifying progress. The Emperor-throne arts were profound and unfathomable.

For a divine-ability cultivator like Jingping, every step of comprehension had to be ground out and pondered by oneself, and only by some stroke of fate could one enter the state of enlightenment. Even a sage who appeared once in five hundred years—even Jingping the Imperial Teacher, when he comprehended his own Dao Sword, had needed decades or even centuries of accumulation, and in the end had needed the guidance of the previous generation's Sword God, Li Zheng, before he could enter the Dao realm in one leap and attain a mastery of the sword Dao that even Shen Mu could not hope to match. Those in Hidden Remnant Village who had comprehended the Dao realm—the Butcher, the Blind Old Man, the Deaf Old Man—each possessed terrifying attainment in his own Dao.

But they had spent their whole lives sunk in a single thing, enduring hardship and peril, torment and setback, a lifetime of rough fortune, and only thus had they reached the Dao realm.

Even Shen Mu, a "Tyrant Body," had suffered unimaginable setbacks when he first stepped through the gate of the sword Dao. In the Hall of Human Emperors, the First Ancestor Human Emperor had whipped his bones and shattered his body, destroyed the peerless learning of all the Human Emperors down the ages, and beaten Shen Mu savagely, assaulting him madly in body, spirit, Dao-heart and craft.

Kneeling in the mud and begging, Shen Mu could only watch as the remains of the Second Ancestor Human Emperor were destroyed.

That blow had nearly broken him beyond recovery; only afterward did he cross the Taihuang Heaven, fight Cheng Sha, and comprehend the Dao at Li City. The blood and tears of it were not things he could speak of to outsiders. But Qi Jiuyi, who cultivated the Emperor-throne arts, was different.

He lived in the Heavenly Court, had the teaching of Qi Xiayu, Vermilion Emperor of the Southern Heaven, and had also been taken as a disciple by the Black Emperor of the Nether Capital, Yin Tianzi; he cultivated the arts of two Emperor-thrones. The Emperor-throne arts were vast and profound, possessing the power to grant enlightenment and bring one to the Dao realm, without suffering the tempering that Jingping the Imperial Teacher, the Butcher and the Blind Old Man had undergone, and without the setbacks they had endured.

Qi Jiuyi's cultivation had likewise gone smooth and fair the whole way. Yet precisely for that reason, a Dao realm forced upward by such arts had great shortcomings.

Qi Jiuyi had always believed that even if he could not be invincible within his realm, he could at least rank among the top ten—until he met Shen Mu, a mud-crawling yokel of a boy from the lower realm. Only after losing to Shen Mu twice in a row did he realize his deficiency: the Dao realm granted by the Emperor-throne arts was not his own thing, not carved into his bones.

From then on he too had walked the road of self-enlightenment, and only thus had he gained such progress and elevation. On the Cangwu tree behind him, nine phoenixes cried long and shrill, and a nine-headed phoenix spread its wings and rose, circling the tree.

In the phoenix nest another phoenix egg split, and another small nine-phoenix fluttered its tender wings, drinking the wind and dew and feeding on phoenix fire, growing swiftly, and took wing again. Shen Mu raised his brows.

In but a brief span, sixteen nine-headed phoenixes had flown from the nest, each splendid phoenix trailing a long, gorgeous tail, wheeling and diving around him, nine phoenixes crying, and from the phoenixes' beaks came wave upon wave of clear Dao-sound. He stood there, and within ten li around him huge nine-headed phoenixes wove and crossed in flight, forming a wondrous formation.

And within that formation Qi Jiuyi stood facing him, the Cangwu tree at his back, fire-blossoms blooming on the tree, wutong flowers clustered like trumpets in rich profusion, and the clouds of fire drifting among the branches carried a wondrous rhythm.

The youth beneath the tree had an air of unhurried composure. Shen Mu felt a touch of regret; he should not have given Qi Jiuyi the time and chance to deploy his great divine ability. Qi Jiuyi had grown far, far stronger than at their last clash, and granting him this chance had instead put Shen Mu on the back foot.

Clearly, Qi Jiuyi's great divine ability, the Phoenix Perched on the Cangwu Tree, had entered another wondrous realm; he had made good his deficiencies. Suddenly the Dao-sound from the nine phoenixes in the air turned high and shrill beyond measure, and they pounced at Shen Mu! At the same time, beneath the tree, Qi Jiuyi began to move slowly, his gaze fixed all the while on Shen Mu as he fended off the nine phoenixes' assault.

Shen Mu stood where he was and did not move a step.

Instead his body shook and he manifested three heads and six arms to block the nine phoenixes pouncing from every direction. He was using the Heaven-and-Earth art of the First Ancestor Human Emperor, and with it he actually held off all sixteen nine-phoenixes; let them pounce as they would, they could not harm him in the slightest.

Standing alone between heaven and earth, holding up the toppling sky—the First Ancestor Human Emperor's art, which made oneself the heart of heaven and earth, was the most effective against this situation.

Qi Jiuyi moved his steps, and behind him the clouds grew vast and misty; nine phoenix heads thrust out of the clouds, staring at Shen Mu, searching for his flaw. His hands shifted ceaselessly through seals, and the divine ability that formed the Cangwu tree altered subtly as well.

He was calculating the flaws in Shen Mu's moves and arts.

Suddenly Qi Jiuyi's eyes lit up.

His right hand traced a ring; his left palm passed through the ring and struck at Shen Mu.