Chapter 1006 — That Senior's Home

Yan Yunxi attacked with her sword, cutting off his words, and her very first stroke was the first form of Kaihuang's Thirty-Three Heavens Sword Dao, the Taihuang Heaven-Leveling Sword. She sneered, "Did you think I was one of those fellows, Su Maiqing and Yan Rinuan? Some of them are masters of the divination arts, some of divine abilities, some are good at leading troops to war, and some are mere civil officials. How much of the profundity of Kaihuang's sword art could any of them bring forth? " Kaihuang's Thirty-Three Heavens Sword Dao was indeed profound beyond measure in her hands, not to be spoken of in the same breath as the moves Shen Mu had seen from her before.

Unlike Su Maiqing and the rest, Yan Yunxi was fighting for real, showing no mercy; from the first stroke she roused the full might of the Sword Dao. But she had still underestimated Shen Mu's cultivation.

She was using the cultivation of the Venerable God realm; though she unfolded the full power of Kaihuang's sword art, it posed little threat to Shen Mu. Shen Mu's thought stirred faintly, his sword dan flew out, and he broke sword with sword, shattering her Taihuang Heaven-Leveling Sword outright.

Yan Yunxi felt the force issuing from his blade, and her heart quivered. She raised her realm of dharma power and unleashed the second form, the Taiming Heaven-Equaling Sword. Shen Mu broke it with his sword all the same, using sword strokes to undo every variation of the Taiming Heaven-Equaling Sword, his blade severing the Heaven-Equaling form itself.

Yan Yunxi raised her dharma power to the True God level, and still she felt the vastness of Shen Mu's dharma power, far more formidable than her own True God cultivation, and she was startled. She walked a path unlike any other.

What she had learned was exceedingly broad, and yet refined with it, and in every field she had attained the highest mastery. Kaihuang had once appraised her: in intelligence and wit, Heavenly Master Zixi was second only to Wen Tiange, while in natural endowment and talent she surpassed Wen Tiange by a great margin.

In endowment she could not match Di Yiyue, and yet she was cleverer than Di Yiyue. Di Yiyue possessed the Lord of Heaven's bloodline and could learn anything with ease; she had no such gift.

What she studied was the acquired great dao. Whether the lute, chess, calligraphy and painting, or blade, spear, sword and halberd, formations and martial combat, all the acquired great daos, she had dabbled in every one.

The road Yan Yunxi walked was in truth one of advancing abreast through many heavens' palaces at once, in the hope that when she broke through to the Emperor Throne realm she might at a single stroke make the assault upon the great realm that is the Heavenly Court, and raise her arts, and even her cultivation and strength, to a level not inferior to a Heavenly Venerable's. And she did indeed walk that road.

Yet to raise any one of the acquired great daos to the Emperor Throne level was immensely difficult, more arduous even than cultivating the innate great dao, for every step had to be pioneered from nothing. She had known the hardship when she chose it.

Di Yiyue and the Martial Heavenly Master had both become Emperor Throne powerhouses, while she remained trapped at the Lingxiao realm.

Yet this too had forged the immense breadth of her dharma power. She was one of the few in Kaihuang's Heavenly Court who, while still at the Lingxiao realm, could pin the Martial Heavenly Master Zhuo Cha to the ground and beat him. In Kaihuang's Heavenly Court, the first who could overpower the Martial Heavenly Master Zhuo Cha in dharma power was Kaihuang himself.

Kaihuang's dharma power was boundless; the foundation of Shen Mu's Mystic Body Three Dan Art was the basic Yuan-Guiding Art that had spread outward from Kaihuang. The second was Di Yiyue, bloodline of the Lord of Heaven, incomparably mighty. But Yan Yunxi, after all, stood a full realm below the Martial Heavenly Master and could yet make him concede in his heart by sheer strength. That was true ability.

And yet the moment she measured herself against Shen Mu, she felt at once that at the same realm his dharma power far exceeded hers, surpassing her by two or three times over. She had no choice but to raise her cultivation realm to the level of the God-Slaying Terrace before she could receive Shen Mu's sword. "If we were of the same realm, Kaihuang would not be the deeper of the two.

Even, even. .

. " She was uneasy. Shen Mu's dharma power was too vast; at the same realm, even Kaihuang seemed to fall short of him by a great deal.

By now Yan Yunxi had brought the Thirty-Three Heavens Sword Dao as far as the Supreme Changrong Sword.

Shen Mu had never seen this form, so she performed it very slowly, striving to display before him the various subtleties and principles of the move. Having executed this form, Yan Yunxi did not stop, but unfolded as well the thirtieth heaven's Yulong Tengsheng Sword.

Then came the thirty-first heaven's Longbian Fandu Sword, the thirty-second heaven's Pingyu Jiayi Sword, and the thirty-third heaven's Taiqing Dao-Realm Sword.

At this form she halted, tossed her sword aside with a wave of her hand, and said bleakly, "I cannot defeat you. But that is my failure, not Kaihuang's.

When Kaihuang wields the Thirty-Three Heavens Sword Dao, its might exceeds mine by more times than I can count. You will certainly be defeated at the hands of His Majesty Kaihuang.

" "My thanks," Shen Mu said, recalling his sword dan, and his voice was sincere. Yan Yunxi shot him a glance and sneered, "You think you can truly defeat Kaihuang?

Kaihuang is the first man of the sword dao; no one can compare to his attainments in the sword.

The speed at which he comprehends the sword dao, the depth of his understanding, no one can stand on the same level as him. The Thirty-Three Heavens Sword Dao was created by him twenty thousand years ago, and how far his sword dao has come in the years since, even I do not know.

" Shen Mu felt a chill of awe in his heart. Yan Yunxi said, "One look at your Sword Nineteen, and Kaihuang can work backward to Sword Fifteen, Sword Sixteen, Sword Seventeen, Sword Eighteen. With talent like that, he will not be held fast by your Sword Nineteen.

Perhaps when you climb to Kaihuang's Heavenly Court you will find he has Sword Twenty, or you may even see a thirty-fourth heaven, a thirty-fifth heaven of his sword dao. You are as good as dead.

" Shen Mu smiled slightly. "Do you want Kaihuang to fall at my hands that badly?

" Yan Yunxi glared, eyes wide, and shouted, "Insolence! My loyalty to Kaihuang is as clear as the sun and moon. I lost to you by your strength, not because I meant to show you Kaihuang's sword art. " Lu Zheng and Shu Jun were drinking with the other divine officials on the city tower, and hearing this, those officials sprayed out the wine they had just taken into their mouths.

"What are you laughing at?

" Lu Zheng flew into a rage, glaring. "Drink, all of you! Today no one leaves until he has drunk himself blind and deaf. " The divine officials quaked with fear and dared not refuse. To Yan Yunxi, Lu Zheng was a donkey; to the rest of Wushang Heaven, this donkey was a donkey demon king. Shen Mu glanced over there.

"Heavenly Master, is there truly a thirty-fourth heaven of the sword dao?

" "I do not know. " Yan Yunxi shook her head. "Perhaps there is, perhaps not. By his talent, there is; by the Worry-Free Land's present condition, there is not. " Shen Mu looked at her deeply.

"When will Heavenly Master Zixi put on women's dress?

The Woodcutter Sage Master and the Martial Heavenly Master are both waiting. " Yan Yunxi said angrily, "Is it any business of yours? There is no man who moves my heart, so I stay single as I am.