Chapter 706 — Reflections in the Blade
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
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.