Chapter 1001 — The Twentieth Sword
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 4 of 5
At the same time, Kai Huang's orders came down. Every department of the Heavenly Court attended to its own duties, orderly and methodical, preparing to assist Shen Fengqing in opening the Nether Capital of the Other Shore and establishing the cycle of life and death. Wuyou Township's greatest advantage over the Creators of the Other Shore lay in this: all the ministries of state from Kai Huang's era had been preserved.
Kai Huang needed only to grasp the general direction and issue his commands, and the whole machinery of state would stir into motion and accomplish the goals he had set. This was the state system that the Woodcutter Sage, one of the Four Great Heavenly Masters, had drawn up for Kai Huang. Under it, each person's talents were fully used and each attended to his own duty; every god and demon could take part in building the home and the nation, and yet no one had to be very busy, each keeping time enough to cultivate and raise himself higher. The Woodcutter Wen Tiange, first among the Four Great Heavenly Masters, had won imperishable merit in Kai Huang's age.
"Zixi, you have traded blows with Mu Tianzun. What is his swordplay like? " Kai Huang summoned Yan Yunxi and asked. Yan Yunxi's eyes shifted and shone.
She smiled.
"Does Your Majesty truly mean to contend with his own descendant? It would somewhat compromise the dignity of an emperor.
" Kai Huang shook his head. "Not contend with a descendant, but contend as Shen Tianzun with Mu Tianzun.
Though he and I are kin, we differ in our ideals, and a clash of ideals is sometimes more terrible than hatred; it piles resentment ever deeper. " He stroked the Wuyou Sword lightly, his mind wandering, and only after a moment did he speak again. "Rather than wait for our ideals to collide and the conflict to become irreconcilable, it is better to settle first who is stronger and who is weaker. With temperaments like his and mine, truth is no longer something spoken; it is something beaten out.
" He drew the Wuyou Sword and studied the divine blade that had grown up with him. "That year it was this sword that blazed in his hand, that showed me the wonder of swordplay and fixed my resolve to found my Dao upon the sword. " He brandished the Wuyou Sword; the long blade gave off a cold, limpid sword-light that coiled and filled the heavens, and he went on unhurriedly, "It was this sword, too, that passed from my hand to his, and let him comprehend a swordplay without peer. This sword ties him to me, across a million years, across forty thousand years.
I want to know how much he has risen from what he was then. You are the one in Wuyou Township who has seen his swordplay in recent years; you know what he is made of. That is why I ask you.
" "Mu Tianzun's swordplay has been without peer in the world for a million years! " Yan Yunxi drew her sword and said in a low, grave voice, "And Your Majesty's sword way stands at the summit of the last million years as well! Your Majesty, I once met him in the Origin Realm and asked him to teach me a move of the Kalpa-Lifting Sword. Pray watch, Your Majesty! " She roused her divine sword, the sword-light leaping as she imitated Shen Mu's Kalpa-Lifting Sword and executed that move, Sword Form Nineteen. Kai Huang's eyes flickered.
In years past Shen Mu had used the Kalpa-Lifting Sword at the Jade Pool as well, breaking Lady Yuanmu's projection with a single stroke and astonishing the age.
Only at that time he had not had the chance to look closely. Now Yan Yunxi performed the move before his face. Though she was a master at the great perfection of the Lingxiao realm, she still found it somewhat taxing and could not fully bring out the essence of the move.
"When this move is executed in his hand, it is yet more exquisite, its changes so many that I cannot block it. " "It is a basic sword form.