Chapter 1008 — The Sword Realm of Thirty-Three Heavens
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 4 of 4
Many of the elder generation of Kaihuang's heavenly court, seeing that sword light in the sky, that sword path, that spirit, felt as though they had returned to that very age; the heroism in their hearts, turning through a thousand windings and a hundred bendings, came surging back through their breasts.
It had been so very, very long since they had felt anything of the sort.
Twenty thousand years of their perseverance, twenty thousand years of their faith, twenty thousand years of their striving—all of it had turned to dreams, bubbles, and shadows the day they withdrew to the Worry-Free Land, and in twenty thousand years more, it had crumbled into yellowed memories, ever more blurred. And now, everything was reawakened!
The fifth-heaven sword path burst forth—the Yuanming Culture-Raising Sword exploded from the hands of Shen Mu and Kaihuang.
This was the sword art Kaihuang created after his return from the early Longhan years, when he swept away the old and forged the new, set his heart upon reform, and meant to open an age for the people of later times, for the younger generation—an age of a hundred schools contending and a hundred blossoms vying in bloom. In those days, they had walked out upon a road of reform.
To "raise culture" was not to cultivate letters, but to cultivate the heart through culture.
To raise heaven with culture, to bear fortune with culture, to convey the Dao with culture—to establish a heart for heaven and earth, to ordain a destiny for the common folk, to transmit the lost traditions of learning, and to blaze trails for learning yet unborn! In the sky, the battle between Shen Mu and Kaihuang raged on, ever more savage and fierce; move after move, each and every sword technique carried forth the spirit of the Kaihuang Era—a spirit the old ministers of Kaihuang's heavenly court had lived through, the very spirit they had once owned, the emblem of that age burning bright as blazing fire.
Now, watching Shen Mu and Kaihuang cast such sword arts, it was as if they were reliving those years anew: the dust-sealed memories roused, the scattered valor summoned home, the blood that had gone cold set boiling once more.
The Kaihuang Era had never been the era of Kaihuang alone; it had been the era of all who had enacted the reforms of that time. Nor had the spirit of that age ever been Kaihuang's alone; it had belonged to every reformer of that age.
Since when had they bound this age to a single man?
Since when had they bound its spirit to a single man?
Since when had they laid the crime of the heavenly court's removal to the Worry-Free Land at one man's feet?
And since when—while Kaihuang was still the selfsame Kaihuang—had they themselves ceased to be the men they once were? In the sky, the battle grew more ferocious with every exchange, more intense with every clash, until they had reached the thirty-third-heaven sword path: the Grand Pure Realm Dao Sword.
With this sword, Kaihuang had formed a sword-path domain, attaining a sword path unsurpassed in all the world. Yet it was precisely when he created the Grand Pure Realm Dao Sword that the Kaihuang Calamity erupted; every event in the long chain that followed came after the forging of this sword.
In the sky, the collision of the two sword domains was so terrible as to be almost unviewable, and still Shen Mu and Kaihuang remained locked in combat, evenly matched, unable to decide the victor.
When the power of the Grand Pure Realm Dao Sword was spent, both of their sword lights paused for a brief instant—and at that very moment, Kaihuang's Worry-Free Sword rose again, and Shen Mu felt a chill crawl up his spine.
After the Grand Pure Realm Dao Sword, there was yet a thirty-fourth heaven!