Chapter 1119 — True Meaning Seen Within the Blade's Edge
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 3
Scarcely had the thousands of divine spears split free than they seemed to be hewn by an invisible divine blade: the spearhead of every spear snapped off and fell to the ground!
Then countless great spears turned into roaming dragons, dancing in the air as they attacked Shen Mu and Zai Fu!
The divine spears were sentient, branded with runes of Jiangling Academy's design, able to strike back of their own accord when ambushed. In large-scale war such divine spears could save their master's life, and so they were greatly favored by the Celestial Court, which spared no expense to buy them!
Yet before the thousands upon thousands of divine spears could fall, they suddenly became countless fragments raining down!
Dragon Qilin was startled: Jingping's standard of artifact-forging had actually reached such a height—it truly widened his eyes.
Having crossed back to ancient times at Shen Mu's side, he had seen only crude divine weapons and sharp tools; returning abruptly to Jingping, he felt at once that the earlier time had been a savage, benighted age.
Still, Jingping's development over these five years had indeed advanced by leaps and bounds, far beyond what it had been five years before; small wonder Dragon Qilin was astonished.
But what astonished him more was that Shen Mu and Zai Fu, with eyes shut, were unleashing invisible blade arts of such deadly keenness!
They stood there seeming free of all peril, yet should anyone step between them, he would be shredded into countless pieces in an instant! "The Hierarch has grown ever more formidable. " Dragon Qilin blinked.
"After we stole the Glazed Azure Heaven Banner and returned to the Ghost Ship, we left him behind in the Longhan Era.
What has he been through in Longhan all this while?
" He could tell that it must have been during this time that Shen Mu's Heart of the Dao had leapt upward.
That elevation of the Heart of the Dao had sublimated his spirit, and his bearing, his vision, his depths had grown by leaps and bounds!
This too was why Shen Mu did not fall short when their blade-dao spirits collided! The layman watches the clamor; the expert sees the inner way.
Shen Mu and Zai Fu merely stood there, with no clamor to watch, and the only one who could see the inner way was the Blind Elder.
Under the gaze of his Heart-Sage Pupil, Shen Mu's spirit grew ever more intense, and in but a brief moment it actually pressed past Zai Fu's!
This was the doing of experience.
Without the experience of crossing into Longhan, without the stirring that came of living through a great historical upheaval, Shen Mu could hardly have nurtured this undefeated, undying spirit that spanned past and present! "Zai Fu cannot hold his ground; he will surely strike!
" No sooner had this thought crossed his mind than the divine blade planted before Zai Fu suddenly leapt up like a soaring dragon; Zai Fu snatched it into his hand and struck with savage resolve!
Shen Mu's spirit was too strong; were this to continue, he could not crush Shen Mu's Heart of the Dao at all—instead he would be suppressed by Shen Mu and defeated without a fight!
This was something a peerless one who had entered the Dao through the blade could absolutely not tolerate. And more than that, Zai Fu sensed that Shen Mu was using his hand to nurture his blade.
To nurture the blade is to nurture the Dao: first nurture the qi; when the qi is full the blade turns swift, and so one nurtures the blade art; when the blade art is fine, one's battle strength is great.
Then one nurtures the blade method; gaining the method, one comes to understand the spirit.
Nurture the spirit, and one gains the blade-dao!
For long years, what Shen Mu lacked was neither insight nor blade art, but the understanding of the spirit enshrined within the blade-dao.
Now his spirit had come, yet for the spirit merely to touch the blade-dao was not enough.