Frenzied Battle

A figure slowly emerged from the lake, walking toward him just like that.

It possessed a body much more solid than the other four, appearing almost identical to a real person at this moment.

Its mercury-like skin had lost its luster, taking on a texture akin to flesh and blood. Those eyes were no longer hollow starlight but genuinely gleamed with a condescending divine light.

This was no longer a shadow.

This was a perfect replica of the Sword Emperor himself during the Deity Transformation stage.

"Come and fight."

The corners of Ye Xuan's mouth curled into a smile, a smile that contained excitement, relief, and a trace of self-mockery that others could not decipher.

He tightened his grip on the Sun-Slaying Divine Sword, golden light surging and exploding into a golden halo on the surface of the lake.

Boom!

The two figures instantly crashed into each other.

White clothes intersected with white clothes, and sword light clashed with sword light. The surface of the lake shattered at the center point where the two met, and water pillars shot into the sky.

"Great Luo Limitless Sword Qi!"

Ye Xuan shouted in a low voice, and millions of golden sword threads emerged behind him. Each sword thread was as thin as a spider's web, yet contained a terrifying sword intent capable of splitting mountains and cleaving peaks.

Tens of thousands of sword threads wove into an airtight net behind him, sweeping forward with a momentum that could destroy everything.

The phantom of the Sword Emperor opposite him didn't retreat but advanced instead.

It held no sword in its hand; using fingers as a sword, it brought its index and middle fingers together and casually slashed...

It was also the Great Luo Limitless Sword Qi.

But the sword threads it slashed out were pure white, and their number was only one-tenth of Ye Xuan's. Yet, each one was as thick as an arm, and the sword intent was so solid it could almost be touched by hand.

It was the same sword technique, but it displayed a completely different realm.

Ye Xuan's sword qi was like a torrential downpour, covering the sky and the earth.

The phantom's sword qi was like a rushing river, following the great Dao to simplicity.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Countless streams of sword qi exploded in the air, the golden and white light intertwining into a blinding sea of light. The surface of the mirror lake was blasted into thousand-zhang-high water pillars; the water droplets were ground into fine powder by the strangulation of the sword qi, then condensed into ice crystals in the next instant, dancing wildly in the sky.

Ye Xuan's sword net was torn with seven holes in just three breaths.

His gaze turned cold.

"Kunpeng Free Roam!"

Stepping on Yin and Yang, his figure moved like lightning, his whole person transforming into a golden afterimage as his speed was raised to the extreme. He no longer clashed head-on but used the bizarre trajectory of the Kunpeng footwork to cut in from the flank, the edge of his sword thrusting straight at the vital point on the lower back of the phantom.

However...

The phantom had already anticipated his movement. No, it wasn't anticipation; it simply knew.

The phantom's figure swayed slightly, similarly executing the extreme speed of the Kunpeng. Its footwork was more concise than Ye Xuan's, without any superfluous movements, each step perfectly treading on the nodes of spiritual energy flow.

Before Ye Xuan's afterimage even dissipated, it had already circled to Ye Xuan's right side, its two fingers pressed together, accurately tapping on the ridge of the Sun-Slaying Divine Sword.

Clang!

A clear sound of clashing metal exploded over the lake. A massive force transmitted along the blade into Ye Xuan's arm; the webbing between his thumb and forefinger trembled violently, the flesh tearing open, and blood slid down the hilt.

His whole person was sent flying backward for hundreds of zhang like a kite with a broken string, his feet cutting two deep white marks on the water surface, splashing a water curtain ten zhang high.

He barely managed to stabilize his figure, shaking his numb arm; his five fingers had almost lost sensation.

"So strong..."

He whispered two words, but the corners of his mouth rose instead of falling, and the battle intent in his eyes burned even more fiercely than before.

Is this my former self?

Is this the unparalleled Sword Emperor who suppressed the geniuses of an entire era so much they couldn't lift their heads?

Both at the Great Perfection of the Deity Transformation stage, Ye Xuan possessed the Flawless Dao Body awakened in this life, and the experience and insights accumulated from two lifetimes of cultivation, yet facing this shadow at its peak state, he was actually at a disadvantage.

The reason was simple.

In his previous life, Ye Wushuang, during the Deity Transformation stage, only cultivated the sword Dao, single-minded and free of distractions.

But in this life, Ye Xuan had experienced too much. His sword now held attachments, warmth, and the earthly aura of the mortal world.

These things made his sword more human, but they also made it lose a bit of its pure sharpness.

But Ye Xuan had no regrets.

Those things were his most precious harvest in this life.

On the other side, screams rang out one after another.

"Pfft!"

Lei Wanjun's purple robe was pierced through by a sword. The sword qi entered from his left shoulder and exited through his right ribs, bringing a spray of fresh blood.

He staggered backward, the lake surface beneath his feet dyed a shocking deep red with blood.

That phantom of the Sword Emperor didn't give him any chance to catch his breath; its white clothes fluttering, it thrust its long sword out again—a second sword, a third sword, a fourth sword.

Every strike accurately avoided his vitals, yet accurately tore through his defenses.

Lei Wanjun summoned that ancestral Purple Thunder Bead.

The bead's light flashed, and a thunder barrier several feet thick enveloped him within it; purple electric arcs crackled, evaporating the surrounding lake water into white mist. This was the life-saving trump card passed down through generations of his Lei family, said to be able to block a strike from a Void Refinement stage expert.

The phantom glanced at the thunder barrier.

Just one glance.

Then it delivered its fifth sword.

The moment the blade pierced into the thunder barrier, the purple thunder light seemed to be torn apart from the middle by an invisible hand, electric arcs flying in all directions, and a hairline crack appeared on the surface of the Purple Thunder Bead...

"Crack."

The bead shattered.

Lei Wanjun's entire body was blasted away by the tremendous force, bouncing three times on the surface of the lake, each fall smashing a deep pit.

He finally fell flat on his back on the lake surface, vomiting large mouthfuls of blood; his purple robe had been shredded into rags by the sword qi, revealing his heavily scarred body underneath.

"No... I am not resigned..."

He struggled, wanting to get up, propping his elbows on the lake surface, but he didn't even have the strength to lift his upper body.

That phantom had already turned and left, walking toward the next target; it didn't even bother to deliver a finishing blow, because in its eyes, this opponent was no longer worth wasting another strike on.

This kind of contempt was even harder for Lei Wanjun to bear than killing him.

Pei Yuzhi's situation was slightly better, but not by much.

Her Supreme Emotion-Forgetting Dao had been pushed to the seventh layer; the temperature within three zhang around her dropped to extreme cold, and even the moisture in the air condensed into fine ice crystals, forming a swirling frost mist around her body.

The sheathless soft sword in her hand transformed into a silver-blue streak; the sword moves flowed like water and moving clouds, seemingly soft and boneless, but in reality, every strike hid a killing intent.

"Emotion-Forgetting Seven Forms, Sixth Form, Falling Flowers are Heartless."

She murmured softly, and the soft sword shook out thirty-six sword flowers. Each one was formed by extremely compressed sword qi, the petals sharp as blades, blooming and withering in the void, withering and blooming, enveloping that phantom within the cycle.

The phantom's footsteps finally slowed by half a beat.

A flash of sharp light crossed Pei Yuzhi's eyes!

However, in the next instant, the long sword in the phantom's hand thrust forward flatly. No flashy moves, no fierce sword intent, just the simplest thrust.

The thirty-six sword flowers shattered simultaneously.

The aftermath of the sword qi swept across Pei Yuzhi's cheek, leaving a thin bloodstain on her left cheek. Fresh blood slowly slid down that face carved of ice and jade, falling onto the dark red hem of her skirt, making it impossible to tell if it was the color of the blood or the skirt.

Pei Yuzhi reached up and touched the wound on her face, got a little blood on her fingertip, and held it up before her eyes to look at it.

Her lips pressed into a thin line.

This was the first time she had been injured since she began cultivating the Dao of Supreme Forgetfulness.

It wasn't because of the pain, as she had long since severed her perception of pain. Rather, it was because this wound reminded her of one thing:

The gap between her and the Sword Emperor was not a matter of techniques or spiritual energy, but the depth of understanding of the Sword Dao itself.

That was a path to which she still could not see the end.

"Seventh Stance."

She took a deep breath, forcibly extinguishing the last ripple of emotion in her eyes. The color in her pupils faded away entirely, turning into a nearly transparent grayish-white.

"Unfeeling."

The soft sword transformed into a soaring silver brilliance, swallowing her entirely within a pillar of light.

The battle on Tantai Jue's side was the most tragic and fierce.

This madman hadn't taken a single step back from start to finish.

His fighting style was simple and brutal. Whenever the phantom struck with its sword, he would take it head-on with his body. It wasn't that he couldn't parry; he simply had no intention of dodging.

Sword qi cleaved his shoulder, and he laughed; sword qi slashed across his chest, and he still laughed; sword qi left a wound so deep on his abdomen that bone was visible and his intestines nearly spilled out, but he just pressed his hand against the wound and kept on laughing.

"Thrilling! Thrilling! This is what you call a real fight!"

Not a single patch of intact skin could be found on his entire body. Blood gushed from countless wounds, dyeing him into a man of blood.

Yet in his amber, slitted pupils, the battle intent did not wane in the slightest. Instead, it grew brighter and brighter, shining like two burning clusters of fire.

Suddenly, he retracted his fists.

All his battle intent condensed to the absolute peak in this moment. The blood mist surrounding him was sucked back into his body by an invisible force, and dark red patterns surfaced on his skin, flowing like magma beneath the flesh.

"Mad Demon Sword Body, Third Layer—Body as the Sword!"

His entire person transformed into a sword.

It was not a metaphor; he had truly taken on the form of a sword.

His body rapidly elongated and compressed. Flesh and bone restructured in an instant, transforming into a massive, crimson blood sword ten meters long. That sword exuded a frantic and violent sword intent, carrying an indomitable resolve as it thrust straight toward the phantom's glabella.

The phantom tilted its head, dodging the tip of the sword.

But Tantai Jue's goal was achieved. For the first time, he had forced the phantom to make an evasive maneuver.

"Bang!"

The massive blood sword brushed past the phantom's shoulder, scraping off a wisp of starlight.

Tantai Jue reverted to human form, dropping to one knee on the surface of the lake. Panting heavily, his mouth stretched into a blood-filled grin:

"Touched it... I actually touched it..."

He smiled like a child.

Mo Qixing was the most composed of the four.

His fighting style was completely different from the other three. There were no grandiose sword techniques, nor earth-shattering collisions. The clash between him and the phantom was so quiet that one could barely hear a sound.

Their battle took place in a dimension imperceptible to bystanders.

Mo Qixing's ebony wood sword never once took the initiative to attack. He simply stood there, adjusting the sword's position at extremely subtle angles. Whenever the phantom's blade drew near, his ebony wood sword would appear precisely at that exact spot.

It wasn't parrying.

It was waiting.

His sword was already there before the phantom even struck.

The true essence of the Mind's Eye was not seeing, but foreseeing.

He could not hear sound nor see light and shadow, but he could perceive the flow of spiritual energy, the frequency of the air's vibrations, and even the preemptive signs of his opponent's muscle contractions. In his eyes, every one of the phantom's sword strikes left a traceable path.

However, the phantom's forty-seventh sword broke his anticipation.

This sword had no direction.

Or rather, the direction of this sword was every direction.

Sword qi scattered from the phantom's fingertips, not as a single beam, but as countless ones, piercing toward him from every angle simultaneously, completely sealing off all of Mo Qixing's avenues of retreat.

The Mind's Eye failed.

Because when every direction was an attack, foreseeing lost its meaning.

"Slash!"

Mo Qixing's azure robe was sliced open with seven gashes. A long, deep wound appeared on his left arm, blood soaking through his washed-out sleeve. He took three steps back; this was the second time he had retreated in the entire battle.

"The Sword Emperor's understanding... has already surpassed the realm of technique."

He muttered to himself, his voice remaining as calm as still water, though the fingers gripping his sword tightened a fraction.

"This is the Dao."

Four battles were taking place simultaneously, and the Mirror Lake had already become an Asura battlefield.

Pillars of water shot into the sky, sword qi crisscrossed, frost and blood mist intertwined, and golden light collided with silver radiance.

Meanwhile, in a corner of the battlefield, Ying'er curled up, hugging her knees behind a protruding reef. Poking half of her small head out, she looked on with terror and worry at the white figure entangled in combat with the phantom in the distance.

"Master..."

Her hand unconsciously covered her brow. There, even though the faint golden sword-shaped mark from earlier had faded, she could feel something slumbering within, warm and comforting, like a tiny sun.

She did not understand what it was.

She only knew that when that shadow patted her head, she hadn't felt afraid.

The feeling was very familiar, yet she couldn't remember where she had felt it before. It was like a dream she had dreamt for a very, very long time; upon waking up, she remembered nothing, leaving only a damp trail on her pillow.