The blazing sun trembled. The Sword Emperor moved like a bolt of lightning, striking without prior warning. Following the slanted sunbeam, his sword flashed. A white flash flew in like a missile, and I raised my dagger to meet it. My shadow fell over the flowerbed like the ashes left behind where I was burned.
“You should let me strike three times first, you know!”
Shadows rippled along the sword’s path.
Demonic Heaven Arts.
Advanced First Form:
Starvation Death
Shadows spread across the ground and sank their teeth into it, sucking out reinforced aura. This was closer to reaping, or even bloodsucking, than it was to aura cultivation. The shadows looked like a group of pretas rushing into a feast hall and swallowing all the food at once.
I hurled the reinforced aura of this world I had gluttonously sucked in straight toward the sky. The bloody red shadows soared high.
Boooom…!
The slanted sunbeam was cut up. Like a peeled apple, the Sword Emperor’s reinforced aura was chipped away and fell like a white downpour. The world shone as if a million fireworks had gone off. I used this moment to counterattack.
Demonic Heaven Arts.
Advanced Seventh Form:
Bludgeoning Death.
Light and darkness mixed. The moment the shadows appeared, they spat out a reinforced, red aura. With a smile, the Sword Emperor faced the unpredictable red shadow tentacles that caged him. His teeth gleamed like a lion’s as he shouted, “Right back at you! You’re the one who could have let me strike three times first!”
The Sword Emperor’s sword moved. I thought I heard him click his tongue, but too much was going on at once to be certain. If he did click his tongue, it sounded as if it came from very far away.
Swoosh!
A gap opened up in the air, as if an invisible giant parted its lips and inhaled. The world’s reinforced aura that I had shot through the shadows was sucked into the spatial gap. After it was sucked in, it burst forth.
Boom…!
A stream of light poured out, not up and down, but left and right. The moment I saw the light bearing down on me, I realized what had happened.
“The reinforced aura…”
Before I could ask if he absorbed the reinforced aura I had shot, the Sword Emperor replied, “It’s not like you can call dibs on outer—”
“Hmph.” I tightened the grip on my dagger and raised it, planting both my feet deep into the ground. “Phew…”
Shadows were the children of light. If something could grow endlessly like light, it could only be a shadow. I anchored the shadows, which became as clear as an oncoming flash of light, into the ground. After also anchoring myself, I stood firm, just in time for a surge of light to hit the tip of my dagger like a lightning bolt hitting a rod.
Blood burst from my mouth, instantly drying and crumbling. I could feel that the blood from my veins was drying up, as if someone had injected a drying agent in me. While the Constellation Murderer’s attack had burned my vessels instantly like a lightning strike, the blow from the Sword Emperor felt like blazing sunlight beating down on me from up close.
I breathed in deeply. With my burning heart, I drew in a breath… and started circulating my aura.
Demonic Heaven Arts.
Advanced Second Form:
Thirst Death.
Like an old woman dying of thirst drinking seawater, I used the scorching thirst to drink in the stream of light and lead it to my heart. In time with my thumping heartbeat, I sent it toward my dantian and brain.
My vision was enhanced. Through my veins and spine, the light spread and burst. Gritting my teeth, I endured my trembling limbs, my dry blood, and the shock. At the same time, I filled myself with the absorbed light and unleashed it.
As I screamed, the light that was stretching out from within me burst forth through every pore. The Sword Emperor flinched and raised his sword to block. He was fast but not fast enough. Like a hedgehog that shoots out its quills, the light that burst from me lashed out and hit the Sword Emperor.
He groaned. The thin, wide beams of light weren’t strong, but they were enough to disrupt his stance. The spatial gap closed, and the place now smelled like incense burning in a temple[1].
“Thank you soooooooooo much for burning away the impurities within meeeee…” I said, smoke billowing from me with pops and crackles.
The Sword Emperor let out a dry laugh. “You crazy zombie.”
“You started it… Who the hell slurps aura like that… It’s not a bowl of noodles…”
“It was mine at first, you know.”
“There is no mine or yours when it comes to outer aura…”
“Here, there is,” the Sword Emperor said. Before I could reply, he grabbed his sword again. “Now you see why I didn’t let you hit three attacks first.”
“Yes, I do.”
Of course I did. I knew it very well. It was impossible to miss it. I—
“I’ve grown stronger than Teacher from that winter.”
“Yes, you have,” he answered.
The flowers of this world were persistently leading their lives. Despite the exchange of attacks that split the sky and scorched the ground, the flowers remained and sang their own songs, surrendering themselves to the wind.
Amid drifting dandelion seeds, one man nodded and asked, “Are you happy?”
I was happy.
“Are you sad?”
I was sad.
“Or is it both?”
I just felt like crying a little.
Amid a swirling mix of emotions, I could only see the Sword Emperor’s eyes shining brightly like the sun in broad daylight.
“Regardless of which one it is, it’s still too early for you to sink into it.”
I took a deep breath, wiping away my nose to get rid of any dampness inside it. The Sword Emperor tightened the grip on his sword. The tip of the sword pointed somewhere.
“You’ll first have to take this.”
Martial Arts.
Form Zero:
One Sword.
The world turned upside down.