Chapter 252: Untitled
Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
Fog raised an eyebrow and said, “It’s you again.” As she extended her hand, an ancient mirror suddenly appeared in her palms. There was a ray of light, and the shadows in front her shifted. Suddenly, Meng Fuyao saw both Shadow Blade and Xuanyuan Min seemingly trying to look for her, but Xuanyuan Min was slowly delivering his palm towards Shadow Blade’s back.
What did he want to do?
Was that real or fake?
Crash!
Meng Fuyao did not care about the truth.
In an instant, she tilted her body and charged towards Fog with her shoulder. Before the shoulder reached, Destiny Rebellion shot out from below in the trickiest and weirdest angle ever. When Fog finally realized that she had hidden the sword under the shoulder, the black gleam of the sword haΔ already reached the mirror!
Raising her eyebrows again, she swatted Meng Fuyao away, and Meng Fuyao instantly flew out weightlessly. However, Destiny Rebellion, surrounded by a white and misty luminescence, continued to aim towards her wrist. The moment Fog saw the pale-white glow, her expression changed expectedly. In a low tone, she shouted, “Where did you get this inner energy-”
As she was distracted, her wrist trembled and the mirror flipped upwards, just in time for Zhan Beiye’s golden pike to slash down on the surface.
Zhan Beiye barked, “Break!”
Fog chided angrily, “Trying to seek death!”
Kacha—
There was a soft sound of breaking, and a crack silently appeared on the ancient mirror. The crack quickly meandered down the mirror, but it suddenly stopped halfway through.
Meng Fuyao sighed, feeling that it was such a pity. She did not expect that the mirror would be so tough. Even after using Moon Soul’s inner energy to mentally distract Fog, the combined strike of the both of them was still not able to completely ruin the mirror under such a great opportunity.
Luckily, there was a crack in the mirror, and the surrounding fog seemed to be less dense. In the thick layers of fog, there was a laugh. “You almost managed to trap me!”
While the first word sounded like it came from the back of the mountain, when he reached the last word of the sentence, he was already right beside them. Someone seemed to move as there was the fluttering sound of sleeves and the movement of wind, and Meng Fuyao felt a bright light above her. When she looked up, she finally saw something apart from the thick fog that she had been staring at all day.
The clear sky, the hazy crescent moon, and a splendor of stars.
It was a sky filled with stars.
As romantic as fireworks and revolving around like snow, miles of stars seemed to charge towards them from the faraway galaxy. They zoomed past the extensive layers of clouds and fog, and dashed past the chilly moon and tumultuous weather conditions, just to reach that person’s fingertips in an instant and allow him to control as he pleased. With a simple flick of his fingers, a ray of stars glided by. Though they looked small and tiny, they were eternal, and would forever brighten the lost ones in eons to come.
Splendor of Stars, Fang Yimo.
In the meantime, Meng Fuyao looked at him with conflicted feelings – she did not know whether it was lucky or unfortunate to see him now. Evidently, the person who was battling with Fog was him, and he was trapped in the formation which Fog set up with all her strength. Just now, when Meng Fuyao and Zhan Beiye cracked the mirror, Fang Yimo escaped from the trap instantly, and he should, supposedly, thank her. But… Meng Fuyao clearly remembered that when they bade farewell the previous time, he said that he would kill her once and save her once. So, in this encounter, would he save her… or kill her?
When Fang Yimo turned around in mid-air, he spotted her.
Though Meng Fuyao wore a mask, Fang Yimo saw the accompanying Zhan Beiye, and he looked back at her with a knowing expression.
Brushing his sleeves, he chuckled. “Why do you always happen to offend the most powerful wielders?”
As she gazed at this “attendant” who still looked handsome and youthful, she gave a helpless smile. “I’m a natural foe of you all.”
While Fang Yimo battled with Fog with one hand, he pointed at Meng Fuyao with his other hand. “Should I save you or kill you?”
Meng Fuyao looked at him in smiles and stayed quiet. ‘What’s up your sleeves with all these pretenses? At least I gave you a crystal house before. And I am no fool either,’ she thought.
However, Zhan Beiye stepped in front of her as a form of protection.
In the silence, Fang Yimo slanted his head and thought for a moment. “I’ll first… kill you!”
Simultaneously, Fog said, “Return Moon Soul’s inner energy!”
Shuu—
The two voices combined into one, and the two expert wielders chose to attack Meng Fuyao at the same time. The stars extended miles away into the galaxy and the fog seemed so heavy that it weighed tonnes. Large patches of silvery-white glow were combined with the thick black fog, and they rolled towards her with the resemblance of raging waves. It was as though millions of splashes appeared on the vast sea and formed a high wall shaped like a vicious beast’s mouth, charging towards a rocky and light boat swaying in the middle of the stormy winds.
Meng Fuyao turned into the shape of a boat!
Inner energy that was as aggressive as a tornado was not something that could be deflected with the mere strength of a human, and Meng Fuyao definitely could not handle the combined strike of two experts in her current state. Instantly, she was swept off the ground and was sent flying away into the distance.
Fortunately, there was still Zhan Beiye.
Beforehand, when the two of them spoke, he had already dashed forward. The magnificent shine of the golden pike was no less splendid that the glow of the Splendor of Stars. That ray of light instantly glided past the fog and the night sky like a shooting star and headed straight for Fog’s iron fist.
Bang!
Fog staggered half a step back, and her face paled. Meanwhile, Zhan Beiye swallowed a mouthful of blood. Though his body swayed, he managed to grab Meng Fuyao before she was sent flying away. In his arms, Meng Fuyao did a huge flip, resembling an eagle, and Destiny Rebellion slashed down viciously on the splendor of stars created by Fang Yimo.
However, in the very instant that Zhan Beiye did not continue his attack to grab Meng Fuyao, and as Meng Fuyao slashed towards Splendor of Stars, Fog flipped her ancient mirror.
At the same time, Zhan Beiye and Meng Fuyao felt that the ground beneath them vanished.
Both were previously not stable on the ground. Zhan Beiye leaned back to grab Meng Fuyao, and he bore the weight of her slash, while Meng Fuyao had no point of contact with her ground after her flip. As such, when the ground disappeared, both of them immediately dropped into the dark abyss.
As they fell, they could hear the movement of wind and the sound of water below them.
River Ningdai!
So they were on the cliff right beside the river just now!
When Meng Fuyao landed, she was about to flip and hit the water, to use the momentum to spring back up. Suddenly, there was a strong force that came from the cliff above her.
That force was aimed for her chest, and Meng Fuyao had no way of avoiding it in mid-air. She had no other choice but to use her hand to block it forcefully.
In her vision, a black shadow flashed by, and something swiveled towards her and formed a wall of protection above her. Then, there was a muffled grunt, and the black shadow fell at the speed of light, landing heavily on Meng Fuyao. The force was so hard that Meng Fuyao’s vision blackened and she could feel blood up to her throat.
She said, “Zhan…” Before she could finish her sentence, she had already started rolling and tumbling down.
Splash!
Splash!
The impact of a human body falling into water from the high ground was not to be underestimated. Even so, Meng Fuyao struggled to regain a bit of her consciousness as she recalled that Zhan Beiye had blocked that strike for her. However, at the same moment that her back came into contact with the water surface, a palm suddenly emerged and gently touched her back.
Meng Fuyao could only feel two strong forces streaming in from her chest and her back. As the forces collided, it caused the inner energy in her body to clash, and out of the blue, she felt a sense of enlightenment. It was as though there was unlimited brightness in a yurt, and before she had enough time to feel this strange light, she was knocked out by the raging inner energy in her body.
She slowly sank into the bottom of the water body.
As she lay quietly, her face under the mask was completely ashen, but there were some changes to her skin. It could have been because she was far away from light or other reasons, but her skin turned completely transparent, and the thin veins could be seen. Then, the transparent skin slowly reversed back to the original white state, and it seemed to be fairer than before. It resembled the color of milk or jade, and there was a vague shine of precious stones, as though she was a perfectly sculpted statue.
Her body also went through the same change. Even her teeth, fingers and fingernails gradually turned milky-white and became firmer than before.
Meanwhile, in the non-visible areas of her organs, inner energy flowed continuously at an unprecedented speed, expanding her meridian lines and improving blood circulation. Inner energy was being collected, mixed, absorbed and changed non-stop until it concentrated to the volume of a raging river flow, and it flowed into the hidden treasure of Moon Soul that was kept in her stomach. That bit of revolving and silvery gleam was engulfed in the river flow, and in an instant, magnificent light shone from her stomach and radiated to all other organs in the body. Where the light reached, damaged meridian lines, unnoticed blood clots, and weakened energy would be instantly repaired, cleaned, and firmed up.
Superior to the sixth level of “Breaking Nine Heavens,” and the bottleneck of breaking through the mortal state, it was the seventh level, “Jade Body”!
Sleepless days of diligent practice, combined with the concentration of inner energy from the top expert wielders, and with the extremely accurate timing of the front and back attack, the blockages in Meng Fuyao’s meridians were finally cleared. She had accomplished the most crucial, and hence, most difficult level out of the nine levels of the “Breaking Nine Heavens” technique.
If anyone could be considered a first-class wielder before the sixth level, then anyone who crossed the seventh level would be considered to have stepped into the league of top experts. He or she would have peeked into the important secrets of acquiring a technique that originated from elements of nature, making a significant improvement in their martial arts. Most of the past practitioners of the “Breaking Nine Heavens” technique had found themselves unable to cross this decisive level, and in their whole life, they could only pace around the entrance to this immortal-like seventh level.
From now on, the path to reach a godly level of martial arts would be forever open to Meng Fuyao.
However, Meng Fuyao did not know that this moment could be considered a significant turning point in her life, and she continued sleeping soundly in an unknowing state. Now that she experienced an important stage of enhancing her martial arts, a deep sleep for her to repair and recuperate was the most necessary.
And no one disturbed her deep sleep.
On a white stone sat a man with a calm composure. His robes gently flowed in the river and brushed past the herds of fish and groups of seaweed. In the dimly-lit environment, he gazed at the sleeping girl.
His dark strands of hair dispersed in the water and his long eyebrows became darker after being moisturized by the current. His eyes were gentler and brighter than the dim rays of light, and his smile was one of relief.
When he watched the slight change in the girl’s body and skin, he smiled, and narrow streams of blood flowed down from the corner of his lips. In the water, it turned into a light pink shade, and it was instantly washed away by the current.
The impact from falling down the cliff, the inner energy of Splendor of Stars, and his own inner energy, were three bursts of forces that had to be stacked up in her body simultaneously. Additionally, he had to instantly determine where the blockages in her meridians were. Even an immortal would not have it easy trying to do these.
But luckily… it was at last settled.
Zhangsun Wuji smiled and floated to Meng Fuyao’s side. His movements caused a string of crystal-like bubbles to form, and the bubbles left his body like beads of pearls before they were gently pecked by the silvery-red fish.
As he lightly stroked Meng Fuyao’s hair, he placed his fingers on her wrist to check her pulse. While his expression was one of satisfaction, he was also slightly frustrated. Suddenly, he gently leaned forward, and his lips slowly kissed along Meng Fuyao’s forehead, and finally landed on her lips.