Desolate Era Book 12, Chapter 16 - The Seventh Stance of the [Three-Foot Sword]

Yu Wei understood that she was at a true life-and-death juncture. Her body suddenly flashed with a bloody light, forming into a blood-colored taiji symbol.
Swish!
Yu Wei transformed into a streak of blood light, retreating more than three hundred meters before collapsing to the ground. She spat out a mouthful of black-colored blood, a savage, jagged wound in her flank that was filled with black blood.
Ji Ning watched this all happen. His senior apprentice-sister had been stabbed through the flank by Xiamang Qi’s palm. She had spat out blood, then collapsed to the ground. This caused Ning’s eyes to instantly turn red.
A surge of uncontrollable rage and terror instantly filled his entire soul.
“AAAAHHHHH!!!!” Ning let out a massive howl, and a limitless bloodlust instantly filled every part of his spirit.
Kill! Kill! Kill!
Kill them all!
Kill all who oppose him!
“Angry, eh? Won’t do you any good.” The dirty-looking maiden continued to tie down Ning, seeming quite entertained.
“CHOP!” Ning let out an enraged howl. This howl emerged from the deepest parts of his soul, from the innermost depths of his spirit.
The three-headed, six-armed Ji Ning simultaneously struck out with all six swords, and six enormous streaks of sword-light immediately shone with incomparable brilliance. They transformed into six strings of line… the sword-light had been compressed into lines! There was nothing capable of stopping Ning… he was going to chop through all which stood in front of him!
He had never felt such a desire to kill. He had never before felt so determined.
The more than ten thousand life-and-death battles he had engaged in over the past year had been even more effective for improving his insights than the past ten years. The [Three-Foot Sword], which Immortal Northwalker had imprinted deep into Ning’s soul many years ago, once more arose. A limitless, terrifying killing intent… determination which no one would withstand at all… an sword-heart that was completely enlightened… many former insights… they all combined together, allowing Ning to immediately execute the seventh stance of the [Three-Foot Sword].
The seventh stance of the [Three-Foot Sword] – Horizontal Sword Execution! [1. In Chinese, the original is literally ‘one-character sword execution’ – the character for the letter 1 in Chinese is just a horizontal line: 一]
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whosh!
Six rays of silken lines of sword light sliced through the body of the dirty-looking maiden. When the first sword descended, her face began to change… because the first sword actually chopped straight through her hand, cutting it off. Her body, as tough as a magic treasure, was completely unable to block this fierce, sharp sword-light.
“RETREAT!” The dirty-looking maiden no longer appeared as relaxed as she had earlier; in fact, she even seemed slightly frightened as she frantically retreated.
Whoosh! As her hand was chopped off, a massive wound appeared on her chest as well.
However, she did managed to actually retreat. Her Fiendgod-like body frantically healed as she stared towards Ning in both terror and rage. “Sword-light compressed into silken lines! He’s actually reached this level!”
……
“Sword-light like silk!”
“He’s only trained for thirty years, right? He’s actually reached the level of sword-light like silk… he truly is a rare genius of the Dao of the Sword!”
“He truly does have a chance to make it all the way to the top position of this Conclave. I imagine that even Xiamang Zishan is inferior to him.”
Within the Skylight Palace, the nine Pure Yang True Immortals and the thousand Celestial Immortals were all stunned by this. They all began to let out sighs of amazement and chatter amongst each other.
Sword-light like silk…
This meant that a person had already reached a truly, incomparably high level of attainment in the Dao of the Sword. The seventh stance of the [Three-Foot Sword], ‘Horizontal Sword Execution’, was at the level of ‘sword-light like silk’.
Actually, each of the final three stances of the [Three-Foot Sword] were more terrifying than the last. The seventh, the eighth, the ninth… they were so formidable that not even Immortal Northwalker was able to record them down in books.
For the first six stances of the [Three-Foot Sword], it could be said that one would advance through them in an ordinarly fashion, all the way until one reached the Grand Dao Domain level. The increase in power between each stance wouldn’t be too great, because these six stances focused on an orderly sort of improvement; they were primarily meant for guiding and teaching, which was why they could be compiled into books. Naturally, the level of improvement between each stance would be a bit smaller, which would make it easier to train.
But those final three stances which could not be recorded down in any books… there was a truly explosive increase in power between each of the three stances.
The seventh stance represented that a person had reached a level that was comparable to the techniques of a Loose Immortal who had trained for three hundred thousand years.
The eighth stance was comparable to the technique of an ordinary Celestial Immortal.
The ninth stance was comparable to the techniques of an absolutely supreme Celestial Immortal!
It was because of the ninth stance that Immortal Northwalker, despite being a Loose Immortal, was comparable to a true Celestial Immortal!
These three stances… there was a huge gap in power between each of them, but each of them were tremendously powerful.
Yu Wei lay there, struggling to control her magic treasures to form into the white phoenix and black phoenix. At the same time, she produced a jade bottle, shattered it with her elemental ki, then swallowed a pill into her mouth.
Rumble… the wound in her flank began to rapidly heal.
“Myriad Hibernating Venoms.” Yu Wei knew that this was going to be trouble.
The Myriad Hibernating Venoms was a divine ability which the Black-White College had as well. However, the imperial Xiamang clan had countless divine abilities in its Dao Repository, amongst which was the Myriad Hibernating Venoms. Xiamang Qi trained in this technique!
The Myriad Hibernating Venoms was an extremely deadly, poisonous art; it required one to fuse a large amount of strange poisons into one’s own body. Xiamang Qi, as a genius of the imperial clan, naturally was able to easily procure many hard-to-find poisons. Thus, his Myriad Hibernating Venoms was exceptionally vicious. Anything he touched would be instantly poisoned.
A Fiendgod Body Refiner might not fear him too much, but Yu Wei was a Ki Refiner; her body’s defensive and recuperative power was insufficient, and she had to rely on pills. But pills that could suppress the dire venom of the Myriad Hibernating Venoms… Yu Wei had none of those precious pills at all.
“Die!” The distant Xiamang Qi howled with laughter, but as he did, a golden sword-light suddenly flew towards him; it was the light of the [Lesser Thousand Swords Formation].
“Although the power of this sword-light is significant, it’s not enough to do anything to me.” Xiamang Qi had already withstood it several times; this time, he once more swung his arms out as he chopped out with his warblade towards it.
Swish!
The sword-light was as fine as silk, but it carried an incomparably powerful force. Xiamang Qi was caught completely off-guard, and his warblade was instantly knocked flying away. The skin between his thumb and forefinger was split apart, and he himself was knocked backwards. However, Ning suddenly charged towards him at an utterly astonishing speed, and so Xiamang Qi hurriedly produced yet another warblade in his hands.
“Die.” The three-headed, six-armed Ning appeared incomparably savage. Six rays of sword-light struck out like a giant windmill of light. Whoosh whoosh whoosh whoosh whoosh whoosh!!!!!! Six consecutive rays of sword-light came howling down.
Xiamang Qi stared, eyes bulging. He was instantly chopped apart into small chunks of meat.
A Waterflame Lotus suddenly bloomed, surrounding the chunks of meat and grinding down at them.
“No…” Xiamang Qi’s soul was howling. Bu unfortunately… he was ground to death, until nothing remained.
“What?!” Adept Danzhu, Adept Snowfly, and Kindwater Qi were all shocked. Xiamang Qi had been killed in a single exchange!? This level of power was too great! How could Ji Ning’s power have increased so explosively in just an instant?!
“All of you should die.” Ning immediately turned and threw himself at Adept Snowfly, who was the closest to him.
“Quick, flee!” Adept Danzhu, Adept Snowfly, and Kindwater Qi, upon seeing how savage and ferocious Ning was, didn’t dare to take him on at all. They immediately fled at high speed.
“Open.” The bald, black-skinned Adept Blackstone, who had been controlling the grand sealing formation this entire time, quickly withdrew the formation.
Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!
Adept Danzhu, Adept Snowfly, and Kindwater Qi all immediately charged out of the formation. As soon as they did, Adept Blackstone, with a single thought, once more activated the formation. The barrier of light arose once more.
“Open up!” Ning howled. His sword-light was like silk, and six streams of silken light chopped towards the grand sealing formation.
BOOM!
The grand formation was immediately torn apart, and the three-headed, six-armed Ji Ning charged out from within it.
“What?!” Adept Snowfly, who had just let out a sigh of relief after leaving the formation, was completely shocked. She immediately turned to flee… but how could her speed comparable to that of Ning, a Fiendgod Body Refiner? Although she hurriedly brandished her flywhisk to defend, transforming it into tens of thousands of tightly clustered strings that formed into a strange white fox to defender her, she also threw out a large number of talismans. She frantically sent to Ning, “Take my talismans, spare my life!”
Whoosh whoosh whoosh… six more streams of sword-light came. They chopped straight through the white fox, chopping Adept Snowfly to death.
It was too fast.
The three-headed, six-armed Ning’s sword-light was so fast that there wasn’t even enough time for Adept Snowfly to be teleported away after throwing out her talismans. She was immediately killed by Ning.
Kindwater Qi and Adept Danzhu were both terrified by Ning’s savagery. Adept Danzhu was formidable, but she was a Ki Refiner… how could she possibly summon the courage to fight Ning to the death?
Swish! Swish!
Kindwater Qi and Adept Danzhu both flew far away, fleeing into the distance.
As for the bald, black-skinned Adept Blackstone, he collected his grand sealing formation. The dirty-looking maiden, Adept Ninedeaths, was standing by his side. She was now wearing a pair of silver gloves on her hands.
“Let’s go. This isn’t the time for us to be fighting with him to the death,” Adept Blackstone sent mentally.
Adept Nindeaths gritted her teeth, giving Ning a glare.
“Let’s go.”
The two were quite decisive in their actions; they realized that Ning’s power had already reached a level where it posed a threat to them. They were not confident in actually beating him in a fight to the death, and they already had enough talismans; it wasn’t worth it for them to risk it.
Swoosh! Swoosh! The two quickly departed.
……
The enraged Ning had slaughtered Xiamang Qi and Adept Snowfly, then scared off Kindwater Qi and Adept Danzhu as well as caused Adept Ninedeaths and Adept Blackstone to choose to temporarily retreat as well.
“Hmph.” Ning, still filled with a boundless killing intent, swept the area with his gaze. He collected the treasures which Adept Snowfly had left behind, then quickly ran towards his senior apprentice-sister. Upon reaching her side, he immediately returned to his normal form.
“Senior apprentice-sister.” Ning saw that Yu Wei’s face was so dark, it was almost black. She had been very badly poisoned. He couldn’t help but begin to grow frantic. As for Yu Wei, she forced herself to sit up, then smiled as she looked at Ning.
Ning had seen everything; it had been Xiamang Qi who had used the divine ability, ‘Myriad Hibernating Venoms’. This divine ability was one which the giant yellow bear of the underwater estate had forbidden him from training in; although it was quite formidable when the practitioner was weak, once the practitioner grew strong, he’d probably actually have to spend some effort in purging the poisons from his body.
But… it had to be said that this was an extremely terrifying divine ability at this level. Anyone who was touched would immediately be poisoned and see their power drastically lowered!
“I have antivenoms here. They might be able to suppress…” Ning was extremely frantic.
“It’s fine. I’m fine.” Yu Wei sat there, looking at Ning. She smiled, then shook her head gently. When she saw how crazed Ning had become, she actually felt a blissful feeling in her heart.
Ning, seeing the shape his senior apprentice-sister was in, couldn’t help but feel pained for her as well as feel frightened.
Forgetting everything else, he immediately took her into her arms.
Yu Wei allowed Ning to hold her. She rested her head against his neck. She could sense the warmth surging from Ning’s body, an almost boiling heat that actually startled her.
“I don’t want to hesitate any longer.” Ning gently murmured into her ears, “I don’t want to feel any regrets. No regrets. I was truly afraid… afraid that you were dead. If you were dead… would I keep hesitating?”
Yu Wei reached out as well, tightly clinging to Ning as she revealed a smile on her face. Her tears began to fall down.
……
The main hall of the Skylight Palace.
Lu Dongbin suddenly slapped his table, the force of the blow causing the Immortal wine in front of him to be knocked flying. He jumped to his feet, then pointed towards the portion of the enormous Brightmoon Diagram of the Mountains and Rivers where Ning was holding Yu Wei. He roared with laughter, “That’s how it should be! That’s exactly how it should be! What’s the point of being so squeamish and indecisive? If they missed this opportunity, they would never have a chance to be together again for the rest of their lives. They had to seize this opportunity! If you have the right feelings, then you should act on them! You’ve been fighting in so many life-and-death battles together; how could you not have understood your own hearts? How could you have even hesitated for so long? Bahahaha, but now it’s all better. In the final month, they are finally embracing.”