Chapter 151: The Silver Aura
Chapter 151: The Silver Aura
Marco Alfoy stood beside the veiled girl on a distant peak. He stared at the flashing lights erupting from Cloud Piercing Peak.
"How long has it been since they began their duel?" Marco asked. He rubbed his tired eyes and squinted at the distant cliff.
"They started at midnight," she replied. She kept her gaze fixed on the flashing lights. "It is almost time for sunrise."
"What is even happening?" Marco leaned forward over the rocky ledge. "I cannot see anything clearly, especially after they started using internal energy."
The veiled girl turned her head toward Marco. "This Solomon... he is not using internal energy."
"What?!" Marco exclaimed. His eyes widened as he took a step back. "He has been holding off against the pavilion leader’s aura attacks without using aura?"
"Indeed," she nodded.
"Are you telling me Solomon is forcing the pavilion leader to go all out, while he isn’t?" Marco gripped the hilt of his own sword.
She turned her to Marco and asked, "You know him, right? I heard you fought with him at the academy. Tell me, did he use aura?"
"No, he didn’t even use a weapon." Marco shook his head. "To be honest, I haven’t seen him use aura at all. I am not sure if he has even awakened an aura core."
"Oh, he has." She adjusted the fabric covering her face. "When I saw him up close, I could sense his aura."
"But he isn’t using it!" Marco pointed at the distant peak. "Do you think he will win this duel?"
She quickly turned her attention back to the fight as the exchanges grew intense again. "No. Even if he uses aura, he cannot defeat Jin. Solomon may be talented. Sadly, he doesn’t have enough experience."
She turned around and prepared to leave.
"Where are you going?" Marco asked.
"Back to my pavilion." She started walking down the rocky incline. "The duel has already ended."
Meanwhile, Solomon prepared for a strike as he planted his boots into the fractured stone.
Solomon released his internal energy. A brilliant silver aura erupted from his core and coated Eden’s Penance. His silver pupils glowed brightly in the darkness. He anchored his stance and aligned his spine with his wrists.
[1Fizzy: HE FINALLY ACTIVATED IT!]
[Fatal_Beauty: THE SILVER AURA!]
[Berrel: Jin is about to find out.]
[LazyCat: this is what we have been waiting for!]
The veiled girl suddenly stopped retreating. She spun around and opened a folded fan. She swung the fan toward Cloud Piercing Peak.
The very next second, Solomon executed the second form of the Eden Imperial Sword Arts. He snapped his hips forward and swung his greatsword in a horizontal sweep.
The silver aura exploded outward.
The strike cut through everything in its path. It sheared through the surrounding trees. It carved through the rocky mountains. It sliced the clouds in the sky.
The sweeping light cleared the horizon, allowing the morning sun to finally rise over the landscape.
[GoonLord: HE CUT THE CLOUDS IN HALF!]
[Shadow1749: a strike that alters the terrain. breathtaking.]
[Grim_2649: the sun is actually rising because he cut the sky open!]
[GamerGuy: WHAT JUST HAPPENED?!]
[Foodball: bro is a walking natural disaster.]
The silver cut traveled across the valley. It rushed directly toward the peak where Marco and the veiled girl stood.
The energy from her earlier fan swing formed a transparent barrier around their position. The destructive horizontal slice hit the shield and stopped. It bypassed them and passed through everything else behind their peak, leveling the distant forest.
Then, the transparent barrier generated by the jade fan splintered into thousands of glowing fragments.
The tenth pavilion master lowered her arm. Her eyes remained locked onto the distant horizon. The silver arc had leveled the towering trees and shaved the rocky crests off the adjacent mountain peaks.
’Such a display of terrifying power.’
She parted her lips, failing to form a coherent sentence to describe the devastation.
Marco stepped closer to the rocky edge. He stared at the newly created canyon carving through the landscape. He dragged a hand down his face and turned toward the veiled woman.
"Is the Pavilion Leader okay?" Marco asked, pointing a trembling finger toward the distant peak.
The tenth master stood still for several seconds. She traced the path of destruction back to Cloud Piercing Peak. "He is fine," she muttered. "Physically."
[Mezz_3863: my jaw is on the floor.]
[James_hayes: bro just deleted a mountain range.]
[Fatal_Beauty: Solo Man is a cheat code.]
Back on the crumbling surface of Cloud Piercing Peak, dust drifted across the newly flattened plateau.
A few moments prior, the silver energy had erupted from Solomon’s blade. Jin had channeled his internal energy into his curved saber and stepped forward to block the incoming horizontal sweep.
However, the moment the silver light touched his guard, every instinct in his body screamed a fatal warning.
He realized the sweeping wave carried enough force to obliterate him. Dropping his center of gravity, Jin fell to his knees on the fractured rock while desperately keeping his saber raised above his head to guard his skull.
Fortunately, the silver arc passed directly over his posture.
Now, Jin kneeled in the settling dust. He gripped the hilt of his curved saber. The top half of his steel weapon was gone, cleanly sheared off by the passing energy wave.
Jin tilted his head upward. He stared at the silver-haired boy standing a few paces away. His eyes darted past Solomon to observe the leveled terrain.
The once-cratered plateau now mirrored a perfectly smooth stone table.
Jin looked higher. The morning sun shined brightly through a giant, unnatural gap in the sky. The silver strike had parted the cloud canopy across the entire valley.
A short chuckle escaped Jin’s lips. The chuckle quickly escalated into a booming laugh that echoed across the ruined peak.
"I finally get to witness it," Jin muttered between bursts of laughter. He tossed the broken hilt onto the smooth stone. "The first patriarch parted the cloud canopy two thousand years ago to claim this peak. Today, a first-year student replicates the exact same feat."
Solomon rested Eden’s Penance against his collarbone. He wiped a streak of sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. "I guess we both got a good morning workout today."
[Chi_Master: Jin is losing his mind laughing.]
[Grim_2649: the lore accurately checks out.]
[Berrel: Solo Man is officially the new patriarch.]
[Shadow1749: imagine breaking the teacher’s sword and he just laughs.]
[Harry_Hart: that swing was peak fiction.]
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Solomon anchored his boots and offered a bright grin. "Does this mean I finally pass the evaluation?"
Jin pushed himself off his knees and stood up. He brushed the dust from his torn blue robes. He looked at the severed clouds and then back at the boy.
"You have nothing left to learn from me," Jin replied, picking up a piece of his shattered saber. "I will inform Master Wu about the results of this duel. You will report directly to him for your final task."
"Then I will take my leave and rest."
Solomon left the Cloud Piercing Peak, followed by his owl that was streaming everything from a safe distance.
A few seconds later, the tenth pavilion master landed in front of the pavilion leader Jin.
"Yue..."
"How are you feeling after getting defeated by a first-year student?"
"The same as when you defeated me and became the tenth pavilion master."