Desolate Devouring Art - Chapter 1425 - Sword Rune
Chapter 1425 – Sword Rune
Nine rainbows arched high across the heavens, each one representing a strand of the nine yangs.
The sight nearly made Sun Xiao’s eyes pop from their sockets, and he couldn’t help wondering if that was truly still the Divine Nine Suns Sword. It had exceeded his understanding.
He had been practicing the Divine Nine Suns Sword for decades, yet in just a handful of days, his junior brother had already left him behind.
Many true disciples of the Heavenly Dragon Sect had also cultivated the Divine Nine Suns Sword, but none of them came close to Sun Xiao’s level.
The scene unfolding before them made them finally realize that they ought to focus on their own cultivation instead of constantly comparing themselves to others. Otherwise, they would drive themselves mad with envy.
The nine rainbows now hung upside down across the sky, forming a curtain that blotted out the sun, moon, and stars.
Opposite them, the Sky Soaring Sword manifested in the firmament like a falling meteorite, its momentum utterly unstoppable. It had already surpassed the notion of mere speed; standard descriptions no longer applied to it.
The God-Slaughtering Sword was famed for its swiftness, but in front of the Sky Soaring Sword, it seemed almost sluggish.
Rumbling thunder echoed through the clouds as the sword ray plunged, and its destructive force instantly reduced the nine rainbows to two.
The Divine Nine Suns Sword had lost two strands in a single exchange, a result that left everyone stunned.
Liu Wuxie formed a sword seal with both hands and thrust it toward the heavens. In response, the Divine Nine Suns Sword blazed with dazzling radiance, shining even more fiercely than before as it swiftly restored the two missing strands.
The Sky Soaring Sword shifted forms with every breath, sometimes like a graceful fairy gliding through the clouds, sometimes like a Sword Immortal ramming straight through the heavens.
Each transformation was a feast for the eyes, and even the crowd had to admit that Song Siqi’s swordsmanship had already surpassed Jian Yiming’s.
The only gap between master and disciple lay in cultivation; Song Siqi’s realm still trailed behind.
This was no longer a simple clash of two swords, but a confrontation of how they controlled their sword arts, how deeply they comprehended sword dao, and how far they had refined their sword techniques.
Sword arts governed sword techniques, and all sword techniques were born from one’s understanding of the sword itself.
If someone couldn’t wield a powerful sword art, they naturally had no way to master a truly powerful sword technique.
“What a breathtaking sword technique! These two should be considered the strongest prodigies in the sword of this generation,” said the upper echelons of the various sects, nodding as they watched, entirely absorbed by the sword arts of Liu Wuxie and Song Siqi.
“Liu Wuxie has never used a longsword. I think this should be his first time,” someone remarked. By now, Liu Wuxie’s background was practically an open book, and even the mythical arts he cultivated were no secret. Yet very few had actually seen him use a sword.
“All daos will ultimately converge in the same path,” said the palace lord of the Nine Dragon Palace as he shook his head, warning everyone not to confine their thinking to a single mythical art.
Once one reached a certain height, different mythical arts would gradually converge and evolve into something greater. Take Liu Wuxie’s Great Frost Mythical Art, for example—it had already begun to merge into the Great Five Elemental Mythical Art.
The Great Frost Mythical Art contained terrifying ice-attribute energy, and ever since he refined the fragment of the Great Dao of Water, the water element had risen above the other four.
Naturally, the Great Frost Mythical Art was drawn in and assimilated into the Great Five Elemental Mythical Art, greatly reinforcing it.
In the future, even light and darkness would blend into yin and yang.
“Look at Song Siqi’s sword technique!” someone in the crowd exclaimed. They watched as Song Siqi’s sword technique condensed into the form of a white-clad immortal, his fingers forming a sword seal as a boundless sword aura swept through the entire Heavenly Dragon Sect.
High above, faint wisps of immortal energy condensed, making Song Siqi look like an immortal descending upon the mortal world, his white robes fluttering as though clouds themselves supported his feet.
“It’s impressive that he can shape his sword aura, but he has taken it a step further and manifested his sword intent,” commented the Comet Temple’s abbot with a shake of his head. No one could tell if he was mocking himself or simply feeling helpless.
Song Siqi had already fused his thoughts and dao into his sword, but his method was utterly different from Pei Hong’s crude approach, where he turned his sword into a sword-bone in pursuit of so-called unity with the sword.
Pei Hong had relied on external means, while Song Siqi had reached his realm purely through intent.
From the level of their paths alone, Song Siqi had already left Pei Hong far behind; the two no longer belonged in the same category.
At this moment, it was not just Song Siqi’s body that became a sword—his primordial spirit and even every strand of his hair had turned into pure sword dao.
A slight crease formed between Liu Wuxie’s brows as he realized that Song Siqi’s swordsmanship was even more terrifying than he had expected.
He kept Ghost Eye active while the Heavenly Dao Book flipped in his soul sea, and lines of golden sword arts began to form on his hand.
“Liu Wuxie is probably going to lose…” someone in the crowd muttered. From sword momentum alone, Song Siqi stood a level higher and had already forced Liu Wuxie into a purely defensive stance.
The Divine Nine Suns Sword continued to shrink as Song Siqi’s sword intent gradually closed in to engulf it. Once that happened, even Sun Xiao’s longsword would suffer damage.
The situation tilted ever more against Liu Wuxie as cracks started to crawl across the Divine Nine Suns Sword, threatening to shatter it at any moment.
Yet under the crushing pressure of the Sky Soaring Sword, Liu Wuxie only furrowed his brows, his expression otherwise unchanged.
A sinister smile tugged at Pei Hong’s lips when he saw that. In his heart, he was certain his senior brother would finally avenge him.
On the other side, Song Siqi’s brows were also tightly knit. He had already driven the Sky Soaring Sword to its absolute limit, yet it still couldn’t break the Divine Nine Suns Sword.
Immortal energy began to rumble in the depths of the desolate world, and compared to that, the immortal image manifested by Song Siqi was nothing more than a moon reflected on a still lake.
“Let me show you what a true immortal is,” Liu Wuxie murmured to himself. He did not speak any louder, knowing that if most cultivators in the Indigo Bamboo Astral Domain were to hear his words, they would lose their minds.
After all, even Quasi-Immortal Realm experts had yet to grasp what it meant to be a true immortal. Otherwise, they would have ascended long ago.
An invisible ripple spread outward from Liu Wuxie as he began to trace lines in mid-air with his hands, causing a faint sword rune to take form.
“What’s that? Why haven’t I seen it before?” Many people watched in confusion, utterly unfamiliar with the runes Liu Wuxie inscribed.
That was a sword rune, and Liu Wuxie carved it with pure immortal energy.
In the Immortal Stone Cave, he had absorbed a vast quantity of immortal energy and stored it all in the desolate world. That allowed the desolate world to nurture its own internal laws, and it would continue to give birth to more immortal energy.
As soon as he completed the first sword rune, thunder boomed across the sky, and a bolt of lightning came crashing down toward Liu Wuxie’s head.
“A tribulation? Could that rune have violated the heavenly laws?” Even those in the Heaven Gaze Realm couldn’t help taking a step back.
If Liu Wuxie had truly violated the heavenly laws, everyone here would share the consequences. Even Hua Feiyu’s expression turned grim; after all, tribulation only descended when someone had violated the heavenly laws.
Strictly speaking, Liu Wuxie was still a mortal. For a mortal to inscribe a sword rune was equivalent to courting death, let alone one inscribed with immortal energy. Only true immortals were qualified to do such a thing, yet with that sword rune, Liu Wuxie had already touched upon an immortal’s methods.
He could certainly defeat Song Siqi by summoning the Gate of Darkness, but that would mean stepping straight into the Grand Unity Sect’s trap.
It would be a public admission that the Heavenly Dragon Sect’s supreme arts were inferior to the Grand Unity Sect’s techniques. For that reason, Liu Wuxie couldn’t rely on any other methods in this battle.
With the sword rune’s appearance, everyone’s breathing grew heavy under the looming threat of tribulation.
“Get lost!” Liu Wuxie roared, and the thunderclouds roiling above dispersed at once. He swept them away with his voice alone and nothing more.
“What a terrifying aura…” Song Siqi’s pupils contracted sharply. The instant the sword rune formed, he sensed something gravely wrong.
He immediately accelerated his strike, and the Sky Soaring Sword hurtled down at Liu Wuxie. He knew he could not afford to delay any longer; he could not allow himself to lose, even if it meant mutual destruction.
“Fortify,” Liu Wuxie said as the sword rune, infused with immortal energy, poured into the Divine Nine Suns Sword. The sword erupted with blinding light that flooded the entire sky and swallowed the descending Sky Soaring Sword.
“What’s going on?” Many people were dumbfounded. They could neither identify the rune nor understand it. Not only had it summoned heavenly tribulation, but it had also erased the Sky Soaring Sword as if it were nothing.
Only a handful of people fell silent, and the Quasi-Immortal Realm experts managed to catch a glimpse of the truth. They could sense the immortal energy bound to Liu Wuxie’s sword, yet they couldn’t comprehend how he controlled it.
Most of them knew about the Immortal Stone Cave in the Heavenly Dragon Sect, and other sects had similar places.
Even so, cultivators at the Heaven Gaze Realm could only use immortal energy to nourish their bodies and advance their cultivation. To truly control immortal energy was something they didn’t even dare imagine.
Immortal energy and spiritual energy were fundamentally different, and anyone who mishandled immortal energy would suffer a brutal backlash. That was why only immortals could wield immortal energy as a weapon.
With a sharp crack, the white-clad figure in the sky shattered and dispersed into a vast sea of sword aura. This signaled that Liu Wuxie had successfully broken the Sky Soaring Sword.
The Divine Nine Suns Sword continued its descent from above, unleashing a terrifying sword aura that looked poised to cleave Song Siqi in half. At the final moment, just as the sword aura was about to land, Song Siqi abruptly released the suppression on his cultivation and used his true strength to block the strike.
No one mocked Song Siqi for this choice. Below the high levels of the Earth Immortal Realm, no one dared claim they could take that sword head-on.
With a thunderous boom, an invisible shockwave swept outward as the laws in the sky roared, forming a colossal funnel that devoured the surrounding space.
Several Heaven Gaze Realm cultivators reacted swiftly, moving to stabilize the area and restore the shattered void. With that, the battle ended as quickly as it had begun.
When Song Siqi descended to the ground, he remained composed, his face free of frustration. On the contrary, he had gained tremendous insight from the sword Liu Wuxie had just displayed.
When Liu Wuxie landed, he returned the longsword to his senior brother. The blade was no longer fit for battle; a fine crack now ran along its body, a mark left by the sword rune that had empowered it.
Yet the benefits were equally evident. With continued nourishment from immortal energy, this longsword would almost certainly rise to the level of an Immortal Artifact in the future. In fact, it was only a matter of time.
Since his senior brother had gifted him the black tortoise shell, this could serve as his own gift in return.
Once the longsword returned to Sun Xiao’s body, the tiny crack began to mend under the steady nourishment of his true essence and would fully recover in a few days.
Sun Xiao could clearly feel that his lifebound artifact had undergone a tremendous transformation, as its internal laws were far more complete than before.
“I’ve lost. However, I didn’t lose in swordsmanship, but to that sword rune,” Song Siqi said. Without that sword rune, he was confident that he would not have lost. Even now, he still couldn’t determine what kind of power had reinforced that rune.
The moment Liu Wuxie unleashed it, he felt his soul shudder, and the speed of his sword dropped sharply. Even his dao heart rippled, which spoke volumes of the sword rune’s terrifying power.
For Song Siqi to admit defeat publicly took remarkable courage.
“Let’s consider it a draw. I’m inferior to you when it comes to the pursuit of the sword,” Liu Wuxie replied. He was merely stating the truth.
Liu Wuxie’s understanding of the sword surpassed Song Siqi’s, but his dedication to the sword dao was not as fanatical. After all, Song Siqi’s devotion to the sword had already reached the brink of madness.
