High Martial Arts: Enlightenment after Practices

The Sword Intention incarnation attacked three times in a row, but Xu Wuyi dodged each strike by a hair’s breadth.

It wasn’t that Xu Wuyi’s reactions had gotten faster, but that his ”Prejudgment” had become more accurate.

The Gravity imprints were like an invisible net, covering the entire battlefield.

Every time the Sword Intention incarnation moved, it would touch a node on the net, feeding information back to Xu Wuyi.

The battle entered a long war of attrition.

Seven or eight new sword gashes appeared on Xu Wuyi’s consciousness body, the deepest of which nearly sliced open his left abdomen. But the Sword Intention incarnation’s body now bore five burning golden spots of flame.

The Undying True Flame was like a cancer clinging to bone; once it took hold, it was nearly impossible to remove. Every time the Sword Intention incarnation severed a burning section of itself, its very essence weakened.

The frequent exchanges seemed to last an eternity, but in reality, only a minute had passed. Both combatants were already heavily injured.

The Sword Intention incarnation’s movements finally showed a noticeable lag.

His cyan light had dimmed by thirty percent, and his use of Space Folding during movement was no longer as fluid.

The chaotic distortions of Gravity were like countless invisible threads wrapped around his body, forcing him to pay an extra price for every exertion of power.

Xu Wuyi’s expenditure of energy was even greater.

His consciousness body had become semi-transparent. The wound on his back refused to heal, constantly leaking specks of dark gold light. But his eyes remained calm, even more focused than before.

He was waiting.

Waiting for the chance to land a single, decisive blow.

Finally, one of the Sword Intention incarnation’s Space Folds had an error of one-thousandth of a second.

It wasn’t a miscalculation. For a brief moment, the Undying True Flame burning on his left chest had interfered with the flow of Sword Intention.

That one-thousandth of a second.

Xu Wuyi moved.

He poured all his remaining Power of Heart Image into the long spear in his right hand.

The spear’s shaft instantly became impossibly heavy, as if bearing the weight of a mountain. At its tip, golden flame and dark gold watery light intertwined, forming a spiraling blaze of light.

The fusion of Gravity and Flame reached an unprecedented level of harmony at this moment.

Then, he threw the spear.

He didn’t thrust. He threw.

Because this attack required no follow-up, only the ultimate ”piercing” power.

The instant the spear left his hand, Xu Wuyi made a grasping motion with his left hand, creating a brief gravitational singularity a hundred feet in front of the spear’s tip.

The singularity pulled the surrounding space inward, forming an invisible channel.

The spear flew into the channel, its speed tripling as it transformed into a dark gold meteor.

The Sword Intention incarnation’s pupils contracted violently.

He brought his sword up to block, but the spear wasn’t aimed at his body. It was aimed three inches above his left chest—the very center of the five previous burn points from the Undying True Flame.

Xu Wuyi’s reasoning was simple.

’If the Sword Intention has a core, it would most likely be located where the flow of Energy is densest, and thus, the most heavily protected.’

The spear tip pierced through.

There was no sound.

Only a blast of light.

The spear’s dark gold gleam clashed with the sword’s cyan light before both were annihilated, dissipating into nothing.

The spear ran through the Sword Intention incarnation’s left chest, the tip emerging from his back.

Golden Flame surged madly along the spear’s shaft, erupting from the piercing wound.

The Sword Intention incarnation’s body froze.

He looked down at the spear shaft in his chest, then looked up at Xu Wuyi.

The cyan light in his eyes began to dim rapidly.

”You... found it.”

He said softly.

Then, like a sand sculpture weathered by wind, his figure began to disintegrate from the point of impact, dissolving into countless cyan specks of light that scattered across the shattered world.

The vast expanse of cyan Sword Intention that had occupied most of the sky began to churn violently before contracting toward its center like a receding tide.

Finally, it condensed into a fist-sized cyan sphere of light, hovering in midair.

The sphere’s surface was covered in cracks. Faintly visible within, a sword’s shadow struggled, but it was tightly enveloped by the golden Flame, unable to break free.

Xu Wuyi staggered and dropped to one knee.

His consciousness body was now so transparent it was almost invisible. The wound on his back had spread across his entire spine, dark gold motes of light draining away like quicksand.

But he still lifted his head to look at the cyan sphere of light.

Then, he reached out with his right hand and made a grasping motion.

The phantom of a great dark gold marsh appeared behind him one last time. At the marsh’s center, a Golden Crow beat its wings and let out a silent, long cry.

Gravity distorted, crushing inward.

The cracks on the cyan sphere’s surface spread rapidly until it completely shattered.

The sword’s shadow vanished.

The Flame was extinguished.

The entire world of the sea of consciousness suddenly fell silent.

Only deep within the Earth, the Blade Intent that had been suppressed for so long began to slowly reawaken.

Xu Wuyi closed his eyes. His consciousness body could no longer hold its form and dissolved into countless specks of light, ascending through the channel by which he had come.

「Outside, in the intensive care unit.」

On the monitoring screen, Shen Jin’s Heart Image stability curve, which had been steadily declining for several minutes, suddenly rebounded sharply, climbing all the way above the safety line.

Meanwhile, the curve for Xu Wuyi’s brainwave activity plummeted from its peak, dropping to almost zero.

”Connection severed!” a technician exclaimed.

”What about their vital signs?” Vice-Director Lin strode forward.

”Grandmaster Shen’s vitals are recovering rapidly! His heart rate, blood pressure, and Spiritual Power fluctuations are all rising!”

”And Martial Artist Xu?”

”Martial Artist Xu’s vitals are... stable, but his Spiritual Power fluctuations are faint. He’s fallen into a coma!”

Wu Dingbo and Qiao Tongyu rushed toward the spiritual resonance device at the same time.

The pod’s hatch was slowly opening.

...

The battle was over.

When the core of the cyan Sword Intention completely shattered and dissipated, the ”heavy pressure” throughout the entire sea of consciousness lifted.

The sharp Sword Intention that had once filled the sky and permeated every inch of space receded like a swift tide, revealing the sea of consciousness’s true nature: a vast and profound domain of Blade Intent.

Shen Jin’s consciousness slowly rose from the core of his sea of consciousness, where it had been suppressed for so long.

He ”watched” as this world repaired itself. The cracks were mending, the eroded Blade Intent was reviving, and that familiar, decisive feeling of severing all things once again filled every inch of space.

As for Xu Wuyi’s consciousness body, after throwing that final spear, it had become so transparent it was almost invisible.

Countless dark gold specks of light peeled away from him, ascending through the not-yet-closed spiritual connection channel to return to his physical body.

A ripple went through Shen Jin’s thoughts.

He had witnessed the entire battle from the sidelines.

From the moment Xu Wuyi stepped into his sea of consciousness, to the breaking of the Gravity trap, to the desperate struggle on the brink of defeat, and finally, to that precise and decisive final strike.

Three times, he had almost forced himself to intervene.

The first time was when the Sword Intention incarnation unleashed its ”Heart-Inquiry Sword” Domain. The terrifying Sword Intention, capable of erasing existence itself, had made even Shen Jin’s heart palpitate.

He worried that Xu Wuyi wouldn’t be able to withstand it, that the young man’s consciousness would be shattered outright.

The second time was when Xu Wuyi’s consciousness body was nearly transparent, with specks of light constantly draining from the wound on his back. That level of exertion was dangerously close to the brink of collapse.

The third time was right before the final spear was thrown. Xu Wuyi had gambled everything, pouring all his remaining Power of Heart Image into that one attack without holding anything back.

If that strike had failed, he would have been left with no way to defend himself. His consciousness body would have been instantly annihilated by the Sword Intention incarnation’s counterattack.

But each time, Shen Jin had held back.