Unsheathed

Chen Qingdu took a glance at Chen Ping’an, and the latter immediately withdrew that unnamed flying sword. He was able to do so on a whim, and all of his flying swords instantly returned to his acupoint, where they fused together to become a single sword.

Essentially, the flying sword was traveling in and out of Chen Ping’an’s acupoint completely uninhibited by the river of time, and this shouldn’t have been possible.

The only reason why this could happen was that the bonded flying sword was situated in a small world created by another bonded flying sword, and the abilities of the two bonded flying swords combined to achieve this effect.

The bonded items of Qi refiners that just so happened to be flying swords were ultimately just things left behind by swordsmen, so while they appeared similar to a swordsman’s bonded flying sword, there was actually an enormous fundamental difference between the two.

Even if advanced refinement had been completed on the former, it would still technically be an external object, whereas the latter had a much more direct connection to a swordsman and possessed all types of incredible innate abilities.

Pine Needle and Lightning Devourer were replica swords from Hatred Sword Mountain, so they were mostly used by Chen Ping’an as surprise weapons or tools that would allow him to escape from a battle.

First and Fifteenth once belonged to a sword immortal from ancient times, and even after Chen Ping’an completed advanced refinement on them, he was still unable to use their innate abilities. They were extremely fast, resilient, and sharp, but that was nowhere near their full potential. However, despite his best efforts, that was all he could get out of the two flying swords, but that certainly wasn’t anything to complain about.

Chen Ping’an withdrew the innate ability of his other bonded flying sword, and the small world that encompassed Chen Ping’an and Chen Qingdu on the training ground instantly disappeared.

Bai Lianshuang was standing in the walkway in the distance, watching from afar.

She had already noticed that something was amiss when Chen Ping’an stumbled out of the secret chamber in the Ning Manor, as if in a sleepwalking state. However, at the time, Chen Ping’an still hadn’t fully awakened yet, and he had no idea that he had already nurtured a bonded flying sword. He was also oblivious to the fact that the flying sword had already revealed itself and was using its innate ability to protect its owner. As a result of the flying sword’s innate ability, he had been walking within a small world this entire time.

The presence of Chen Qingdu was no less astonishing to Bai Lianshuang than the revelation that Chen Ping’an had finally nurtured a bonded flying sword, and she hurriedly cupped her fist and extended a respectful bow toward the old great sword immortal.

Chen Ping’an took a deep breath, then also cupped his fist and bowed in gratitude toward Chen Qingdu.

Chen Qingdu slowly made his way onto the Dragon Slaying Cliff with his hands clasped behind his back, while Chen Ping’an trailed along behind him.

”In the very beginning, she did a great kindness to the human race, and I’ve remembered her act of kindness for over ten thousand years,” Chen Qingdu mused as he walked along. ”Back when you first came to the Sword Qi Great Wall, I had actually already noticed. Even though you had already used up the three wisps of sword qi that she left to you, their residual aura was extremely familiar to me.

“After all, I was taught my swordsmanship by her former owner. However, I was concerned that this could be a plot hatched by the people behind the scenes, and on top of that, I also had some self-serving motives of my own. If I am to return a favor, then how and when I am to return it should be for me to decide.

“Hence, I pretended to be oblivious to the hints that she threw at me, and I didn’t reconstruct your bridge of immortality, nor did I provide you with any assistance in nurturing your bonded flying sword, all so I could be reunited with her someday. I owe her a favor, but I don’t owe you anything. If she’s not happy about it, then she can come to the Sword Qi Great Wall to see me.”

Chen Qingdu cast his gaze toward the south, where he could see the city walls in the distance, and he continued, ”There are countless ancient figures who were my acquaintances or even my juniors. There are also countless ancient deities and great demons who were once my enemies or were even slain by me, but I’m not going to bore you with all of those trivial details. It’s been many years since I’ve seen the city walls from so far away.

“I recall that when they were first constructed, I had been standing with my two good friends, Long Jun and Guan Zhao, on Taixiang Street, and we joked to ourselves that with such tall city walls, we would be able to defend the city for ten thousand years. And so we did.”

Chen Qingdu turned to Chen Ping’an with a hint of pride in his eyes and said, ”What you have accomplished today wasn’t given to you by anyone else, nor did you have to beg anyone for it. You achieved all of this on your own.”

”I still must thank you for serving as my Dao guardian and Dao mentor,” Chen Ping’an said as he cupped his fist in a grateful salute.

”If you insist on saying that, then I suppose you can,” Chen Qingdu mused. ”If you look back on the process after achieving a positive outcome, then you’ll see positives everywhere, whereas if you look back on life in the wake of a terrible outcome, then you’ll see negatives at every turn.”

”I’m only focusing on the positives and expressing my gratitude,” Chen Ping’an replied with a smile. ”I have many gripes and complaints against you as well, but I don’t dare to raise them.”

This was the truth. If he had managed to successfully reconstruct his bridge of immortality and become a swordsman during his first visit to the Sword Qi Great Wall, then he would’ve been able to avoid many mishaps. He wouldn’t have had to travel to the Parasol Leaf Continent with Lasting Sword Qi on his back to seek out the East Sea Observing Dao Temple, and perhaps he could’ve avoided that subsequent battle in Old Dragon City.

He wouldn’t have been forced to endure that trial of self-reflection at Bamboo Scroll Lake due to his insufficient cultivation base, and he wouldn’t have had to subject himself to so much peril at Skeleton Shoal, nor would he have had to endure that heavenly tribulation for no benefit to himself. Everything would’ve been completely different had Chen Qingdu reconstructed his bridge of immortality back then. As for whether that would’ve ultimately led to a positive or negative outcome, no one could answer that question, so it was a moot point.

Then there was also the predicament that he had found himself in today on the Sword Qi Great Wall. If Chen Ping’an were to raise all of his gripes, then he could easily complain to Chen Qingdu for days on end.

”When can I reopen my minimization treasure?” Chen Ping’an asked in a quiet voice. ”Given the urgent state of the war, I’m going to have to leave the city with Ning Yao and the others to join the battle at some point.”

There was also something else that he had intentionally omitted, which was that his inability to access his minimization treasure would severely hamper his money-making operations. If he had to lug around a massive rucksack of items as a traveling salesman, then the likes of Gu Jianlong would never let him hear the end of it.

”Why are you asking me something so trivial when you could go ask Yan Ming instead?” Chen Qingdu asked with a puzzled expression.

Initially, Chen Ping’an was a little suspicious. Yan Ming was someone that Chen Qingdu clearly had a great deal of trust in, so how could he possibly have screwed up so badly when it came to his minimization treasure? However, a look of realization then quickly appeared on Chen Ping’an’s face. This was indeed a trivial matter. He could simply borrow a minimization treasure from the wealthy Yan Ming.

Chen Qingdu could hardly care less about what Chen Ping’an was plotting. By his estimates, Chen Ping’an was most likely going to borrow a minimization treasure, but as for whether he would return it, that was very difficult to say.

Yan Ming wasn’t all that exceptional as a swordsman, but he was an expert when it came to making money, so he was especially fond of Chen Ping’an. Unlike Yue Qing, whose impression of Chen Ping’an had improved over time, Yan Ming had been very impressed with Chen Ping’an from the very beginning.

It seemed like Chen Qingdu was a detached senior figure who didn’t care about anything, but in reality, he kept tabs on all of the swordsmen on the Sword Qi Great Wall.

”Regarding your two bonded flying swords, it’s not just a simple matter of one being suited to offense and the other to defense,” Chen Qingdu suddenly said. ”The bonded flying swords of the likes of Qi Shou and Gao Yehou possess a lot of destructive power, but going forward, their flying swords aren’t going to be able to work together with one another to produce as many possibilities as yours. Now that you’re a swordsman, you finally have some decent tricks up your sleeve.”

As he prepared to set off back to the Sword Qi Great Wall, Chen Qingdu turned to Chen Ping’an and asked, ”How did it feel to have both your body and soul baptized by both sword intent and the river of time?”

”It’s an infinitely more grueling experience than even the martial arts training that I underwent back in my hometown,” Chen Ping’an replied with a wry smile. ”I never want to have to go through that again.”

”Well, I’ve got some bad news for you,” Chen Qingdu said with a smile.

Cold sweat immediately began to bead up on Chen Ping’an’s forehead, and he pleaded, ”Please tell me you’re joking.”

”I’m not,” Chen Qingdu denied.

”Whatever you say, Senior,” Chen Ping’an sighed, resigning himself to his fate.

”This time, the process is going to be much, much slower,” Chen Qingdu said with a smile.

”Why do I still have to go through this when I’m already a swordsman?” Chen Ping’an asked in a trembling voice.

Instead of answering the question, Chen Qingdu advised, ”A young man should not harbor resentment.”

With that, he vanished from the spot.

In the wake of his departure, a small world abruptly appeared, encompassing the entire Dragon Slaying Cliff and the nearby pergola, one that even a sword immortal would struggle to break into, even with a hundred years of persistent effort. Chen Ping’an was trapped within the small world, and he collapsed onto his backside in despair in the center of the pergola.

A streak of sword light came descending from the top of the pergola at an extremely slow speed, and it crashed down directly onto the top of Chen Ping’an’s head. His entire body instantly became riddled with cracks, like a piece of porcelain that was on the verge of shattering into countless pieces. In particular, his head and face, which were the first parts of his body to come into contact with the sword light, suffered the most.

If he were capable of releasing his yin soul from his body in this moment to observe himself, then he would discover that his face had become even more unsightly than that of the Flying Eagle Fortress Lord’s wife.

Not only was his skin and flesh riddled with cracks, but even his eyeballs were also beginning to crumble, and to further compound his woes, this torturous transformation was happening at an excruciatingly slow rate, in complete contrast with the rapid bout of torment that Chen Ping’an had been subjected to earlier in the secret chamber.

After the cascading sword light came into contact with the ground, it didn’t burst out of the small world. Instead, it was like water pouring into a well, and the water level gradually rose past Chen Ping’an’s knees.

Other swordsmen only ever cleansed their swords, yet Chen Ping’an’s body had taken the place of his swords to undergo the same process of cleansing and refinement.

Bai Lianshuang continued to observe from afar, and she murmured to herself in an elated voice, ”Not only is Young Master Chen not slacking off after becoming a swordsman, but he’s also become even more conscientious in his cultivation!”

On the Sword Qi Great Wall, Zuo You asked, ”How did it go?”

”How do you think it went?” Chen Qingdu asked with a smile. ”How could he possibly fail with a senior brother like you?”

Zuo You was very pleased to hear this, but at the same time, he also couldn’t help but feel a little dismayed, and he asked, ”If he has a bonded flying sword, then why hasn’t he immediately come to the battlefield?”

”I begged him to come, but now that he’s a swordsman, he’s become super cocky and refused to come,” Chen Qingdu scoffed.

Zuo You burst into laughter upon hearing this.

”This is a war, not a battle; that’s something that your junior brother understands better than you,” Chen Qingdu suddenly said. ”There are some things he told me that I’ll reveal to you later.”

***

As the demonic army attacked the city, an unexpected and spectacular sight quickly arose.

Five imposing mountains had appeared on the battlefield, laid out side by side. They were all extremely tall mountains from the Savage World, and they had been moved here by the great demon, Zhong Guang. The Ascension Tier great demon’s Great Dao foundation had been harmed after performing this miraculous feat, and he wasn’t going to take any further part in the war.

At the moment, he was resting and recuperating far away from the front lines. The Savage World had to have paid a heavy price to move these mountains, one that was definitely not just limited to the harm that had befallen Zhong Guang’s cultivation base.

For example, the gods of these five mountains were all Upper Five Tiers mountain deities of the Savage World, and they had already fused their mountain god temples and godly bodies with the fortune of the five mountains.

Otherwise, even if the great demons of the Savage World were able to carry these mountains, it would’ve been impossible for them to force their way through the flood of sword qi, so they wouldn’t have been able to transport the mountains to this battlefield.

The five mountains were only around half as tall as the Sword Qi Great Wall, but they posed a massive headache to all of the swordsmen of the Sword Qi Great Wall.

The five mountains ensured that the demonic army was able to forge ahead on the battlefield in a quicker and safer fashion, and on each mountain was a mighty mountain-protection formation. Within the formations were mighty cultivators of the Savage World, all of whom had essentially given half their lives to create the formations.

The five mountains had had their mountain roots and water veins severed before being essentially refined into treasures at the cost of an unimaginable amount of resources. Only then was Zhong Guang able to freely move them.

The Savage World had paid an incredibly heavy price to accomplish this feat, but all of their efforts were clearly paying off here.

At the moment, the woman dressed in dragon robes seemed to have taken the place of the great demon Bai Ying, serving as the leader of the demonic army for this stage of the siege.

Her alias was Yang Zhi, and even in the Savage World, the only ones who were entitled to the knowledge of her true name were all ancient beings who were extremely close with her. These were all beings that she would never engage in true battles of life and death against, so she had no qualms letting them know her true name.

At this point, she had already given all of the rivers and lakes under and including Elite Cavalry River to another great demon, but prior to doing so, she had naturally reserved some for herself, directing the water of several large rivers into her bonded item.

At this moment, she was personally stationed on one of the mountains, but she hadn’t revealed her enormous true form. Instead, she looked no different from a normal woman. There was a smile on her face as she bent down slightly and released five green water beads out of the sleeve of her dragon robe, and she called out, ”Go on, it’s time for you to become moats.”