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Chapter 74: Grand Elder Zhou (3)
Chapter 74: Grand Elder Zhou (3)
Chapter 74: Grand Elder Zhou (3)
Lady Yue, even when intense, keeps her calm demeanor. Being under imminent attack also fails to produce a change in even her expression.
As Grand Elder Zhou releases his Qi and unleashes his first attack, Lady Yue calmly steps around the Grand Elder until she is between Lan Xiaohui and the furious elder.
With a swift motion, she withdraws a longsword from her internal storage ring and holds it in front of her.
The longsword itself does not seem anything special. It has a gold hilt and a simple, silver surface, but despite its simple looks, it feels supreme. It is no ordinary object or a treasure of simple grade. I doubt it is of the Divine grade, but something about the way Lady Yue holds it makes it seem like it is an object that has far greater value than I do.
Die! the Grand Elder shouts and strikes out with his palm, the overwhelming force of his palm Qi creating innumerable manifestations of ethereal, flaming palms to descend towards Lady Yue from the sky, while the elder also propels his very real, physical palm towards Lady Yues chest.
All of these things happen before Lan Xiaohui is even finished bouncing across the ground, like a stone skipping across the surface of a lake.
Hmph, Lady Yue scoffs and raises her sword, a single point of light forming at its tip. In the brief moment before the countless palms strike Lady Yue, and that point of light pulses once, I sense such a distortion in time and space that everything seems to freeze.
I verify my chronological functions of which I have few, and in this case, it is the flying motion of Lan Xiaohui only to realize that it is not that there was a sudden warping of spacetime, but that there is an overwhelming stillness in the area that makes it appear as if time is frozen.
This is Lady Yues Sword Domain.
An incredibly oppressive aura stills everything within the grotto. Even Lan Xiaohui is pressed so hard into the ground that her bouncing is arrested and her body is forced into the ground. The palms both physical and made of palm Qi are likely frozen in place, and making only millimeters of progress per second.
Then my [Critical Analysis] ability fires a subroutine, as Lady Yue withdraws her sword to her right shoulder, tip pointed straight up, as she prepares to slash.
[Immortal - Sword] Lunar Eclipse Sword
Right after this subroutine informs me of the techniques name, Lady Yue turns her sword so that the flat no longer faces the Grand Elder, but the edge is pointed at him first, and the light on the tip of the sword disappears, leaving the grotto seemingly much darker than before.
While the Grand Elder is still so suppressed, Lady Yue slashes her sword down, aiming to cut the Grand Elder from his left shoulder to his right hip. When her sword finally impacts the overwhelming raiment of Qi around the Grand Elder, the suppression seems to lift and a tremendous explosion rings out.
The water in the basin immediately begins to churn and boil underneath the heat. The blast wave of the countless palms delivering their fiery payload incinerates half the grotto, from the entrance towards the back where Lan Xiaohui is.
Ultimately, however, the heat and shock wave is unable to reach us, stilled to nothingness beneath Lady Yues extreme Sword Domain.
Even more so, at the moment of impact, a brilliant radiance appears in the form of a horizontal, crescent slash that becomes thinner and thinner truly, like a lunar eclipse that seems to span the entire world from my point of view. Analyzing it with my spiritual senses, I have the impression that it is traveling away from me, even though neither its size nor apparent magnitude changes.
Within that crescent slash, all the flames and palms seem to disappear, crushed into nothingness by Lady Yues mysterious sword energy and incomprehensible sword Qi. Whereas even Grand Elder Zhous technique is elemental and in a form that makes sense, Lady Yues is different.
As the violent forces oppose each other and resolve, Lady Yues sword finally manages to penetrate through the layer of Qi around the Grand Elder, and her sword slashes across his chest, spraying blood on the floor beneath them which instantly evaporates under the intense heat.
The Grand Elder is forced a step back, his expression finally changing from one of cold arrogance to something that resembles a man that is staring death in the eye.
The fresh wound on his chest is not shallow, but it is not deep enough to cause issues to his physical vessel, though I have no idea as to the effect that the Lunar Eclipse Sword had on his internal structure, considering that the phantom lunar eclipse crescent passed directly through him.
Lady Yue, it turns out, may also be a ruthless, demonic cultivator, because she does not hesitate nor allow this opportunity to pass by.
She steps forward, following the retreating Grand Elder who is desperately now attempting to gain some distance from Lady Yue. I would normally call this a fatal mistake someone who fights with their bare hands has no business trying to gain range on someone with a sword but I dont know nearly enough about Palm techniques to make such judgments with any confidence.
You will kill my family? Lady Yue asks, her tone bespoke of her derision at this thought. I never thought I would see the day when a Grand Elder that bullies little girls would claim he could harm my family! What delusional arrogance!
It is only when the Grand Elder retreats far enough away that I have to strain my consciousness to its limits to see them that this expression changes even further. I am not certain why he suddenly possesses such a horrified expression on his face. Such an extreme change in demeanor does not appear to be initiated by Lady Yues swordsmanship if that were the case, it would appear much sooner.
Lan Xiaohui, while cowering on the ground, also observes this fight with a mix of both curiosity and the simple fact that she is too terrified to look away. If she must die, she would rather see, in her final moments, what it is that will sever her from this life. Though, as the two get farther away, the relief in her heart grows more and more.
[Immortal - Sword] Extinction Blade Orbit
Relentless and ruthless, Lady Yue dashes forward, and even without the assistance of any movement techniques, she moves faster than even Wukong. Her sword is a blur in her hands, its silvery surface smearing across my perception like the stroke of a brilliant paintbrush on a pitch-black canvas. Underneath her radiant sword, the world seems black and colorless.
The Grand Elder shouts once more, creating another outburst of Qi that, this time, fails to even approach the grotto and is, instead, forced away from Lady Yue as if she was an invincible and untouchable existence.
Her body also becomes a blur, like her sword, and she seemingly appears behind the Grand Elder and then straightens up from her offensive posture, not even looking at the old man.
A second later, there is a silvery flash of a sword that slashes the area in a circular, scythe-like fashion. I perceive it like a moon transitioning phases, or, rather, completing a full orbit that heralds annihilation.
The trees explode, their trunks obliterated by the sword as they are severed from their roots, shooting high into the air. The entrance to the grotto is also carved open wider by the brief flash of the sword. This destruction extends so far and wide that it goes beyond my perception radius, and even so, I can weakly sense that it goes much, much farther.
A fountain of blood erupts from the Grand Elder and in all the dust and debris that suddenly rises from the ground, not to mention his somewhat opaque Qi, I see a thick red line across his neck.
Then his body shimmers away, like a mirage in the desert. Where the Grand Elder stood now was a gourd that was carved in two.
Lady Yue glances skyward, and into the distance. She stared off into the distance for several more seconds before stashing away her sword in her ring and heading back towards the grotto.