The Word-Sword and the Embrace

Yu Wei understood that the moment of life and death had truly arrived. A flash of blood-red light covered her entire body, forming a blood-colored Grand Taisymbol.

Swish!

Transformed into a streak of blood-colored rainbow light, Yu Wei explosively retreated over a hundred zhang before collapsing to the ground. Black blood trickled from her mouth. A gruesome wound was visible in her abdomen, the gash filled with black blood.

Ji Ning stared at this scene, watching as his senior apprentice-sister was pierced through the abdomen by Xiamang Qi’s palm, collapsing to the ground while coughing up blood. In that instant, Ji Ning’s eyes turned red.

An uncontrollable wave of fear and fury instantly flooded his entire heart.

“AAAAAH!!!” Ji Ning let out a howling roar.

Endless killing intent filled every corner of his soul.

Kill! Kill! Kill!

Kill everything!

Kill every obstacle in the way!

“Go ahead and rage. It’s useless.” The dirty girl continued to entangle Ji Ning, seemingly taking pleasure in his torment.

“CHOP!” Ji Ning let out a furious roar.

This roar came from the deepest part of his heart, from the very depths of his soul.

With three heads and six arms, Ji Ning swung all six Immortal swords simultaneously. Six enormous streaks of sword-light instantly blazed forth, their radiance blinding, transforming into six strands of silk… ‘Sword-light silken strands!’ Nothing could stand in his way; he would cleave through all obstacles!

An unprecedented thirst for slaughter, an unprecedented determination.

Combined with the close to ten thousand life-and-death battles over the past year—which had been more useful than a decade of meditation—the ‘Three-Foot Sword’ art that ‘Northwalker Immortal’ had transmitted into the depths of Ji Ning’s soul surfaced once more. The boundless, terrifying killing intent, the indomitable determination, the utterly penetrating Sword Heart… together with his prior insights, directly prompted Ji Ning to execute the seventh stance of the Three-Foot Sword.

The seventh stance of the Three-Foot Sword — The Word-Sword Chop!

Swish! Swish! Swish! Swish! Swish! Swish!

Six sword-lights, as fine as silk, swept across the dirty girl’s body. When the first stroke landed, her expression changed. The very first strike had directly severed one of her palms. Her flesh, which was as hard as a magic treasure, was simply unable to withstand such razor-sharp sword-light.

“Fall back!” The dirty girl no longer had any of her previous ease; in fact, a hint of panic had entered her voice. She fled backwards frantically.

“Swish.”

One of her arms flew through the air, and a deep, massive wound was left across her chest as well.

But she ultimately managed to retreat. Her Fiendgod body began to rapidly regenerate. She stared at Ji Ning with a mixture of shock and fury. “Sword-light silken strands! He’s actually reached such a level!”

“Sword-light in silken strands!”

“He’s only been cultivating for just over thirty years, and yet he’s already reached the ‘Sword-light Silken Strands’ level? He truly is a rare genius of the Dao of the Sword.”

“He truly has a chance to vie for first place in this Immortal Fortunes Assembly. Even Xiamang Zishan might not be a match for him.”

Within the main hall of the Tianshun Hall, the nine Pure Yang True Immortals and the nearly thousand Celestial Immortals were all startled, and soon sighs of admiration rang out.

Sword-light silken strands…

It represented having reached a truly profound and exalted realm in the ‘Dao of the Sword’. The seventh stance of the Three-Foot Sword, the ‘Word-Sword Chop’, was a technique operating at this level of ‘sword-light as fine as silk’.

In truth, the final three stances of the ‘Three-Foot Sword’—the seventh, eighth, and ninth—were each exponentially more terrifying than the last. Even the Northwalker Immortal, with all his power, had been unable to commit them to writing in a book.

The first six stances of the ‘Three-Foot Sword’ could be considered a gradual progression, designed to guide a cultivator step by step to the ‘Domain of the Dao’ level. The advancement between each stance was not too great, as these first six stances emphasized a steady, cumulative approach. Their primary purpose was ‘instruction’ for later generations, and since they were compiled into a manual, each stance naturally offered only a minor improvement, making them easier to cultivate.

But the final three stances, which could not be recorded in any book, were a realm where power increased explosively.

The seventh stance alone was already comparable to a thirty-thousand-year Loose Immortal sword immortal.

The eighth stance rivaled an ordinary Celestial Immortal.

The ninth stance was considered top-tier even among Celestial Immortals. It was precisely by relying on this ninth stance that the Northwalker Immortal, despite being a Loose Immortal, could match a true Celestial Immortal!

These three stances… each represented a massive leap forward.

Each stance possessed enormously increased power.

Yu Wei lay there, straining to control her magic treasures, a black phoenix and a white phoenix swirling into form before her. A jade bottle appeared in her hand; she shattered it with her elemental energy, and a pill flew directly into her mouth.

“Hum…” The wound on her abdomen rapidly began to heal.

‘Ten Thousand Venoms Stinger.’ Yu Wei understood the trouble she was in.

The Ten Thousand Venoms Stinger was a divine ability that the Black-White College also possessed.

However, the Grand Xia imperial clan had a vast treasury of divine abilities. Among them was the Ten Thousand Venoms Stinger, which the Grand Xia imperial clan did indeed possess. Xiamang Qi had cultivated this very ability. The Ten Thousand Venoms Stinger was an exceptionally venomous art; it required the user to refine vast quantities of strange poisons into their body. As a genius of the imperial clan, Xiamang Qi naturally had access to rare and deadly poisons, making the ‘Ten Thousand Venoms Stinger’ he had cultivated especially vicious.

One touch, and you were instantly poisoned.

If it were a Fiendgod Body Refiner, they would not have feared it, but Yu Wei practiced Ki Refining. Her physical body’s resistance was insufficient, so she could only rely on pills. As for suppressing the toxins of the Ten Thousand Venoms Stinger… Yu Wei simply didn’t have pills that precious on hand.

“Die!” From afar, Xiamang Qi came howling with laughter as he charged forward. However, a streak of golden sword-light flew towards him—it was the sword-light from the Lesser Thousand Sword Formation.

“Although this formation’s sword-light is fairly powerful, it can’t even budge me.” Xiamang Qi had already blocked it several times before. This time, he once again swung his warblade to meet the sword-light.

Swish!

The sword-light was as fine as silk, yet its power was astonishing. Caught off guard, Xiamang Qi’s warblade was blasted out of his hands. His tiger-mouth palms split open, and the force of the blow sent him stumbling backwards repeatedly.

But by now, Ji Ning, moving at an astonishing speed, had already charged to close range. Xiamang Qi flipped his hands, producing a warblade in each.

“Die.” The three-headed, six-armed Ji Ning was incomparably ferocious. Six sword-lights formed a massive, spinning wheel, howling as they swept past in a flurry of six strikes.

Xiamang Qi’s eyes flew wide open as he was chopped into pieces.

A Water-Fire Lotus bloomed into being, wrapping around the shattered chunks of flesh and bone, madly grinding them to dust.

“NO!” Xiamang Qi’s soul roared in fury.

And yet, it was ground into nothingness nonetheless.

“What?!” Danzhu Realperson, Feixue Realperson, and Zhuanshui Qi were all greatly shocked. He had killed Xiamang Qi in a single exchange? Ji Ning’s power had skyrocketed this much all of a sudden?

“All of you deserve death.”

Ji Ning turned and pounced directly towards the nearest target: Feixue Realperson.

“Run!”

Having witnessed Ji Ning’s savagery earlier, Danzhu Realperson, Feixue Realperson, and Zhuanshui Qi did not dare to withstand him head-on. They all frantically fled outwards.

“Open.” The dark-skinned, bald youth known as ‘Blackstone Realperson’, who had been controlling the Sealing Formation the entire time, quickly deactivated it.

Swish! Swish! Swish!

Danzhu Realperson, Feixue Realperson, and Zhuanshui Qi all charged out of the Sealing Formation. The moment the three of them were outside, Blackstone Realperson’s mind moved again, reactivating the Sealing Formation. The barrier of light reappeared.

“OPEN FOR ME!” Ji Ning howled, his sword-light transforming into silken strands. Six beams of sword-light struck the Sealing Formation.

Boom!

The formation was directly torn apart. The three-headed, six-armed Ji Ning charged straight out of the Sealing Formation.

“What?!” Feixue Realperson, who had just breathed a sigh of relief outside the formation, stared in shock. She tried to flee, but her running speed was no match for Ji Ning, a Fiendgod Body Refiner. She frantically waved her horsetail whisk, and thousands of white strands formed a dense, strange protective white fox around her. At the same time, she hurled out a large number of talismans, urgently sending a mental message: “I’ll give you the talismans! Spare my life!”

“Swish, swish, swish…” Another six beams of sword-light swept out, directly scattering the white fox and killing Feixue Realperson.

Too fast.

Ji Ning’s six arms wielded his sword-light with such speed that Feixue Realperson, despite throwing out her talismans, was killed by Ji Ning before she could even be teleported away.

Zhuanshui Qi and Danzhu Realperson were both terrified by Ji Ning’s madness. Although Danzhu Realperson was quite powerful, she was a Ki Refiner… how could she dare to fight to the death against Ji Ning?

Swish! Swish!

Zhuanshui Qi and Danzhu Realperson both flew far away, escaping to a safe distance.

The dark-skinned, bald youth ‘Blackstone Realperson’ withdrew his Sealing Formation. The dirty girl, Ninefate Recluse, stood at his side. At this moment, Ninefate Recluse had silver gloves on her hands.

“Let’s go. Now is not the time to fight him to the death,” Blackstone Realperson sent mentally.

Ninefate Recluse gritted her teeth and glanced at Ji Ning.

“Let’s go.”

The two of them were decisive. They both realized that Ji Ning’s power had already grown to a level that could threaten them. If they really fought to the death, they had no confidence at all. Besides, they had long since gathered enough talismans, so there was no need for them to fight now.

Swish! Swish!

The two of them departed swiftly.

In his explosive outburst, Ji Ning had killed both Xiamang Qi and Feixue Realperson in succession, frightening off Zhuanshui Qi and Danzhu Realperson, and forcing even Ninefate Recluse and Blackstone Realperson to temporarily retreat.

“Hmph.” With his murderous intent surging to the heavens, Ji Ning swept his gaze across his surroundings. He waved his hand, collecting the magic treasures Feixue Realperson had left behind, then quickly hurried back to his senior apprentice-sister’s side. Once he reached her, he immediately reverted to his normal appearance.

“Senior apprentice-sister.” Ji Ning looked at Yu Wei. Her face was dark gray, tainted by the poison, and he became frantic with worry. Yu Wei struggled to sit upright, smiling as she looked at Ji Ning.

He had seen it just now. It was the divine ability Xiamang Qi had used, the ‘Ten Thousand Venoms Stinger’.

This divine ability was one which the Yellow-haired Bear, the spirit of the aquatic palace, had forbidden him from cultivating. Although it was quite useful when one was weak, once one grew strong in the future, one would likely have to abandon it.

But there was no denying it… this divine ability was absolutely terrifying. Being touched by it meant being poisoned with a deadly toxin, drastically reducing one’s combat power!

“I have some detoxifying pills here; maybe they can suppress it…” Ji Ning said anxiously.

“It’s fine. I’ll be fine.” Yu Wei sat there, looking at Ji Ning with a gentle smile as she softly shook her head. When she saw how frantic he had become, her heart was filled with a profound sense of happiness.

Seeing his senior apprentice-sister like this, Ji Ning felt a surge of lingering fear and heartache.

Without a second thought, he grabbed her and pulled her into a tight embrace.

Held in Ji Ning’s arms, Yu Wei felt the burning heat radiating from his entire body as it pressed against her neck. She was stunned.

“I don’t want to hesitate anymore,” Ji Ning murmured softly by her ear. “I don’t want to regret it. I don’t want to regret it. I was truly terrified that you would die just now. If you had died, would I still have hesitated then?”

Yu Wei reached out her own hands and tightly hugged him back, a smile spreading across her face as tears flowed from her eyes.

Within the main hall of the Tianshun Hall.

Lu Dongbin suddenly slammed his hand down on the table, sending immortal fruits and celestial wines flying. He rose to his feet, pointed at the enormous image of the Brightmoon Mountain-and-Water Scenery, where Ji Ning and Yu Wei were embracing, and roared with laughter: “YES! That’s how it should be! That’s right! Dilly-dallying is so unbecoming! If they had missed this chance within the Brightmoon Scenery, they would never have gotten together in their lives. If you want to be together, you have to seize the opportunity. When your heart is moved, you have to act! They’ve already been through life and death together so many times, and they still don’t understand what’s in their own hearts? All that hesitation! Hahaha, but not bad, not bad… on this very last month, they’ve finally embraced.”

Fourth chapter done! It’s Monday, asking for recommendation tickets!