Chapter 289

: The Young Lotus in the Lake – Sword Qi
Translator: 3heryl Editor: AntiGod
There were all kinds of weird things in the Hidden Dragon Secret Realm; there were apocalyptic ones, poetic ones, ancient ones, and even more unseen ones. For example, Power fields related to the poetic perspective of darkness that Murong Qingcheng had trained for her martial arts had covered a whole space within it. Once one entered inside, it was almost impossible to tell the direction, and only Murong Qingcheng could benefit from within.
Ye Chen had also learned something as well. Among those sceneries that had combined both movement and stillness, his poetic perspective of fast sword and slow sword had both made some progress. His slow sword poetic perspective had finally gotten powerful enough to be considered useful in a battle. Its attacking power was almost as powerful as his fast blade poetic perspective. Unfortunately, the poetic perspectives in the Hidden Dragon Secret Realm were limited, so he was not able to learn much so far.
Shoo!
Once he threw out a sword attack, the running river had been cut in half due to the invisible sword light.
Placing one foot on each side of the river, Ye Chen threw out another sword attack. It was surprisingly slow, the sword that had been stabbed out had combined together with the back flowing air; it was so frustratingly slow.
Another swoosh sound and the huge rock in the middle of the river was punctured through by that sword attack, which then slowly sank to the bottom of the river.

Check it out! Another set of stairs to go down!
Right then, the young warriors who were walking in the front made a comment.
Everyone looked over and saw a long set of stairs leading towards the level below. The whole Hidden Dragon Secret Realm looked like a bench terrace, having level after another level. However, it had been expanded by countless times, so they could barely see the edges.

The challenges below there should be harder, right?
It was only the first level of the secret realm, and a dozen young warriors had already been eliminated. It was hard to imagine how many of them would fail at the next level.

Who cares! We cannot stay here in the first level forever, right?

The young warriors who were able to make it to the Hidden Dragon Rank were all people with strong minds. After a slight shock, they all stopped being bothered by anything.
The sceneries on both sides of the stairs were extremely beautiful. The Qi flow was very mellow and gentle. Walking within it felt like a nice, chilled out Sunday afternoon walk, and was extremely relaxing.
As Ye Chen watched the sceneries, he thought to himself, ‘If I guessed it right, the Hidden Dragon Secret Realm should be a surreal illusion, which contains numerous poetic perspectives. Perhaps this illusion was built on reality, which is why it is hard to tell if it is real or not.’
With that thought in mind, Ye Chen could not help but have a chill in his back. Whoever created this surreal Hidden Dragon Secret Realm with these powerful poetic perspectives must be so unimaginably powerful!
Ah!!
At the end of the stairs, a young warrior had been blown away by a strong wave of wind. He then was shifted out of the Hidden Dragon Secret Realm.
This was the poetic perspective of wind! And actually, it was a more horrifying poetic perspective of wind!
Right after that came a sudden wave of water, which instantly drowned three shocked young warriors. A huge mountain appeared out of nowhere in the water, and another couple of young warriors were knocked out. It was all happening so fast that there was barely any time to react.

The poetic perspectives have sped up!

Ye Chen thought to himself. ‘Normally, it took a certain time for a warrior to learn about poetic perspectives. When the time was shortened, it challenged the warrior’s comprehensive abilities and reflexes.
Crack!
When Ye Chen reached the second level, the sky suddenly darkened. Dark clouds crumbled as lightning shot out everywhere. That horrifyingly heavy wind had spread out the world with an aggressive aura.

The poetic perspective of the clouds, thunder and wind!

In the first level, there had not been a scene when all three of them had been combined. Ye Chen did not expect it to happen on the second level already.
Among the young generation, all of the warriors who had trained one of those poetic perspectives had already pulled out their weapons and ran towards the wind and thunder. As for the poetic perspective of the clouds, it was not in an attacking mode. So, the warriors would have to try to figure it out as it was, which made it way harder than the poetic perspective of thunder and wind.
Chin!
A sword light flashed as Ye Chen shattered that incoming thunder light with one sword.

Sky Shattering Clouds!

Without using his sword intent, Ye Chen used only the pure power of Sky Shattering Clouds when he took on the aggressive storm and thunder. Each sword attack was more brutal than the last.
BOOOM!
A hundred-meter-long and half-meter-thick thunder stroked from the sky. It seemed like a twisted, unstoppable, great warrior. Some of the young warriors who had trained the poetic perspective of thunder were hit by the after wave and got transported out of the Hidden Dragon Secret Realm.

Break!

Pushing his poetic perspective of thunder and clouds to their limit, Ye Chen threw out a sword attack towards the incoming danger. With a cracking sound, Ye Chen’s whole body was pushed a few steps back. However, the thunder light had been shattered and disappeared into the air.

What an aggressive poetic perspective of thunder!
Ye Chen’s poetic perspective of thunder was built on the usage of the poetic perspective of clouds. So it was not pure, as it was not required to be pure. However, after touching the actual poetic perspective thunder, he could feel his poetic perspective of thunder being compressed and about to be shattered any second. Eventually, his poetic perspective of clouds had embraced his thunder poetic perspective and combined with his own poetic perspectives.
Once his poetic perspective of thunder increased, his poetic perspective of thunder and clouds made some progress as well, and had become way more complete.
After absorbing the thunder poetic perspective, Ye Chen lifted up his head and looked at the dark clouds in the sky. He thought to himself, ‘I should probably try to learn a bit more about the poetic perspective of clouds first, since the poetic perspective of thunder and clouds was based on that of clouds.’
The poetic perspective of clouds was very abstract, which made it extremely hard to learn. But it was also the power source for the poetic perspective of thunder. If Ye Chen did not manage to solve the problem of the poetic perspective of clouds, his thunder poetic perspective would be doomed to stay stuck where it was now.
Throwing out a sword attack, a sword light like thunder shot right into the dark clouds.
Pap! Pop! Pap! Pop!
The dark clouds spread out everywhere through the gaps. They were like countless poisonous snakes, running around playfully and combining with an unspeakable killing intent.
While Ye Chen was over here figuring out the poetic perspective of clouds, the others were all trying their best to figure out their poetic perspectives as well.
Sikong Sheng had taken on the poetic perspective of earth and wind. The first was contained in his Mysterious Sky Tyrant Fist Art while the latter influenced the Sky Palm Art of his.
Yan Chihuo was fighting against the poetic perspective of the earth as well as fire.
For Li Daoxuan, it was the poetic perspective of wind, and the sharp aggressive gold poetic perspective.
Murong Qingcheng fought the poetic perspective of darkness and chaos.
…
As for Xu Jing’s poetic perspective, it was a bit odd. It was composed of countless types of powers. There was vibrating power, puncturing power, lifting power and its opposite power. If it had to be described with only one word, then it probably would be the poetic perspective of power, which was an extremely pure but necessary poetic perspective. Most of the poetic perspectives contained the poetic perspective of power. However, if normal warriors would like to train it, it would be almost impossible, because it was so abstract. Only Xu Jing would be able to extract it out and make it into its own poetic perspective.
The dark clouds over his head disappeared, and so did the lightning. Ye Chen let out a breath, his poetic perspective of clouds had finally reached its next level. Right now, he had already gotten the poetic perspective that would help him combine six movements of his Sky Clouds Sword Art. The only thing missing thing was to actually combine them, which would indeed be his Sky Shattering Clouds.
Scanning around the place, Ye Chen realized that only forty warriors had been remaining. Adding the people that had been eliminated in the first level, thirty people had been sent back.
Pop!
The thunder like sword light cracked open the ground. As Ye Chen put his sword back in its scabbard, the sharpness disappeared completely.
All of the people around him were secretly impressed by his power. They had fought against some poetic perspectives with Ye Chen before. What was different was that Ye Chen had fought against the poetic perspective of thunder and clouds while they had fought the wind poetic perspective. While they were all fighting, they had finally witnessed the power of Ye Chen’s excellent sword arts. All of the dark clouds in the sky had been shattered by him, and it was to be understood that it was still extremely hard for all of them to take on that heavy wind together.
Whooo!
Over on the other side, Yan Chihuo lifted up his blade and waved it out, a straight burning flame shooting out. Wherever it touched, the ground would crack open instantly.
Without knowing if it was on purpose or not, that straight burning flame had shot out towards Ye Chen. It was brutal and aggressive, and a poetic perspective of volcano could be sensed.

The combination of the perspective of earth and fire was not bad. Unfortunately, I am not the same as before either.
Without backing out at all, Ye Chen placed his right hand on his sword. He had only taken out three inches of his Star Scar Sword, and the poetic perspective of thunder and clouds had spread out the place. It attacked towards that incoming flame with its sharp sword Qi.
Swoosh!
The flame went out instantly, disappearing in the air completely.
The thunder-like sword Qi had still not disappeared. It had blown Yan Chihuo back by dozens of steps, which taught him quite a big lesson in case he ever thought about troubling Ye Chen.
Yan Chihuo’s face froze a little bit. He thought that his poetic perspective had made quite a huge progress and had unlocked a lot of his meridians. That was why he wanted to compete with Ye Chen again. He did not expect that Ye Chen had made even bigger progress than he did. Ye Chen did not even need to take out his sword for making him back out. Luckily, it was only meant to be a small competition. If it were serious, then Ye Chen’s seventy percent sword intent would probably kill him instantly.
Li Daoxuan shook his head. He did not want to compete in swords with Ye Chen anymore. Although Yan Chihuo was quite powerful, wanting to reach beyond Ye Chen would take a long, long time.
After that little incident, the remaining warriors walked to the third level.
…
There wasn’t any sudden danger appearing in the third level. It looked extremely peaceful. However, the quieter it was, the more nervous people got. The unknown was always the scariest.
There was a huge mountain in the not so far distance. Visible waves of wind were blowing over there, looking sharp like blades. A couple of them were intrigued, planning to go inspect it. However, none of them was able to make it anywhere near before being sent out by that unnaturally heavy wind.
After that, the others figured that they would have to look for their own poetic perspectives at this level as well, so they scattered around the place. Before Ye Chen had gone too far, he realized that one-thirds of young warriors had been sent out again. It was like someone was eliminated every second. He shook his head and walked towards a valley in the distance.
At the bottom of the valley was a lake. Some young lotuses were growing in the middle of the lake. They all came in different sizes; the largest ones were around three meters while the small ones were a few inches wide.
It was a peaceful lake, reflecting the beautiful sceneries in the surroundings. Without taking a second thought, Ye Chen walked towards the lake.
Shoo!
The lotus that was closest to Ye Chen suddenly turned into a sharp sword Qi, shooting towards Ye Chen. It was so sharp and unstoppable that it looked like an extremely powerful sword art, and it was indeed the lake which had just thrown out the attack.
‘Eh?’ Ye Chen performed his Separating Shadow Flying Art to avoid the sword Qi. Before he was able to do something, a couple of more lotuses had turned into sword Qi. Each one seemed fatal, and was like a great sword artist attacking him.
With no other options, Ye Chen took out his Star Scar Sword and started to fight against the sword Qi. It was so intense that it made Ye Chen exhausted like he had never been before.
After blocking a couple of sword Qi, Ye Chen could not help but frown. In his vision, a huge lotus in the center of the lake had just floated into the air and turned into dozens of sword Qi instantly. That sword Qi was very organized, and the sword aura that came with it was unbelievably powerful. Ye Chen, who stood far away, felt like he had been locked on by it. He felt that no matter where he tried to hide, he would be still found and struck by it.

This is a sword movement!
Ye Chen was shocked by his finding.