Chapter 322

– The Appearance of a Sword Intent
The surface of the water began to ripple faster and faster, more and more frequently. The ripples that spread in all directions were slowly pushed together, knocking and tearing at each other. In the end, they transformed into countless drops of water and were knocked from the surface of the water, combining with the bits of grass that were ground into dust. It formed a faint green mist which was slightly transparent. In the light from far away, an extremely faint shadow could be vaguely seen.
The shadow was very thin and straight, like a straight stroke that had not been finished. It was as if an infinite amount of lake water had been poured into the ink that drew the line, giving one a feeling that although the thin shadow was in the mist, it seemed to be elsewhere. Although it was clearly before their eyes, it was as if it did not exist. Even if it seemed to exist in another world, it was only the shadow of a real object in the Garden of Zhou.
The green mist was the boundary between the real world and other worlds. Logically, this barrier that separated space should have been extremely stable. However, in the next moment after it had appeared, the green mist dispersed. The speed at which it dispersed was so fast that even the surrounding space could not react in time. As a result, a terrifying hurricane formed in the grassland.
—In an extremely short amount of time, the thing expanded rapidly. Actually, it was an explosion. To describe the scene at that moment in simpler words, it should be said that the green mist exploded. However, this explosion did not create any sounds, other than the whistling of the wind; the silence was abnormally terrifying.
Being silent did not mean it was soft and powerless. Countless terrifying Qis and an unimaginable, shapeless cutting edge dispersed with the green mist, expanding into the surroundings of the grasslands. They easily caught up with and surpassed the hurricane caused by the distortion of space, and came in contact with the living and non-living things in the grassland first.
No matter if it was the wild reeds or special golden bells in the southern swamps, countless bushes were cut into shreds, transforming into a wave of fluttering green rain. It fell everywhere with swishing sounds. Even the rocks within the bushes were cut, turning into pebbles the size of fingernails. They were blown into the water of the wetlands like arrows, knocking the frogs and fish hidden in the mud unconscious. Closely following, those frogs and fish were also torn into pieces. No matter if it was scales or fish fins, they were all ground into dust. The ground of the wetlands were also broken into pieces, as if it had been plowed seventy-two times by a hard-working but dumb farmer. In the end, the water broke, transforming into countless droplets of water. The air also broke, transforming into countless soft breezes.
The green mist dispersed, and the thin shadow finally revealed its true appearance.
In a range of over ten li in the grassland, everything was chopped into pieces. It was a piece of flat wilderness, with everything ground into fine dust.
The true appearance of the shadow was still a shadow. It seemed extremely blurry, and could not be clearly seen, but it could be roughly seen. It was a… sword.
This thin shadow was not the sword itself, but the shadow of a sword. In other words, it was a strand of sword intent.
When the sword intent appeared and chopped everything, the entire Plains of the Unsetting Sun, or even the entire Garden of Zhou could feel it. An extremely profound tremble spread out from the depths under the Mausoleum of Zhou. In the black ocean formed by the monster tide, it caused countless wild swells. This was the reaction of the countless monsters to the sword intent. The terrifying shadow in the sky grew even lower, as if it was going to envelop the entire grassland. Before the main entrance of the Mausoleum of Zhou, Nanke suddenly turned around and gazed into the depths of the grassland. She squinted her eyes, and her normal indifferent or even lifeless expression became extremely sharp. Afterwards, no matter if it was the innumerable monsters or her, or even the shadow in the sky, all could see the flat wilderness that had a circumference of ten li. However, they could not see the sword.
It was because before this, a breeze arose from the area of grassland.
The sword intent travelled with the wind and disappeared with the wind. It was quiet without a sound, and could disappear without a trace, so naturally, it could not be seen.
No one had felt the strand of sword intent traverse the dusky grasslands with the soft and long breeze. It entered the dark clouds, ignored the rain that fell from the sky and arrived before Zhou Dufu’s mausoleum. Afterwards, like a stamen of winter sweets, it fell onto the ground that was covered in a thick layer of snow, and—just like the first flow of water from upstream that flowed into a riverbed that had been dry for thousands of years—it disappeared into the mausoleum.
Naturally, no one had discovered where the sword intent went.
Chen Changsheng raised the umbrella with his left hand at an angle. He did not block the rain, and was only preparing to block Nanke’s attack. His whole body had already become wet from the rain.
The rain slowly turned into a shower, and the pearl-sized water droplets constantly hit the surface of the umbrella, creating sounds like a drum beating.
The Yellow Paper Umbrella began to tremble slightly. The tremble spread into the handle of the umbrella from the surface and ribs, and then clearly spread into his hand, into his body and into his heart.
The sound of rain slowly grew louder, but the tall platform before the mausoleum seemed extremely silent.
Nanke turned around, and looked at him with no expression. For some reason, she felt that the teenager that was wet all over and in a sorry shape was slightly different from before. She did not know where this feeling came from, or that it was somewhat related to the abnormalities that occurred in the grassland before. However, she knew that something was about to happen. She did not accept any changes that would have stopped her from entering this great mausoleum, so she decided to end this battle before the changes arrived. It was just that she was unaware the changes had already occurred.
The swish was not the sound of the torrential rain, but the sound of two wings unfurling in the rain.
The green wings of over ten zhang in width unfurled behind her, accompanied by two streams of rainwater. They reflected the dusky light, causing the droplets of water to seem like droplets of blood. It was beautiful but also hair-raising.
The green wings suddenly flapped, causing crazy gusts of wind to rise on the stone platform before the main entrance. The droplets of water that fell from the sky were all shot away consecutively. A powerful Qi knocked all the rain back into the sky. Nanke disappeared from the edge of the stone platform, and in the next moment, she attacked Chen Changsheng with a few droplets of remaining blood and an extremely cold killing intent.
Chen Changsheng’s gaze passed through these droplets of rain and the cold winds, and met with the small girl’s gaze. He only saw her cold and resolute determination to kill. In that moment, his eyelashes stopped trembling from the cold wind due to the killing intent. The terrifying, full-powered strike of the small Demon Princess actually caused him to fear that he could not resist it.
Although he thought like this, he did not give up, because he wanted to continue living. As a result, he grasped the dagger, and chopped towards the rain and cold wind before his eyes.
Afterwards, in the moment when he swung the dagger, he felt an extremely different feeling, so much that even his arm became stiff.
He did not have confidence that this strike could block Nanke’s full-powered blow.
However, for some reason, he felt that he seemed to be very confident in the dagger in his hand.
The dagger pierced into the cold wind and rain.
The cold wind suddenly dispersed, and the cold rain suddenly stopped.
Only for a moment, the edge of the dagger broke through this storm, and arrived before Nanke’s forehead.
The sword energy of this strike was not stable, his heart of the sword was not calm, and nor did he use any sword move.
However, the sword intent was unbelievably strong.