If this keeps up, I’m doomed. My strength’s a candle in the wind, while Jing looks like a still lake at dawn—no sweat, no breath, and that Mirror Calm Water heart. No matter how I look at it, there’s no way to win.
We’re both at half-step Divine Realm, but the gap’s a canyon cut by rain. I’m barely at the threshold, and he’s a peak about to break into the heavens.
Sword Intent and Sword Domain can multiply my strikes like thunder rolling through mountains, but if I can’t land a hit, power’s just wind chasing leaves. Frustration knots my chest like tangled reeds—I’m running out of time. What can I do?
“Remember to adapt, or victory will stay out of reach.”
FrostyLily Dream’s words rise again like a moon through clouds. Adapt… right. Against someone with Mirror Calm Water, fixed patterns are footprints in fresh snow—he reads them, and he waits. If every move is predictable, how do you talk about winning?
So, I have to bend like willow and not stand like a dead tree. At the very least, I can’t let him read my motions like ripples on a pond. But how do I adapt? To adapt is to change with the current, not cling to the bank—do something unlike my usual. Hm… that’s close to changing my whole fighting style.
Not a full change, no—just a shift, like turning the blade on the breath. For example: guard when he strikes, but at the instant of impact, turn defense into the spearhead and seize the flow. Against someone like Jing, adaptation is everything; without it, I’ll never touch him, like rain that never reaches the ground.
But changing my style in a heartbeat is hard; my habits have set like clay in the sun. Lately, I’ve leaned on sword arts—techniques that burst like lightning—while my basic swordsmanship has gathered dust like an unused path. Enemies keep growing stronger, and pure swordsmanship feels like a wooden oar in a storm; strong arts hit harder. Unless swordsmanship reaches the third realm, the extreme—the World Sword.
No. For a Sword Wielder, the Three Swords—swordsmanship, Sword Aura, Sword Intent—are three rivers feeding the same sea. None is higher, none is lower. If my basic sword feels weak, it’s my own mountain not yet carved. Look at Xinuo—any casual cut shakes heaven and earth like thunder over a ridge. The strength of plain swordsmanship depends on the hand, not the name.
I’m an idiot. If I keep neglecting plain swordsmanship, I’ll never touch the extreme. If the first and second floors aren’t sturdy, how do you raise the seventh? Try to leap, and you fall like loose tiles in a gale.
“Argh… why did it take me this long to see something so simple?”
I rap my forehead, shame burning like a blush in winter air. Adapting isn’t hard. Fuse basic swordsmanship with sword arts like river meeting sea. Make the switch between them as natural as fingers and palm.
With that, I stop dodging and stop widening the gap; I sprint toward Jing like a hawk stooping on prey. Ranged won’t work, unless I can spam Myriad Swords Unleashed like a storm of needles—but the cost would break my body like a snapped bow. As for ordinary arts, their lines and arcs are already read like calligraphy—useless.
“Oh? Back to close quarters?” His tone is calm as still water. “From your eyes, it seems you’ve had a little epiphany.”
Jing doesn’t move. He waits like a rock in a river, breath flowing so naturally it’s hard to tell if he’s man or water. He’s become one with the lake; his Mirror Calm Water has reached a depth fit for the Lake of Trials’ guardian.
“… ”
I don’t answer. I raise the Shattered Light Sword, pour Sword Aura into the blade like sunlight into ice, and cut sideways toward him.
Clang!
Of course he blocks with breeze-light ease, then uses some subtle trick to knock the Shattered Light Sword aside and send part of my force back like a rebounding wave. I’m not surprised. I slip, a fish through reeds, and avoid the returning bite. I stay close and keep slashing, hunting for a crack like a hunter peering through brush. I know it’s a thin hope, but I still try.
What can I even say—Jing doesn’t show a seam, not a thread. No matter the angle, he steps away first or breaks my form, and I’m the one pushed back like a boat in a current. Luckily, my Sword Intent can just barely sketch his next motion like wind reading grass, so I haven’t fallen yet. But only just. If I don’t find something now, I’m done.
The Sword Aura on the Shattered Light Sword keeps thickening, a gold tide under glass; it’s near its limit. I need one shot, a single strike that must land. I can’t whiff this. This floor clears only if I land three effective hits on Jing, and so far, I haven’t scored even one.
Time drips away like water from a blade.
Our fight grows fiercer, blade and sword colliding, cracking the calm lake like ice in spring and carving deep grooves in the surface. Countless water-beasts get dragged into it and die like minnows in a net.
The Sword Aura on my Shattered Light Sword hits its peak, blazing with golden light like a small sun, beautiful and blinding. The power inside hums like a caged thunderhead.
“This is… a frightening power.” For the first time, weight enters Jing’s face like a cloud over a mirror. His strikes turn sharper, rain turning to hail, and he clearly won’t let me release it. Even if he didn’t, I can’t easily fire it—no opening, no fault line to drive the wedge.
Everything’s ready, and I’m just waiting for the east wind. With Mirror Calm Water, under normal play, I probably fail again. But what if I refuse the “normal”? Right now, we’re crossing pure swordsmanship, and his attention is pinned to the Shattered Light Sword like a hawk on bait.
Heh… it’s a bit dirty, like a fox bite in the dark, but I’ve got no time for pride.
I steel myself like drawing a bow—and I lift my foot and drive a kick straight for his groin.
“What?!”
Of course he can’t predict the move that breaks the script. He jolts like a startled hare and hops back several steps. Exhale. Finally, an opening blooms like ice cracking.
I waste not a heartbeat, shaving away every extra motion like carving jade. I unleash the art I’ve been saving.
Absolute Sword: Beast Hunt!
The Sword Aura on the Shattered Light Sword has long since hit its ceiling. It erupts like a peerless beast freed after years in chains, charging straight ahead and venting all its pent-up fury.
Pfft!
The result is simple: taking my full-force strike head-on, Jing sprays a mouthful of blood like red plum blossoms in snow. He’d raised a guard, but a common block meant little; anything else was too slow. He turns into a streak of light and flies back, and the lake erupts in towering waves like a storm-tossed sea.
