Chapter 40: A Rainbow Rises Over the Grassland
With a sharp crack, the short sword in Chen Changsheng’s hand accurately struck Nanke’s wrist. If not for the incredibly mysterious finger strike she had executed earlier, which caused the short sword’s blade to drift like willow catkins, forcing him to follow its momentum to bring it down as quickly as possible, he could have forcibly twisted his wrist and cut into her wrist with the blade.
Even though he couldn’t, his seemingly subtle sword strike still contained immense power. Even an adult demon general couldn’t ignore it, yet Nanke’s expression remained unchanged, as if she felt nothing. That finger, as sharp as a tail feather, though deviating from its original path, still pressed forward stubbornly and accurately pierced his chest and abdomen.
A spring thunderclap erupted on the high platform before the mausoleum. Chen Changsheng’s body turned into a streak of light as he shot backward, crashing heavily against the mausoleum’s stone door with a dull thud. Dust and smoke sprayed out through the cracks in the door and the gaps between the door and the ground, spreading across the stone platform and blurring the scene.
Amid the rustling of clothes against the rough stone surface, Chen Changsheng slid from the stone door to the ground. His knees were slightly bent, his face pale. The blood rising in his throat was forcibly swallowed back into his stomach, but the pain from the violent shock to his Sea of Consciousness could not be eliminated. Worse still, the Spirit Mountain where his Hidden Mansion resided inside him shed countless stone fragments. Nanke’s seemingly casual strike had nearly left him severely injured and unable to rise.
His bent knees gradually straightened. The surging blood and true essence slowly calmed. He stood up, staring into Nanke’s eyes, waiting for the next attack.
Nanke did not immediately launch a second attack. Instead, she looked at his left hand.
Chen Changsheng held the short sword in his right hand, and in his left hand, he carried a yellow paper umbrella. After leaving the mausoleum, he had kept this umbrella in his grip.
Earlier, Nanke’s finger hadn’t directly pierced his chest and abdomen; it had struck the umbrella’s surface.
Like many young girls, Nanke’s eyebrows were very thin and somewhat faint. Now, as she looked at the yellow paper umbrella in his hand, her eyebrows arched upward, showing some surprise. She had heard the detailed reports from the maids Hua Cui and Ning Qiu about their battle with Chen Changsheng and knew that this human youth had an old umbrella, one that was somewhat peculiar. But only at that moment, when the terrifying killing intent and power condensed in her finger were entirely blocked by the umbrella, did she understand what that peculiarity was. What truly surprised her, however, was that Chen Changsheng hadn’t been knocked down and had actually stood up.
Even with that old umbrella’s defensive ability, which exceeded imagination, as a barrier, the vast majority of her power must have landed on Chen Changsheng. He wasn’t Xu Yourong, nor was he the demon princess named Luo Luo. He didn’t have sufficiently powerful bloodline talents. Even if he had undergone a perfect marrow cleansing, in principle, he shouldn’t have been able to withstand it. How could he still stand?
She didn’t dwell on it. Some accidental surprises couldn’t change the overall situation.
This great mausoleum would be inherited by her, and that adulterous pair, Xu Yourong and Chen Changsheng, would inevitably die by her hand.
“Your Yashi Step is wrong,” she said to Chen Changsheng, looking at him.
Behind her, the beast tide on the grassland was like a sea, and the shadows in the sky were like night.
As she said this, her chin lifted slightly, her expression indifferent. Though she was much shorter than Chen Changsheng, she looked down on him. Though she was younger than him, her tone was like that of a teacher instructing a student. Though she was just a petite, even frail young girl, she seemed like a grandmaster of a generation.
Chen Changsheng knew she wasn’t wrong. His Yashi Step originated from the inspiration of a Yashi tribesman who had attempted to assassinate Luo Luo and from discoveries in the Daoist Canon. It was merely a simplified version. More precisely, this version of the Yashi Step was an imitation attempted by some ancient sage within the State Religion countless years ago.
Nanke wasn’t a Yashi tribesman, but she was a member of the demon race’s most noble and pure-blooded royal family. Her bloodline talent allowed her to master the Yashi Step, and it was the perfect version.
Using the Yashi Step to fight against her was, admittedly, a very foolish thing.
The reason Nanke said this was because Chen Changsheng’s “Mountain-Toppling Staff” from the National Academy had a very clear tone of reprimand, which displeased her. She wanted to make him understand who truly had the right to teach the other a lesson.
Having said that, her goal was achieved, so naturally, she wouldn’t waste more words.
Her figure vanished abruptly at the edge of the stone platform. The next moment, she reappeared before Chen Changsheng, still thrusting a finger at him, still aimed at his brow.
Dozens of days earlier, in the wetland at the edge of the grassland, he had looked at her on the shore and said she was sick, said she had a squint, said the pineal gland in her brow had issues from being stretched by her powerful soul. So today, she would poke a bloody hole in his brow to see if he had any problems inside, and also to see which was uglier: three eyes or a squint.
She was a demon princess with astonishing bloodline talent, but after all, she was just a young girl of about ten. Sulking was inevitable, but her attack was by no means a joke—it was terrifying.
Having suffered a crushing defeat in the previous exchange, Chen Changsheng knew for certain that he couldn’t be faster than her, whether in movement or sword speed. So he had no way to launch a preemptive strike; he could only defend.
The cold wind within the mausoleum suddenly intensified, as if deep winter had arrived. Countless sword lights flickered around him, then faded, like the first rays of sunlight illuminating snowflakes before a village in the early morning.
The chilling power of Xuan Shuang flowed out with his sword momentum, transforming into hundreds of ice mirrors before the main gate of the mausoleum. The shapes and textures of these ice mirrors were perfectly rounded, each one a manifestation of his sword intent.
With a crisp crack, the ice mirrors shattered into countless frost shards that flew outward, forming a snowball in the dim air before breaking apart.
Almost at the same moment, dozens of ice mirrors before his eyes shattered simultaneously.
A strange snowfall began before the main gate of the mausoleum. The snow particles were hard, even carrying ice crystals, and the cold wind grew fiercer.
In the midst of the wind and snow, a clearly defined void appeared. Anyone could see it was the result of a small, slender figure.
The cold wind brushed against Chen Changsheng’s face, causing his long eyelashes to tremble incessantly.
Nanke’s figure appeared, still with that slender finger, still aimed at his brow.
With a whoosh, Chen Changsheng opened the yellow paper umbrella with his left hand, while his right hand swung the short sword down in a mid-strike—the True Sword of the National Academy.
Nanke’s fingertip landed on the umbrella’s surface, like a branch poking into a heavy, damp quilt, producing a faint, muffled thud.
Then she drifted back gracefully, evading that supremely pure sword momentum, and returned to the edge of the stone platform. Her wings fluttered slowly amid the falling snow and frost.
Her finger wasn’t a branch; it was a mountain.
Chen Changsheng’s body was sent flying again, crashing heavily into the mausoleum’s stone door.
He had stood very close to the stone door, but the impact was even heavier. The rainwater and snow accumulated on the ground even leaped up from the force of the collision.
Dust and smoke rose again. He slid from the stone door to the ground. This time, it took him longer to struggle to his feet. By then, the dust and smoke had settled.
Looking at Nanke standing at the edge of the stone platform, his gaze didn’t waver, but there was some helplessness.
This little demon princess was simply too powerful, to the point of being terrifying.
Whether in the quantity and intensity of true essence, or in cultivation realm and combat awareness, or in the most basic yet crucial aspects of strength and speed, he was far inferior to her.
Now, his sword heart was clear and bright, his sword intent pure and dust-free, nearly perfect, like the ice mirrors he had conjured with his sword earlier.
Yet these perfectly formed ice mirrors, born of perfect sword intent, were… utterly fragile before this little demon princess.
She was a great mountain.
No matter how beautiful the garden architecture, no matter how flawless the state of mind, no matter how strong the body, no matter how cold the sword intent, it would all be crushed to powder by this mountain.
How could he defeat her?
Unless he possessed her bloodline talent, her quantity of true essence.
But he didn’t.
The blocked meridians in his body destined him to struggle to live past twenty, and also destined his path of cultivation to be far more difficult than that of ordinary cultivators in certain aspects. Even if he drew in more starlight, stored more lake water outside his Hidden Mansion, or absorbed thicker snowfields in the wilderness, no matter how recklessly he burned himself without fear of death, he still couldn’t output enough true essence.
So he had only one method: to make his sword stronger.
Three thousand Daoist Canons, ten thousand sword techniques—they were all there, waiting to be read and cultivated. Even if he could recite them backward, they were still just three thousand Daoist Canons and ten thousand sword techniques.
To make his sword stronger in a short time had nothing to do with sword techniques or forms; it could only be achieved by strengthening his sword intent.
Or, to find a more powerful sword intent.
Where could he find such a powerful sword intent?
Had everything come to this, finally reaching the end?
No, Chen Changsheng didn’t think so, because it was precisely a sword intent that had led him across the vast grassland to this mausoleum.
These past days, he had been pondering what it meant for that sword intent to summon him here. Did that sword intent need him to do something? Now, it seemed this speculation might not be wrong, but at this very moment, it wasn’t that the sword intent needed him—it was that he needed that sword intent.
That sword intent was all around this magnificent mausoleum, hidden for some reason.
That sword intent must be waiting for him.
The Never-Setting Grassland was gloomy at dusk. The distant sky was obscured by that terrifying shadow. The cold, bloody scent emanating from the beast tide, like a black ocean on the grassland, continuously drifted upward into the air. Perhaps because of this, many dark clouds gradually gathered above the mausoleum, and the air turned damp and cold.
Without warning, a cold rain began to fall, soaking the massive stones of the mausoleum and deepening the colors of the world.
Xu Yourong, wrapped in linen, leaned in a corner beside the main gate of the mausoleum, unafraid of being drenched by the cold rain.
Chen Changsheng stood in the cold rain, holding the yellow paper umbrella, looking at Nanke at the edge of the stone platform, lost in thought.
Suddenly, his eyes lit up.
Not because Nanke radiated light, not because he had thought of something, but because his gaze passed over Nanke and landed deep in the distant grassland, where he saw a rainbow.
That rainbow should more accurately be called a light rainbow, because it had no seven colors—it was simply dazzling white.
The light in his eyes was the reflection of that light rainbow.
The yellow paper umbrella in his hand trembled slightly.
That light rainbow rose from tens of miles away to the northwest.
There, no rain fell on the grassland. Beneath the wild grass and reeds, there were countless pools of water, making it more like a sea.
There was a wild blade of grass that suddenly shattered.
The surface of the water in the grass, as calm as a mirror, also suddenly shattered.
The grass shattered into fragments, the water shattered into ripples.
Those ripples closely resembled the common patterns seen on sword blades.
(Regarding the annual votes, everyone, just cast your free votes daily. I say this very seriously. Also, vote for the work itself. If the votes are split between two categories, the deputy moderators will be driven to spit blood… Actually, for this part of the plot, I will definitely be spitting blood. I can’t say I’m not good at writing battle scenes, because I’ve written many good battle sequences. But when writing battles, I do have to expend countless times the energy and my already limited IQ. Everyone knows, at heart, I’m still a romance novelist, aren’t I? See you all tomorrow.)