Chapter 41: The Appearance of a Sword Intent
The water surface trembled faster and faster, the ripples growing denser, the spreading patterns gradually crowding together, colliding and tearing at each other, ultimately transforming into countless droplets, shaken free from the surface, mingling with the shattered grass fragments ground to powder, forming a pale green misty mass, somewhat translucent. As distant light pierced through it, one could faintly make out an extremely ethereal shadow.
That shadow was very thin and very straight, like an unfinished line, extremely faint, as if the ink used to draw this line had been diluted with countless hectares of lake water. It gave one the feeling that this thin shadow, though clearly within the mist, seemed to be elsewhere; though right before one's eyes, seemed not to exist; and even if it did exist, it existed in another world, merely a projection of some real object within the Zhou Garden.
That mass of green water mist was the boundary between the real world and that other world. Logically, such a barrier isolating space should have been exceptionally sturdy. Yet, the moment after it appeared, the green water mist dispersed. It scattered so swiftly that the surrounding space had no time to react, and a terrifying hurricane erupted across the grassland.
— In an extremely short span of time, the object expanded violently. In simple terms, this was an explosion. To describe the scene in plain language, one should say that the green water mist exploded. Only, this explosion made no sound. Aside from the howling wind, it was eerily, terrifyingly silent.
Silence did not mean gentleness or weakness. Countless terrifying auras and unimaginable invisible sharp edges, along with the dissipation of the green water mist, spread outward across the grassland, effortlessly catching up to and then surpassing the hurricane displaced by the spatial distortion, being the first to reach the living and lifeless things within the grassland.
Whether it was wild reeds or the unique hanging golden bells of the southern marshes, countless clumps of grass were shredded, turning into a fluttering green flurry of confetti, rustling and scattering everywhere. The stones within the grass were also shattered, becoming fingernail-sized gravel, shot like sharp arrows by the wind through the wetland water, stunning the frogs and fish hidden in the mud. Then, those frogs and fish were also destroyed, scales and fins alike reduced to powder. The ground of the wetland was also shattered, as if tilled seventy-two times by a diligent but foolish farmer. Finally, the water surface shattered into countless droplets, and the air itself shattered into countless light, drifting breezes.
The green water mist scattered, and that thin shadow finally revealed its true form.
Within a radius of over ten li of the grassland, everything was utterly shredded, a flat plain where all things were ground to dust.
The true form of that thin shadow was still a shadow, extremely faint and indistinct, impossible to see clearly. One could only roughly make out that it was... a sword.
This thin shadow was not the true body of a sword, but the shadow of a sword, or rather, a sword intent.
When that sword intent shattered all things and revealed its true form, the entire Never-Setting Sun Grassland, indeed the entire Zhou Garden, sensed it. An extremely deep tremor came from the depths of the Zhou Mausoleum. Within the black ocean formed by the beast tide, countless wild waves surged—that was the movement of tens of thousands of beasts turning to look at that sword intent. The terrifying shadow in the sky lowered even further, as if about to cover the entire grassland. Before the main gate of the mausoleum, Nan Ke suddenly turned around, gazing into the depths of the grassland, her eyes narrowing. Her usual indifferent, even dull gaze became incredibly sharp. However, whether it was the tens of thousands of beasts, or her, or even that shadow in the sky, they all only saw the ten-li-wide flat plain in the depths of the grassland, but none could see that sword shadow.
Because before that, a gentle breeze had swept across that grassland.
That sword intent went with the wind, vanished with the wind, silent in an instant, gone without a trace, naturally leaving no shadow.
No one noticed that this sword intent, following this leisurely breeze, traversed the dim grassland, entered the dark clouds, ignored the rain falling from the sky, and arrived before the mausoleum of Zhou Dufu. Then, like the first stamen of a winter plum blossom falling onto a land covered in thick snow, like the first trickle of muddy water from upstream flowing into a riverbed that had been dry for a thousand years, it vanished into the mausoleum.
Naturally, even fewer could discover where this sword intent had gone.
Chen Changsheng held his umbrella slanted in his left hand, not to shield himself from the rain, but only to guard against Nan Ke's attack. His entire body was already soaked through.
The rain grew heavier. Water droplets the size of pearls continuously struck the surface of the yellow paper umbrella, producing a drumming sound.
The yellow paper umbrella trembled slightly. That tremor traveled down the umbrella's surface and ribs to the handle, then clearly transmitted to his hand, his body, his heart.
The sound of rain grew louder, yet the high platform before the mausoleum seemed incomparably quiet.
Nan Ke turned around, expressionless, staring at him. For some reason, she felt that this thoroughly drenched, utterly bedraggled-looking youth had become somewhat different from before. She didn't know where this feeling came from, or what connection it had to the earlier anomaly in the grassland, but she knew that something was about to change. She would not accept any change that prevented her from entering this great mausoleum, so she decided to end this battle before the change arrived. Only, she hadn't anticipated that the change had already occurred.
Whoosh—that was not the sound of the rainstorm, but the sound of wings unfurling in the rain.
Green wings over ten zhang long spread out behind her, sweeping up two trails of rainwater. Reflecting the dim light, those water droplets looked like drops of blood, beautiful and breathtaking.
The green wings moved with sudden speed. A fierce wind arose on the stone platform before the mausoleum's main gate. The falling rain was all deflected away, shooting sideways. A powerful aura directly blasted all the rainwater back into the sky. Nan Ke vanished at the edge of the stone platform. The next moment, carrying a few lingering traces of rain and an utterly cold killing intent, she attacked Chen Changsheng.
Chen Changsheng's gaze passed through this rain and cold wind, meeting the little girl's eyes. All he saw was coldness and a resolve to kill. In that instant, his eyelashes, frozen by the biting wind and killing intent, ceased to tremble. The full-force strike of the demon princess actually made him feel he couldn't withstand it.
That was what he thought, but he couldn't act on it, because he had to live. So, gripping his short sword, he slashed toward the rain and cold wind before him.
Yet, at the very moment he swung the short sword, he felt an immense strangeness, so much so that his arm grew stiff.
He had no confidence that this strike could block Nan Ke's full-force attack.
But for some reason, he felt that the short sword in his hand seemed very confident.
The sword thrust toward that wind and cold rain.
The cold wind instantly scattered, the cold rain abruptly ceased.
In just a moment, the sword's edge broke through this storm and arrived before Nan Ke's brow.
The momentum of this sword strike was unstable, the sword heart was not clear and still, let alone any particular sword technique.
But the sword intent was immensely powerful.
(No work today, so I'll write slowly and carefully, aiming for nine thousand words before sleeping, but it won't be too fast.)