With every step he retreated, the air beneath Qiu Hengkong’s feet boomed, as if unable to take the shock, and air currents scattered, like pieces of a broken sword.

By the time Qiu Hengkong stabilized himself, his face was red with exertion, and his energy churned.

The entire area fell silent.

After that third strike, Qiu Hengkong was obviously at a disadvantage!

“The fourth attack.” Su Yi didn’t hesitate in the least. He just swung his sword horizontally, striking once more.

In his blue robes, he seemed utterly free and unrestrained. The Abstruse God Sword hummed and resonated with his aura.

Like an immortal of the sword.

His slash was like a full moon against blue skies. Light and shadow floated around it, and its sword intent was airy and ethereal.

Qiu Hengkong’s expression was utterly solemn.

Su Yi’s earlier three attacks each displayed a starkly different momentum, yet each was stronger than the one before.

If that was all there was to it, it’d be one thing.

What shocked Qiu Hengkong even further was that every time Su Yi struck, his aura expanded.

This was his fourth attack, but it was a full level stronger than the first three attacks; this seemed utterly unbelievable!

Despite researching Su Yi’s accomplishments in advance, and despite knowing he couldn’t gauge this seventeen-year-old with common sense, seeing Su Yi’s power for himself shook Qiu Hengkong to the core.

“Activate!” Qiu Hengkong no longer hesitated. He suddenly bellowed, and with a fiery burst of light, a feather-shaped, flaming red spiritual sword appeared in his left hand. The blade shone with flecks of searing, dazzling firelight. 

Clang!

Qiu Hengkong now held a sword in each hand and crossed them in mid-air. Springtime drew upon the power of pure Yin, while the fiery spiritual sword manifested the power of pure Yang. Yin and Yang merged in midair, forming a perfect arc. The two extremes, light and darkness, bore down on the sky.

His swords manifested Yin and Yang and cleaved the heavens!

With his second sword in hand, his power increased many times over!

Su Yi’s sword qi was like a full moon against clear skies, light and ethereal. The moment Qiu Hengkong’s strike made contact with it, the attacks clashed like fire and water. A series of startling booms rang out, scattering a rain of brightly-colored light.

Both streaks of sword qi burst apart, bit by bit. The full moon split and shattered, and the Yin-Yang collapsed into nothingness.

In the end, the sky filled with an explosive rain of shattered sword light. It was dazzling to the extreme, but terrifying as well.

The onlookers fell silent. Countless people felt their hearts shake. This shocking clash left them stunned, and a long time passed before they came to their senses.

They felt as if they were watching a duel between immortals, a scene straight out of a legend. Both Qiu Hengkong and Su Yi displayed power far beyond the limits of most of the onlookers’ comprehension.

Even Chu Yukou felt dazed watching this.

He, too, was in the Grain Avoidance Realm. However, the difference between him and Qiu Hengkong was like the difference between a pearl and the full moon!

If he compared himself to Su Yi, a Xiantian Martial Ancestor… Chu Yukou felt utterly ashamed!

“Two swords?” Su Yi asked with great interest.

“This sword is called Crimson Plume. I obtained it fifty years ago on Golden Arc Demon Mountain, the most perilous place in the Great Wei. It’s three feet, six inches long, and it’s branded with a mysterious sword art.”

Qiu Hengkong gazed at the spiritual sword in his left hand. “I also possess a sword called Violet Imperial. I found it on Golden Arc Demon Mountain as well. During my fifty years of seclusion, I focused all of my attention on these three swords, attempting to fuse them into my Dao of the Sword. I have since realized this goal, albeit just barely.”

He said this, then looked up and gazed at the distant Su Yi. “It remains to be seen whether you’ll force me to draw my third sword or not.”

“Not bad, not bad,” said Su Yi with a smile. “That makes it interesting!”

Boom!

His clothes swayed around him as he struck once more. He strolled through the sky like a fallen immortal and raised the Abstruse God Sword, pointing its edge at the distant dome of heaven.

When he took his ninth step, the sword’s raised edge suddenly slashed downward.

“The fifth attack!”

The light of dusk glowing over the horizon instantly dimmed. All that remained was a streak of unmatched, radiant sword qi slicing through the air, illuminating the world below.

As if all of the light of the heavens had poured into this strike!

From the ordinary disciples to the sect leader, every member of the Wheel of the Moon Sect felt a stinging pain in their eyes. The sight of this vast stretch of white left them stunned.

Cha Jin couldn’t help but cover her eyes. The sword qi was just too searingly bright. Despite the distance, she couldn’t look directly at it. She felt as if it were burning her very soul itself.

Qiu Hengkong closed his eyes, but with his divine sense, he could clearly see the path of Su Yi’s strike, as well as the power it contained.

His heart trembled. What terrifying attainments in the Dao of the Sword!

This wasn’t the type of power you could master overnight, nor was it something you could comprehend simply by obtaining some grand stroke of fortune.

As a sword cultivator, Qiu Hengkong knew better than anyone that the Dao of the Sword wasn’t something you mastered in a day or two. It required regular and repeated tempering, pondering both day and night, and persistence.

Furthermore, you needed extremely high powers of comprehension.

Su Yi was obviously just seventeen years old, and he was obviously only a Xiantian Martial Ancestor, but his swordsmanship had the kind of tempering that could only be obtained through countless years of polishing. It was terrifying beyond imagination. 

This is downright unbelievable! Qiu Hengkong no longer hesitated, nor was he the least bit negligent. He just attacked without hesitation. 

Clang! Clang!

Springtime and Crimson Plume clanged as he waved both weapons. Two types of sword qi crossed in midair, forming twin arcs like the character “乂.”

The character 乂, or “yi”, represented cutting.

This slash combined two disparate sword forces into one. One was extreme Yin, the other, extreme Yang. Together, they struck with a force seemingly capable of slicing their surroundings into pieces, and the glint of their edges was unparalleled. 

This was one of Qiu Hengkong’s ultimate killing techniques, a product of his fifty years of seclusion and hard work!

Boom!

The sky shook as the twin arcs blocked Su Yi’s radiant strike like a pair of scissors.

Crunch!

The twin arcs split apart at their point of intersection, but their power didn’t diminish. Both charged toward Su Yi like graceful, flowing dragons.

Su Yi’s eyes lit up with surprise, but then, he chuckled. His sleeves billowed as he unleashed his sixth attack.

Clang!

The hum of a sword reverberated throughout heaven and earth as the Abstruse God Sword suddenly turned. Its blade, as dark and ethereal as the night sky, shook in sync with Su Yi’s wrist. It rose, then slashed, like a hidden dragon emerging from the abyss.

A vast streak of sword qi rose out of the blade, soaring into the skies. It clashed with the incoming twin sword arcs with irrepressible force, like an axe through rotten wood.

Flecks of light scattered like rain and dispersed.

Su Yi swung his sword like a deity waving his whip. His slash blazed like fire, unbridled and tyrannical, as if intent on punishing the world below.

It slashed open a long rift in the sky, like a scar.

Bang!!

Qiu Hengkong blocked it head-on with everything he had. His twin swords stirred up a windstorm of sword qi, their destructive power seemingly capable of garroting anything and everything.

Yet in the face of Su Yi’s slash, this hundred-foot windstorm of sword qi instantly burst apart. Explosive gales swept forth, buffeting Qiu Hengkong, who staggered and shook like a skiff caught in a storm.

Su Yi’s heaven-splitting strike was already upon him. 

“Break!” Qiu Hengkong remained calm even in the face of danger. He circulated his aura to its upper limit, then used both swords to protect his head.

Boom!

Beneath the crowd’s astonished gazes, Qiu Hengkong plummeted down to earth. He was initially a thousand feet in the air, but by the time he stabilized himself, he was only a few dozen feet from the ground.

His sleeves had already torn and burst, fragments of cloth fluttering down to earth like butterflies. His young, handsome face looked strained, and his energy churned violently throughout his body.

Upon closer inspection, his hands quivered as he gripped his swords, and fresh blood seeped from the gaps between his fingers. From this, it was easy to imagine just how despotic Su Yi’s attack was.

One slash had almost forced this giant of Dao of the Sword, a famed expert of the Great Wei, to the ground!

The entire area fell deathly silent.

That was only Su Yi’s sixth attack, but it was already so strong that it struck terror into the hearts of the entire Wheel of the Moon Sect. Their confidence in Qiu Hengkong was starting to waver!

“You blocked that attack? That means your strength far surpasses Origin Palace cultivators of the mundane world, yet you’re still firmly in the Grain Avoidance Realm. Your potential is enormous,” said Su Yi, his words of admiration spreading far and wide.

In terms of sheer talent, Qiu Hengkong was inferior to Yue Shichan. In terms of cultivation, he was beneath Zhou Changyi. However, his attainments in the Dao of the Sword were the most solid Su Yi had seen since his reincarnation. 

Only someone like this was worthy of the title “sword cultivator.”

“You flatter me, Fellow Daoist,” said Qiu Hengkong. He took a deep breath, then soared into the air and met Su Yi’s gaze. His expression was as calm as the surface of a lake, yet utterly determined. “What’s truly shocking is you possess such swordsmanship as a Xiantian Martial Ancestor.” 

His eyes lit with scattered light, like the illusory glint of a sword. “However, I still believe I have a chance of defeating you, Fellow Daoist.”

“That’s just what I wanted to hear!” said Su Yi with a hearty laugh. 

As he spoke, he attacked once more.

There was just one word for it: quick!

A three-foot streak of sword qi reached Qiu Hengkong, quick as light and thin as a cicada’s wing, yet bright and sharp as lightning. Its radiance stung the eyes. 

Qiu Hengkong’s skin prickled. Without hesitation, he swung his swords in a circle, forming ring after ring of misty sword intent, which spread out like ripples. The ripples formed layer after layer after layer, seemingly without limit.

A sword like rippling waves!

Beneath the relentless, layered waves of sword qi, Su Yi’s supremely quick streak of sword qi suddenly rocked back and forth.

It was visible even to the naked eye. The multi-layered waves of sword qi split apart and dispersed, scattering currents of tiny fragments of sword light in all four directions.

By the time Su Yi’s strike got within a single foot of him, Qiu Hengkong had completely neutralized it.

Even so, a gash silently appeared between his brows. Beads of blood dripped from the cut, then flowed down the bridge of his nose and onto his lips. 

The salty taste of blood spread throughout his mouth, and he couldn’t help but gasp. He felt a chill go down his spine. 

That strike wasn’t just fast; it was sharp beyond limit too!

Although Qiu Hengkong just barely managed to block it, the dispersed sword qi still cut open his skin!

Off in the distance, Su Yi asked with a smile, “Was that strike enough to make you draw your third sword?”

“It was,” said Qiu Hengkong with a solemn nod.

Clang!

A three-inch blade shot out of the top of his head. Misty, violent light flowed around it, giving it an illusory, mysterious air.

Dazzling purple light dyed the entire stretch of sky.

Like purple air from the east.