Volume 2, Chapter 86 – Battle of the Core Realm (Two-in-One)

The Core realm was hard—harder than ascending to the Azure Heavens.

In a modern civilization with spacecraft, this line sounded like a joke at first glance. But in ancient times, it wasn’t exaggerated at all, because “ascending to the Azure Heavens” was originally the hallmark of the Core realm.

Want to go up into the azure sky? Want to fly? Then you needed to first form a Purple Core.

And to form a Purple Core, you first had to Condense the Aspect. On that basis, you then had to accumulate three thousand years of dao-age—namely, a thousand years of Purple Qi, two thousand years of Purple Blood. Only after three thousand years could you try to wrap your Demon Pool in vast, surging blood, draw it out from the sword artifact into your inner body-scape, and condense it into a Purple Blood Core.

At that step, the Core realm had just begun. The cultivator’s life-form fundamentally changed. They no longer used a frail mortal body to control a Demon Pool and divine abilities that were, by comparison, far too powerful; instead, they took the power of the Demon Pool into themselves and controlled it directly through the Purple Core.

On that basis, their physical attributes, control over divine abilities, control over demonic power, and conversion rate all skyrocketed. They began to preliminarily master the method of driving demonic aura to soar into the air. Even their outward appearance looked somewhat younger than before.

It was precisely because the Core realm possessed such marvels that the ancients bestowed it with so many admiring epithets, and from this step onward, began to respectfully address cultivators as “Sages and True Persons.”

Even in modern times—despite the existence of nationwide, shared foundational methods, despite the great sects reforming their teaching systems into modernized instruction, and despite the use of all sorts of advanced instruments to aid cultivation and monitor physical data at all times—the number of Core-realm cultivators still grew at an extremely slow pace. Condensing the Aspect, in contrast, had begun exploding on a large scale; many champion-level dojos had Condensing the Aspect experts sitting in town.

Zhou Jing’an was what you’d call a late bloomer.

Compared with those geniuses who could reach Condensing the Aspect at seventeen or eighteen, he only succeeded at Condensing the Aspect at thirty-six.

At thirty-six, many of his peers among the geniuses had long been charging the Purple Core, and some had even succeeded already. Zhou Jing’an was only just stepping through that doorway. The gap between them was not something that could be measured in ordinary terms.

But he wasn’t without his own advantages. Through years of chasing and suffering setbacks, his mental state had been polished until it was as smooth as glass. No matter how big the change or how bad the failure, it would never knock his mindset off balance.

This sort of mindset played a critical role in his later cultivation, ultimately allowing him to overtake his betters, attain the Core realm, and personally behead the enemies who had once trampled his head underfoot, cementing his title as a “Sage” in one stroke.

A person’s life experience determined the nature of their heart-aspect. By relying on a steady mind to fight back against talent, Zhou Jing’an—though he never said so aloud—indeed looked down on those who “relied on talent and acted arrogant.”

So your talent didn’t measure up. So what.

Thirty years east of the river, thirty years west.

Look at those who were celebrated across the world back then. Now one lay buried beneath a mound of earth, while the other stood on the high hall.

All of Chilong Circuit knew the “Qingya Sword Sage”! No one remembered those few opponents who had pinned him underfoot when he was young. This was the best illustration of the path of cultivation.

But today, that belief—those internal rules—were shattered.

He swung his sword straight ahead, and faintly, inside the rain curtain, a giant blue-scaled python emerged. Seeing Bai Xiang raise her blade to block the descending edge, Zhou Jing’an really did feel his heart and mind violently tremble.

Could this really be happening?

According to combat data analysis, when she fought Liu Mengqing, her physical strength had already been more than three times that of a normal Condensing the Aspect cultivator.

And a day ago, when she fought Bolou, her strength had soared several times over from that base.

If it had only been that, Zhou Jing’an could still barely accept it. Because even that level of physical power couldn’t match the transformation of attaining the Core realm—any Core realm cultivator could suppress Bai Xiang with physical strength alone, and he hadn’t felt any direct sense of danger.

But.

But this was not even a full day later, and her muscles and bones had strengthened again. She was now nearly on par with him.

Why.

On what basis!

Zhou Jing’an himself didn’t realize it, but a violent emotion was quietly brewing in the depths of his heart.

Those filthy things inside him that could only be suppressed by the specially bestowed “Saint-Transition Pill” fed on that violence and began to slowly rise up.

Fang King!

His eyes narrowed, and his heart-aspect “qi presence” locked onto Bai Xiang. A flood of demonic power surged out of the Purple Core in his inner body-scape, flowed along his heart-vessels, and poured into the Green Radiance Sword in his hand. With a “whoosh,” a wave of green light rose from the blade.

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Where the green light appeared, a green serpent emerged.

A sinuous green snake sped through the light, swelling a hundredfold in the blink of an eye. Its enormous head pressed down from above like a train engine as it opened its jaws to bite at Bai Xiang!

Facing this surprise attack from a Core-realm True Person’s divine ability, Bai Xiang’s sword was still pinned under Green Radiance. Zhou Jing’an had calculated on her lack of battle experience at the Core realm, forcing her to split her focus to snatch the initiative.

But Bai Xiang didn’t desperately force the blade up to block as he’d predicted. Instead, she stepped back and withdrew the sword, holding it upright before her in something like a sword salute.

That movement…

“Back!”

Zhou Jing’an shouted a warning, but he was still a fraction of a beat too slow.

In the next instant, the Qingya Dragon Python formed from demonic power unleashed its Fang King divine ability, closing on Bai Xiang’s body at the same time as a deep shadow. Fang King descended from above; the shadow came from behind. They were about to strike Bai Xiang simultaneously.

Crackle!

Lightning suddenly flared around Bai Xiang.

A purple-blue bolt as thick as a water barrel dropped from the sky, striking Feixiang Heaven dead on and almost wrapping her whole body inside it.

Shenming Sword: Thousand Cicadas Thundercry.

“Zzzzzzz—”

“Zeeeeee—”

It was like a thousand birds and a thousand cicadas screaming together. In that brief instant, the vast thunder-light was guided onto the Qingya Dragon Python and the shadow. With no room at all to dodge, they were blown away in pure, brute force.

What the hell?

Was that really the Purple Core realm?

The shadow was Tong Bing. In his youthful form, he was blasted away, rolled half a turn in the rain, and when he looked up, he saw the giant Dragon Python being torn apart by lightning.

And not just that. He and Zhou Jing’an both looked at Bai Xiang and saw that her whole body was wrapped by a layer of strange, colorless, formless airflow that seemed to be changing at all times.

That airflow might have been there from the moment she’d appeared, but only when the lightning came down, landed on her sword and body, and lit up that airflow did they finally get a clear look—astonishingly, that airflow had condensed into a cicada demon and a purple lightning dragon! The cicada demon occupied the center, while the purple lightning dragon twined around her body like a serpent coiled about a pillar!

Was that really the Shangqing Sword?

What Zhou Jing’an felt was different.

He had no time to worry about whether this was an undercover seed planted by Shangqing Sword Dao. He took the chance to leap back a step, formed a sword seal with his fingers, and swung his longsword. “Go!”

The demonic aura that had dispersed under the lightning reassembled in an instant into a complete Dragon Python. With blood-red eyes bulging, its whole body shuddered, then suddenly exploded in the rain, its body turning into hundreds and thousands of blades of green light that, together with the downpour, swept toward Bai Xiang!

Good opening!

Tong Bing’s spirits lifted on the spot when he saw this. His whole body turned into shadow again. In a flash, he hopped back and forth through the silhouettes carved by raindrops and plunged straight into the “green sword array”!

The Shadow-Splitting Clone Art—this was his signature technique.

That move just now had definitely been a defense against combined attacks, right?

Wide range, great power, combining energy impact with sonic impact—definitely a high-level move.

But! Its flaw was that it couldn’t last long!

This sword array could at least persist for seven or eight seconds. He would merge with the shadows of each “green sword” cast on the ground, ride along with them, and strike as one!

Tong Bing’s scheming was complicated. In reality, not even a full second passed.

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Bai Xiang looked up, her golden eyes reflecting the glow of green light.

She’d originally wanted to use this thunderstorm to practice the Shangqing Sword; she hadn’t expected to catch two big fish at midnight.

Just as the sword array was about to completely swallow her, she suddenly flicked her sword, letting Feixiang Heaven drop downward. The purple lightning dragon coiled around her body ran along her arm into the blade, while her left hand rose into sword-fingers, her whole “qi presence” shifting in an instant.

Shenming Sword: Thunder-Tiger Sword-Sha.

Bzzzzz—!

The instant the sword array closed in, Zhou Jing’an and Tong Bing only had time to see that mysterious airflow gather and change again. Under the winding lightning, it actually formed into a giant tiger four meters tall, which opened its jaws and roared at the sword array!

Boom, boom, boom, boom!

The sword array came crashing down. Combined with Tong Bing’s own attack, unknowable layers of slashes fell on the stone path in an instant.

A great many stone slabs were chopped, ground, and crushed to powder… but the dust never even had a chance to form. A thunder-tiger burst out of the rain in a roar, locked onto one direction, and swept out with a massive paw!

Bang!

A shadow was swatted out of thin air—that was naturally Tong Bing. In midair, you could vaguely see drops of blood flinging off of him.

“Roar!!!”

But before Zhou Jing’an could counter with another move to suppress her and buy his companion time to recover, a second “thunder-tiger” leapt out of the dust again and pounced on him like a demon god!

What the hell was that?

Was that an outer Aspect?

Cicada, dragon, tiger… fine, changing back and forth could be chalked up to flexibility, but how could two outer Aspects exist at the same time?

Zhou Jing’an’s heart was packed full of shock. Demonic power rushed into his sword in a panic, once more summoning the Qingya Dragon Python and ordering it to dive straight into the thunder-tiger’s mouth, blowing both tiger and serpent apart together and turning them into a storm of sword-qi and lightning that rained in all directions.

“铛铛铛铛！”

This time he was included too. Forced to swing his sword again and again to sweep aside the leaping sword-qi and stray lightning, he suddenly saw his pupils contract violently—Bai Xiang flashed to his front, Feixiang Heaven wrapped in purple lightning, cleaving down at an incredible speed.

“Boom!”

The hastily reshaped Dragon Python outer Aspect was cut clean in half by that sword.

Bloodshot veins filled Zhou Jing’an’s eyes as he crazily squeezed Purple Core power to form another outer Aspect. The Dragon Python wrapped around him like layer upon layer of blue scale armor, in a desperate attempt to block Bai Xiang’s assault.

But golden light flashed in Bai Xiang’s eyes as Jade Spirit’s output suddenly spiked.

“Crackle!”

Purple lightning flew from her blade, forming a purple lightning dragon three meters thick in midair.

But that wasn’t all!

Once the purple lightning dragon took shape, it immediately split “one into two” and “two into four” right in front of Zhou Jing’an’s widening eyes. In a heartbeat, those four dragons locked his body down, then crashed into him almost simultaneously!

Shenming Sword: Qi-Forming Thunder Dragon.

Parentheses: Splitting-Light Multiple-Images Sword Formula. Colon: Triple Clone.

He was completely caught off guard.

Utterly caught off guard.

Zhou Jing’an’s defense had been a hurried raise of his sword to block, forcibly drawing on his Purple Core to form an outer Aspect shield that barely had enough strength to fend off one lightning dragon. With four dragons tumbling over him at once, all he had time for was a mental cry of “This is bad,” before his vision was filled with blooming thunder-light. The blast hurled him from where he stood, and he rolled across the ground in an extremely sorry state.

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Nor did Tong Bing fare any better.

After he climbed up, he first wiped the blood from his mouth and glared venomously at Bai Xiang, who was condensing a second thunder-tiger to attack his companion.

He’d been thinking of whether to abandon Zhou Jing’an and retreat first, but then his eyes went round and his hair stood on end. All at once, his entire qi presence surged, clinging to his sword as he raised it and held it straight before him.

Ding!

The blade collided with something and made a tiny sound.

It sounded small, so small that even the noise of the rain was louder, but Tong Bing’s heart flew into his throat. He immediately looked down at his feet.

Two thin lines split apart from under his boots, slowly stretching backward across the bluestone, slicing through everything in their path, and vanishing into the grove beside the path.

And in the next instant! The deluge pouring from the sky suddenly came alive! Endless rain swirled in midair, rolling into a “long beak” that hung there like a sword, slashing at Tong Bing!

This was… the Shangqing Crane-Form Sword!

Tong Bing didn’t dare be careless in the least. His longsword darted left and right in his hands. “铛铛铛铛！” He exchanged two or three rounds with the “giant celestial crane” formed from gathered rainwater, and out of the corner of his eye saw a bolt of lightning drill out from the crane’s flowing body, transforming into a giant thunder-tiger crashing down on him.

What the hell was this!!!

The string in his heart was drawn almost to its breaking point. Gritting his teeth, he let the shadow under his feet climb up his body, forming a black humanoid figure at his side that mirrored his movements as they fought together.

“Zheng—!”

Claws came down. Purple lightning exploded.

“Jiao—!”

The Crane-Form Sword compressed all the waterflow of its body into its beak, squeezed it to the extreme into a water orb, then burst it into countless blades of water that slashed wildly in all directions.

“Boom!”

Bai Xiang burst out of the lightning alone, Feixiang Heaven shimmering with the glow of thunder-water. She swung her arm in a full arc and cleaved straight down, the sword edge meeting the tip of Tong Bing’s blade head-on.

Shenming Sword: Marsh-Cutting Flow.

Shenming Sword: Thunder-Water Qi-Flower.

She used water blades compressed to the extreme as the spearhead.

She used lightning to stimulate her heart-vessels and major acupoints.

She used her soul to tightly control her body, nullifying the backlash and forcing her wrist and sword to vibrate at superfrequency with thunder-water clinging to them.

Tong Bing had no way at all to withstand this strongest strike.

He only felt his vision flare bright, and Bai Xiang’s whole body passed through him like exploding lightning.

Splash, splash, splash—

The rain hammered on the bluestone. Two figures stood back to back, motionless like statues.

“…Heh…”

Vacant-eyed, Tong Bing’s youthful face suddenly rippled with a smile.

“Good sword.”

“Good… sword…”

“Zheng!”

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From the very tip of his blade, the longsword suddenly slid apart in a cross, then clattered to the ground.

And his whole body began to blur in the rain. A red vertical line appeared at the center of his forehead, then a dense lattice of hair-fine lines erupted all over his body. In the next instant, he blew apart into a cloud of blood mist in the rain.

“Shua—”

With a flick of her hand, Bai Xiang shook the foul blood from her sword. She stepped across the widening stain being washed away by the rain and walked forward, step by step.

Sha… sha…

Hearing those death-dealing footsteps so clearly, Zhou Jing’an’s heart actually calmed.

He propped himself up into a half-sitting position. His straw hat was gone, his long hair a tangled mess with his beard, and his robes were soaked through by the rain. He looked utterly miserable and pathetic.

“Can you spare A’ji and Yingxing?”

Zhou Jing’an asked in a low voice.

Her footsteps indeed paused for a moment.

Bang!

In that single instant of opening, Zhou Jing’an jerked his head up. His eyes bulged outward, turning blood-red, and his mouth split to his ears. All the openings in his face were spraying a purple-black liquid. A black shadow shot out of his mouth, lunging straight at Bai Xiang’s face!

Crackle!

A giant hand of lightning reached out of thin air and caught the thing.

Looking closely, it was a python formed entirely from purple blood, with a round orb bulging on its head. Zhou Jing’an’s own face was grimly carved into the snake’s head. Even in the giant hand’s grip, it struggled furiously, shrieking at Bai Xiang.

“Kill you! Kill you! Kill you! Kill you!!!”

Expressionless, Bai Xiang watched the snake as her qi presence shifted. Behind her, four Aspects—cicada, tiger, dragon, and crane—appeared one after another. In the end, she condensed them together, forming a hazy, half-bodied humanoid outline outside her body.

The hand holding the demonic snake extended from that giant’s outer Aspect. It was just one of the countless arms that giant possessed.

“You’re the monster—!”

The demonic snake screamed shrilly.

“This isn’t Sword Dao!”

“You’re the demon sword! You’ll definitely—pft—!”

Before it could finish, the snake was crushed to pulp.

Bai Xiang infused her soul-talent into her eyes and controlled the giant to extend more arms. Like plucking flowers and pinching leaves, they snatched all around, quickly gathering up the scattered fragments of soul.

Then she refined them.

Remnant soul screams rang around her ears, but Bai Xiang didn’t move. Quiet and thorough, she refined and absorbed every last shred.

Rumble, rumble, rumble…

Thunder flashed again, and the half-bodied giant faded away.

She slid Feixiang Heaven back into the sheath on her back and turned to return to the dojo gate.

Behind her lay the battlefield and the towering curtain of rain.

She pushed the door open and stepped inside. The ground beneath her feet was still dry.