Volume 4, Chapter 200 – Vibrating Blades Spread the Law Far and Wide, Three Flowers Gather Divine Force (Two-in-One)

The instant the short yellow-jade sword appeared, Pang Tiandao’s expression changed slightly.

The fluctuations transmitted by the Guarding-Order Treasure were far too violent. Even though part of its substance had already been consumed, it still made everyone in this stretch of heaven and earth who was in the middle of battle turn to look this way.

This was not Pang Tiandao’s first time seeing a Heaven-Linking Precious Jade. With his long life, and the experience brought by his countless aspect-bodies, he truly had collected two Heaven-Linking Precious Jades himself and had used those two jades as the foundation for launching this round of celestial change.

So among everyone present, he was probably the one who best understood the wonder and might of this treasure. Even though he still could not guess what Bai Xiang intended to do, he acted at once, his figure streaking toward her as he reached out to seize her.

But he was too late.

At the very instant he recognized the jade, the short yellow-jade sword had already fused with the Yuming Sword.

And by the time he lunged for Bai Xiang’s throat, this newly born Yu sword had, under Bai Xiang’s control, fused once more with the superior sacred weapon God-Slaying Sword. At once, the sharpness and momentum of the whole blade surged. The small-seal script of “Yuming” beneath the guard shone brilliantly, giving off a heaven-shaking baleful aura.

Time seemed to slow at that moment.

As Bai Xiang gazed at the newborn Yuming Sword, scene after scene flashed before her eyes.

The first was the first time she had gone with Xiang Xian to Qizhou University. On Wuqiu Mountain, the residence of the Qizhou University Sword Institute, Xiang Xian had drawn this sword for the first time and met Abbess Li Sheng head-on with it.

At the time, not only had the Yuming Sword not fallen behind in its direct clash with the Shangqing Sword, it had also stirred a broad area of nearby swords into resonance and homage, leaving many sword students staring at one another and asking what had happened.

Afterward, Xiang Xian had explained to Bai Xiang that this was because the Yuming Sword, as the “Ancestor of Crafting,” had left behind in the unseen workings of heaven and earth a concept akin to a “rule” or an “order,” allowing every generation of “Yuming” to receive that fundamental reverence.

At the time, Xiang Xian had not regarded that sort of reverence as anything remarkable, nor had she ever imagined there would come a day when it could be used for anything.

Not until one day, across a chessboard, she asked her Dao Lord disciple, who was only eighteen years old, whether there was “any new solution to the predicament of transmission.”

And her disciple answered:

“For the problem of transmission, direct teaching is supreme, hand-copying is middling, and broad circulation is the lowest. Is that not so?”

Xiang Xian considered it briefly, then replied:

“It is so.”

Personally teaching the law and transmitting the Path of Qi was the most efficient method. Next came the Dao Lord herself hand-copying the scripture of the new law for someone. Lowest of all was allowing copied texts to circulate widely. Even if someone learned from those, their memory of it would still be erased after a period of time.

Her disciple then said:

“Since that is known, then focus solely on direct teaching, and the predicament of transmission can be broken.”

Xiang Xian fell silent.

That was indeed true in principle. But the problem was that the whole Nine Provinces contained hundreds of millions of people, scattered across every corner of the land. How was one supposed to ensure that enough of them heard “direct teaching”? That difficulty seemed unsolvable.

“The sword of the master’s Dao is the craft-ancestor, so let its pool vibrate every blade beneath heaven,” the disciple said again. “Thus Yuming is born of craft and endowed with resonant sound. When the momentum is complete, it will be like hollow cicadas startled awake at the Awakening of Insects. All under heaven will honor the Law and hear Shenming together.”

And so there came the baffling remote price war between the workshops of two dynasties.

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And so there came the “nationwide free shipping” that the Yaoyu court saw as suicidal folly.

From the moment the plan was set until the day of the tournament, relying on the all-out support of Starwater Company without regard to cost, Yuming Workshop had frantically sent nearly three hundred million swords out into the world. Through subsidized logistics, they had already been distributed across the whole of the Nine Provinces, dense as stars strewn across the sky.

On mountain peaks, inside cities.

In apartment blocks, in great mansions and courtyards.

Even in Yujing City below in the outside world, their numbers were still beyond counting.

“Once, I used strategy to force Qianyu Palace into keeping the peace. Today, Xiang-girl too will carry the old forward and bring forth the new.”

Standing in Zhennan and feeling the sword at her waist begin to vibrate of its own accord, Xiang Xian’s face flashed with suppressed excitement.

“Go and show them.”

“Make this maddened world fall silent and listen only to your voice!”

Buzz!

The moment her words fell, the sword at her waist unsheathed itself and floated into the air as if it had gained life. Its blade trembled and vibrated unceasingly, continuously sending waves of resonance all around.

The same scene played out in other parts of Zhennan Circuit. Even those people hiding at home, no matter whether they had bought Yuming Workshop swords to seriously practice with or only to hang on the wall as decoration, found that at this moment all the swords began singing in resonance, flying out on their own and hanging in the air to transmit vibrating waves.

This sort of tendency could originally only be counted as “reverence.” It was a privilege left behind by Heavenly Dao for the Ancestor of Crafting. And the vibration sent out by a single sword was too weak by nature to interfere with or overturn anything.

But now things were different. The newborn Yuming Sword had fused with the Guarding-Order Treasure and the Heavenly Stem Precious Jade, and had then been reforged anew using the superior sacred weapon God-Slaying Sword as nourishment. This had pushed its authority of “reverence” into an unprecedented and wondrous realm.

It was precisely under the shelter of that realm that the resonant sound Bai Xiang transmitted with total mental immersion could spread so widely. And those sounds and vibrations also overlapped with one another. When two swords close enough together had their resonances touch, they produced a “same-frequency” phenomenon, further amplifying the effect of the vibration.

And so, for Bai Xiang’s enemies, the situation completely slipped out of control.

The instant she sensed that three hundred million swords had completed their connection to the Yuming Sword in her hand, Bai Xiang did not hold back. She directly sent out a synchronized sword-vibration, causing all three hundred million swords to tremble in unison. Using the Heavenly Origin of the entire Nine Provinces as fuel, they released a Silent Expanse.

That enormous expanse covered nearly all of the Nine Provinces and even reached a good number of the surrounding regions. Within the range of that expanse, the actions and will of all living beings were unaffected, yet with both horror and wonder, they discovered that every sound around them had vanished.

Noise. White noise.

Wind, insect-song… even their own breathing and heartbeats. Every sound was gone, forcing most of their minds and attention onto the sword hanging above their heads.

And then something even stranger happened.

The Heavenly Origin energy gathered by those swords vaguely projected Bai Xiang’s shadow farther above. There she sat like a deity upon a divine dais, eyes closed, fingers lightly pinched together. As her red lips parted, the foundational section of the Shenming Qi-Refining Formula flowed forth like murmuring water, making people unconsciously focus and listen, each character imprinting itself upon their hearts.

In an instant, she transmitted the law to more than three hundred million people. What effect, then, did that have on the one transmitting it?

What effect did it have on Yaoyu Sword Dao?

And what effect did it have on the so-called Transmission Venerable Saint?

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The answer was this: for Bai Xiang, she instantly sensed reverent power of devotion pouring in from all directions. Hundreds of millions upon hundreds of millions of strands of devotion gathered into a boundless force in the void and poured down from the heavens into her body.

Chu Weiping’s memories circulated in step with it. The old Sword Lord not having used the Sword Dao Divine Pool himself did not mean he was incapable of it. And when he died and his Dao came to an end, he had left that inheritance behind to Bai Xiang as well. Naturally, Bai Xiang had also obtained the foundational techniques for wielding the Sword Dao Divine Pool.

Only before, she no longer belonged to Sword Dao, so even if she wanted to use it, she had lacked the means.

But now things were different. As countless strands of devotion that originally belonged to the system of the Sword Dao Divine Pool shifted their direction and took refuge under the qi-method lineage, the purple-gold current covering the skies above the entire Nine Provinces began to tremble violently, on the verge of collapse.

Bai Xiang seized the chance to invade it. With a single thought, she forcibly drove Wu Mengzi out of it, then used the Returning-to-Origin Purple Qi taken from Liu Yong as a source-guide and frantically drew in the entire Sword Dao Divine Pool.

Rumble!

For a moment, her body became like an abyss, a bottomless black hole devouring all of that force. The “order” and “authority” of the Sword Dao Divine Pool were being violated and plundered by her at a terrifying rate.

At the same time, astonishing changes were taking place within her body… those orifices and meridians that had stalled once they reached the three-hundred-thirties now blazed to life once more. Driven by that immense force, more and more new orifices lit up and manifested… and in almost the blink of an eye, all three hundred sixty-one hidden orifices and all twelve hidden meridians throughout her body had been completely manifested and refined.

Body cultivation, Great Perfection!

Origin Realm, Great Perfection!

Whoosh!

All three hundred sixty-one orifices shone like three hundred sixty-one glittering stars.

All twelve meridians shone like twelve rivers of stars embedded within the human body.

Then all of it, under the coordination of the Three Origin Orifices and the Heavenly Pillar meridian, was unified like countless cords twisted into a single rope and gathered to one point, surging in an instant into Bai Xiang’s Three Flowers. Taking the flower that belonged to qi and blood as the source-center, it rapidly transmitted that power into the other two flowers around it.

Rumble…!

The rush of blood, the throbbing of meridians, the beating of the heart, the flashing of stars!

Facing Bai Xiang directly, Pang Tiandao watched in horror as her eyes lit with brilliant golden radiance, as a crimson flame-mark appeared at her brow, and as three rotating flower-crowns emerged above her head. The moment they appeared, the three crowns fused into one, and under the endless infusion of Returning-to-Origin Purple Qi, gradually formed into a purple-gold imperial crown with hanging bead-curtains.

What in the world was this…?

With a sharp snap, he finally felt that warped time had come to an end. In the next moment, the fingers he had thrust forward abruptly stopped. Looking more carefully, he saw that Bai Xiang had seized his wrist out of thin air, and no matter how he strained, he could not break free.

“Impossible!” Pang Tiandao’s expression finally changed in true shock. “Even if you seized the Sword Dao Divine Pool, you should never have been able to reach this level…!”

With his experience, even if he could not tell exactly how Bai Xiang had done it, he could more or less tell what had happened.

And that was exactly the problem.

He had dared let Yaoyu develop the Sword Dao Divine Pool while using the main world as its foundation because he had been fully certain that this kind of power posed absolutely no threat to him.

If the Heavenly Dao Divine Pool in Yaoyu’s hands posed no threat to him, then why was this vast power of devotion utterly different once it reached Bai Xiang’s hands?

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Pang Tiandao could not understand!

No matter how he thought, he could not make sense of it!

“I am not the same as you.” Before Bai Xiang hung the beaded curtain of her crown; beneath that imperial headdress, she looked like an empress in dark robes as her golden eyes met Pang Tiandao’s. “All of you focus only on the power of Divine Pools, while ignoring that power must return to the self.”

“To me, a Heavenly Dao Divine Pool is only a tool. The realm we pursue is also completely different.”

Having said that, Bai Xiang suddenly let go of his wrist. Pang Tiandao’s own force carried through, and he staggered backward several steps across the void.

I failed to notice it, and right under my nose she has grown to this point!

His face showed intense fury and unwillingness. As he retreated, endless black demonic qi spread from his body and features, and within that black qi, countless aspect-bodies rotated and shifted into one another.

Then Pang Tiandao’s body exploded in place. Those black-smoke aspect-bodies spread outward in every direction, just as they had before they converged. In perfect order, they arranged themselves into a cylindrical network around the area, each one simultaneously unleashing a different divine ability, all of them gathered into one under the control of the main consciousness and pressing down together toward Bai Xiang.

At a glance, it seemed similar to his earlier attacks.

But the might this time was completely different.

The void itself twisted.

Even the process by which the Thirty-Three Heavens Sea was fusing with the main world was affected, because huge swaths of time and space were being swept into it, stirring up countless wind, fire, and thunder tribulations, even provoking the backlash of the primary order itself and gathering vast tribulation-clouds overhead.

Every rule, from space to gravitational fields, was twisting and shattering. The black rifts born from that shattering were the traces left in reality by that overwhelming power. From all directions, countless black rifts tore their way toward Bai Xiang, making her the clear center of their convergence.

So he was finally serious…

Li Huiran stared in horror at the scene before him. Friend and enemy alike unconsciously stopped fighting and looked toward the distant spectacle.

This power. He truly had drawn nourishment from all he had done. His Divine Pool was undergoing a transformation, and the Great Saint realm, the realm that could “open time and space by oneself,” was no longer far away!

Zhu Qingluo and her true body likewise halted their struggle.

And not only them. Outside as well, the half of the projected spectators still left below, and the Void People cultivators battling within the arena.

Everyone stared blankly at the mirage-image projected above the vortex, at those cracks closing in with savage force upon the dark-robed figure crowned in imperial beads, while countless possibilities raced through their minds and their hearts trembled.

Faced with this sight, Bai Xiang did not draw her sword.

After throwing Pang Tiandao back, she did nothing at all. She simply stood there, watching as though observing some ridiculous performance.

Only when all the black-rift fissures were almost upon her, seeming ready to tear her body apart, did she slowly part her lips and utter four words.

“Taishang. Hereby. Gives. Order…”

With the word “Taishang,” the nearby black rifts reversed and faded away as if time itself were flowing backward.

With the word “hereby,” all the black-rift fissures shattered and vanished without leaving a trace.

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With the word “gives,” every celestial anomaly in the Thirty-Three Heavens Sea returned to its proper place. The stars shifted back, wind and fire fell still.

With the word “order,” all three hundred million swords in the main world erupted at once with purple-gold sword-light, and all Loss of Order and all deluded evils within range were slain.

Outside, Chan Master Lingku had just been about to launch a sneak attack on Chang Hongyuan when he was suddenly struck flying by a beam of sword-light from nowhere. The bright silver spear in his hand was cut in two, and a long wound appeared across his body. Eyes split wide with fury, he coughed blood and fell back in retreat.

Within Yujing City, a group of civilians were preparing to evacuate under arrangements made by the Sword Dao Association, only to have their path blocked by a band of silver Sacred Weapon Clan warriors, who fell upon them in slaughter. At that very moment, someone vibrated a sword and sent out sword-light, slash after slash, cutting the powerful enemies down to the last. The road ahead was clear once more.

At the city’s outskirts, Hantian Sword Dao was barely resisting a sudden emergence of Blood Soul Heaven followers and was on the verge of failing. Then sword-light arrived in support. The powerful foes were cut into fragments in an instant, leaving the group staring at one another in disbelief.

The same scene was unfolding in Liangzhou, Lüezhou, Xuzhou, and Qizhou!

Across all thirty-six Circuits of the Nine Provinces, everywhere covered by those three hundred million swords, the same was true. It was not only the demon-humans who were killed, cut down, and struck dead on the spot. Even the trembling void itself was stabilized, and every chaotic heavenly phenomenon that ought not to have manifested was forced back into retreat, until sun and moon revolved in order and the constellations returned to their places.

So this was power beyond the Origin Realm.

Feeling the effect her spoken words had wrought, Bai Xiang gained another insight in her heart.

That was indeed how it was.

At least against threats of this level, she had no need to raise her hand and swing a sword. The edge of her words alone was enough to deal such harm.

That was not unreasonable, because this was precisely the manifestation of the resonant sound of the Shenming Sword. Once her immersion in this path reached such a height, the language her voice transformed into naturally contained the sharpness of sword qi.

Thus was the Dao of Shenming carried through.

Thus came the Awakening, and thus all under heaven bowed in reverence.

Turning her gaze aside, Bai Xiang looked toward Pang Tiandao, who at some unknown point had already gathered his true body back together.

Pang Tiandao looked back at Bai Xiang with bitter eyes and let out a soft sigh as he shook his head.

“What a Shenming Sword.”

“What a qi-method.”

“What a stream of sword-qi divine force.”

“What a ‘returning to the self.’”

“You have walked the road that I failed to walk through.”

“It is no injustice that I lost to you.”

After saying that, Pang Tiandao fell silent, and his body drifted apart into dust.

Bai Xiang lifted a hand as though to grasp at him, only to find that his remnant soul did not answer her call. Instead, with a swift sound, it was seized by some other will and hurled into the void, vanishing without a trace.