Volume 3, Chapter 455 – In This Battle, Life and Death Rest With Heaven’s Will

“Ascend the heavenly ladder, tread upon Lingxiao?”

“Chi Xiyan, what an arrogant thing to say!”

Atop the Lingxiao snow peak, before the sect’s great hall.

Countless sword cultivators clad in white had gathered here.

Every one of them wore a look of astonishment on their faces, staring in disbelief at the Lingxiao Sword Sect’s sparring platform.

There, two figures were locked in fierce combat.

Only Chi Muxue sat calmly among the crowd, composed and unbothered, as though the duel below meant nothing to her at all.

“Song Shixuan, your mouth talks big, but why isn’t the sword in your hand even half as hard as your words?”

Chi Xiyan mocked him without a shred of mercy.

“Didn’t you just say that with your cultivation at the peak of the Fifth Realm, you could crush me in an instant?”

Song Shixuan’s expression darkened. “Don’t get ahead of yourself!”

“Chi Xiyan, I don’t know what kind of corrupted method you used to reach this level of strength.”

“But don’t think that some half baked technique you stole is enough to beat me!”

“Using Lingxiao sword techniques right at the gates of the Lingxiao Sword Sect, do you even understand what it means to flaunt an axe at Lu Ban’s door!”

Chi Xiyan said nothing. She simply pressed forward with relentless aggression.

The three foot blade in her hand carried an unmatched force, crashing down like a sudden storm.

Song Shixuan wasn’t wrong. She truly had relied on a corrupted method to reach this level of strength.

Her current cultivation had been paid for by her own sister, who had sacrificed two years of hard earned cultivation, along with her maiden primordial yin.

And perhaps because this cultivation traced back to the reincarnated Sword Venerable, the sword qi within her body had refined itself to an almost impossible purity.

Though she stood only at the middle stage of the Fifth Realm, the true essence within her rivaled that of a cultivator at the very peak of the Fifth Realm.

Chi Xiyan was not a foolish idealist.

This three year wager was never about her. It was for the sake of the person she loved most, her little sister, Chi Muxue.

Everything she now possessed, her cultivation, her sword technique, had come from Chi Muxue’s sacrifice and her lineage.

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This duel, three years in the making, was a battle fought for Chi Muxue.

This battle could not be lost.

“Song Shixuan, you’re wrong.” Chi Xiyan said coldly. “This isn’t a Lingxiao Sword Sect technique I’m using.”

“It’s the sword technique passed down by the Sword Venerable.”

“Ridiculous!” Song Shixuan channeled his strength to sweep aside Chi Xiyan’s incoming blade.

“The Sword Venerable was always a disciple of my sect. Their lineage is our sect’s most closely guarded secret.”

“Chi Xiyan, stealing our sect’s lineage is a crime punishable by death.”

“It’s only for my future wife’s sake that the Lingxiao Sword Sect has spared you this far.”

“After this battle, if you’re willing to join my household as a concubine at my side, I could plead with my master to let you keep your cultivation.”

Chi Xiyan’s expression turned even colder.

The killing intent in her heart had already reached its peak.

She had wanted to kill Song Shixuan for a very long time.

Since exactly when?

Probably since the night of her engagement banquet, the moment this man forced his way into Muxue’s room.

Back then, she had still been the eldest daughter of the Chi family, and the Lingxiao Sword Sect was a colossal power the Chi family dared not offend.

The Chi family had never truly belonged to her to command, and she had no room to act on her own will.

For the sake of the bigger picture, she had been forced to suppress her own feelings.

So back then, she had made the most rational choice available to her.

But now, here, in this place.

Everything was completely different.

She no longer needed to consider the so called bigger picture, no longer needed to weigh the consequences.

She could cast every hesitation aside, unleash every ounce of fury within her, and fight with everything she had.

“Song Shixuan! Do you remember what I once said?” Chi Xiyan demanded.

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“What did you say?” Song Shixuan replied coldly.

“In this battle, life and death rest with heaven’s will!” Chi Xiyan snarled in a low voice.

She suddenly struck out with a fierce slash, sword winds erupting outward.

Threads of sword qi surged violently across the sparring platform.

“Heh.” A cold sneer crossed Song Shixuan’s face.

Still, faced with sword qi surging in every direction, he didn’t dare to underestimate her.

This woman was strange beyond reason. Whatever corrupted method she had used, despite being only at the middle stage of the Fifth Realm, the combat strength she was unleashing was nearly a match for his own, and he stood at the very peak of the Fifth Realm.

This duel had been his own proposal. He couldn’t afford to lose it.

Song Shixuan turned his blade sideways, sword winds coiling around the edge.

“Lingxiao Exiled Sword Art. Form of Wind.”

In an instant, the blade in Song Shixuan’s hand trembled violently, a blue green sword light nearly solidifying into something tangible, transforming into a churning gale across the sparring platform.

It collided head on with the threads of sword qi Chi Xiyan had released, twisting and grinding against each other in a deadly tangle.

Within just a few breaths, it erupted into a full storm of blade winds sweeping across the entire platform.

Below the platform, the watching sect disciples let out gasp after gasp of astonishment.

“That’s the Lingxiao Exiled Sword Art? A lineage technique only sect elders are permitted to learn?”

“I’ve been part of the Lingxiao Sword Sect for over a decade, and this is the first time I’ve ever seen it.”

“Form of Wind is one of the more advanced techniques within the Lingxiao sword arts. Normally only Sixth Realm elders can master it, yet the young sect master has achieved it at only the Fifth Realm?”

“That girl from the Chi family really is something, to be able to match the young sect master in swordsmanship to this degree. Such a shame, though. This is as far as she’ll go.”

“Even a Sixth Realm sword cultivator couldn’t survive a storm of sword qi this world ending.”

“She’s finished.”

While the crowd marveled at Song Shixuan’s swordsmanship and lamented the imminent death of a young woman, a hesitant voice spoke up.

“Um.”

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“Am I the only one who thinks the sword qi Chi Xiyan laid out on the ground earlier looked a lot like the Execution Order Sword Formation from the Lingxiao Exiled Sword Art?”

“The young sect master using Form of Wind right now looks more like he’s trying to stop that formation from completing.”

“What nonsense are you talking about?” someone immediately shot back. “If Form of Wind is a technique only elders are allowed to learn, then the Execution Order Sword Formation is a secret technique only the sect master himself is permitted to learn.”

“The Execution Order Sword Formation is far, far harder than Form of Wind!”

The two locked in combat had no idea of the commotion stirring below.

Facing the storm of blades sweeping across the entire platform, not a trace of surprise crossed Chi Xiyan’s face.

Or rather, she had already guessed that Song Shixuan would resort to this move.

Having received the Sword Venerable’s lineage from Chi Muxue, she understood the Lingxiao Sword Sect’s techniques far better than most of the disciples watching from below.

The sword qi she had released moments earlier had been laid out specifically to bait Song Shixuan into using Form of Wind.

And now, everything was unfolding exactly as Chi Xiyan had predicted.

The storm stirred up by Form of Wind was unmatched in its raw power. But that same overwhelming storm also disrupted and severed a cultivator’s spiritual consciousness, blocking their ability to perceive what lay within it.

Song Shixuan, the young sect master of the Lingxiao Sword Sect, was still only at the peak of the Fifth Realm. Having not yet reached the Sixth Realm, his spiritual consciousness could not overcome the interference caused by this storm, nor could he perfectly control the chaotic sword qi raging within it.

This was the opening Chi Xiyan had deliberately engineered, the breach through which she intended to bring him down in a single decisive strike.

Of course, if Chi Muxue hadn’t willingly served as her cauldron and raised her cultivation to the middle stage of the Fifth Realm, she never would have been able to force Song Shixuan into using this particular move at all.

The girl spread her hand open, and four pills of different colors appeared in her palm.

“Heaven and earth, the five elements, the supreme dao. All things generate one another, and all things overcome one another.”

Form of Wind, this technique of the Lingxiao Sword Sect, belonged to the element of metal within the five elements.

If one tried to counter this dao technique through swordsmanship alone, it would be an extremely difficult task.

But Chi Xiyan was an alchemist.

She was deeply versed in the properties of medicine, and just as deeply versed in the mutual generation and destruction of the five elements.

And during her years studying alchemy, she had discovered something fascinating. Inside an alchemy cauldron, when the refined energies of the five elements shifted out of balance or collided with one another, the once stable equilibrium could shatter in an instant, unleashing terrifying force through that collision and causing the entire cauldron to explode.

Under ordinary circumstances, the ambient five element energy found in nature was inert and wouldn’t trigger such a reaction. Only highly activated, extremely unstable refined energy could cause something like that to happen.

And right now, this was exactly what Chi Xiyan intended to do.

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By detonating the five element energy at play, she would force Song Shixuan’s storm of blades to explode like an overloaded cauldron.

The four pills in her hand were refined by her own two hands, five element spirit pills distilled to the very peak of purity.

Chi Xiyan gave a light flick of her wrist, and the four spirit pills drifted silently outward.

They flew toward the four corners of the storm of blades.

Song Shixuan’s storm had already tangled itself with the sword qi Chi Xiyan had left behind, and since his cultivation hadn’t reached the level needed to perfectly control the storm, drawing out the spiritual energy trapped within it wasn’t difficult for her at all.

Once the four spirit pills were in position, Chi Xiyan formed a spiritual seal with her fingers.

“Detonate. Now.”

The moment her whispered command fell, the potency of all four spirit pills erupted at once.

As though triggering a chain reaction, four streams of refined five element energy surged inward toward the metal element storm at the center.

A deafening boom cracked through the air like thunder.

Song Shixuan’s expression changed drastically.

He suddenly felt the sword art he had unleashed spiral completely out of his control.

Immense energy detonated all at once, tearing indiscriminately through everything on the platform.

“Watch out!”

Below the sparring platform, several sect elders surged into motion.

“Lower ranked disciples, form up into a defensive formation, brace against the shockwave.”

“That sword wind is carrying the combined force of both fighters. An explosion like this is far beyond what a Fifth Realm cultivator can withstand.”

“Go, save them, quickly!”

“Protect the young sect master first!”

At that very moment, a barrier of solidified sword qi flashed into existence, sweeping over the sparring platform before any of the elders could even move, sealing the entire blast within it.

“It’s the Immortal Venerable!”

“The Immortal Venerable has stepped in!”