Chapter 186 - 183: Quick, Chase!

Mo Qianqian’s expression changed drastically. Seeing the meat-grinder-like mass of black energy charging toward him and with nowhere to hide, he hastily circulated the second stance of the Vast Spear Technique. Holding his spear skyward with both hands, he prepared to smash it forward.

However, right at this moment, the mass of black energy, crisscrossed by the Soft Sword, suddenly stopped several dozen feet in front of him. Then, it turned and rapidly shifted away laterally, darting toward his flank.

Mo Qianqian froze. He wondered who on earth that was. How could anyone possess such formidable power to continuously wield a sword at such a terrifying speed? Why didn’t the other party attack him, but instead flew off into the distance as if fleeing?

"Hurry and chase it! It’s not a human!" The voice of the mysterious woman from the second layer of the Ninefold Coffin suddenly rang in Mo Qianqian’s ears.

"Huh?" Mo Qianqian was taken aback. He wondered what she meant by it not being human. However, he didn’t overthink it. Since the mysterious woman told him to give chase, he would do just that. Without hesitation, his figure blurred as he sped after the retreating mass of black energy.

"Mo Qianqian..." Lao Liu was astonished and hurriedly followed him. She was only at the Seventh Level of Tongyou Realm, meaning her combat power was relatively weak. If the members of the Imperial Alliance returned for a counterattack without Mo Qianqian’s protection, she would be in deep trouble.

After chasing them out of Heilong Town for some distance, the gap between Lao Liu and Mo Qianqian grew wider and wider. In truth, Lao Liu had no real intention of catching up to him. She spun around and headed straight back to Heilong Town. She still needed to investigate the town!

Meanwhile, Mo Qianqian chased the entity for a while, eventually plunging into a dense forest.

As soon as they entered the woods, the mass of black energy shredded patches of trees into splinters wherever it passed, sending wood chips flying in all directions. Gradually, the black energy’s speed began to slow down, allowing Mo Qianqian to close the distance.

He pursued it until he was within a few dozen feet of the black energy, yet he dared not rush in to attack. The mass of black energy was simply too terrifying. No matter how thick the ancient trees in its path were, they were instantly diced into pieces. He even felt that if the black energy suddenly turned around, his life would be in grave danger. He was ready to summon his Spirit Body at a moment’s notice to wield his long spear and fight it off. At the very least, if his Spirit Body was pulverized, he would only suffer severe injuries. But if his physical body was ground to bits, he would be completely finished.

Fortunately, the mass of black energy seemed to fear him. Instead of turning around to charge at him, it thrashed blindly around the forest. It slammed into an ancient tree, shredding the trunk and sending the colossal tree crashing to the ground. Then, it careened into a nearby vine-covered boulder, grinding both the vines and the massive rock into dust. Finally, as if exhausted and falling out of the sky, it carved into the dirt and came to a complete halt, no longer darting about.

With the black energy grounded, the previously faint, blinding flashes of the Soft Sword and Sword Qi vanished entirely. Only a swirling mass of black fog remained, and even that was slowly dissipating.

Mo Qianqian hovered a short distance away in the low airspace of the forest, cautiously observing the phenomenon. After quite a while, the black fog dispersed completely. Right in the center of where the energy had landed, a coffin stood starkly on the ground—a pitch-black coffin.

"A coffin?" Mo Qianqian was instantly stunned. The entity inside that mass of black energy wasn’t a person, but a coffin? He wondered why Sword Qi and a Soft Sword had been dancing wildly around its exterior. Could it have been an illusion? Yet, the people and trees that had been mercilessly shredded into pieces were undeniable proof.

"Senior, what is going on here?" Mo Qianqian asked aloud, his mind swirling with confusion.

"That is a treasure. When a lesser coffin meets a greater one, it naturally submits. It was frightened the moment it sensed your Ninefold Coffin!" the mysterious woman explained.

"A treasure? One capable of grinding people into mince?" Mo Qianqian’s eyes lit up.

"To be precise, it’s the item inside the coffin. Open it. Oh, right, it would be best if you pull it into the Ninefold Coffin before doing so," the mysterious woman reminded him.

Mo Qianqian nodded and approached it. He immediately activated the Ninefold Coffin’s storage ability. The phantom image of Nine Dragons Pulling the Coffin flickered between his eyebrows as an inky darkness shrouded his immediate surroundings. The next moment, the black coffin was sucked into the Ninefold Coffin, vanishing from his line of sight.

Mo Qianqian prepared to enter the Ninefold Coffin as well. However, upon scanning his surroundings, he realized the commotion had been too loud. The trail of shredded trees leading directly to this spot made it glaringly obvious that entering the Ninefold Coffin here was unsafe. Consequently, he left the area to search for a more secluded location.

Mo Qianqian eventually stopped in front of a cluster of boulders and ancient trees. The phantom of the Nine Dragons Pulling the Coffin faintly surfaced between his brows again. Black light enveloped his body as an inexplicable force tugged at him. His vision blurred, and in the blink of an eye, he materialized on the Dark Red Rock Island. The pitch-black coffin lay on the dark red rocky ground right in front of him.

Mo Qianqian didn’t approach it directly. Instead, he summoned his Spirit Body, equipped it with the ordinary long spear in his hand, and sent it walking toward the black coffin. When the Spirit Body reached it, it used the tip of the spear to slowly pry open the coffin’s lid. As the lid slid aside, a Soft Sword was revealed inside. Other than that, there was nothing else.

"A sword?" Mo Qianqian was stunned. He wondered why there was only a sword inside the coffin. What was the deal with all the Sword Qi and the dancing blade that had surrounded the coffin earlier? If this very sword had been flying around out there, he could understand it. However, this sword was neatly resting inside the coffin, clearly having never been outside. Or could it be that it was outside earlier and had automatically returned to the coffin on its own?

BUZZ!

Right at that moment, a surge of consciousness suddenly erupted from the Soft Sword and rushed directly into the center of Mo Qianqian’s forehead.

"An inheritance!" Mo Qianqian was thoroughly shocked. That sword held the legacy of a Sword Technique! The inheritance had chosen him. Or rather, pressured by the immense aura of the Ninefold Coffin, it had been forced to choose him.

The consciousness of the Sword Technique inheritance flooded Mo Qianqian’s mind. As he examined its contents, he was quite astonished. This Sword Technique was called the "Chaotic Sword Stance," and it consisted of only a single move. However, just like the mass of black energy he had witnessed earlier, the technique involved whipping and vibrating the Soft Sword to form a chaotic, formless sword dance. By rushing at an opponent while maintaining this dance, the user became a terrifying meat grinder, shredding their foes into absolute ribbons!

The Chaotic Sword Stance had two key variables: the frequency of the Soft Sword’s vibrations and the duration they could be maintained. These heavily depended on the user’s personal mastery and cultivation base. The higher one’s mastery and the stronger their power, the more times they could vibrate the blade within a given timeframe, and the longer they could sustain the attack. Vibrating the sword dozens or even hundreds of times within a single breath made this technique worlds apart from an ordinary sword strike.

Of course, the Chaotic Sword Stance also had a notable flaw: its startup was relatively slow. The user had to begin whipping the Soft Sword and gradually build up speed. It was impossible to unleash an endless flurry of strikes in a fraction of a second from a complete standstill.

After receiving this inheritance, Mo Qianqian looked back at the Soft Sword lying in the coffin. A weapon capable of harboring such a legacy was undoubtedly a Spiritual Artifact, though its exact grade was unknown. Instead of having his Spirit Body fetch it, Mo Qianqian stepped forward and picked up the Soft Sword himself. The moment he grasped the hilt, a surge of violent and chaotic energy assaulted his Spirit. It was clearly no ordinary weapon.

Mo Qianqian turned his gaze toward the coffin, somewhat puzzled as to why a sword was kept inside it. He wondered if the coffin had originally been meant to bury someone, with the Soft Sword acting as a burial item. Perhaps over a vast span of time, the corpse had entirely decomposed, leaving behind only the high-quality coffin and this blade?

"Senior, is this coffin worth a lot of money?" Mo Qianqian couldn’t help but ask out loud.