Radiant Blade of the Wilderness

Chapter 151: Tempering

Watching the blazing white sea of fire tinged with redness surge forward with Seventh Ge’s hoe, Ding Songyan felt a measure of surprise alongside a flicker of excitement at encountering a martial art so unlike anything he’d seen before.

Over the past two months, as his foundations grew steadily more solid, Tao Wenshu had often sparred with him during training sessions, teaching through practice rather than instruction.

Through this, he had glimpsed what the Celestial Stars Scripture would look like at greater mastery of the Dharma Realm. That dark expanse of star-filled sky could cover more than 40 meters in every direction, and the countless stars it manifested would naturally blaze or fall with each technique, lending their influence and power accordingly.

For arts such as the Northern Sea Fish-Spine Scripture, the text suggested that the Dharma Realm affected its surroundings mainly by creating conditions in which enemies feel as though they were drowning, manipulating nearby currents, gathering the momentum of falling rain, and augmenting the art’s own techniques.

None of them could yet fully manifest the illusory into the real such as truly summoning a starfield or a flooded plain onto solid ground.

Yet Seventh Ge had actually ignited world-scorching flames within 40 meters of him and conjured a genuine hellfire inferno!

Against another Dharma Realm Grandmaster, a warrior at the perfected Great Proliferation Realm might manage to block two or three moves. But against Seventh Ge, they would likely be incinerated to ash before even closing the distance or suffering a single blow.

By the Northern Sea Fish-Spine Scripture’s measure, this is already the might of the Heaven-Man Realm... Was Seventh Ge originally a Supreme Master, with some disconnect between his power and his person leaving him showing only Dharma Realm range? Or is the art itself exceptional? Or is the world-scorching fire sea purely a spectacle that’s not as strong as it appears? Ding Songyan did not dodge. He let Seventh Ge close to within twenty meters in a single step.

Every detail of the surrounding environment flooded into his mind with perfect clarity.

The scorching heat is real. The sea of fire is an illusion, a phantom conjured by the art’s influence over extreme temperature...

The actual world-scorching flames are only on the hoe and the layer over Seventh Ge’s body...

The scalding air current will significantly affect my breathing and impair my judgment, if not for the Chaos Realm...

The heat is clearly building up over time. The longer this fight goes on, the more this area will resemble an actual inferno. At that point, once the flames on Seventh Ge’s hoe scatter outward from a block or collision, they could very well ignite the air and incinerate everything around us, making a real sea of fire...

Ding Songyan raised Frostshade and sliced lightly against the flat of the hoe, deflecting the powerful blow sideways as tongues of flame scattered in all directions.

The blazing white sea of fire that followed blanketed everything around him, yet only left his skin burning, his breathing labored, and the hairs on his body curling.

A ringing clamor rang out incessantly. Seventh Ge pressed forward as Ding Songyan retreated, one driving ahead in a wild, scattershot assault, the other with his long sword slashing, deflecting, lifting, and tapping, blocking blow after blow with deceptive ease.

This was Candlelit Night, a technique of the Seven Swords of Candlelit Night most renowned for defense. It resembled a candle flame in the deep of night, flickering feebly against harsh conditions, yet never going out as it continued casting its warmth.

It paired perfectly with the Southern Dipper Calamity-Averting Steps.

Their figures crossed and shifted, rising and falling. No matter how furiously Seventh Ge attacked, Ding Songyan’s defense was airtight, leaving not a single gap.

Although his Candlelit Nocturne Sutra and Celestial Stars Scripture had not yet reached the Dharma Realm level, leaving his two sword arts somewhat short of a Grandmaster’s when driven by their corresponding true qi, this was his first time using the Chaos Realm in live combat. It let him clearly sense the muscle shifts, subtle body adjustments, and faint traces of true qi flow before each of Seventh Ge’s strikes. It was nearly the ability to read forces through the air, giving him just enough foreknowledge to block in time with the nimble precision of Candlelit Night and hold his ground.

The two traded twenty to thirty rapid exchanges between the mud huts and the pond, and Seventh Ge grew more exhilarated with every passing moment.

Suddenly he gripped the hoe with both hands and brought it crashing down on Ding Songyan with the force of a mountain.

Ding Songyan did not block head-on. He stepped to the side, letting Frostshade slice diagonally upward in a connected parry-and-deflect that resolved the attack.

But as his long sword scraped across it, a stream of blazing white-and-red flames scattered from the hoe’s surface with a sharp ring.

A howling gust erupted as the surrounding air, already scorched to a critical heat, ignited in an instant. A near-white crimson sea of fire swallowed Ding Songyan whole, painting the pond a brilliant gold-red.

Ding Songyan was unperturbed. He extended his long sword forward, and with his force restrained and his Candle Intent drawn inward, traced a single arc.

The arc abruptly became a dark swirling vortex, drawing all the near-white crimson flames toward it like a great whale drinking the sea.

The surrounding space emptied in an instant, leaving only residual heat and char marks on the mud.

After Candlelight Illuminates All, the follow-through was Stars Turn, Constellations Shift. It transformed the absorbed fire and hurled it back at Seventh Ge.

Seventh Ge changed from a downward smash to a scooping dig, driving the hoe hard into the void directly in front of Frostshade.

The dark vortex created by Candlelight Illuminates All vanished with uncanny abruptness.

Having just been condensed, its force not fully transformed, the blazing white-and-red fireball froze in place then expanded.

Boom!

A massive explosion tore through everything around them, blazing white-and-red flames riding a violent surge of wind in every direction.

Ding Songyan sensed something was wrong a moment before and pulled his sword back in time, retreating sharply. His figure was so fast it nearly left an afterimage and the scene trembling gently in his wake.

Flames rained down onto the mud huts and into the pond, setting numerous things alight and sending up visible plumes of white steam.

Under the terrible shockwave, Frostshade’s blade gave a faint tremor and a low hum. Had it not been forged from exceptional material by a master’s hand, the explosion would have left it badly damaged.

Ding Songyan’s clothes caught fire in several places, but the flames snuffed out in an instant amid a faint, barely perceptible darkness.

A true Dharma Realm Grandmaster... Having taken a hit, Ding Songyan felt no panic, only a strange exhilaration.

He burst into motion, closing on Seventh Ge himself, and from a distance flicked the sword toward his opponent’s left chest.

Seventh Ge did not switch to defense. He simply turned his body, avoiding the thrust, and his flame-wreathed hoe came crashing toward Ding Songyan that came along with the sword.

Ding Songyan nimbly flicked his wrist, shifting from a thrust to a slash, turning his sword into a streak of light aimed straight at the throat.

Left with no choice, Seventh Ge accepted the momentary disadvantage, then brought the hoe back around to block Frostshade.

Ding Songyan changed his attack again. First, he pulled his arm back, then, just as the sword was halfway withdrawn, he snapped his shoulder forward and sent Frostshade shooting out like lightning toward Seventh Ge’s flank.

This time he pressed his attack relentlessly, not pulling the sword back to defend even once, forcing Seventh Ge into a continuous scramble of blocks and dodges. Even the illusory sea of fire surrounding him contracted inward, its range shrinking steadily.

Pushed to the very edge, Seventh Ge suddenly smiled.

His right hand slid forward, gripping the hoe closer to its head, and he swung the tool like a waterwheel.

BOOM!

Seventh Ge’s true qi erupted, detonating the illusory sea of fire that was now compressed to nothing larger than a human head.

The blazing white-and-red hellfire reappeared and expanded explosively, carrying with it a torrent of all-consuming flame and a wind surge that could destroy anything in its path.

Ding Songyan did not resist head-on. His toes tapped in rapid succession as he rode the force of the surge in a swift retreat.

A faint darkness appeared around him in an instant, absorbing the flames that rushed at his face.

In an instant he was hurled back about ten meters, teetering like a bird caught in a gale.

As the wind surge subsided, Ding Songyan landed on the charred ground, his clothes torn in multiple places and marked with burns.

He had suffered some injuries, but nothing too serious.

Seventh Ge was already closing in again through the fire and wind.

Eyes calm, Ding Songyan raised Frostshade and met the attack.

The ringing clamor rose again without end. Under Seventh Ge’s relentless assault and the searing void, Ding Songyan blocked, counter-attacked, and dodged with everything he had. His Seven Swords of Candlelit Night and Celestial Stars Sword Art seemed to become a red-hot ingot, hammered ever denser, every impurity beaten out.

Watching the surrounding space grow ever more scorching, resonating from afar with his own true qi, the smile on Seventh Ge’s face deepened, growing more and more savage.

At that moment, he saw Ding Songyan’s face sharpen in an instant, his eyes shifting strangely, dark blue-black scales spreading across his body in multiple places.

A cold light blazed out. The crystalline sword tip rushed larger and larger in Seventh Ge’s eyes.

A dreamlike daze flooded into Seventh Ge’s sea of consciousness, yet it could not shake his will, cloud his senses, or awaken any nightmare within him.

He laughed.

Instead, it jogged his memory. Certain things from the past came back to him, and the knowledge that he was ”steadfast and unyielding, unafraid of nightmares and hexes.”

This strike, what use is it against me?

The scornful thought had barely flashed through his mind when Seventh Ge felt something quietly seep into his soul.

Everything seemed to drift into a dream.

Sword Intent? Yes, that’s what this is called. I’ve finally remembered... Memory surfaced in Seventh Ge, and he saw a striking young man.

It was himself.

The young hero grew stronger and stronger, and older and older. As he watched the disciple before him—full of the same vitality he had once possessed—a hunger crept into his eyes, a faint glimmer of dark light.

Before long, his senior sister’s sharp voice rang in his ears.

”You violated sect rules, seized a body to be reborn. How dare you come before me?”

A flash of blazing white light and he fell into fathomless depths.

He crawled out of the fathomless depths and hid everywhere, like a stray dog that had lost its home.

Without realizing it, this body had aged as well.

He chose a storyteller—one whose nature and fate were a perfect match.

He activated the secret art again, attempting to seize the body. But the moment he snuffed out the storyteller’s soul, a smoky darkness and spectral green nether-lightning suddenly appeared before him.

Celestial punishment?

There’s celestial punishment?

He blanched in shock as years of buried fear and regret came surging up.

The nether-lightning fell in silence and struck his soul.

That familiar, searing pain spread through his entire being in an instant, jolting him awake.

He saw the storyteller whose body he had seized—that clean-cut, fair-looking face bearing no expression at all—and the translucent, dreamlike long sword in his hand already thrust into his own brow. That was the source of the pain.

Wh... am I about to die... truly die... Seventh Ge drifted in confusion, lost in both body and mind.

In the end, I’m dying in the wilderness like a stray dog...

No one knows I’m dying here. No one will mourn me. No one will grieve...

Had I known, I should have died of old age within the sect. My peers would have mourned, my disciples would have grieved...

These past decades truly were like a dream...

Thud! Seventh Ge collapsed heavily to the ground and went still.

Ding Songyan quickly opened his yin eyes, intending to question the spirit, but the moment he saw Seventh Ge’s ghost, he found it twisting savagely into a streak of crimson light and shooting straight toward his own ancestral aperture between the brows.

Not truly dead yet, and able to suppress its fear of Banishing Demons and Warding Off Evil? That body-seizing secret art? Ding Songyan’s mind sharpened, and the Chaos Realm around him manifested fully.

In that enclosing darkness, Seventh Ge’s soul moved ever more slowly, dissipating ever faster, and growing ever more afraid.

”Who are you?” Ding Songyan asked, his voice cold as frost.