Nightfall

Translator: Larbre Studio Editor: Larbre Studio

The cursive on the clouds was quite messy and full of murderous intent. Countless thin traces appeared on the sky upon the arrival of the Yi Talisman and the cursive suddenly became scattered.

Ning Que’s method was indeed magical. Seeing this, the Sage of Calligraphy admired Yan Se’s sharp eyes for discovering talents. However, he was too proud to admit that he admired Ning Que, who happened to be the talent that Yan Se discovered.

The Sage of Calligraphy gave a loud shout, then chilly winter winds suddenly blasted, drawing more clouds. The sunlight behind the clouds was blocked completely, making the palace quieter.

The clouds were very strange. While lacking in number, they were just white clouds floating in the clear blue sky. While increasing in number and overlapping each other, their colors became darker and darker.

The clouds over the palace were getting thicker and thicker, turning into dark clouds. With the movement of the clouds, they looked like the ink in the ink stone, stirred up by the invisible brush pen.

The previous white paper became the ink, hence the fierce and chaotic cursive script disappeared. However, in the next moment, the clouds suddenly became lower and then scattered clouds flew out, looking like countless ink spots.

Every scattered cloud was a scribbled character.

The cursive script that the Sage of Calligraphy wrote did not disappear but became ink spots from the traces on the cloud paper, falling on Ning Que like raindrops as if they possessed material energy.

What magical means!

Ning Que turned pale, and the Psyche Power in his Ocean of Consciousness was desperately poured out. He kept waving his iron sword, creating Yi Talismans one after another and destroying the characters formed from the ink clouds.

However, the dark clouds covered the entire imperial city. At least hundreds of characters were hidden in the clouds and they were constantly falling down. How could Ning Que destroy them all?

His iron sword broke out of the wind, and the Yi Talismans wiped out the characters silently. The scribbled and powerful characters were harvested and chopped like real grasses. However, the characters in the ink clouds became denser and denser and continued to fall indefinitely. Ning Que turned paler and paler and struggled to fight against his enemy. He was only relying on his Talisman Intent to surround him.

In the battlefield, the only thing that could restrict the power of Fu Tao was the power of Psyche Power. A powerful Divine Talisman like the Yi Talisman consumed enormous Psyche Power, which was beyond imagination. If it that was not the case, then wouldn’t that mean that only a few Divine Talisman masters could wash over the whole world?

Ning Que rarely realized the importance of Psyche Power whenever he used to cast Divine Talismans in the past because he began to meditate at a very young age and possessed more Psyche Power than ordinary Talisman masters did. For the key moments that really required him to cast countless Divine Talismans, such as fighting against a group of talisman masters in the Rite to Light or fighting against Abbey Dean of the Zhishou Abbey in Chang’an, he had an inexhaustible source of Psyche Power — the God-stunning Array and Sangsang’s Divine Power.

However, the situation was different today. Facing the unpredictable Sage of Calligraphy, Ning Que must exert all his strength. After writing seven Yi Talismans, he felt that his Psyche Power was about to dry up without the help of Chang’an!

Yan Se had explained this when he taught Fu Tao to Ning Que. Ning Que knew clearly that it was very common for talisman masters to exhaust their Psyche Powers, which was even the most common cause of their deaths. What really shocked him was that he exhausted Psyche Power after writing Yi Talismans while his opponent didn’t change at all after writing a wild cursive containing hundreds of characters in the clouds!

Ning Que rarely encountered a cultivator whose Psyche Power was more forceful than his, but at this moment, he realized that his opponent’s Psyche Power was horribly stronger. It seemed that the Sage of Calligraphy was even more powerful than the national master of Golden Tribe Royal Court! The Sage of Calligraphy was indeed a superb talisman master!

Ning Que knew that he must make a decision as soon as possible. While the Yi Talismans were still fighting against the scribbled characters falling from the clouds, he inserted the iron sword in his hand into the bluestone ground, taking out the bow and arrow from the back of the big black horse.

He drew the iron bow and put on the iron arrow, pointing at the Sage of Calligraphy, who was standing on the stone steps in front of the hall.

Your Psyche Power was indeed forceful and your cursive script was indeed horrible, but how can you survive from my arrow?

At this point, the ink clouds flew around and the Talisman Intent caused a great sensation. Nobody could see clearly, but the Sage of Calligraphy saw clearly what Ning Que was doing.

Looking at the world-renowned iron bow, the Sage of Calligraphy was as calm as before, showing no fear or vigilance. He wanted to kill Ning Que, so how could he not think of the most powerful weapon that Ning Que possessed?

The Sage of Calligraphy stretched out his right hand from his sleeve and grabbed a dark cloud from the sky and threw it at Ning Que.

A Splash-Ink!

The Great River Kingdom was the home field of the Sage of Calligraphy. There was no chance he would let Ning Que win!

With the Sage of Calligraphy’s grabbing of the dark cloud and dropping it down, more than ten halls and countless stone and bronze statues suddenly gave a solemn and killing atmosphere. It was the Array of the Imperial City!

The Array was the Grand Talisman, and the Array of Imperial City was the Grand Talismans written by generations of Grand Masters from the Black Ink Garden. The Sage of Calligraphy captured the clouds as ink and moved the hall like a talisman today, in order to defeat Ning Que on the spot!

Darkness engulfed the square in front of the hall, and a shrill voice was heard vaguely. Everywhere was covered by the dark and the space was distorted by the chaos in the ink cloud!

Ning Que’s arrow had already left the bow but it somehow disappeared.

It was the most effective way to deal with the Thirteen Primordial Arrows. If one couldn’t aim and the space one saw was fake or distorted, then how could one hit the target?

Looking at the ink cloud, Ning Que sensed that there were countless chaotic Talisman Intent hidden in it. His expression became complicated, for he knew that he had lost. He acknowledged his defeat sincerely.

After Yan Se and Wei Guangming perished together in Chang’an, the Sage of Calligraphy was the only Grand Master of Fu Tao left in the world. Obviously, Ning Que needed more time to catch up to him.

Ning Que was about to be killed by the Talisman Intent that were contained in the ink cloud, but oddly, his face revealed no fear. He seemed calm, but still a little defeated

Looking at the expression on Ning Que’s face, the Sage of Calligraphy frowned slightly and felt puzzled.

Ning Que had experienced many sinister battles, but he only saw two battles as fair decisive battle with the real powerful talisman masters: one was the battle with Xia Hou by the Snow Lake and the other was the battle with Abbey Dean of the Zhishou Abbey in Chang’an.

During the former battle, Xia Hou was still injured. During the latter battle, the entire city of Chang’an and all of the people in the city helped him fight against the Abbey Dean of the Zhishou Abbey. Technically, the battle with the Sage of Calligraphy today should be the most sinister one that Ning Que had ever fought, for the opponent was powerful enough to grab clouds and cast magical Divine Talismans.

Ning Que was doomed to fail but he still regarded the battle today as the easiest one in his life.

He put down the iron bow, and pulled out a heavy iron sword from the bluestone. He stepped on the bluestone heavily with his right foot, crushing four connected bluestones. Then he rushed toward the Sage of Calligraphy!

The Haoran Qi in his abdomen bursted into inexhaustible strength, pouring into every part of his body and raising his speed to an unimaginable level!

Ning Que rushed into the black fog.

The dark fog contained countless scribbled characters and chaotic Talisman Intent hidden in the ink.

The air in the fog was twisted.

The Haoran Qi covered every inch of his skin, but still not enough to completely isolate the Talisman Intent. With his clothes broken, small wounds appeared on Ning Que’s body, and the blood was turned into mist the moment it bled out.

Surrounding by the faint blood mist, Ning Que kept running and slashed his sword at the Splash-Ink.

Every time the sword fell, the Splash-Ink became lighter, and a clear sword mark appeared on the gray clouds above the palace, revealing the blue and clear sky.

The Sage of Calligraphy raised his eyebrows slowly, and the strands of white hair that were cut off by Ning Que’s Divine Talismans previously were dancing in the wind.

The Sage of Calligraphy knew that Ning Que had cultivated Haoran Qi and realized that the kid had already gone mad. However, he still felt that Ning Que was seeking his demise because the space in the Splash-Ink had been twisted. Even though Ke Haoran rose from death, it was still impossible to burst through the mist, let alone Ning Que. It was because the space represented the power of the rules.

Since Ning Que was seeking his demise, the Sage of Calligraphy decided to help him seal his fate.

A vigorous Psyche Power enveloped the entire palace, and the scope of the ink splashed farther and farther. The faint mist filled the square in front of the hall, gradually submerging the flower tree in the corner of the Imperial City.

Ning Que rushed into the Splash-Ink, and countless clear sounds rang out, which was caused by the winter winds that were stirred by Ning Que’s body cutting through the twisted space and chaotic Talisman Intent in the Splash-Ink.

Even winds could be cut through, let alone a sword or a person.

The flower tree in the corner of the Imperial City couldn’t bear the Talisman Intent and lost several branches.

Ning Que kept running, completely ignoring the horrible black mist.

The he ran out of the mist and appeared before the Sage of Calligraphy.

The twisted space and chaotic Talisman Intent in the mist did not kill him. Apart from the broken clothes and small wounds in the very beginning, he did not even suffer any new wound.

The flower tree in the corner of Imperial City was unscathed.

Looking at Ning Que before him, the Sage of Calligraphy frowned silently.

The Sage of Calligraphy found the matter obscured and unreasonable.

Although the Tang People were indeed unreasonable, and the Academy was even more infamous for being unreasonable.

However, the whole matter was just extremely unreasonable.

Ning Que was no longer prepared to reason things out. When the Sage of Calligraphy called the Tang people unreasonable in their previous conversation, they had talked about the matter and didn’t need another round of debate.

He lifted the heavy iron sword and slashed it toward the Sage of Calligraphy.

Ning Que was just one chi away from me holding his sword. I bet nobody could compete with him in this world except for a few powerhouses from Light’s Doctrine and Ye Hongyu.

The Sage of Calligraphy shouted out and put the brush pen athwart his chest.

The brush pen broke.

The Sage of Calligraphy was blown away and hit against the pillar of the main hall, spitting lots of blood.

After all, he was just the Sage of Calligraphy, not Sage of Sword.

…

…

The Sage of Calligraphy looked much older in a very short period of time. He looked at the half-broken brush pen he held in his hand and was a little stunned, for he still didn’t understand what had just happened.

The Sage of Calligraphy was very confident in the state of his Fu Tao and believed that his state was very close to Yan Se’sstate. How could Yan Se’s disciple defeat me?

Why did Ning Que ignore my Splash-Ink?

Staring at Ning Que, he asked, “Why?”

Ning Que thought about it and answered, “Maybe it’s because…you can’t defeat me.”

The Sage of Calligraphy didn’t understand and continued to ask, “Why can’t I defeat you?

At this point, a voice came from the side of the hall.

The voice had no emotions, but convinced all of the people hearing it that what she said was totally right, for she sounded so naturally.

“Because I don’t want you defeating him.”

Walking to the square in front of the hall with hands behind back, Sangsang ignored Sage of Calligraphy lying in a pool of blood. She looked up at the gray clouds in the sky and said, “Your means of collecting clouds is quite good, but the clouds are too dirty.”

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