Martial Cultivator

Chen Chao ignored the gathered qi refiners. With a light tap of his toe, he darted toward the Ancestral Hall at the summit of Three Streams Manor.

Chen Chao had never been the kind of man to repay enmity with kindness. In fact, from a long time ago, this young martial artist was infamous for returning every slight in full.

Otherwise, the Sublime Bright would not have been wiped out so quickly.

Back in Tianqing County, Guo Xi and the others had tried to kill him. They had failed, but Chen Chao had already marked that debt. Later, that middle-aged daoist nun had again tried to strike him down, and he had noted that too. Back then, he had already been planning to cause trouble for several qi refiner sects, including Three Streams Manor. But later, too many matters piled up, and this matter was put aside.

The matter was postponed, but Chen Chao never forgot. Before going into seclusion, he had heard that Three Streams Manor was going to host a Sixty-Year Gathering, and he had been planning to find a time to make trouble for them. Then he entered closed-door cultivation, and he almost thought the matter would be delayed indefinitely. But when he broke through, the Sixty-Year Gathering still had not started.

Since that was the case, there was no reason not to come.

Just as he was heading toward the Ancestral Hall, those qi refiners by the lakeshore were also discussing among themselves. Regarding the events befalling Three Streams Manor today, most of them felt a sense of “when the hare dies, the fox grieves.”

After all, belonging to the same lineage of qi refiners, if Chen Chao could humiliate Three Streams Manor today, then on some future day, he could humiliate them as well.

“Should we make a move to stop this person? Let him know that our qi refiner lineage isn’t something that can be bullied at will.”

Someone slowly spoke, already having the intention to act.

But soon, someone perceptive shook his head. “Let’s watch a bit longer. Three Streams Manor is the leader of the southern lineage of qi refiners, how could they be flipped upside down so easily by a single person? Tu Beihai must have a backup plan. Acting now, deliberately losing, it’s probably just to make that young martial artist lower his guard.”

“Did you see a second Nepenthe Realm make a move today?”

Hearing that qi refiner speak, everyone nodded one after another, all feeling his words made some sense. Three Streams Manor could not possibly have only Tu Beihai as a single Nepenthe Realm. This was not the heritage befitting a great southern sect of qi refiners.

“Over at the Ancestral Hall, I’m afraid someone has long been waiting for this young martial artist.”

Someone quickly reached this conclusion. They were no fools, watching the battle was one thing, but how could they not see some trickery at play?

“Should we climb the mountain and take a look?”

Someone could not hold back and made the suggestion. They very much wanted to know what kind of scene it would be over at the Ancestral Hall.

Not only did they want to know whether Chen Chao could leave the mountain alive, they also wanted to see what Three Streams Manor’s backup plan was.

The next instant, a streak of sword light appeared from the mountain summit, sweeping from the summit toward the mountainside!

“When did Three Streams Manor have a sword immortal?!”

The qi refiners were all greatly astonished. Perhaps no one could have imagined that this Three Streams Manor actually had produced a sword immortal!

“Tu Beihai hid so deeply. With a sword immortal on the mountain, yet keeping his mouth shut. Looks like his ambitions are not small!”

......

......

That streak of sword light howled as it arrived, directly cutting down half a mountainside’s worth of trees. That terrifying sword light seemed intent on cutting down everything along its path in a barbaric manner.

Sweeping aside all in its way, filled with killing intent.

Being the first target in its path, Chen Chao naturally sensed in the very first instant the killing intent carried by that fierce sword intent, yet he was completely unconcerned.

He had already crossed swords with sword cultivators more than once. Not to mention Yu Xiyi, that genuine sword immortal, even that half-baked demon race princess, Autumn, in the use of the sword, could probably crush the sword immortal before him, whom he had never met.

Facing this sword intent, Chen Chao did not even think about drawing his saber, nor about dodging. He simply went to meet it head-on.

He possessed a resilient physique unmatched by martial artists under heaven. Facing a sword cultivator, an existence that possessed the greatest killing power in the world, he actually wanted to see whether the other’s sword could leave even a single wound on him.

It was not that Chen Chao belittled the world’s experts, just from sensing the sword intent the other had revealed, he knew this person could not even compare to Yu Xiyi of back then.

So he simply paid it no mind.

Yu Xiyi was no longer the Yu Xiyi of the past, and Chen Chao was no longer the Chen Chao of the past. Chen Chao could not think of anything frightening about this sword immortal now striking at him.

The sword light finally arrived before Chen Chao in the midst of his musings, and Chen Chao also saw the one who had struck.

It was an unremarkable-looking middle-aged man.

Mm... The reason he said “unremarkable-looking” was because the other truly was not as handsome as himself.

Chen Chao smiled, then reached out to block that streak of sword light first. Following the motion, he threw a punch. The other party sent out a second sword strike unhurriedly. Mighty sword qi converged and sliced so sharply that the falling leaves around them shuddered and dropped.

Chen Chao watched this sword strike with interest. Perhaps he had sensed that the sword qi of the sword immortal before him was somewhat different from that of an ordinary sword cultivator, so this time, he did not rush to shatter it. Instead, he observed it closely for a while, and only when the sword qi had reached the point where he could not delay any longer did he reach out to shatter it. After that, he landed halfway up the mountain, and the other party also stopped his sword and descended.

”You walk the path of cultivating as both a qi refiner and a sword cultivator?”

Having previously fought with Tu Beihai, and with the aid of his Qi Observing Technique, Chen Chao could tell that the sword immortal before him did not walk purely the sword path. He carried the aura of the qi refiners as well. For someone to progress side by side on these two paths, whether as a qi refiner or as a sword cultivator, was something rare enough that perhaps there was no one else like that in the world.

From a certain perspective, this sword immortal before him could be considered rather remarkable.

”It was you, villain, who killed my Senior Sister?”

Zhang Nanting, who had descended the mountain with his sword, did not respond to Chen Chao, instead asking about the matter he cared about most.

Chen Chao was taken aback. ”Senior Sister?”

In the next moment, Chen Chao laughed. ”Killed too many people, who are you talking about?”

Zhang Nanting asked in a deep voice, ”How many people of my Three Streams Manor have you killed?”

Chen Chao did not answer that question, instead he spoke to himself, ”You’re talking about Guo Xi’s master? That unreasonable madwoman?”

The moment the word ”madwoman” left his mouth, Chen Chao could clearly sense the sword immortal’s killing intent surge.

”Villain, return my Senior Sister’s life!”

Zhang Nanting did not wish to say more. At this moment, full of rage, he only wanted to kill the young martial artist before him with a single sword strike.

Chen Chao narrowed his eyes and simply said, ”If this official kills you, does that mean that this official can tear down your Ancestral Hall?”

Before the words had even fallen, a streak of sword light had already swept to Chen Chao’s front. The speed of Zhang Nanting’s strike was actually about average among sword immortals.

While fending off this fine sword strike, Chen Chao recalled in his mind the information he had obtained earlier. He had already met Tu Beihai, the Manor Lord of Three Streams Manor, who was a Nepenthe Realm qi refiner who could not withstand a single blow. That man’s junior sister was the daoist nun Chen Chao had beaten to death in the past. As for the information that mentioned several junior brothers, none of them seemed to match this sword immortal before him.

After thinking for a moment, Chen Chao suddenly understood. The intelligence had once mentioned a Three Streams Manor cultivator named Zhang Nanting, also a junior fellow disciple of Tu Beihai. But after going up the mountain, this person had often gone into seclusion, so not only was he unknown in the world, but even among Three Streams Manor’s disciples, there were some who did not know of the Manor Lord’s junior brother.

That this man had emerged from seclusion having reached the sword immortal realm made Chen Chao look upon him with a bit more respect.

But that was all there was to it.

Afterward, Zhang Nanting’s sword strikes did not cease. This sword immortal, brimming with fury, sent out his strikes swifter than the average sword immortal.

While Chen Chao moved with the leisure of a stroll in a courtyard, facing the other party’s overwhelming sword qi with nothing more than calm composure.

In a short span, the two exchanged dozens of moves. Chen Chao was completely unscathed, but the forested mountainside was by now nearly all destroyed. Countless trees, cut in half with a single stroke, rolled down the slope. Not far away was a cliff face, and quite a few trees fell into the valleys below after tumbling from there, producing an indescribable sound.

“You’d be better off chopping trees than being a sword immortal, reckon you’d make a pretty good woodcutter.”

Chen Chao sidestepped one of Zhang Nanting’s sword strikes, and the large tree behind him took the blow instead, the sword qi slicing it clean in two.

Seizing the moment, Chen Chao kicked the broken trunk, thick enough that two men together could not encircle it, and sent it hurtling toward Zhang Nanting.

Zhang Nanting’s eyes narrowed slightly. By now he fully understood why his senior brother had told him to proceed with caution. This young martial artist before him was so formidable that even an ordinary Nepenthe cultivator was truly no match for him.

One sword stroke split the trunk before him, and Zhang Nanting tapped his toes to the ground, leaping backward several dozen feet. Both shoes became coated in dust, as if he had rooted himself to that spot.

Once he was steady at a distance, he did not immediately send out another sword strike. Instead, after giving Chen Chao a single glance, he drove his flying sword heavily into the ground.

His flying sword differed from ordinary flying sword, it was much broader across the blade, and in the middle of the blade was a groove. Now, as his breath flowed through both hands into the sword, that groove filled with a violet line of light.

As the violet line of light sank into the earth, a fissure instantly split open the ground before Chen Chao. From within the crack, countless violet rays burst forth.

In an instant, it seemed as if the entire mountain was shrouded in violet qi, and even Chen Chao found himself trapped within it.

It was said that when a sword cultivator made a move, it was the most ethereal of arts, and when a qi refiner struck, it was closest to the majesty of heaven and earth. When the two were combined, perhaps it became the most awe-inspiring display of force in all the world.

Chen Chao tapped the ground with his toes, instantly taking to the air. But the violet qi spilling constantly from the fissure pursued him relentlessly.

Even when Chen Chao leapt onto the crown of a massive tree, that violet qi crashed toward him in the blink of an eye. In the next instant, the giant ancient tree was torn apart.

Chen Chao’s brows knit slightly, though his expression did not change. Then, deliberately slowing his movements, he allowed the violet qi to close in, instantly surrounding and enveloping him.

At the same time, Zhang Nanting drew his flying sword out, then suddenly flung it forward. The weapon that was larger than the usual flying sword dragged behind it trails of violet light as it hurtled toward Chen Chao.

At that moment, it was as though hundreds of flying swords were shooting toward Chen Chao at once.

The momentum was vast, and sword qi rained across the entire mountain!