Chapter 173: Complementing One Another! Breakthrough Again!
Translator: Exodus Tales Editor: Exodus Tales
Once again, reality had managed to find a way to disappoint Yang Dingtian. He didn’t have any breakthrough in this breathing session.
“Why? What did I do wrong?” Yang Dingtian moaned. It wasn’t just that he wasn’t making any progress with leveling up, he was also nowhere close to beating that first boss in the wind palace.
Basically, Yang Dingtian was stuck.
“What do I do, Ugly?” Yang Dingtian said to his youngling sword, but it didn’t give him a response. Since it wasn’t capable of speech, the most it could do was to empathize with its owner in silence.
The obvious option would be choosing another palace. If Yang Dingtian wanted to, he could even just pick the element ice, which he would theoretically have the most advantage with.
Or, Yang Dingtian could find some courage and go with the hard option. Choosing the first room of the wind palace over the golden palace was somewhat of a strategic decision, but there was just no excuse for picking ice. Yang Dingtian didn’t like being a coward.
There had to be some other way. Yang Dingtian was sure of it. Even the hardest difficulties have some kind of winning strategy to it; otherwise, there wouldn’t be a point in designing it.
Suddenly, a thought came to Yang Dingtian’s mind.
He just realized how monotone his thinking was. It’s not that he could use only the Unyielding Sword in the golden palace. By the same logic, it wasn’t like he could use only the Formless Sword in the wind palace. He could be creative.
Yang Dingtian used the Formless Sword in the wind palace, and how did that turn out for him? A total failure, that’s how it turned out. Speed was clearly the main issue here, so where would be a good place to practice his speed?
Why, the super heavy gravitational pull inside the golden palace, of course. Yang Dingtian would definitely be a lot faster if he practiced his Formless Sword there.
Having come up with a solution, Yang Dingtian grabbed his youngling sword and headed straight towards the first room of the golden palace.
To Yang Dingtian’s surprise, the stone man reappeared as soon as he made his way in.
“Weird,” Yang Dingtian said to himself. He clearly remembered decimating this puppet the last time he saw it.
What the hell? So the golden palace would reset itself if Yang Dingtian went to another palace. Is that what’s happening here?
“A trespasser has been discovered. I shall now eliminate him!” The stone man shouted as it swung its hammer at Yang Dingtian.
Yang Dingtian raised his arms to defend with Unyielding Sword but quickly changed his mind as he realized how easy that would be. If the point of coming here was practice the Formless Sword, he might as well use the Formless Sword his entire way here.
So be it. It wasn’t like Yang Dingtian had mastered the Formless Sword anyway. The speed of this technique was ridiculously fast, but the power of it was pretty much pathetic.
Clang.
Despite being under three times the normal gravity, Yang Dingtian could still block the attack relatively easily with the Formless Sword.
It was nowhere as sturdy as the Unyielding Sword, though. Yang Dingtian had no problem with blocking the attack, but the impact of it was still enough to make blood cough out of his mouth.
After taking several steps backward, Yang Dingtian could see that the stone man was already coming at him again.
“Formless Sword…” Yang Dingtian chanted and struck at the stone man. He was quick enough to dodge its hammer, but the piercing wind still left a mark on the side of his face.
Dang.
A clear hit to the stone man’s chest.
Even under three times the normal gravity, the Formless Sword was still fast enough for Yang Dingtian to deliver a swift counterattack. Needless to say, a maneuver like this wouldn’t be possible with the Unyielding Sword.
Let’s make the most out of this.
As Yang Dingtian began to accelerate, his body became this invisible shadow that was darting across the room. It was just like when he was inside the wind palace, except it was he who was on the offensive now.
The stone man stood with absolutely no chance. It wasn’t just his legs or the hammer. Even his eyes couldn’t follow the movements that were coming in from all the directions.
It was ten times. A hundred times. A thousand times! Yang Dingtian kept hitting the stone man with his Formless Sword, and five hours later, there was not a part of it that remained intact.
Some were just shallow cuts. Others were much deeper. As weak as this technique was, Yang Dingtian still managed to take down the stone man with just the Formless Sword.
Come to think of it, the Formless Sword was really not as efficient as he had wanted it to be. Five hours and one thousand hits, not to mention that he had used all his mystic qi, and it was still not enough to completely finish his enemy.
As disappointing it was, the stone man was pretty much defeated by now. It wouldn’t be long before Yang Dingtian was going to have another breathing session down at the hall center.
“One more hit,” Yang Dingtian thought to himself, “If I still can’t finish this thing, let’s just end this once and for all.”
Then, with a twist of his body, Yang Dingtian came behind the stone man like a serpent and slid his blade under its throat.
He was still using the Formless Sword. After five hours of repeatedly releasing this technique, Yang Dingtian was starting to have a much more extensive understanding of it beyond its basic forms.
“Phew…” Yang Dingtian flew to the exit as there was not a bit of qi left inside of him. That was really meant to be his final attack.
The stone man was still standing right at where it was. And suddenly, a few seconds after Yang Dingtian had used his final Formless Sword, its head started sliding off from the rest of its body.
Crack.
As the head was smashed into tiny pieces as it fell on the ground, the rest of the stone man’s body, too, began to vanish along with it.
Yang Dingtian had managed to destroy the stone man for a second time. As it turned out, the Formless Sword was still a deadly art if you just keep using it.
Yeah, just keep spamming the same attack over and over again. Yang Dingtian felt exhausted as hell when he was walking back to have his breathing session, but well, you couldn’t gain without going through pain, right?
As he sat in an upright position, Yang Dingtian could feel an endless stream of qi flooding through his meridian and into his qi vessel. It was like an ocean had filled up his internal well, and after six hours of it channeling through his body, only the purest essence was left and remained.
No breakthrough this time. Or, so Yang Dingtian thought.
After a few seconds of static motion inside Yang Dingtian’s qi vessel, the qi that was absorbed in suddenly started kicking in and out. It was expanding, stretching out in a way that even the container holding was starting to change its shape.
A flash of white light. After which Yang Dingtian lost his consciousness and entered into a temporary state of rest. Both his meridian and qi vessel, too, were shut off for a few seconds.
Once Yang Dingtian regained consciousness, he could see that he had leveled up from a senior seven star to a novice eight star. In other words, he did have a breakthrough just now.
As it turned out, simply fighting the secret realm’s boss wasn’t enough. To actually attain a big breakthrough, you’d have to destroy it.
…
After making the necessary preparations, it was now time to retry the Formless Sword inside the wind palace. But before that, Yang Dingtian needed to get some sleep. As far as he could tell, he wasn’t taking any break from his training at least over the last ten days.
It wasn’t like he remained awake every time he was inside the magical green pool, but the time he spent in it was nowhere close enough for a quality rest, both physically and mentally.
While using his youngling sword as a body pillow, Yang Dingtian lay on the ground and slept for about ten hours. He wanted to be in his best condition before re-entering the wind palace.
And so he did. After he had woken up, Yang Dingtian was feeling much better than before. Arguably more than ever, even.
Having regained his vigor, Yang Dingtian walked to the entrance of the wind palace and took a deep breath. It was time for vengeance.
After the doors were pushed open, Yang Dingtian took a deep breath and stepped inside.
Once he entered, he immediately closed his eyes before he used his entire concentration to sense the obstructing invisible killer.
“Swish…” As expected, it had arrived.
Before its blade could strike at Yang Dingtian, a chilling intent had already surged over in advance.
Yang Dingtian rapidly slashed in the reverse direction.
“Clang…”
Yang Dingtian blocked its blade ahead of time. He rushed over suddenly and stabbed with the sword in his hand, towards the wielder of the blade.
Yang Dingtian’s sword was already extremely fast, several times faster than the time he was in the golden element palace.
But he was still late. That invisible killer was like a wind that drifted away and had completely vanished from Yang Dingtian’s senses again.
Yang Dingtian wasn’t in a hurry. His eyes were still closed as he waited for the invisible killer to attack again.
As expected, in just half a minute later, Yang Dingtian felt a chill at his crotch as that invisible and horrific sharp blade had directly sliced at his lower body.
Yang Dingtian’s sword was like a lightning bolt that thrust towards the ground.
“Ahh…” A sharp and miserable shriek could be heard.
A woman’s figure appeared on the ground. Yang Dingtian had stabbed onto the invisible killer, but his inner thigh was also sliced viciously. It was just less than an inch away from his important part at the lower body.
It was a woman that was entirely naked, and she had hair that was at the waist-length. She was very skinny and very bewitching.
Of course, she wasn’t a real woman but merely a shadow. But, this shadow could kill, could injure. It was as if she was a woman that was made purely from energy.
“Huff…” After suffering injury, that woman quickly turned into a gray shadow. Like the wind, the shadow flew away from under Yang Dingtian’s body and vanished without a trace.
The entire room had fallen back into silence, and that invisible woman had vanished once again.
Yang Dingtian closed his eyes and waited for her to make a move again.
Half a minute had passed.
One minute.
Five minutes.
This banshee still hadn’t made a move. It was a game of chicken.
Suddenly, Yang Dingtian felt a chill on his neck. It seemed that he was the more patient one here.
So the target was his neck. Yang Dingtian wasn’t sure when, but a sword was going to be struck towards his front.
His prediction was right. At a little over a fraction of second, Yang Dingtian could see a blade appearing in front of him from a slightly low angle.
Or so it seemed. Strangely, the hit that came was much slower than it should be. Yang Dingtian knew how fast the banshee was, so why would it take more than 0.1 seconds for it to throw an attack at him?
Without going for defense, Yang Dingtian ignored the blade in front of him and struck behind. No decoy tactic was going to fool him.
“Gah…” A terrible shriek came from behind. Yang Dingtian had hit the jackpot.
So that’s what it was. The blade this banshee was using was aerodynamic, which meant that it was going to revert from whatever position she threw it from.
This sly thing wasn’t going for an attack on the front. She was throwing her boomerang blade from Yang Dingtian’s back, letting it fly back towards him, and in the meantime, she was trying to deliver the finishing blow from where the guard was the most vulnerable. Behind Yang Dingtian, essentially.
Smart, but not that smart, as it turned out. As Yang Dingtian had seen right through her dirty little tricks, the banshee finally revealed its unsightly looks for the first time.
So the blades weren’t her only weapon. Even with a giant blade pinning through her, the banshee was still trying to slash at Yang Dingtian’s skull with its terrible, long nails. Not only that, but she was also desperately looking for a second chance to retreat by turning herself into the wind.
As if Yang Dingtian was going to let her do that. No, even if it meant taking a stab from behind, there was no way Yang Dingtian was going to play tag for a second time.
Contrary to what the name suggested, the Formless Sword was perfectly capable of trapping its target. Whenever the banshee tried to slip away, the countless swings Yang Dingtian was throwing knocked her back for another beatdown.
It was ten times. A thousand times. Ten thousand times! Formless Sword! Formless Sword! Formless Sword!
Yang Dingtian was dominating the entire time, but he just couldn’t let his guard down. One opening, even just for a split second, and it was going to be a round two all over again. He would be completely out of qi by then.
Circling. Surrounding. Chipping. Cutting.
“Gah…!” The banshee kept on wailing. The struggling never paused for even a moment, but her speed kept on slowing down every time there was a new wound.
