Radiant Blade of the Wilderness

Chapter 147: Six Directions as One

Pan Yunzhou was stunned for a moment, watching Ding Songyan, opening and closing his mouth without ever finding the words.

He felt that his junior brother was being far too cavalier about it. If they truly encountered a powerful figure with designs on the huangliang awakening block, the other party might take the item and still kill them afterwards.

When seeking out unorthodox practitioners to test one’s sword against, it was best to select the target in advance and ensure their strength fell within a manageable range. Luring in bandits with a treasure was another matter entirely. Who could say who might show up? What if it turned out to be a Form Transfigured third-rank powerhouse, or even a Dharma Realm Grandmaster?

Ding Songyan let his left hand fall naturally, reached into his pack, and pressed a finger against the awakening block.

Senior Brother Pan had made him realize that his treasure shouldn’t be too fake. Although its authenticity could always be explained away by saying that divine relics concealed their own brilliance, leaving a measure of the genuine article within them might prove useful elsewhere as well. It might come in handy someday, just as he had used the "Manifesting the Way and its Virtue" sword intent to turn falsehood into reality and undermine Chen Jindong’s confidence.

With a touch of his finger, the Dream Sword Intent slipped silently into the awakening block.

The awakening block quietly took on a dreamlike, illusory quality.

Now he could throw it out to lure in enemies and divert their attention, and if a powerful foe seized it, he could covertly activate the sword intent from within to disturb their mind and create an opening.

Once that was done, Ding Songyan used the cover of bowing his head to drink and visualized Flame Heart at his ancestral aperture, sending Candleflame True Qi cycling through his body and concealing the double-pupil anomaly in his eyes.

He ate with easy contentment while Pan Yunzhou grew more and more anxious, dreading that tonight would end in bloodshed.

This seasoned jianghu martial artist kept glancing around him, trying to sort the virtuous from the wicked among the furtive as well as unabashedly open looks directed their way.

They were at a post station, not inside a city. Neither the station master, the soldiers, nor the inn’s proprietor or waiters could possibly memorize so many wanted posters and portraits, let alone spare anyone to do the cross-referencing. As long as their distinguishing features were not too conspicuous, or they hadn’t recently committed some major crime in the surrounding area, unorthodox practitioners could actually stay at post stations without much fear.

By the time the post station submitted the guest register as required, and the county or prefectural office found a match against the wanted notices, several days would have passed, and the relevant unorthodox practitioner would long since have vanished without a trace.

Who knew how many heretics and evildoers were lurking in this very inn!

And some of those merchant caravans, out in the wilderness where there was no one to watch over them, were known to moonlight as bandits.

Having had his fill of food and drink, Ding Songyan ambled back up to their corner room on the second floor.

He glanced at the bed.

"Manageable. We can make do by squeezing."

"I’ll push the benches together. Just give me one of the quilts." Pan Yunzhou had even considered sitting in a chair and sleeping with his saber in his arms.

That way, if there was an attack, he could respond without delay.

Ding Songyan had no objection. Why share a bed with a rough fellow when he didn’t have to?

Traveling with Senior Sister was much better, at least she was nice to look at... He gave Pan Yunzhou one of the quilts, washed up quickly, and lay down.

Pan Yunzhou paced back and forth for a while, then settled into a chair with his saber in his arms and a quilt pulled over himself.

The freezing rain had stopped outside, leaving only the howl of a cold wind as the night deepened.

By the fourth watch, Pan Yunzhou’s breathing had grown slow and even. Ding Songyan had already been fast asleep for some time.

Some time later, the door swung open without a sound and a figure slipped inside.

The figure stood nearly 1.9 meters tall, with a large, prominent nose and a face that bore a certain resemblance to a rooster. The backs of his hands and the sides of his neck were covered in patches of reddish-brown feathers.

He was in his thirties, carrying a pair of golden melon hammers. He quickly shut the wooden door, keeping the cold wind out and the two sleepers undisturbed.

Finding the room still silent, all sound swallowed by the night, the intruder closed the distance to the bed in a few swift steps, raised his right hand, and brought a hammer swinging down toward Ding Songyan’s head.

Ding!

A flash of cold light deflected the golden melon sleeve hammer with a light, precise tap.

Ding Songyan had already rolled out of bed and drawn his sword.

The intruder showed no panic. He spread his arms wide and smashed the two golden melon hammers at Ding Songyan in alternating blows like a storm. Each strike churned the air and shook the surrounding space, carrying both tremendous force and a sense of something quietly building.

Ding Songyan countered with a sword of quick, precise touches, moving like a phantom through the narrow space between the bed and the square table, blocking or sidestepping every hammer blow. But the intruder was in no hurry whatsoever.

This swift, relentless exchange lasted no more than ten or so breaths before the intruder abruptly paused.

He raised both hammers overhead, and the turbulent currents that had been stirring through the air converged.

Without a sound, the two golden melon hammers came crashing down. It was like a great flood finally shattering a dam and pouring through. The force was staggering.

This blow carried the might of a Grandmaster!

The intruder was a deserter from the Great Zhao military, and he cultivated the Accumulating Water Divine Art recorded in the Accumulating Waters Scripture. It allowed him to gather both the strength of allies and his own momentum. After a sustained assault, as his energy crested to its peak, he could draw on the force that had been accumulating in the surrounding space and unleash a blow that transcended his realm.

He had recently reached the perfected Great Proliferation Realm, so this strike carried a measure of Dharma Realm grandeur.

The final form of the Accumulating Water Divine Art—Fathomless Depths!

The two golden melon hammers bore down on Ding Songyan with crushing weight, sealing off every inch of the narrow space. Ding Songyan suddenly brought Frostshade across at an angle and blocked from above.

The three collided, yet the two hammers at the peak of their terrible force froze in midair, as if the crystal-clear longsword had absorbed every ounce of their power and momentum.

Frostshade gave a gentle tremble, then erupted with terrifying force, sending both hammers flying back.

This, too, carried a measure of a Grandmaster might.

A technique of the Celestial Stars Sword Art—Stars Turn, Constellations Shift!

It was both a deflecting defensive form and the opening of a counterattack.

With a ringing note, the crystalline, dreamlike Frostshade shot toward the enemy, fast as a shooting star streaking across the sky.

Caught off guard, the intruder barely managed to evade. Ding Songyan pressed forward, each thrust faster than the last, pinning him in place with the force of a gale. He could barely move his feet, only capable of swinging his two golden melon hammers to guard the foot of space in front of him.

The clanging rang without pause, and sparks scattered through the air like wisps of candle flames flickering in the dark.

Just as the intruder began building toward Fathomless Depths again, a flash of cold light threaded through all those scattered sparks and lit up the space between the bed and the table.

The sword light surged forth, vast and majestic—its momentum complete.

The intruder’s gaze hardened. He drove one hammer high and swept the other low, pulling at the dark surrounding space and drawing the abyssal force onto himself, then crashed both down in a heavy but swift pincer against Ding Songyan’s Kindling Passes to Candle.

Frostshade moved faster than the intruder could have imagined. It threaded between the two converging hammers and touched the intruder’s throat before they could close.

A sword strike approaching the Dharma Realm... The intruder’s heartbeat faltered. His throat went ice-cold, then erupted in searing pain.

His two hammers, already scored with sword marks, crashed together with a thud. Frostshade had already shifted sideways, slicing through his throat and widening the wound even as it withdrew from the blow.

The intruder stumbled and fell backward. Yet, he wasn’t dead, and in falling, he put distance between himself and the crystalline ice sword.

His throat muscles worked to close the wound, and his true qi surged to the site in an attempt to slow the gush of blood.

He had no thought for anything else. He dropped one hammer, rolled with the momentum, and made for the wall, intending to smash through the window and flee.

Then another clear, ice-cold flash of sword light appeared before him.

The intruder planted a hand on the floor and drove with his back and core, springing hard into the air.

A heartbeat later, the same clear, ice-cold sword light appeared in his vision again, descending from above.

No... He twisted frantically in midair, only to find that same clear, ice-cold sword light waiting ahead of him.

Before him and behind, left and right, above and below—the sword light seemed to be everywhere.

Thud!

Frostshade sank into the center of his brow.

Eyes wide with disbelief, the intruder crashed to the floor, his life fading fast.

The embryonic form of Six Directions as One still has plenty of flaws. This only worked because the man panicked and all he wanted was to escape. If he had thrown a casual punch or hammer strike, he would have found the sword light was nothing but an empty framework and could have been blocked easily... Ding Songyan withdrew Frostshade and muttered to himself.

Crimson drops pooled along the crystal blade, dripping down one by one onto the assailant’s body.

The intruder’s fading gaze drifted to Pan Yunzhou, asleep in the chair. A strange thought surfaced in his rapidly darkening mind.

We fought so fiercely. Why did he never wake?

Carrying that question with him, the intruder’s neck went slack and his head lolled to the side. He was fully dead.

Ding Songyan ran a quick review of the fight in his mind, then wasted no time and turned to spirit channeling.

He looked at the trembling, rooster-faced ghost.

"What is your name, and what is the bounty on your head?"

"Tang Du, with a bounty of 19,000 taels," the ghost answered truthfully.

My, that’s nearly double the bounty on the leader of the Three Villains of Xiao City... whatever his name was... So this is a genuine third-rank Form Transfigured. Ding Songyan’s interest was immediately piqued.

"What did you do to end up on a wanted notice?"

"I was originally a military commander. The Capsized Vessel School recruited me to attempt a mutiny with the troops under my command; it failed, and I fled the barracks and have been hiding ever since." Tang Du’s ghost was drenched in blood.

The Capsized Vessel Sect... my great benefactor... Even their name practically advertises them as specialists in overturning regimes. Small wonder they are counted among the Lower Twelve of the Twenty-One Heretical Ways... Ding Songyan looked at the ghost, deep in thought, and asked, "You cultivated the Accumulating Waters Scripture? And reached the perfected Great Proliferation Realm?"

His physical anomalies bore a strong resemblance to County Marshal Zhong Pinglan of Qisong Prefecture.

The lineage behind the Accumulating Waters Scripture most likely traced back to Fúxī, the Human-faced Rooster.

The Fúxī was shaped like a rooster but had a human face, and its cry was its own name. The result of consuming it? One became fond of fighting, skilled in warfare, and adept at gathering the strength of many.

"I had been cultivating the Accumulating Waters Scripture, but had not reached perfection. After deserting, I had neither the techniques for further viscera installation nor a reliable physician to perform it and forge new apertures. I made no progress at all. That was until two months ago, when the Capsized Vessel School promised to pass me their Gathered Waters Capsizing Art. That divine art subsumes the Accumulating Waters Scripture, and through it they helped me complete my final viscera installation. They told me to travel to Flame Capital before the year is out, after which they would teach me the full art." Tang Du’s remnant soul trembled as it spoke.

"What did they want you to do in Flame Capital?" Ding Songyan pressed.

His cultivation art came from the imperial military, so his physical anomalies would genuinely be easy to overlook.

Tang Du’s remnant soul shook his head.

"I don’t know."

Ding Songyan rubbed his chin with his left hand and thought for a moment.

"Where is the wealth you’ve accumulated over these years?"

He had been so focused on testing the Six Directions as One technique that he hadn’t managed to hold back and trap the man in a dream state.

And ill-gotten gains could still be put to good use!

Tang Du’s remnant soul trembled like chaff in a sieve.

"I handed it over to the Capsized Vessel School as payment toward the viscera installation."

Being a heretic is that rough? No loyalty at all? I didn’t pay a single copper coin for my aperture forging and viscera installation at the Brightnight Sect... Ding Songyan muttered to himself, thoroughly disappointed.