DragonKnov
patreon
Chapter 288
🕑 Added 2025-01-17 09:55:24 +0000 UTCJust like tofu, soft and squishy, Ji Wuye's head didn't split or get stabbed by Qin Bai's downward slash. Instead, Ji Wuye's jian pierced straight through Qin Bai's hovering body in midair with surgical precision, the blade slicing through flesh and bone like a hot knife through butter.
With a powerful upward cut fueled by sheer strength, Ji Wuye leapt, his muscles coiling as his jian cleaved through Qin Bai's form without meeting any resistance. A faint bluish Qi, shimmering like heat waves, bubbled and emitted from the grievous wound as Ji Wuye soared higher into the air, his white robes billowing behind him.
SPLASH!
Like a torrent of crimson rain, a sickening spray of blood erupted from Qin Bai's body. It splattered in all directions, spattering the ground in a widening scarlet pool as Qin Bai's bisected corpse fell apart gruesomely, leaving a grotesque mess in Ji Wuye's wake.
Suspended in midair, Ji Wuye turned with effortless grace, his gaze falling dispassionately upon the carnage below.
There, Qin Bai's mangled remains—his body split cleanly in half along the deadly path of the blade, organs spilling forth in a tangle of viscera—lay motionless in the ever-expanding puddle of blood. Ji Wuye's white martial robe was now fully soaked, transformed into a deep, dripping crimson.
STEP.
Landing softly on the bloodied ground with the lightness of a falling feather, Ji Wuye's long white hair—now streaked vividly with Qin Bai's lifeblood—fluttered gently in an unfelt breeze.
His crimson pupils, gazed unflinchingly at the grisly remains where Qin Bai's bisected body lay. Even his eyes were split in two, perfectly cleaved along with the rest of his form. The jian Qin Bai had wielded shared the same cruel fate, shattered cleanly in half by the unstoppable force of Ji Wuye's strike.
'Clean,' Ji Wuye thought to himself with muted amazement, his gaze falling upon his own jian. It still glowed faintly with the bluish Qi of the newly evolved Slash Breaker skill.
While his overwhelming physical strength had played a major role, the Slash Breaker had elevated his already formidable abilities in cutting through both Qin Bai's jian and body with such lethal, surgical precision.
The pale morning light illuminated the gruesome scene—three corpses sprawled lifelessly on the bloodsoaked ground, their bodies twisted in unnatural poses of death.
Two were headless, their severed necks gaping open like grotesque second mouths, while the third lay split gruesomely down the middle.
A deep crimson river of blood spilled freely from their wounds, forming thick, viscous puddles that slowly meandered outward, seeping into the surrounding grass and staining it a violent shade of red.
Bending down with catlike grace, Ji Wuye retrieved the items stolen from the Kunlun Thousand Pavilion, his white shoes leaving prints in the still-warm blood. He immediately unrolled an aged parchment with delicate motions, his crimson eyes scanning the contents intently.
'Kunlun Internal Art?' he thought inwardly, a single raven brow arching as his forehead creased with a disappointed frown. The shadow of displeasure clouded his chiseled features upon realizing that the parchment contained nothing more than a simple internal art from Kunlun, enabling mere disciples to advance only to the third realm.
With an almost inaudible sigh of frustration, Ji Wuye rolled the worthless parchment back up and half-knelt amidst the grisly carnage, thoroughly rummaging through the cooling corpses.
After an exhaustive search, the only other item he discovered of note was another parchment, this one heavily soaked in the rapidly congealing blood of Qin Bai. Rising fluidly to his feet, Ji Wuye held the stained scroll.
Unrolling the second parchment, he scanned the text, the faded ink stark against the sanguine background:
"The autumn wind rustles through ten thousand bamboo stalks,
Each stem bends differently to honor heaven's unending way.
When the mountain spring flows anew from its pristine source,
The wise gardener knows which roots to prune with patience.
The dragon's children scatter like evanescent morning mist,
Before the golden sun reaches its blazing peak in the azure sky.
Remember: Even the strongest bamboo must bow to the wind's immutable direction.
This timeless wisdom passed down through our noble ancestors must be understood with the clarity of the heart, not just the mind."
Unlike the previous mundane parchment, the poetic contents of this one immediately caught Ji Wuye's keen interest. His crimson pupils narrowed fractionally as he read the lyrical passage again, more carefully this time, savoring each line.
Holding his breath unconsciously, he analyzed the profound words, committing them to his formidable memory as if inscribing them into the very fabric of his being. He only released the pent-up exhalation after consciously reminding himself to breathe.
'The Emperor...' Ji Wuye's thoughts crystallized, his crimson gaze sharpening like a hawk's as realization blossomed within his keen mind. Hidden beneath the poetic phrasing lay a secret code, its true meaning obscured in metaphor.
While the full significance may elude him without the insights of scholars versed in such riddles, he managed to tease out part of the encrypted message.
'A "wise gardener" represents the Emperor, and "roots to trim" symbolizes an impending attack,' he theorized silently. But the remaining questions plagued him - which Emperor plotted such aggression against the Kunlun Sect? And why target Kunlun?
His primary suspect was the Emperor of Western Xia, who had previously issued veiled threats to Kunlun, warning them to reduce their forces lest they be seen as housing too many able disciples ripe for conscription.
SWOOSH!
But out of nowhere, Ji Wuye's preternatural instincts flared like a bonfire in the night. Suddenly, time itself seemed to slow down again in that breathless moment. A pair of translucent screens flashed urgently before his widening crimson eyes:
This time, even his Quick Adaptation skill - something that had remained inert during the earlier skirmish with the trio - was now pulsing with activation.
Ji Wuye immediately sensed a significant change brewing: the newly unveiled fourth effect of the Quick Adaptation skill, which had remained dormant until this very moment, was stirring to wakefulness.
Through his slowed-down vision, the world around him crystallizing into vivid clarity under the sharp focus of his crimson pupils, Ji Wuye saw it - a blade, a sleek jian, hurtling through the air at an astonishing speed.
It surged forth as if launched by an invisible hand, its razor-sharp edge aimed with pinpoint precision at the side of his head for a lethal strike. This weapon had no apparent wielder, yet its deadly trajectory sliced the air with purpose, already closing in on its mark.
Then, his heightened senses perceived something else amidst the frozen tableau - something faint yet discernible. A flickering ghostly arrow, translucent and glowing faintly with a lambent bluish Qi, materialized and vanished intermittently before his slowed perception, as if guiding his actions.
The ephemeral arrow's point was aimed directly at the side of the incoming jian, apparently urging him towards a particular countermeasure. It gently suggested, with the subtlest of nudges, to not evade the strike but rather to deflect the lethal arc of the blade.
At first, heeding the ghostly arrow's ethereal guidance, Ji Wuye opted against a evasive sidestep. Instead, he raised his own jian vertically before him in the precise alignment suggested by the flickering prompt. Then, time resumed its inexorable forward march.
But this time, Ji Wuye also pushed off powerfully from his original stance, his wiry muscles coiling as he followed the arrow's prescribed vector.
He deftly dodged and wove in a blurred sidestep just as the howling incoming jian shot forward, the razor edge hissing through the empty space where he'd been rooted moments before. It seemed for one breathless heartbeat that the invisible strike would simply bypass him entirely.
But then, impossibly, the ethereal attack bent and curved unnaturally mid-flight - mimicking to eerie perfection the Pulse of the Blade Art's signature feint maneuver. The ownerless jian transitioned seamlessly, redirecting its lethal arc with a subtle tilt to realign and strike at Ji Wuye's unguarded flank.
Yet the blow never landed.
CLANK!
Thanks to the guiding arrow's directive, the realigned attack failed to complete its curved trajectory. His own jian was ideally positioned, and the deadly blade rebounded off the perfectly angled parry with a metallic clang, clattering uselessly to the ground at his feet.
Ji Wuye's crimson pupils blazed ominously as his gaze traced the faint bluish Qi trail still dissipating from the fallen jian, following the ephemeral vapor back to its point of origin within his own courtyard.
"Even though I am quite old, I clearly remember never accepting any new disciples recently," a disembodied voice spoke - distant yet unnervingly intimate, the whispered words seeming to caress Ji Wuye's very ear with the unmistakable warmth of human presence. "But tell me...how did you, a young man from Kunlun, manage to perfectly execute my martial art?"
CLANK!
Another attack came without warning - this time a vicious straightline thrust aimed squarely at Ji Wuye's exposed neck. Without flinching, Ji Wuye smoothly blocked the lethal strike, his jian lashing out in a horizontal slash that created pivoting space while deflecting the incoming blow.
The controlled motion flowed seamlessly into a wide arcing cut as he turned his body.
Only to be met with empty air and shadows.
But then, out of the corner of his crimson gaze, Ji Wuye noticed a solitary figure materialize - a shadow of man standing atop the gate of his courtyard.
