Clash

Five thousand li west of Posuo Island. A party of thirty-two completed their assembly. At the same time, a formidable divine mind enveloped the void where the thirty-two stood, completely masking the aura, spiritual power fluctuations, and signals emanating from them. This was Great Cultivator Ma Ke of the Xuanming Sect. An Origin Spirit cultivator capable of easily using Blazing Sun Heavenly Lightning for tempering. "The higher-ups poured so much manpower and resources into this contention, yet it resulted in such disastrous losses. A great deal of discontent has built up across the sect, especially since such a setback leads our allied sects to assume our Xuanming Sect is frail and pathetic, breeding contempt in their hearts. But we know that as a sect of ancient heritage, our Xuanming Sect possesses power far beyond what the world can imagine!" His divine mind carried a mesmerizing, provocative power, stirring up everyone's fighting spirit. "Sect Master Song You gave the personal order: we must achieve a glorious victory and fully display the might we possess, stunning those clownish neighboring sects! The Nine Cauldrons Sect's falcons and doves are all our prey!" "Kill! Slaughter them all!" "Treasures of heaven and earth belong to the virtuous! Now that our Xuanming Sect has occupied this sea, it belongs to our Xuanming Sect, and no one can take it away!" "Damn the Nine Cauldrons Sect! Isn't all that territory enough for them to swallow? What's wrong with leaving the East Sea to us?! Kill! Make their blood flow like rivers! Only then will they learn to back down, only then will they learn fear and dread!" The killing intent and battle lust of the thirty-two elite sword cultivators were stoked to the maximum, brimming with baleful aura. "Very good. I have already sensed the divine mind sweep of the other side's Origin Spirit Great Cultivator. To prevent them from escaping, obey my command now. Target..." Ma Ke's divine mind surged through the void. However, before he could finish speaking, a divine mind of equal strength swept in like a tempest. The clash between the two divine minds sent out invisible ripples. A boom like the tolling of a great temple bell rang in the minds of all the elite sword cultivators present. Several with weaker mental fortitude even felt dizzy, nearly losing control of their flying swords. "Bailu!" Fury flashed in Ma Ke's eyes as he quickly reconverged the divine mind that had been scattered by that frontal collision. Yet as he reconverged his divine mind, twenty sword lights, divided into two successive waves, tore through the clouds with astounding speed, already advancing to within several dozen li of them! This revelation gave Ma Ke a slight jolt. Immediately afterward, he vibrated his divine mind: "Flying swords incoming!" "On guard!" At once, thirty-two elite sword cultivators soared into the sky together, sword qi piercing the heavens. One of the sword cultivators urgently asked, "Elder Ma, where is the enemy?!" In truth, when sensing those flying swords, Ma Ke's divine mind had already rapidly spread outward, but the result... Even after extending outward more than a hundred li, he still did not sense a single figure. "How is this possible?!" The enemy had actually unleashed their swords from over a hundred li away?! Having lost their nimbleness and forced to fly in an almost fixed trajectory, what lethal power could such flying swords possess? "They think they can launch a surprise attack relying solely on a speed advantage? Under this elder's divine mind, all of their attack trajectories will be laid bare!" Ma Ke sneered, his powerful divine mind quickly enveloping the thirty-two cultivators. "They launched an attack at extreme range. The speed is high, but I will guide you to sever their flying swords! Once a life-bound flying sword shatters, that high-rank sword cultivator is essentially crippled for a long time to come!" "An extreme-range attack? Do they take us for clay figures?!" "The Nine Cauldrons Sect has panicked and thrown themselves into disarray! Victory will only belong to Xuanming!" "All out! Crush their life-bound flying swords!" Thirty-two high-rank sword cultivators simultaneously unleashed their flying swords, sword light overflowing. When an Origin Spirit cultivator fought opponents without one, launching an ambush beyond awareness through an ultra-long-range attack made sense. After all, many sword cultivators could only rely on their physical sight for awareness. If clouds obscured their vision, they might only accurately detect an opponent's flying sword once it entered within ten li. And ten li... Even if they unleashed their swords to intercept, they might not be able to accelerate their flying swords to peak speed in time. Yet now, Great Cultivator Ma Ke was providing support six hundred li behind them. Using such an extreme-range attack under these circumstances—was that not courting death? With this thought, the thirty-two sword cultivators struck simultaneously. Guided by Ma Ke, who quickly calculated the flight paths of the two waves of flying swords, their sword lights shot straight out to intercept the twenty flying swords tearing through the clouds. "What incredible speed!" Ma Ke did a quick calculation, feeling a chill in his heart. Although the thirty-two sword cultivators he brought were the elite of elites, equipped with top-grade spirit artifact flying swords, the maximum speed of their spirit swords was only around Mach 3.6. But these flying swords before them... Every single one was flying above Mach 4. As this thought crossed his mind, while guiding his side's sword cultivators to intercept, he once again sent his divine mind surging toward the direction from which the flying swords had been launched. Soon, however, it collided once more with the incoming divine mind of the Nine Cauldrons Sect's Origin Spirit Great Cultivator. The two divine minds clashed in the void, preventing him from advancing even half an inch further. To avoid an excessively violent clash of divine minds interfering with his guidance of his own side's flying swords, he prudently chose to shift from attack to defense. Directing the thirty-two flying swords like a pack of sharks, they swarmed to grind away the twenty incoming swords. The distance between the two sides closed rapidly in flight! Ten li, six li, three li... *Buzz!* Just as the flying swords were about to collide, the twenty flying swords suddenly shuddered. With extreme agility, they executed rapid trajectory shifts, crossing paths with the intercepting flying swords in the blink of an eye. The sonic booms trailing from their blades slammed into each other, producing visible white air currents. Of the first wave of ten swords among the twenty flying swords, only two were thrown out of control by the jarring sword qi carried on the enemy blades. This lightning-fast turn of events instantly made Ma Ke's face change. "How is this possible?! How can sword cultivators over a hundred li away still control their flying swords so nimbly to alter flight trajectories?!" Yet in the very next second, realization struck him. His powerful divine mind reverberated in the minds of the thirty-two sword cultivators instantly! "Careful! Eight flying swords broke through! You only have 9.68 seconds!" There was no need for his warning! The intersection point of the flying swords was only some twenty li away from them. Since the cloud layer had already been shredded by the incoming swords, they could clearly "see" the enemy flying swords passing theirs. The Xuanming Sect sword cultivators whose interception had failed hastily steered their life-bound flying swords into extreme turns, attempting to pursue the Nine Cauldrons Sect's swords. However... Flying swords accelerated to their limit carried tremendous inertial momentum. To turn, they either had to decelerate to reduce that momentum or execute a wide-arc turn. That process would inevitably carry them several li along their inertia, wasting several seconds. Furthermore, the speed of their flying swords was inherently inferior to the Nine Cauldrons Sect's Mach 4. Even if they managed to turn around, they could not catch up. For a moment, terror surfaced in the eyes of many sword cultivators. Those with quicker reflexes immediately executed sword techniques, spinning sword qi into fine threads that blanketed the forward flying swords like webs. Still other sword cultivators produced secondary flying swords, wanting to turn and flee. Yet some twenty li was simply too short a distance for flying swords traveling at Mach 4. Under ten seconds! The first wave of flying swords from the Nine Cauldrons Sect had already crossed that brief span of twenty li! "Dodge! Get out of the way!" "Heavenly Soaring Sword Art, sever!" "Produce your spare swords! Deploy defensive dharma artifacts!" As the flying swords descended upon them, panicked cries echoed across the field. Yet... It was futile. A life-bound flying sword's lethality coefficient of over 8 crushed the dozens of sword qi beams slashed out by the Xuanming Sect cultivators like dry weeds. Under the assault of the modified Zixiao Type 12 flying swords, those sword qi beams melted away instantly, like snow under a blazing sun. Having shredded these sword qi obstructions, the flying swords moving at over Mach 4 did not slow in the slightest. Under the despairing gaze of those Xuanming Sect sword cultivators, the blades pierced straight through their bodies. Sword qi blazed like a rainbow as blood spattered across the sky! Those cultivators who had summoned defensive dharma artifacts or even secondary flying swords fared no better. The performance of a secondary flying sword was inherently a tier below a life-bound flying sword, and having been summoned in haste, they stood no chance against the astonishing lethal power of the modified Zixiao Type 12. They suffered the fate of having their swords shattered and their lives ended on the spot. The cultivators equipped with defensive dharma artifacts were no exception. Aside from one high-rank sword cultivator who carried a death-substituting treasure and another flying sword that Ma Ke heavily disrupted, the remaining six flying swords tore straight through the bodies of six Xuanming Sect high-rank sword cultivators as they swept through their formation. Six blooms of crimson blood mist spread through the void. Yet... This was only the beginning! The slightly slower second wave of flying swords followed closely behind, capitalizing on the successful breach of the first wave to claim eight more lives! Moreover, seizing the moment when the enemy's life-bound flying swords turned back to defend, they executed wide-arc turns and swiftly withdrew, their speed not decreasing in the least throughout the turn. "Bailu!" Fourteen people! In a single attack wave, fourteen of their thirty-two sword cultivators had been slain! Such grievous casualties drew a furious roar from Ma Ke. His massive divine mind surged madly toward the origin of the flying swords like a tsunami. Yet Bailu met him head-on without the slightest fear. The two divine minds engaged in a ferocious collision within the void. On the other side, having expended over half their energy, the flying swords returned to the hands of Yun Qing's squad and the other sword cultivators. They promptly nurtured and repaired the swords with their true essence, replenishing their reserves. "Hahaha, did you see that? Instant kills!" "Magnificent!" "Heh, two Xuanming Sect guys tried to fire blind at us from beyond visual range, but their swords missed by hundreds of meters. I just used my spare sword to hack a huge notch into one of them—its power dropped by at least forty percent!" "This feels amazing! Is this the third-generation flying sword crafted by First Seat Zixiao? We can hit them however we want, but they can't touch us at all! What an exhilarating battle!" Exclamations of uncontrollable excitement burst from the Nine Cauldrons Sect sword cultivators. Every one of them beamed with delight. "Zhang Lie, Baige, the two of you had your flying swords intercepted. What is your condition?" Yun Qing inquired. "Give me thirty seconds to nurture my flying sword!" Baige responded swiftly. "Forty seconds," Zhang Lie replied with equal brevity. "Good. You two strike in the next wave. Everyone else, unleash your swords again! Tu Hong, continue using the flying swords of your Heavenly Fiend Beidou Sword Art as the vanguard of the formation to draw their initial interception! As for the rest... give everything to breach their defenses and kill the enemy!" Yun Qing's divine sense instantly suppressed the idle chatter of the others. With the order issued, the sword cultivators quickly snapped into combat focus. In a life-or-death battle, not a shred of carelessness could be tolerated. In under three seconds, flying swords burst from their hands once more, accelerating violently. Within three to four seconds, they climbed to their optimal speed of over Mach 4, shooting toward the Xuanming Sect's ranks once again. "Bastards!" Ma Ke, this Xuanming Sect Great Cultivator, poured all his strength into divine mind disruption. Under these circumstances, the divine mind Bailu could spare at the critical juncture to guide the flying swords into trajectory changes was limited. Four flying swords were intercepted and knocked away, while five were successfully evaded. Even so, the remaining nine flying swords still unleashed a bloody storm among the Xuanming Sect's ranks. Across two waves of attack, the Xuanming Sect lost twenty-three high-rank sword cultivators in total, leaving only nine survivors! Yet to this very moment, they had not even discovered where the enemy was. This massive disparity cast an oppressive pall of despair over the Xuanming Sect cultivators. "Damn it! We can't fight this! We can't fight this at all! Retreat! Retreat!" Ma Ke made an immediate decision. ... On the other side, having watched to this point, Yaoguang watched no further. He already knew the outcome. Twenty against nine. Furthermore, their flying swords clearly surpassed those of the Xuanming Sect in speed. The remaining nine had no hope of escaping. He estimated that this twenty-against-thirty-two battle would ultimately conclude with a casualty ratio of zero to thirty-two. The Nine Cauldrons Sect suffered only minor wounds to a few people, who would need only to nurture their damaged life-bound flying swords. Such was the brutality of battle between sword cultivators. Even an edge as slight as a single thread could produce a casualty ratio so lopsided as to drive one to despair.