Zzzzzt—
The Thunder Wielder recalled his flung nine-section whips. By now, the boat had reached the shore, remaining within his attack range. Gripping one end of each whip with both hands, he spun them in a whirlwind. The lightning whips lashed dark scorch marks into the sand as he abruptly stepped back.
At the sight, Sonia turned pale and swiftly ducked behind Yaxiu. "Watch out!"
Yet it was already too late. Stamping forward, the Thunder Wielder crossed his arms and swung, snapping the two electrified nine-section whips together like a pair of shears aimed straight at Yaxiu!
This was the vicious move that had nearly traumatized Sonia. Though not even a miracle, the kinetic energy from spinning the whips combined with the nature of lightning sorcery gave it tremendous destructive power, making it exceedingly difficult to evade. Getting struck by it inflicted pain so intense that one's soul trembled, on par with stubbing a pinky toe against the corner of a cabinet and shattering the nail in the process.
"Quiet down. You're interrupting my contemplation of the world's ultimate mysteries."
Raising an eyebrow, Yaxiu jabbed his sword down hard against the boat. The Sword Body Barrier enveloping them immediately rippled with a pale golden glow, meeting the Thunder Wielder's lethal lightning shears head-on!
Zzzzzt!
The nine-section whips coiled around the exterior of the Sword Body Barrier, utterly failing to breach the transparent barrier. Meanwhile, a few notches inexplicably chipped out of the longsword Yaxiu leaned upon, though owing to the nature of the Void Realm, the sword swiftly restored itself to pristine condition.
"Radiant splendor adorns native bloom, brilliant dragon colors and phoenix glory."
The bloodshot veins in the Thunder Wielder's eyes deepened further as he chanted archaic verses no one could decipher. Enveloped in crackling lightning with bulging blue veins, he seemed to enter a frenzy, wildly whipping the Sword Body Barrier over and over with his nine-section whips.
Calming down, Sonia scrutinized the Sword Body Barrier and noticed many details she had previously missed—this transparent barrier was actually composed of razor-sharp sword energy. It provided more than just defensive protection; against melee attacks, it could even reflect damage back onto the enemy and snap their weapons!
However, that aspect was difficult to demonstrate in the Void Realm, because weapons here were products of a sorcerer's consciousness. As long as the sorcerer's mental stamina held up, their weapons had effectively infinite durability.
By the same token, weapons in the Void Realm had no inherent superiority or inferiority. Combat in the Void Realm was a clash of sorcery power. Even if Sonia manifested a wooden sword, it could still cleave mountains and split boulders. Conversely, gun sorcerers, who were quite formidable in reality, would see the power of their manifested firearms plummet if their understanding of guns was shallow.
A technique like Sword Body Barrier, integrating defense and counterattack into one, was certainly not something a single sorcery spirit could unleash; it had to be a miracle formed from a combination of sorcery spirits!
Thinking of this, Sonia could not help feeling a bit depressed—she had originally planned to show off with her Water Moon miracle to flaunt her combat prowess, subtly warning the Watcher never to manipulate her like that again. Yet not only had the Watcher saved her, but he had turned around and casually deployed a defensive-counter miracle on par with Water Moon!
Did he deliberately wait until my life was hanging by a thread before showing up just to mess with my head?
While Sonia let her imagination run wild behind him, Yaxiu stared at the familiar Sword Body Barrier before his eyes, feeling an inexplicable, suppressed irritation stir in his chest.
"Sorry, but I'm in a terrible mood right now."
Yaxiu raised a single finger.
"So what I'm about to do to you next is purely venting."
Clang!
As a sword's hum overpowered the rolling thunder, the Thunder Wielder immediately retreated, twirling his nine-section whips into twin shields of lightning to block the gleam flashing through the air!
"The Heart Sword sorcery spirit!"
Recognizing the signature sorcery spirit of the swordsmanship path at a glance, Sonia's eyes nearly bulged out of her head. "Where did you get a Heart Sword spirit? Do you know the Heart Sword Stance? Teach me, please, I'm begging you!"
Like a child laying eyes on their dream bubble blaster, Sonia could hardly conceal her yearning for this sorcery spirit.
Within swordsmanship circles, there had long been legends of the 'Five Matchless Secret Sword Spirits'—meaning that as long as one possessed any of these five spirits, they could build an impeccable swordsmanship system around it as their core sorcery spirit.
The Heart Sword sorcery spirit was one of those Five Matchless Secret Sword Spirits.
Beyond them, there were also sayings regarding the 'Twenty-One Secret Sword Spirits' and the 'Fifty Wondrous Sword Spirits.'
The Wave Sword spirit Sonia possessed was one of the 'Fifty Wondrous Sword Spirits.'
Yet even the lowest-tier 'Fifty Wondrous Sword Spirits' was by no means to be underestimated. After all, it was by virtue of the Wave Sword system that the First Duke of Vosroda established his status as a 'Sword Noble.' In Jialesi, countless sword sorcerers had bound themselves into service with the Voslodar clan just to acquire a Wave Sword spirit.
As a sorcerer who wielded a Wave Sword spirit, Sonia had personally experienced its power and potential. How formidable, then, must be the superior 'Twenty-One Secret Sword Spirits' and the pinnacle 'Five Matchless Secret Sword Spirits'?
Seeing the usually haughty Sword Princess so thoroughly awed, Yaxiu felt quite satisfied. "Don't rush. Let's chat after I finish off this juggler."
"Mm!"
Full of anticipation, Sonia watched the Watcher display his might—she watched the Heart Sword attack, only to be parried away by the Thunder Wielder; watched the Heart Sword thrust forward, only to be parried away; watched the Heart Sword circle around for a backstab, only to be parried away...
"Your... swordsmanship has substantial room for improvement."
"I've already worn down his stamina and forced him to expose many openings. Go on—don't waste this opportunity for revenge that I specially prepared for you."
Sonia grew increasingly convinced that the Watcher was some ancient monster reincarnated.
Without thousands of years of tempering, how could anyone develop skin this thick?
Grumbling inwardly, she leapt forward to attack the Thunder Wielder. Yaxiu was not idle either; he summoned another sword-wielding Substitute, and together with his Heart Sword, the three of them pincered the Thunder Wielder from all sides.
The Thunder Wielder had only two nine-section whips, after all. He could guard the front but not the back, and guarding the back left his flanks exposed. Two whips could not match three blades, and a lone brute could not withstand a coordinated onslaught. At last, wailing one final strange verse, he fell in bitter defeat, dissolving into wisps of smoke and dropping two sorcery spirits and a sorcerer manual.
[Thunder Walk]
[One-winged sorcery spirit]
[Restriction: The medium used must possess a degree of electrical conductivity.]
[Basic Effect: Discharge a bolt of lightning.]
[Passive Effect: The body's electrical conductivity gradually increases.]
["Fire is the enlightener of wisdom; thunder is the defender of reason. So when you encounter an unreasonable fool, you know what to do, right?"]
...
[Pattern]
[One-winged sorcery spirit]
[Restriction: Must etch patterns onto an object in advance using the feces of a sorcery spirit.]
[Basic Effect: Causes the effects of most sorcery spirits to flow along the patterns.]
[Passive Effect: The patterns gradually become fixed until they cannot be erased.]
["The path lies beneath your feet, upon your body, and within your heart."]
Thunder Walk looked like a mantis, while Pattern resembled a silkworm larva. Without a doubt, these two sorcery spirits formed a very straightforward miracle combination: first etch patterns, then let lightning circulate through them, turning an instantaneous lightning discharge into a continuously sustained buff. A simple yet highly practical miracle concept.
No wonder that Thunder Wielder had been covered in a mess of patterned tattoos—he had basically etched electrical circuits into his skin.
Yet compared to this miracle, Yaxiu was far more intrigued by a detail revealed in the spirits' descriptions.
"Sorcery spirits can poop?"
"Why wouldn't they? You've seen sorcery spirits eat gold and silver coins, right? The coins are consumed, so if spirits didn't poop, a link in the cycle would be missing, and the world's gold and silver coins would only ever decrease."
Sonia said as if stating the obvious, "It's precisely because sorcery spirits defecate that gold and silver coins can keep circulating. The silver coins you feed your spirits right now might be the poop dropped by some sorcery spirit thousands of years ago."
"Good thing I'm not a sorcery spirit," Yaxiu muttered. "Then when do they poop? So I know to let them out ahead of time."
"How should I know? It's not like I have a peeping fetish."
"Huh?"
"You don't need to prepare in advance anyway. Sorcery spirits will sneak out on their own to relieve themselves. Besides, their droppings can be blown away by a gust of wind, so practically no one ever notices. If you need to collect their feces, just summon the spirit, feed it, cover it with something, and wait."
"Sneak... out? How can they sneak out without the sorcerer's permission?"
"Sorcery spirits have their own thoughts and their own lives."
Sonia shrugged. "When you need them, they will naturally obey your commands. But whenever your focus wanes—like when you're sleeping, zoning out, or reading—they have a bit of leeway. They'll slip out to catch some fresh air while you aren't paying attention. Some sorcerers notice sluggish response times when summoning their spirits after a long period of distraction; that's usually because the spirit wandered too far and couldn't rush back in time."
Yaxiu understood—it was slacking off on the job.
Though he had tried his best to treat sorcery spirits as intelligent beings, he hadn't expected them to be intelligent enough to adopt human bad habits like slacking off. Still, seeing as they were using their slacking time to poop rather than using pooping as an excuse to slack off, Yaxiu decided not to hold it against them.
After a brief discussion, it turned out that the matched pair of Thunder Walk and Pattern could fetch a high price at Sonia's academy, so both spirits were given to her.
As for keeping them for their own use, neither had any such intention—the lightning sorcery faction was renowned as the most arduous, exhausting, agonizing, and violent path. Cultivating lightning sorcery from scratch was an intimidating prospect to say the least.
So long as one sailed far enough across the Sea of Knowledge, there would be plenty of opportunities to find paired sorcery spirits like this. If a sorcerer tried to keep and cultivate every paired set they found, no amount of energy would ever suffice.
Learning to make trade-offs was a mandatory lesson for every sorcerer.
As for the sorcerer manual, Yaxiu was naturally the one to use it. Sonia was completely repulsed after reading just the first page, even running off to the side to retch.
In truth, Yaxiu didn't find it that bad—it was merely a 'cult sacrificial record,' though the methods detailed within were somewhat gruesome.
It almost rivaled the atrocities Heath had committed.
Evidently, even among cults, the Four Pillar Gods cult belonged to the exceptionally savage tier.
After reading through the Thunder Wielder's sacrificial records, Yaxiu naturally acquired a new skill: 'Skinning Mastery.'
Fortunately, there was no restriction on the target; it should come in handy for preparing wild rabbits when eating out in the wilderness after escaping prison.
Having sorted through their spoils, Yaxiu sat at the prow of the boat, calm and composed.
Sonia sat at the stern, not uttering a word.
Even after the legacy islet had completely submerged, silence still reigned over the boat.
After a long while, Sonia could finally hold back no longer and squeezed a few words past her lips: "Where did you get those swordsmanship sorcery spirits?"
"Well, since you've asked so sincerely, it's not like I can't show mercy and enlighten you—"
I knew it, Sonia cursed furiously in her heart. Another chance for him to act smug!
In truth, Yaxiu had been itching to show off for a while. He coughed softly and raised a hand, summoning three sorcery spirits. From left to right were a golden one-winged sword, a two-winged swordsman resembling a clay figurine, and a pale-green one-winged bird.
"Heart Sword, Earth Sword, and Wind Wall—these are the sorcery spirits I just acquired. Heart Sword and Wind Wall are both one-winged, while Earth Sword is two-winged."
"Just acquired? You were late because you were getting these three sorcery spirits?"
"You could say that."
Yaxiu gazed into the depths of the white mist, seemingly staring at some wandering phantom.
"After all, their previous owner just killed me once."
Chapter 63