Chapter 151: The Divine Sword Art

Chapter 151: Divine Sword Art

When the two longswords descended, they looked like two shooting stars in the night sky.

The two bodyguards were no pushovers either. One of them wielded a pair of short axes, while the other carried a long saber. Realizing danger came from above, they instantly assumed defensive stances.

Little did they expect that when Bai Gan dropped down, thrusting at the short axe bodyguard was just a feint; his true intent was to angle his sword and strike the saber-wielding bodyguard.

With a crisp clanging sound, the short axe bodyguard reacted swiftly, seeing right through the move. He crossed his two axes into an eagle-like cross shape, firmly trapping the longsword between them.

Seeing that he was about to hit the ground and his sword was neutralized, Bai Gan executed an extremely high-difficulty maneuver.

With a twist of his wrists and a flick of his sword, he leveraged the momentum to land horizontally. To put it bluntly, this was known as "the steel plate hitting the water," because the posture looked utterly grotesque. Yet, it precisely aligned his foot with the neighboring saber bodyguard. Following that, he twitched and kicked out as if suffering from leg cramps, and a tiny cold gleam shot out from a device hidden on his boot.

With a soft thud,

Red damage text appeared: "-127"

The saber bodyguard's body trembled noticeably, clearly having been hit.

At that moment, Gou Dan descended from the sky. With a flick and a sweep of the longsword in his hand, he executed the classic "clearing the grass to find the snake" sword technique.

Another soft thud echoed.

This time, it was a critical green damage hit: "-623"

Before the saber bodyguard even had a chance to cry out, he collapsed amidst a splatter of blood, his throat already slit by that single sword strike.

Gou Dan's assault was far from over. Upon landing, he rolled smoothly across the ground, sprang back to his feet, and scattered a handful of flying needles toward the two Emei disciples in the center of the formation. His continuous movements flowed like drifting clouds and running water, appearing entirely natural and effortless.

The two female disciples had no choice but to sidestep while parrying with their Emei daggers.

"Watch out!" Hua Feihong shouted at the top of her lungs, but it was already too late. Gou Dan's second batch of flying needles was already unleashed. The moment he launched this hidden weapon, even Ma Junmei could tell that this little brat's throwing speed was more than twice as fast as that of a normal player, clearly empowered by a speed-enhancing martial art for hidden weapons.

The second wave of flying needles riddled the axe-wielding player with needles, causing his entire body to convulse. A massive string of red damage numbers reading "-100" flashed instantly, too fast to count. One thing was certain, however: anyone hit by such a barrage of hidden weapons would be destined to fall.

Two figures dressed in black and masked, wielding two longswords and executing just five moves, followed by a pair of needle volleys—such tacit cooperation had instantly taken down two bodyguards in a flash.

One of the Emei female disciples cried out, "Junior Sister, stop watching! They are people from the Judgment of Life and Death. Be careful!"

Even as she issued the warning, her body spun and rose into the air. Her left hand suddenly grabbed onto a green bamboo stalk, while her right hand gracefully wielded her Emei daggers in a flurry.

Clang, clang, clang!

Three piercing rings resounded as six thick, willow-leaf-shaped sword auras drifted menacingly toward Bai Gan.

Bai Gan retreated at lightning speed, knowing full well this was Emei's "Flying Flower Sword," a technique whose might was truly inferior to Mount Shushan's "Myriad Swords Art."

As the name implied, "Flying Flower Sword" resembled a gentle breeze sweeping past and flower petals scattering; who could ever predict the trajectory of falling petals? The true terror of this martial art lay not just in its wide area of effect, but in the utter impossibility of discerning the origin of the sword auras, leaving retreat as the only option.

The moment Bai Gan backed away, the six sword auras slammed into the ground, erupting with deafening explosions. Countless shards of grass and broken wood flew wildly in all directions. One had to remember that this was merely an introductory martial art of the Emei Sect, yet its momentum was already this formidable. One could only imagine how terrifying their advanced sword techniques must be!

True to Jun Ruojian's words, when martial arts reached a certain level of mastery, returning to the most basic fundamentals yielded effects far more powerful than high-tier techniques.

Sure enough, the other Emei female disciple had already thrust forward. Standing on the ground, she stabbed horizontally, and just like the "Flying Flower Sword," invisible sword auras immediately surged from her Emei daggers. Unlike the "Flying Flower Sword," however, these sword auras were neither willow-shaped nor thick; instead, they manifested as countless fine, dense threads resembling a drizzle of rain—so numerous and tightly packed that evasion was utterly impossible.

This was Emei's "Blue Rain Sword." The principle behind it was simple: it drifted in quietly with the night breeze, moistening all things without a sound. Who could ever clearly perceive the threads of a torrential night drizzle? And by the time one finally saw them clearly, wouldn't it already be too late?

Bai Gan and Gou Dan took multiple sword strikes straight to the chest. Damage numbers of "-43," "-31," "-28," and "-31" flashed wildly. Fortunately, Emei martial arts lacked sheer single-target lethality; had Hua Feihong's "Myriad Swords Art" been used instead, the two of them would have been instantly obliterated.

Xiao Si took in the entire scene. From the power and density of the sword auras, he could immediately tell that the two Emei female disciples belonged at the very least to Emei's Blue Rain Altar. Especially the one wielding the "Flying Flower Sword"—her skill level was likely even higher. In other words, the enemy had at least one second-transition and one third-transition player. Now, coupled with the two Mount Shushan female disciples, it was equivalent to him holding a single Ace and a pair of Queens against the opponent's pair of Aces and pair of Queens. How was one supposed to fight that?

Naturally, his only option was to play his three Jacks.

"Attack!" Xiao Si suddenly let out a frantic roar.

This was supposed to be the prearranged signal between him and the three players from the Wind and Cloud Hall, and the terrain around them had already been meticulously rigged with traps by the trio. The problem, however, was that after he screamed out, there was no response whatsoever from the depths of the canopy overhead.

Yet, movement stirred above. With three whistling sounds of rushing wind, it sounded as though three burlap sacks had fallen heavily from the treetops.

Xiao Si focused his gaze, and instantly his entire body turned ice-cold—colder even than receiving a death sentence from Lady Lin.

The machine gun, anti-aircraft gun, and grenade launchers had somehow been neutralized by someone unknown. The three bodies tumbling down from the trees were none other than the corpses of those three players.

With the three mechanical experts already dead, how could any traps possibly be triggered?

Xiao Si felt as though his entire body had plunged into an incomparably freezing ice cellar. The three Jacks he had carefully saved until the end as his fatal trump card had somehow been rendered completely useless.

It was akin to holding your final three Jacks, just waiting to play them to secure victory, when suddenly you burst out into a loud roar: "Wait! Why are my last three cards missing?"

At that moment, how do you suppose the other two players at the table would look at you? As a cheat? A card shark? Or someone who revoked their own turn?

And if you were playing on a team, how would your own teammates look at you? Weren't they probably screaming inside, You ungrateful wretch, you've doomed us all!

Bai Gan and Gou Dan were already in dire straits, because this strike of the "Blue Rain Sword" had not only drained over 240 points of constitution from each of them, but their inner Qi, agility, and root bone attributes were plummeting accordingly as well.

With the three Jacks dead, this bolt from the blue practically knocked the two of them unconscious. Amidst the momentary daze caused by this sudden, shocking turn of events, Hua Feihong finished chanting her incantation. Golden light flared brilliantly across the bamboo forest, illuminating the surroundings as bright as day.

A colossal phantom of an ancient golden sword, as thick as a giant pillar, plummeted from the sky. The sheer volume of this sword was comparable even to the sword-shaped stone at the entrance of the Hidden Sword Manor. The golden sword crashed down like a subduing pestle.

With a deafening, earth-shattering roar, the ground fractured, green bamboo snapped, and the earth caved in to form a massive crater roughly ten meters in diameter.

This single sword strike possessed the momentum to swallow rivers and mountains, causing the wind and clouds to change color.

Even the notoriously arrogant Emei female disciples turned pale with shock as they looked at one another. After all, they were discerning experts who recognized this as the Mount Shushan Sword Sect's fourth-transition high-tier technique: the "Divine Sword Art." This was a ten-meter-diameter area-of-effect martial art featuring two layers of damage. The initial strike of the sword phantom could kill enemies directly on impact, followed by an inner-Qi shockwave once the blade landed—damage that naturally scaled with all of one's major attributes.

If the user's level was sufficiently high and they had cultivated true Qi after the sixth transition, this sword strike would also carry immense bonus damage.

Even Nangong Qing, the Vice Altar Master of the Clear Wind Altar, would find it difficult to contend with such a formidable sword technique. This was the true art of commanding swords through Qi, shattering Qi with swords, transforming flowing Qi into flashing light, and finally shaping that flashing light into a tangible blade.

The "Divine Sword Art" was easily comparable to a peerless ultimate technique, but its side effects were far too severe. First, the incantation chanting time was excessively long; under normal circumstances, enemies would never afford you that much time. Second, once unleashed, regardless of whether the enemy was hit or not, all of the user's attributes would plummet drastically, leaving them in an extremely debilitated state.

With each level gained in this sword art in the future, the side effects of casting it would merely lessen slightly. Hua Feihong had used this move partly to test her new fourth-transition martial art, never expecting the backlash to be so severe. The moment the attack concluded, her entire body felt nearly paralyzed, and she would have collapsed if Ma Junmei hadn't supported her from the side.

Still, the results were sufficient. Gou Dan was blasted by the sword strike, suffering "-702" red damage, and lay flat on his back in the center of the crater, completely motionless.

Bai Gan was also battered by the residual shockwave of the divine sword, taking "-195" in red damage.

Though he hadn't died, he had suffered severe internal injuries from the impact. Staggering and swaying unsteadily, he tried to stumble out of the crater, walking as if he had genuinely downed two shots of potent liquor—completely numb.

Before he had even managed ten steps, another damage number of "-133" popped up above his head. His body wobbled, and he pitched forward onto the ground, unmoving. Protruding straight out of his back was a gleaming Emei dagger.

Witnessing the devastation wrought by this ultimate move, Xiao Si realized he had played the wrong cards all along. He had always regarded Hua Feihong and Ma Junmei as a pair of Queens, but now he finally understood that these two Mount Shushan female disciples weren't a pair of Queens at all—they were a pair of Deuces.

For a single Ace to defeat a pair of Deuces, unless he could instantly pull out a pair of Jokers... Unfortunately, the male and female protectors of the Sun-Moon Cult, who symbolized the pair of Jokers, were still comfortably seated in their main tent waiting for his report. The reality now was that the enemy held a pair of Aces plus another pair of Aces—making four Aces in total, equivalent to a bomb capable of obliterating a single Ace and reducing him to ashes at any moment. Therefore, Xiao Si swiftly deployed his ultimate super-defensive trick: his expression suddenly froze, and staring past his opponents in horror, he cried out, "Nangong Qing, so it was you who launched the sneak attack?!"

Ma Junmei and the other three froze simultaneously. Falling right into the trap, all four of them whipped their heads around in unison. There wasn't even a ghost of Nangong Qing behind them.

By the time the four of them snapped their heads back around, Xiao Si had already vanished. A rustling sound echoed from deep within the bamboo forest as the scoundrel seized the opportunity to deploy his lightweight Kung Fu and slip away.

"After him!" the two Emei female disciples roared in fury, drawing their daggers as they prepared to give chase.

Right at that moment, the sound of rushing wind cutting through garments echoed from above, and a dark figure plummeted from the sky.

This was yet another black-clad, masked assailant, though his build appeared somewhat slender. What was most astonishing was that he wielded only a short wooden stick resembling a rolling pin.

No one had anticipated that the Four Great Factions of the underworld still had reinforcements arriving.

"Those who aid evil must die!" the Emei female disciple shrieked harshly.

Her reprimand was entirely unnecessary, as Ma Junmei had already lunged forward with her sword raised.

With a loud clang, Ma Junmei's Shushan Exorcism Sword instantly flew out of her grip, clattering deep into the grass.

Ma Junmei froze. Hua Feihong froze. The two Emei female disciples froze as well. Had they not witnessed it with their own eyes, no one would have believed it.

No matter how inept Ma Junmei might have seemed, she was still a dignified third-transition disciple of Mount Shushan's Yaoguang Palace. Yet someone had effortlessly disarmed her weapon using nothing more than a short wooden stick. Was this person one of the legendary super-experts of the sixth or seventh transition? When on earth had the Four Great Factions acquired such a formidable reinforcement?

The hands gripping the Emei daggers turned instantly ice-cold. Both Emei disciples knew that if this masked figure truly was reinforcement for the Four Great Factions, it would take at most a minute—perhaps not even a minute, merely thirty seconds—for the four of them to be lying on the ground. Since death awaited them either way, they might as well fight to the bitter end.

"Kill!" The two Emei female disciples lunged forward together.