HSSB42: A Sword-light flashes, Momentous Events Occur!
White hands like jade, black sword like ink.
What arose, though, were great golden waves, resembling the blazing heat rays of the sun.
The sun was no longer hanging high in the sky. Rather, having slid down in a magnificent yet graceful arc, it now descended from the sky, incinerating the land all around!
The cold sword light instantly caused the three Sacred Sun Clan disciples to experience a suffocating feeling, as they fell into a panic.
“With such a huge drop in her cultivation base, having sustained such serious injuries, while also unable to fully unleash the power of that artifact, how could the power of her blow be so fierce and domineering?”
From the vantage point of the mountain ridge, Yan Zhaoge’s eyes shone, “She does have some ability.”
When she was not moving, so be it. Once she did move, though, just from that single move, Yan Zhaoge could already tell that the battle was already as good as over.
This girl, being clearly injured, shouldn’t be able to exert the original power of her cultivation base at all.
Ignoring a Martial Scholar’s aura-qi which would already be impossible to draw on, even her inner qi should be weak to the extreme.
Of the three major stages of the Body Refinement realm, the body-tempering stage, the meridian-connecting stage and the qi-directing stage, she should only be able to, at most, exert a level of power just equivalent to the early qi-directing stage.
And the three opponents before her, were also all at the early qi-directing stage.
Even so, going one against three, the victory was still going to go to this teenage girl.
While she had once been a Martial Scholar, far exceeding these three opponents in terms of experience and discerning ability, being able to win with such ease, this girl’s comprehension and grasp over the martial arts she cultivated in obviously far, far exceeded that of her opponents.
Just from that one blow of her sword, Yan Zhaoge could already be certain that if both of them were in the same cultivation realm, even Xiao Shen might not be a match for her.
“When did the Sacred Sun Clan produce such an outstanding disciple?” Yan Zhaoge stroked his chin, “From the looks of it, she’s just seventeen, eighteen years of age.”
The three Sacred Sun Clan disciples each also possessed an artifact.
Now that they were all in the Body Refinement Realm, they were all similarly unable to unleash the full power of the artifact they had in hand.
Yet, the girl’s black short sword just seemed to be able to flout that principle, as it easily pressured her opponents’ artifacts by a head.
Where the sword-light moved, the winds billowed and the clouds surged, a thunderbolt rocked the land, and the sun began tilting westward!
In the blink of an eye, the three Sacred Sun Clan disciples had already been defeated.
Wielding the black short sword, the teenage girl stood before them, her laughter as light as the clouds and as gentle as the wind, “I said it before; you could actually just have waited in your original position.”
That Sacred Sun Clan disciple surnamed Cai cried in fear, “You dare to harm us? Senior apprentice-brother Xiao and the clan would never let you get away with it!”
“With your Grand Master, and now also your Master dead, there’s no one who can protect you anymore!”
The girl’s entire body shook.
The smile on her face instantly vanished, as she stared at him, asking, “You say something happened to my Master? Who did it!”
Junior apprentice-brother Cai snorted, “Earlier, when a group of Flame Devils attacked the East Sea on a small scale invasion, your Master just happened to be on her guard duty shift. During the ensuing conflict, she was killed by those Flame Devils.”
“Now do you get it? Your backers are all no more now. Be obedient and quickly let yourself be captured if you know what’s good for you; otherwise, you’ll have your share of bitterness to taste!”
The teenage girl breathed in deeply, her expression returning to normal before she turned to look at the trio once again, “You all don’t understand ah. It was not that my Master was protecting me; rather, she was actually protecting you.”
A shocked expression appeared on the trios’ faces. Without even giving them any time to react, a sword-light flashed abruptly!
Junior apprentice-brother Cai’s perfectly good head was sent flying into the horizon, leaving the other two staring, wide-eyed, speechless, tongue-tied.
The teenage girl said mildly, “These past two years, the two of you, along with those others of our clan, have chased after my life numerous times. Having defeated you, though, it was not just once that I spared your lives, often exposing my own trail in the process, creating a whole lot of danger for myself out of nowhere.”
“While fighting off the lot of you, because of not dealing the killing blow, there were many occasions where, instead, I actually caused myself to sustain some completely needless injuries.”
“You think I am a merciful and soft person? Ever since having escaped from the clan, I have roamed these lands alone. On a road full of twists and turns, the people I’ve killed far exceed the total number of people the three of you have killed in this lifetime, combined.”
“But the only people I’ve never killed have been those from our clan. Due to that, did you think I was afraid of openly going against and defying the clan?”
“What a joke. Ever since that day, our relationship had long passed that point!”
The teenage girl said, as, with yet another blow of her sword, another life was claimed, “Me not killing you was only out of consideration for my old Master back in the clan, I not wanting to make things difficult for her.”
“Now that Master is no longer of this world, I no longer have anything holding me back.”
“This Sacred Sun Clan, I’m rebelling against it!”
The third sword-blow landed, yet another decapitated head landing on the ground!
“At most, when I’m dead, I’ll still have you in the Yellow Springs to carry my coffin for me!”
Having just executed three people one by one right on the spot, the expression on the teenage girl’s face did not change, as she kept her black short sword, before turning to look indifferently at the corpses of her fellow clan members before her.
A sadness gradually began showing in her eyes, not for the three people before her, but for her late Master.
“The Sacred Sun Clan is indeed not easy to rebel against; most of the time, the path it leads to is one of certain death.” A voice suddenly rang out by her ear.
Startled, the girl turned. Now, she saw that a youth, a black-trimmed blue robe worn over his white clothes, had appeared before her.
“Someone from Broad Creed Mountain…The Broad Creed Young Master Yan Zhaoge?”
The girl regained her composure very quickly. Portraits of Yan Zhaoge were widely circulated around the Eight Extremities World, thus allowing her to identify him quickly.
Yan Zhaoge smiled lightly, “I don’t know what laws of the Sacred Sun Clan you have flouted, for you to have been pursued like this. Still, I know that if it was only considered a little squabbling between members of the junior generation before this, from now on, what you will be facing will be the spears and axes of the true experts.”
“Right; you already know who I am, but I still don’t know how I should address you.”
The girl nodded her head gracefully, “My name is Feng, Feng Yunsheng.”
Yan Zhaoge tilted his head slightly, as he looked at her, “Haha, good name. A sword-light flashes, momentous events occur[1]; your name suits you well.”
Looking at Yan Zhaoge, Feng Yunsheng got straight to the point, “I wonder what Senior Brother Yan’s intentions are?”
“If you intend to capture me and hand me over to the Sacred Sun Clan, considering your cultivation, I wouldn’t be able to escape from you. Still, I wouldn’t go down without a fight, even if in doing so, I would only be intensifying my own eventual humiliation.”
“If you don’t intend to capture me; well, I myself wish to seek asylum in Broad Creed Mountain. What do you think are the chances of that going through?”
Taking in disciples who had betrayed their own clan, was not a minor matter.
Even though the relationship between Broad Creed Mountain and the Sacred Sun Clan had all along been poor, even they would not do such a thing which might even spark a war between the two Sacred Grounds.
Feng Yunsheng also understood this principle, “Excuse my thick-skinned self-praise, but after having recuperated from my injuries, I would also count as possessing a high potential in the area of the martial dao, thus being a seed worth raising. At the very least, I wouldn’t be any inferior to Xiao Shen or Chao Yuanlong.”
“Regarding my insider information on the Sacred Sun Clan, while not much, I can still provide your clan with some bits of it. However, the remaining are off-limits, especially those related to my martial skills; forgive me for not being able to divulge them. While my Master is already dead, I believe that such a thing is something that she, bless her soul, would not want me to do.”
“Still, the information which I can provide is still somewhat valuable.”
While Feng Yunsheng was a fast talker, the words emerged from her mouth clearly and distinctly, and in a very organised manner, “I do know that the chips I have on hand are limited, therefore not daring to hold too much expectations on the matter. Still, if you, Senior Brother Yan, don’t capture me, and Broad Creed Mountain also has no ill intentions towards me, could you just take it as though you never saw me and allow me to leave?”
Hearing her out somewhat interestedly, Yan Zhaoge laughed, “Interesting. Well, since you were so forthright with me, I will also not beat around the bush.”
“You yourself have also said that the chips you have on hand are limited. Due to that, if you want my clan to take you in and hold off the pressure of the Sacred Sun Clan for you, the possibility of that happening is not high.”
“At the very least, if you want the clan to accept you without any fear of the consequences whatsoever, Feng Yunsheng, is just not worthy enough.”
Smiling, Yan Zhaoge glanced at Feng Yunsheng once more, “However, if it were Feng Muge making the request, perhaps it would be a different story altogether.”
Feng Yunsheng fell silent for a time before finally answering, “Before escaping from the clan, Feng Muge was already Feng Yunsheng.”
[1] The three words are a homonym to Feng Yunsheng; it’s probably intentional