Chapter 31: Li River Sword Skills
Translator: Ninetales Editor: Fish Creek
Qin Mu’s heart pumped wildly as he took down his Pig Slaughtering Knife from his back. It was the first time he had encountered such a disposition.
Mu Beifeng’s bearing put him under an invisible pressure.
Every action and word that this elder did and said gave everyone immense pressure ever since he had entered the village.
The fight between him and Senior Brother Qu was forced upon him and he had no choice but to fight back. However, the disposition in front of him now made him slightly terrified.
"What am I still scared of when I had already peed on the stone statues in the village? I have already seen monsters like Woman Wu and the devil in Doom Suppression Palace. If I wasn’t scared then why am I scared now? No matter how strong Mu Beifeng is, he will never be stronger than the gods and devils!"
Qin Mu composed himself, stabilising his panicky emotion. He looked around and frowned slightly. The village wasn’t particularly big and including him, there was a total of twenty two people standing here like wooden piles. The position where everyone was standing was different and random, populating the entire village.
Village Chief lied on his stretcher while Apothecary stood beside him. Butcher propped his upper body on a wooden pile while Old Ma was leaning on another one. Granny Si carried her basket, Mute stood in front of his workshop, Deaf held onto his writing brush which was dripping with ink and Cripple was standing on one leg with the help of his crutch.
The people that Mu Beifeng had brought over had also paid particular attention to their placements. All of their placements were very queer, making hard for everyone to move quickly in the village, much less fighting.
This kind of situation called for an extreme precision in using qi to manipulate sword!
If one was to use qi to manipulate sword, he would need to be careful and be extremely precise in case their sword got disrupted by colliding with other people. Knife skill from the battle techniques faction was unable to achieve this, and that’s why Qin Mu who had cultivated Butcher’s Pig Slaughtering Knife Skill, was unable to do it.
"Right here?" Qin Mu asked.
Qian Qiu nodded his head, "We’ll fight right here!"
Qin Mu sheathed his Pig Slaughtering Knife and showed his bare fists.
Qian Qiu saw Qin Mu sheathing his Pig Slaughtering Knife and the gleam in his eye wavered. He hadn’t expected Qin Mu would rather fight him barehanded.
Before Mu Beifeng had brought them here, they had investigated the ruins in the valley. From the remaining bones of Senior Brother Qu, Mu Beifeng had deduced that he had died from Qin Mu’s knife skill.
Qin Mu had picked up a wooden stick at that time and used it as a knife to beat Senior Brother Qu. On his bones, there were various hairline cracks left from intense beating.
From this, he was able to deduce that Qin Mu’s knife skill was very intricate. In addition, the speed of Qin Mu’s footsteps was also definitely very fast as that was the only way he could move continuously to strike Senior Brother Qu from all directions!
With Mu Beifeng’s extraordinary abilities, and being one of the experts in the world, he could determine that Qin Mu had definitely used battle techniques from the marks Qin Mu had left behind.
The battle technique faction was specialised in close combat and had little to no experience in using qi to manipulate sword.
From then on, Mu Beifeng had fixed a scheme to kill Qin Mu. Once they were all in the village, the placements where all of them were standing would be different in order to lay out Li River Aqua Dragon Formation. Nine eyes of the formation would be purposely left and Mu Beifeng would be standing on the position on the dragon head.
Other than Qian Qiu, the rest were all experts from Li River Sect. In order to prevent Li River Aqua Dragon Formation from unleashing its combined effect, the villagers of Disabled Elderly Village would need to block up the eyes of the formation. Both Village Chief and Apothecary blocked the dragon’s eyes while Blind blocked its heart. Cripple, Granny Si, Old Ma, Butcher stood on the joints of the limbs of the Aqua Dragon Formation. Meanwhile, Blacksmith suppressed the dragon’s body while Deaf suppressed the dragon’s tail.
This resulted in the current situation in the village. Due to everyone being strewn at random, it was very hard for anyone to move quickly in the village or use qi to manipulate sword unless one had extremely high attainments in using qi to manipulate sword.
Obviously, Qin Mu was no such person.
And his disciple, Qian Qu, was such a person.
Even though Qian Qiu was still a Spirit Embryo Realm practitioner, he had extremely high competence in using qi to manipulate sword. His vital qi thread was molded fine beyond comparison and had astonishing skills. He had once used his qi to control a brush to paint a traditional painting of a beautiful woman from a hundred yards away. Every strand of hair of the woman on the painting was clearly defined and not messy at all.
If Qin Mu was to use a knife to fight him, Qin Mu was bound to lose.
It was out of Qian Qiu’s expectation when Qin Mu sheathed his knife and took up his challenge barehanded. However, no matter how you looked, bare fists were definitely at a disadvantage against a treasure sword. Furthermore, the sword he had brought this time wasn’t any normal sword, it was a spirit sword that had been nurtured and born in a Six Directions Divine Treasure of a divine arts practitioner.
In sharpness, durability, strength or spirituality, a spirit sword would far surpass any normal weapon.
Qin Mu bowed in respect, "If you please, senior brother."
Qian Qiu returned his respect as his treasure sword started humming behind him, "Please, junior brother."
The moment Qin Mu raised his leg, the treasure sword behind Qian Qiu’s back flew out of its pouch. With his qi controlling the treasure sword, the sword came stabbing towards Qin Mu in a threatening cold aura.
The vital qi thread was so fine that it was unable to clearly seen with the naked eye. With a gentle vibration, a flurry of stabs came towards Qin Mu from various tricky directions at a dazzling speed!
As a martial arts practitioner, to be able to train using qi to manipulate sword to this level was already quite a valuable accomplishment!
Qin Mu’s footsteps were extremely agile as he weaved across the people who stood there still. The speed of Qian Qiu's sword, however, was even faster. One would be speechless seeing exquisite sword skill. His sword possessed no threat to the people that stood there without moving, however, every move was life-threatening to Qin Mu.
Qin Mu was simply unable to dodge the sword light even if he had executed Cripple’s Heaven Pilfering Leg Skill. There were simply too many obstacles around here and every single person standing still limited his speed and he couldn’t unleash his full speed!
Whoosh—!
Qin Mu observed fire in his mind and his vital qi suddenly became extremely violent and a roar of a dragon could be heard faintly. On his arm, a flame dragon indistinctly appeared to coil around his arms.
This flame dragon was blurry. Sometimes the dragon head would merge together with his fist while other times the dragon claws would merge with his palm as it was ever changing.
As the sword light came towards Qin Mu, he welcomed it with a punch. Just as his fist was about to clash with the spirit sword, his five fingers suddenly opened and the air in his palm exploded, jolting away the sword tip which was coming at him!
Dang dang dang dang dang—!
Qin Mu’s five fingers flicked out and collided with the whole sword one after another. Every flick exploded with a loud boom like a huge hammer colliding ruthlessly onto the sword.
When he had flicked his fifth finger, the spirit sword had been flicked away by him, shattering Qian Qiu’s vital qi thread at the same time.
Qin Mu sped up his pace again and weaved into the crowd while moving rapidly towards Qian Qiu. At this moment, Qian Qiu had a stupefied expression, however, another sword hum sounded from his sword pouch as a second spirit sword came flying out towards him.
Qin Mu was astonished and immediately retreated. A third spirit sword then flew out, followed by a fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh…
Over ten spirit swords drifted together in a line as Qian Qiu’s vital qi thread ran through the sword handles to the sword tips. All the swords were connected from handle to tip and they spanned twenty yards in length. The swords were like a living silver dragon tumbling in the sky as well as the churning waters of the Li River.
Li River Sword Skills!
The best sword skills in the southern border.
Qian Qiu’s first sword was extremely nimble as it turned around in all directions. The swords behind turned together with it as they passed through the crowds without even touching anyone. From Qin Mu point of view, he could only see the tip of the first sword and was unable to see the rest.
A strong sense of threat appeared in his heart. What he couldn’t see just meant the unknown, which also meant that he was unable to dodge it as he couldn’t predict where the swords would come front.
Li River Sword Skills were indeed treacherous!
At this moment, the first spirit sword trembled into a flurry of stabs towards Qin Mu, dazzling him.
Following behind the flurry of swords, the second spirit sword left the line-up and suddenly flew towards Qin Mu’s neck while being controlled by another standalone vital qi.