Chapter 243 — Bowing the Head in Submission

After that single move, a dozen-odd plume-crested fire pheasant-dragons, stripped bare of feathers, fell from the sky, feathers flying wild across the heavens, drifting and swirling.

Shen Mu dropped to the ground and could not help but stare blankly.

The dozen-odd plume-crested fire pheasant-dragons clucked and scrambled back into the coop, shut the wicker gate, and dared not show their heads.

"Cluck-cluck!

" cried the old hen, voice and face both savage.

Shen Mu waved a hand, and several traces of sword qi appeared on the coop's wicker gate.

The coop fell into a flurry of panic.

Shen Mu stared blankly, looked at his own hand. When had he become so formidable?

"Shen'er is so magnificent — at last he can beat a chicken! " the lame old man praised.

Shen Mu's face reddened slightly. He went on pondering with all his heart, when suddenly the mute smith tossed a sword pill over, gesturing, "Ah-bah! Ah-bah!

Ah-ah! " Shen Mu thanked the mute smith; the smith meant that he had just refined a sword pill, and Shen Mu should try it.

He gripped the sword pill, drove his vital essence into it, and at once countless sword lights came streaming out of the pill — the light of swords, seemingly without substance, able to twist at will, as nimble as his own vital essence!

Shen Mu gripped the sword pill and threw a punch, and the sword radiance in the pill became a giant dragon that roared out, bellowing through the little village! Shen Mu was startled, and the village head was startled too, and glared at the mute smith. Shen Mu withdrew his fist.

At the slightest stir of his thought, he felt the sword pill clenched in his palm seemed about to melt. He closed his hand, and the sword radiance became a great smith's hammer; one blow fell with the force of ten thousand jun, smashing a great pit in the ground.

Shen Mu leapt up, and blade light burst forth — the sun blazing over the Eastern Sea, a thousandfold waves, blade light like a thousand-layered billow, the great sun leaping into the sky. Then the blade art was withdrawn and the sword radiance became a brush as thick as a roof beam, sweeping through the air to paint a picture of a flood dragon; the flood dragon writhed and transformed into a spear four zhang long, and Shen Mu rode the air with the spear clamped beneath his arm, driving straight at the yellow dragon. The village head's eye corners twitched; he looked at the mute smith, his gaze unkind.

The mute smith hastily hid himself in the blacksmith shop and dared not show his face.

In midair the long spear vanished, replaced by countless sword lights, and in an instant the sword lights became a vast landscape of mountains and rivers.

Sword Treads Mountains and Rivers! Shen Mu landed, his heart both alarmed and delighted; the sword pill the mute smith had forged suited him exactly, and the smith must have drawn the metal essence and iron essence out of the dark iron and mystic gold — taking their essence and discarding their form.

Though it was called a sword pill, it could transform in ten thousand ways, letting his fist arts, his Dao arts, his sword arts all be unleashed without the least obstruction.

The mute smith's forging craft had come near to the Dao! Shen Mu put the sword pill away and did not use it to challenge the village head. The mute smith poked his head out of the blacksmith shop, gestured twice, and drew a hand across his throat — meaning that with this sword pill Shen Mu could absolutely finish off a Five Luminaries village head.

The village head was furious, the wrinkles on his face twitching wildly. If Shen Mu truly used the sword pill, the power of his sword art would surge, and he might well be defeated.

Shen Mu shook his head.

"Grandpa Mute, the village head used no weapon, so I cannot either. Otherwise he would not lose with a whole heart. " The mute smith rolled his eyes, wearing an expression that said there was no saving him.

Shen Mu went on pondering, revising his Sword Treads Mountains and Rivers, but every clash ended the same way. Every failure brought him new insight, making his Sword Treads Mountains and Rivers more and more perfect; yet every improvement was followed by failure.

At last, after that final failure, Shen Mu found that he could no longer improve the move at all. His vision, his experience, could rise no higher.

Shen Mu was stunned, and then in a flash he understood.

He unleashed a move from the Setting Sun Sword Art — Sun Sinks, the River Surges — his sword art like the surging river, a red sun half sunk in the midst of the water, and from the red sun countless sword lights burst forth. He had practiced this move only once or twice, yet the power he displayed was terrifying, as though he had steeped in the move for a hundred years.

Shen Mu was filled with admiration, and bowed down before the village head, performing the rite of taking a master. The village head laughed, "Get up.

There need not be so many rules.

These days I will teach you the other moves of the sword diagram; with your present attainment, they should not be hard to learn.

. . Mute smith, you wretch, you still have the face to come out and offer congratulations!

"