Chapter 562 — Unleash Some Savagery, Deal Some Vicious Blows

The snow-bright sword-light blazed up, like a small sun swelling violently, the radiance of a sunburst made into sword-light!

That mass of light swelled to a diameter of more than ten zhang, then abruptly shrank; and when it had shrunk to its very limit it became the sword core before Shen Mu's brow, shedding a light of the utmost intensity — and then it erupted once more! Whoosh— In that single instant the sword-light it released spanned more than a hundred zhang, and a hundred-odd demon-path masters roared in fury, each employing his arts, desperately blocking that terrifying sword-light, while a ceaseless clangor of ringing blows rang out.

"Don't fear him!

" cried the demon master who had broken Shen Mu's comprehension. "I have been through that state myself — body joined with the Dao, every movement and gesture in accord with the mystery of the Dao, which is why he was so hard to strike.

Now he has withdrawn from the realm of the Dao, and he is an ordinary mortal again.

We can finish him off at our leisure! " Then the flying swords erupted in full; around each man there were seventy or eighty of them, executing the various basic sword forms — thrust, lift, cloud-cut, chop, point, hook, cleave, snap. The techniques were simple, yet the assaults were monstrously varied, different flying swords and different sword forms combining with one another, so that the attack each man faced was unlike every other.

Just then, Shen Mu's figure moved among the eight thousand flying swords like a ghost. Time seemed to flow slowly; those flying swords drifted before his eyes like petals unfurling one after another, and the bearing of every demon master, their attacks, their divine abilities — all grew extraordinarily slow. True enough, as the master who had broken his comprehension had said, once one withdraws from the realm of Dao comprehension, one cannot remain in that state of body joined with the Dao.

What that master had not considered, however, was that what Shen Mu had been comprehending was not the arts of the Dao nor any divine ability. He had been comprehending his own cultivation art. His cultivation art had entered the Dao.

The Profound Body Three Elixir Art had always been exquisitely subtle, granting Shen Mu a reservoir of magical power deep and vast beyond measure and raising his primordial spirit far beyond that of his peers; otherwise he could never have slain, one after another, four powerhouses akin to youthful True Demons with a body inferior to those of the demon masters. And now, comprehending his cultivation art, letting his cultivation art enter the Dao, he had mended that very shortcoming. His fleshly body had attained a perfect state: his four limbs and hundred bones were each an independent entity, and yet unified within his body, so that he could unify the energy and strength of all his limbs and bones.

His speed reached its utmost, far surpassing what it had been; and to the demon masters still struggling against the flying swords, all that could be seen was a string of Shen Mus running, as though dozens of Shen Mus were overlapped and advancing at once.

Shhkk— Shen Mu seized a flying sword and thrust, and the throat of the demon master who had been blocking the swords' assault burst in a spray of blood.

The next moment Shen Mu had released that sword, appeared behind the second man, grasped the second sword, and driven it through the man's heart from behind, out through his chest. Boom! He clashed head-on with a powerhouse who had burst free of the sword encirclement, and their fists met with a thunderous crash.

The power of the divine ability Nine Dragons Commanding Wind and Thunder had already erupted the instant before their knuckles met; yet after their fists collided, while every bone in that demon master's arm was smashed out through the skin behind his shoulder, the Nine Dragons Commanding Wind and Thunder was still swelling outward.

By the time Shen Mu left, thrusting a sword through another man's brow, the divine ability finally crashed down upon that man; the demon master's chest shattered, the cloth of his back burst asunder, and forty-five divine dragons flew out from his heart, carrying away all the blood and qi of his body. Shen Mu felt as though he had entered a world where time flowed slowly; his advancement was an advancement in nearly every aspect.

Strings of bleak, exquisite blood-light rushed from the enemies' vital points before their divine abilities erupted, becoming blossoms of blood that slowly bloomed in midair; and once the abilities erupted, Shen Mu was no longer there. In his eyes the enemies' divine abilities too grew extraordinarily slow.

Whenever an ability burst forth, the demon essence transformed from qi into runes, and from runes into Dao arts, and the Dao art's power erupted, appearing extraordinarily beautiful.

These demon ability-users were no weaklings; all were disciples trained by Demon Gods, fit to be called the elite of the Demon race.

While retaining immense power, their divine abilities were also exceedingly refined; every breath of their transformations was dazzling, beautiful. Shen Mu admired such beauty greatly.

Under the gaze of his Nine Heavens Holy Pupil, the process of the divine abilities blooming one after another was a feast for the eyes.

Especially when blood flowed out and splattered in the air to form blossoms of blood that adorned the divine abilities of the hundred-odd demon masters — it seemed all the more multicolored, all the more gorgeous. This time he had opened a new path, structuring the circulation of his cultivation art in a strange new way, deconstructing his own art anew and perfecting it — the enhancement the Profound Body Three Elixir Art brought him was not only an enhancement of the body, but likewise of the speed of his essence's circulation and the power of his divine abilities! He roamed among the hundred-odd demon masters, wielding the simplest of basic sword forms, with no excess of flourish; yet with his attack speed and strength so sharply enhanced, the simple moves proved extraordinarily effective. In his Holy Pupil, everyone slowed — their divine abilities, their techniques, the essence weapons they drove, their body arts, all grew slow, allowing him to catch the flaw in any man with perfect clarity.

Shen Mu halted. Flying swords came howling one after another, colliding with the Wuyou Sword in his hand and vanishing; soon the eight thousand swords had returned to one. Behind him, countless divine abilities erupted and essence weapons whirled, destroying swaths upon swaths of mountain forest, thunderous booms rolling on without cease.

Moments later, all fell into silence.

Then came a series of thuds as one demon master after another toppled to the ground, corpses scattered every which way. Shen Mu lightly rubbed the Wuyou Sword in his hand; the sword became a sword core.

He turned and looked at the one demon master still standing on the field. That demon master was precisely the one who had urged the others to break his comprehension.

The man's legs trembled, beads of sweat the size of beans streaming ceaselessly down his forehead, his face written all over with terror. Shen Mu put away the sword core, and essence threads spilled out, rebuilding the pathways of the Holy Pupil's essence circulation — but he could not re-enter that state of Dao comprehension. The demon master stared blankly, not daring to move in the slightest.

The more Shen Mu tried to enter comprehension, the less he could; he could not help growing fretful, and smashed the essence-formed Holy Pupil to powder with a punch.

Boom, boom, boom, boom!