Chapter 598 — The Scent of Danger

"Fine blade work!"

Vajra looked at the Butcher blazing with light in midair and could not help praising him: "Truly fine blade work! The Kaihuang Heavenly Court is a land of outstanding people and spiritual terrain. Even in an age when the arts of the Dao and divine powers are broken and incomplete, there are still such exceptional figures. It is indeed a good place!"

Seeing the Butcher's blade work, his longing for the Desolate Wastes only grew stronger.

Compared to him, the Butcher was very "young." Though he had not received a complete system of cultivation, he had entered the Dao through blade work, attaining a blade-Dao that countless gods and demons of Taihuang Heaven and the demon race had never reached.

Vajra could see that if the Butcher were to make up for his shortcomings in the future, he too had hope of cultivating into a true god. To have such attainment at such a young age—this must surely be the work of the Kaihuang Heavenly Court!

"He did not pass this move on to me..."

Bashan the Libationer gaped, his voice like thunder, and turned to look at Shen Mu: "Did the master pass it on to you?"

Shen Mu answered honestly: "He did. But my realm is not high enough. I cannot bring it forth."

Bashan the Libationer said indignantly: "The old man plays favorites! This move is too strong, too strong..."

It was not that the Butcher played favorites. In those years, when he had dragged his upper body to Yincan Village, he had been mad and raving most of the time, cursing the thieving heavens every day, wanting to split the sky apart. When he was lucid, he was taciturn and silent.

The Butcher of that time suffered greatly. What he suffered was not that he had only his upper body left, but that he could not storm the heavens to avenge his good friend and settle the score for his blade.

In order to deal with Lord Yangxing and the other gods in heaven, he had always tempered himself in madness, thinking of countless blade techniques, yet never able to break the divine powers of the gods above.

The reason he was mad was that he thought too much.

After Granny Zhu picked Shen Mu up by the river, the Butcher's mad heart was gradually soothed by this little child, and he found something to rely on.

From then on, Madman Tu's fits of madness grew fewer and fewer. He had once thought himself into madness by thinking too much, but after Shen Mu arrived, his heart settled, and he gradually fused and mastered all that he had thought before.

When he entered the Dao through blade work, he created the ninth form of the Heavenly Blade: Blade Opens the Bright Moon Ring.

This blade was his work of entering the Dao, making him a peerless grandmaster of the blade.

Bashan the Libationer had learned the eight forms of the Heavenly Blade in the past, but the Butcher truly found him annoying and would always take a wide detour whenever he saw him. Only recently had Bashan caught up with him, and this move had not yet been passed on to him.

Moreover, the move Blade Opens the Bright Moon Ring not only demanded extremely high cultivation, but also extremely high attainment in blade work. Bashan the Libationer had already embarked on the path of merging battle and technique, and could not enter the Dao through blade work. So even if the Butcher passed it on to him, he might not be able to learn it.

Lord Yangxing's blood spilled down from the vast sky, turning the surrounding hundred li into a sea of fire. His blood was the blood of the Golden Crow, containing the essence of the sun. The moment it touched the ground it became flame, and the flame burned long without going out.

Suddenly, a great sun fell from the sky and crashed into the ground. The earth shook, and where the great sun landed became a sea of fire.

Qi Jiuyi frowned, then his brow smoothed out.

Lord Yangxing's death was not a bad thing for him. Lord Yangxing was a helper he had invited down to the mortal realm this time; after all, Lord Yangxing had always stayed in the mortal realm and knew the geography well.

Qi Jiuyi's purpose in inviting Lord Yangxing out was to use his hand to find Shen Mu. Since Shen Mu had been found, whether Lord Yangxing lived or died no longer mattered.

The Butcher strode over, shouldering his long blade. Lord Yangxing's blood had splashed onto him, setting his body alight, but he was a Vermilion Bird spirit body, and such wounds were of no consequence.

"Refreshing!"

A great gash had opened on the Butcher's chest, and beneath the ribs one could faintly see his leaping heart. Clearly his battle with Lord Yangxing had not been easy on him, and he had taken no light wounds. Yet he laughed: "Several hundred years of madness, split open with one blade—it's truly fucking refreshing!"

The Alchemist hurried forward and examined his wound carefully, frowning: "Pig-killer, you were nearly done for. What's there to be refreshed about? Your wound has the residue of Lord Yangxing's divine power. I cannot drive it out for you—you must do it yourself. Be careful. Don't squeeze your heart until it bursts. You are not Xing'an; you cannot swap out your heart and still live. You killed with relish, yes, but you nearly lost your life. You should not be so reckless."

"Blade work does not have as many variations as sword work. True blade work goes straight forward, one move of life and death. If you can take it, you live! If you cannot, you die! It is that simple!"

The Butcher returned his blade to its sheath and gave a great shout. Countless tiny blade lights flickered in the wound on his chest, directly erasing the residue of Lord Yangxing's divine power. He said in a low voice: "My blade work once emphasized refinement, complexity, and variation. But after entering the Dao through blade work, I turned complexity into simplicity. The earlier moves—Night Slash Thousand Cities Wind and Rain, Sun Shines East Sea Thousand Layers of Waves—were too troublesome. Now Long Blade Hangs the Moon Soul and Blade Opens the Bright Moon Ring grow simpler and simpler."

Vajra looked around at the many demon-race divine-power wielders and said: "Remember his words. They make great sense. Spells, divine powers, and battle techniques must all in the future turn complexity into simplicity. But he did not say it all. Simplicity is entering simplicity from complexity. First there is complexity; complexity is a necessary road. Without passing through complexity, one cannot comprehend simplicity. What is called simplicity is when power condenses into a single line, when the Dao gathers into a single line."

The many demon-race divine-power wielders listened, half understanding, and nodded one after another.

Shen Mu heard this and could not help secretly praising him: "Vajra's vision and insight are indeed supremely brilliant. He is a remarkable grandmaster, worthy of being a true demon, a revered king. When I created the first form of the Tribulation Sword, it too was entering simplicity from complexity. What is called simplicity is in fact not simple. The sword technique looks simpler, but in truth it mobilizes all power and carries the rhyme of the Dao, and therefore its might is extraordinary."

An ordinary divine power can mobilize only ten or twenty percent of one's total strength, because all of one's strength is in fact extremely vast. For example, your right hand and left hand each have a hundred jin of strength, and your two legs each have a hundred jin of strength, but when you throw a punch you cannot bring forth four hundred jin of force.

And the power within a divine-power wielder is even more complex. There is the strength brought by the movement of qi and blood, the strength brought by the free flow of sinews and meridians, the strength of circulating vital essence, the strength of the primordial spirit, the strength of the divine treasury, and the different strengths of rune brands and the like.

To bring forth these strengths is divine power.