The sword flashed out and returned, and the two halves of the snake's carcass split apart before Jiang Wang's eyes.
This was a snake identical in appearance to an ordinary tree's withered branch. Had it merely been similar in color, it would not have caught Jiang Wang off guard.
This snake had not only grown into the shape of a dead branch; before it struck, it showed no sign of life at all.
Only at the moment of its attack did it instantly turn ferocious and terrifying, fast as a bolt of lightning.
But in the end, it was not faster than Jiang Wang's sword.
In fact, the moment the slick sensation fed back through the sole of his boot, Jiang Wang had already reacted.
Caught in a sudden ambush, Jiang Wang even felt an inexplicable joy—so he had finally run into a living creature!
The dead silence along the way had nearly made one believe that nothing lived in this sea of trees but the trees themselves.
But that joy quickly faded.
Because...
Rustle, rustle, rustle...
A dense, countless rustling came from all directions.
Looking around—ahead, behind. On the ground, even in the trees... many, many "withered branches" all began to slither.
This kind of snake—let us call it the withered-branch snake for now—was an ordinary dead branch when still. Unless touched, no difference could be seen at all.
And when it struck, it was terrifyingly swift, at a speed that could punch clean through a water buffalo.
And now their numbers were so horrifying that Jiang Wang seemed to have stepped straight into a den of serpents.
His silent passage all this way now seemed like a trap laid by this swarm of withered-branch snakes.
If this was a trap, then he was already caught within it.
If this was a trap... more terrifying than their power of concealment was the intelligence they had displayed.
Faced with such a situation, Jiang Wang's heart was still as still water. With a flick of his fingertip, a flower with faint veining, as if carved from jade, drifted down onto the carcass of the withered-branch snake from before.
This was the Poison-Devouring Blossom, evolved from the Dao art Poison-Devouring Thorn. Its grade was not high, but used at this moment, it was not meant to neutralize poison.
Jiang Wang first wanted to determine whether the withered-branch snake was venomous, and only then decide how to respond.
And that exquisitely beautiful Poison-Devouring Blossom, almost the instant it touched the snake's carcass, turned black all over, then shed its petals in a heartbeat and withered on its stem.
Not only venomous—the venom was this virulent!
The Poison-Devouring Blossom was a Dao art born to swallow poison, yet it could not endure even a single breath.
He must not let any withered-branch snake bite him.
Nor could he make too great a commotion, because... no one knew what other dangers lurked in this forest sea. Conspicuous Dao arts of light and flame, like the Eight-Tone Flame Sparrow, might well draw attention and attract the owner of that strange shriek from before.
This realization rose in Jiang Wang's mind.
And the next moment, those withered-branch snakes had already slithered into position to attack.
Then, the countless, numberless withered-branch snakes rose all at once like a sky-darkening rain of arrows!
From above and below, left and right, front and back—from every position they came to kill.
Clang~
A sound like metal striking metal.
The withered-branch snakes shooting toward him slammed into a gleaming silver... circle!
Jiang Wang propped his sword into a circle.
He had that battle in the Ethereal Realm to thank. Amid water that seeped through every gap, Jiang Wang had forged the swordsmanship of forming a circle with one sword.
Back then he had held up a sphere of vacuum in the water; and now, amid the withered-branch snakes raining down like arrows, he held up the ground of a single sword and built a space of safety.
Wherever the long sword reached, within three chi.
Wind may not enter.
Rain may not enter.
Snakes may not enter.
Enemies may not enter!
Clang, clang, clang, clang, clang, clang, clang, clang...!
The sound of withered-branch snakes colliding with the sword circle rang out madly.
Dense and unbroken, like a sudden downpour drumming on banana leaves.
Forming a circle with one sword at this moment was far harder than that time in the Ethereal Realm. Water may seep through every gap, but the pressure of water is constant. The moment the sword circle was raised, it tended toward stability.
But under the assault of the withered-branch snake swarm, every snake struck with different force, varying by countless degrees with the angle and distance of each attack. The pressure they brought to bear on the blade rose and fell without pattern.
A fraction early or late, a hair faster or slower, and Jiang Wang's sword would drift off its line—and the sword circle would no longer hold.
Put the other way, to keep this circle steady, he had to react the instant Xiangsi bore any weight, making micro-adjustments. That was a reaction frequency of terrifying scale!
Jiang Wang accomplished it entirely on the instinct of his body, on the instinct born of years of practice that had made him and Xiangsi nearly one.
This was surely a challenge that pushed against his limits, but Jiang Wang had also prepared the Flame Meteor escape art.
The moment the circle of one sword could no longer hold, he would immediately use the Flame Meteor to leave the battlefield.
As for whether the Flame Meteor could actually break out, Jiang Wang had no full confidence either.
Because these withered-branch snakes were simply too many, too dense.
There was scarcely any space left for the Flame Meteor to pass through.
If he was unlucky enough to crash into one mid-flight... that instant would be a disaster.
"Listen not to the sounds of rain striking leaves as it pierces the woods—why not stroll on, humming a song?"
That is surely a picture of leisure and detachment, an enviable thing.
Yet here the sound of piercing the woods was sudden, the drumming on the leaves frantic. Ambush on all sides, killing intent biting cold!
Who could stroll along with such composure?
The withered-branch snake corpses around Jiang Wang piled ever higher, yet his circle of one sword grew ever smaller.
Three chi before him, then two and a half chi...
But the moment Xiangsi could no longer shield the chi of space before him would be the moment Jiang Wang unleashed the Flame Meteor.
Now he had to admit he had responded wrongly. Facing the unknown danger, he had made a careless choice.
He should have seized the moment and used the Eight-Tone Flame Sparrow to clear the field, to "sweep away" the withered-branch snake swarm with the Dao art of greatest power at his current stage. As for whether that might draw other dangers...
At the gate of life and death, who has the leisure to fret over dangers yet to come?
Instead he had chosen to respond with his sword. Seen in hindsight, he had plainly underestimated the intensity of the swarm's assault. Once the circle of one sword failed, his only recourse would be to gamble everything on the Flame Meteor.
Letting the situation come to this, leaving life and death to a gamble—this was an error Jiang Wang could not endure.
Jiang An'an was still waiting for him in the Cloud Country. How could he allow himself such a mistake?
A hundred, a thousand, ten thousand...
There was no counting how many withered-branch snakes there were.
He had walked the whole way without discovering a single one!
The concealment of these withered-branch snakes was too strong, and he, Jiang Wang, was in truth not perceptive enough. At the very least he needed some scouting art to help him feel out the road.
These errors would all need to be made up for when he reviewed this battle later.
If there was a "later."
Earlier he had found this forest sea too dead and silent; now he felt only that the density of living things was revolting and dreadful.
The impacts came in dense succession, without a single breath of pause.
Pip, pap; pip, pap.
The sound of snake carcasses hitting the ground, pip and pap.
Clang, clang, clang, clang; clang, clang, clang, clang.
The withered-branch snakes came one after another to hurl themselves at the sword circle, ringing like a bell that never ceased.
Jiang Wang was like a man caught without rain gear, meeting a sudden storm in open ground with no shelter at all.
It seemed he had no choice but to be soaked to the bone and suffer a grave illness.
No one knew how long it went on; it felt as if it would never end.
Under the ceaseless shocks and tremors, the web of his thumb had long since run with blood.
His hand hardly felt like his own; he was swinging the sword purely on instinct, propped up by sheer strength of will.
Xiangsi, a blade worthy of the name of famous sword, was faintly letting out a mournful cry too.
Xiangsi was a sword, not some shield. It could slice through metal and jade with ease, but it had no talent for bearing weight.
Both man and sword seemed to have reached their limit.
But.
When the sword circle shrank to one chi, it shrank not by another hair's breadth.
However long the withered-branch swarm's assault continued, that single inch of distance stood like a chasm that could not be crossed.
Because Jiang Wang understood clearly: concede one more inch, and he would be handing his life over to luck.
And Jiang Wang had never been a man who trusted in luck.
Rely on hand and foot, not on fate.
Rely on nothing and no one—rely on yourself!
The sound stopped abruptly!
The "rain of arrows" formed by the withered-branch swarm halted in an instant.
Then came the rustling again, and after leaving behind so many snake carcasses, the remaining withered-branch snakes slithered away in every direction.
Leaving in place only a silver-white circle, a circle of the sword.
The sword circle held to one chi; at one chi, the sword circle stood.