On the fighting stage, Xu Ziqing dodged while falling into deep thought.
Du Linglong’s Linglong Seven-Killing Fists were truly extraordinary. Every time he attacked, she extinguished the emotions contained within his sword technique, leaving his moves unable to continue and disrupting every artistic conception he attempted to summon.
If this continued, he would eventually exhaust his true essence and lose.
But he had promised his senior brother to strive for a good ranking. How could he allow himself to lose in the very first match of this stage of the tournament?
He could not. Absolutely not!
Xu Ziqing calmed himself and began to analyze the situation.
The Linglong Seven-Killing Fists destroyed the seven emotions. If there were no emotions to extinguish, the technique would naturally lose its effectiveness.
Yet nearly every cultivation method in the world was connected to the seven human emotions. Otherwise, how could a practitioner attain enlightenment or develop an artistic conception of his own?
If that was so, why did he insist on clinging to those seven emotions?
But a person without emotions could not comprehend the joys and sorrows of parting and reunion. Simply shutting out the seven emotions was not the same as letting go of them. It amounted only to cutting them off temporarily. If their roots remained, they would eventually erupt with even greater force, potentially harming the person who had suppressed them.
Then Xu Ziqing thought of his senior brother.
Yun Lie cultivated the Ruthless Slaughter Sword Dao. It did not make him truly emotionless. Rather, he froze his seven emotions beneath limitless killing intent. This neither obstructed his comprehension of the Dao nor created such hidden dangers.
By contrast, cultivators who appeared equally cold but practiced the paths of forgetting emotion or abandoning emotion did not understand feelings. Once they came to understand them, however, the consequences could be catastrophic.
Xu Ziqing thought he might be able to learn something from his senior brother.
If the seven emotions could all be sealed away, there would be nothing left for the seven fists to destroy.
Then the Linglong Seven-Killing Fists would be useless.
At that thought, Xu Ziqing suddenly spread his fingers and flicked out several seeds.
Du Linglong was briefly startled, but quickly darted forward and evaded the seeds.
Xu Ziqing, however, had not thrown them to injure her.
The moment the seeds landed, they burrowed into the fighting stage. Seedlings quickly sprouted and grew at a speed visible to the naked eye, becoming giant trees more than ten zhang tall.
The formerly bare stage abruptly turned into a small forest. There were still broad gaps between the trees, so the spectators’ view was not completely obstructed.
Many cultivators were surprised.
The trees could not trap Du Linglong, nor did they appear indestructible. What purpose could this possibly serve?
Du Linglong did not understand either, but her will was always steady. As soon as the great trees rose, she swung her right fist and smashed the nearest one to the ground!
Crack!
The giant tree shattered and crashed down heavily, splintering in all directions.
But to everyone’s astonishment, as soon as the fragments touched the ground, they sprouted fresh branches and roots and grew into new giant trees that stood upon the stage again.
Du Linglong frowned.
If every tree she smashed grew into several more, the fight would become one of attrition. That was quite different from what she had expected.
She stopped breaking the trees and resumed attacking Xu Ziqing. In her opinion, if she could strike him directly, it would not matter how quickly the trees regrew. The technique would collapse on its own.
And if Xu Ziqing intended to use the trees to hinder her movements, he had made a grave mistake!
Du Linglong had practiced martial arts in forests since she was a child. A few giant trees would never obstruct her!
But Xu Ziqing had no intention of using them to block her path.
He was merely employing a little trick.
As Du Linglong’s next punch came toward him, Xu Ziqing smiled faintly.
The following instant, his figure vanished from her sight.
He had not concealed himself with the Concealment Formula. Du Linglong could destroy that technique’s artistic conception simply by launching enough Linglong Seven-Killing Fists, exposing his position.
Instead, Xu Ziqing employed a technique he had not used for a very long time: the Wood-Escape Aura-Concealment Art. He merged his own aura with wood qi, making himself impossible to detect.
Du Linglong’s almond-shaped eyes widened in astonishment.
But she did not panic. Wood, too, possessed emotions. Rather than smash the trees, she used the wind from her fists to strike through the gaps between them, dispersing the wood qi as she searched for the human aura hidden within.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
She launched thirty-two punches in succession, yet still could not find a trace of Xu Ziqing!
Below the stage, numerous cultivators began discussing the spectacle in astonishment.
“He’s completely disappeared!”
“I searched with my spiritual sense too. I can’t detect his aura!”
“Could he already have left the stage?”
“Impossible! The fighting stages are constructed with great precision. If someone leaves, the traces of his techniques vanish as well. Look! Those giant trees Xu Ziqing created are still here!”
Du Linglong’s expression became increasingly grave.
Her reasoning had not been wrong. By destroying the wood qi, she ought to be able to find Xu Ziqing.
But she had never imagined that he was using not only the Wood-Escape Aura-Concealment Art but also the Wood-Escape Technique. After merging his aura with the surrounding wood qi, he moved back and forth through the giant trees, buying himself time.
That was the true reason he had scattered those seeds and grown the trees in the first place!
The spectators were thoroughly confused. All they could see was Du Linglong moving among the trees, apparently at a loss and unable to find Xu Ziqing.
A few sharp-eyed cultivators recognized, however, that he was using an escape technique, and exclaimed over its cleverness.
For a while, the atmosphere grew even more excited.
After watching so many matches, the spectators had rarely seen equally matched opponents. Most powerful cultivators had been paired with people unable to contend against them.
This match, however, was genuinely thrilling!
Hidden among the countless giant trees, Xu Ziqing sensed the movements of air created by Du Linglong’s punches and continuously moved in response.
His eyes remained tightly closed. He spread his spiritual sense throughout his body and concealed most of his strength deep within his dantian, gradually entering a state of empty clarity.
If the seven emotions must not arise, then seal them away.
But how does one seal the seven emotions?
He had not yet found his own Dao, and all his magical arts carried those emotions. How difficult it would be to freeze them!
Once again, Xu Ziqing thought of Yun Lie, who was capable of freezing the seven emotions.
How did Senior Brother accomplish it?
It was through a powerful, unquestionable will that permitted no other authority.
Through that will, Yun Lie had comprehended sword intent, tempered his Dao Heart, and cultivated an indestructible conviction.
That conviction placed his own self at its foundation, establishing the principles of the path of slaughter and giving rise to boundless killing intent.
Consequently, Yun Lie’s sword carried no emotion, only pure killing intent.
Once drawn, it advanced without hesitation.
Xu Ziqing, however, possessed no heart devoted to slaughter and could never produce endless killing intent.
His sword could not generate that same pure murderous aura.
Xu Ziqing knew that he had practiced swordsmanship for only a short time. Despite instruction from a great master and considerable training, he still could not compare with a genuine sword cultivator.
He was not a sword cultivator and could not become one. His ultimate Dao would necessarily be rooted in the path of magical arts.
Thus, although he had mastered the Four Seasons Sword Art and condensed sword-light, he had not brought the entire set of techniques to its pinnacle.
If he combined two of its four subsidiary sword arts, their power would equal a yellow-rank sword art. If he united all four, it would equal a profound-rank sword art.
Xu Ziqing had comprehended the four-character sword formulas, the profound meanings he had drawn from the Four Seasons Sword Art. Once he united all four of their artistic conceptions, the sword art would become one as well, increasing its power more than tenfold!
Unfortunately, he could not accomplish that yet. He needed a great deal more time for comprehension.
He did not have that time now.
Yet he had begun to sense something else.
Spring, summer, autumn, winter: the four seasons revolved, endlessly generating life in an unbroken cycle.
As the seasons passed, plants lived and died, only to be born anew. Each experienced its own joys and sorrows.
To comprehend the Great Art of Myriad Woods Heart-Planting, he should ordinarily immerse himself in the feelings of the myriad woods, sharing their joys and grief so that he could merge with them more completely. At such times, his emotions became one with those of the plants.
But what if he stepped outside that relationship and looked down from the perspective of the lord of the myriad woods?
Then flowers blooming and falling, grasses growing and dying, trees withering and flourishing, and leaves dropping and emerging anew would be nothing more than the natural order of things.
That conviction in the natural cycle of life and death was also a powerful will.
Xu Ziqing suddenly understood a little.
His senior brother’s sword intent was pure. Perhaps this conviction of his own could also become extremely pure.
Once it reached the utmost purity, it might transcend interference from the seven emotions.
Birth brought partings and reunions, joy and sorrow; death did as well. Yet one who looked upon the great cycle of life and death and had seen all those joys and sorrows countless times could attain a kind of detachment from emotion.
A thread of green light began flickering between Xu Ziqing’s brows.
He had very little of this emotionless conception, only a trace.
He possessed very little killing intent as well, only a trace.
Having remained beside Yun Lie for so long, Xu Ziqing had long since acquired a wisp of Yun Lie’s murderous aura and a wisp of the sharpness belonging to Yun Lie’s sword intent.
Now he intended to use that wisp of killing intent to temper his own emotionless conception, concentrating the wisp of sharpness until it became a magical technique of his own.
Gradually, the green light between Xu Ziqing’s brows grew purer and brighter.
A strange aura began spreading from his body in every direction!
Beyond the giant trees.
The bewildered spectators below the stage noticed a subtle change taking place within one of the trees. Du Linglong also twisted around, raised her fist, and leaped toward it!
On the viewing platform, Qiu Ze and the others stared in astonishment.
From that tree there emerged an aura strikingly similar to the one beside them: the cold, merciless killing aura belonging to Golden Core Perfected One Yun Lie!
Yet Yun Lie was plainly sitting beside them and had not intervened at all. Why was his aura appearing on the stage?
Without question, Xu Ziqing was the source.
But how could Xu Ziqing’s aura be so similar to Yun Lie’s?
Even Perfected Qiu He looked surprised.
Before Du Linglong’s fist could land, the giant tree suddenly exploded.
A figure in green leaped out and descended lightly to the ground nearby.
Du Linglong turned and saw Xu Ziqing standing quietly before her.
A faint, elusive killing aura surrounded him. It seemed to belong to him and yet not entirely to him, almost imperceptible but impossible to ignore.
The aura filled Du Linglong with a profound sense of danger.
As she searched for its origin, she realized it was coming from the space between Xu Ziqing’s brows.
There, a green radiance swelled and faded, as though something were being born within it.
She had a powerful premonition that if whatever was forming there emerged fully, it would pose a tremendous threat!
Du Linglong had no intention of letting it appear. She raised her fists and immediately launched thirteen consecutive punches!
She used the Seven-Killing Fists in both their forward and reverse forms, striking with all their different emotion-destroying techniques in succession, leaving her opponent no room to resist!
But she was still one step too late.
With a faint hum, a thread of green light emerged from between Xu Ziqing’s brows. It drove straight ahead with overwhelming sharpness, breaking through layer after layer of fist force, and reached Du Linglong with the speed of lightning!
Before she could stop it, the green thread pierced the hollow of her shoulder.
She felt no pain. Instead, numbness spread throughout her body in an instant, and then she could feel nothing at all.
Everyone watching from below saw what happened.
Starting at Du Linglong’s shoulder, her entire body transformed into wood as the green radiance swept through her.
She had become a beautiful wooden statue.
The entire martial arena fell utterly silent!