Chapter 245: Eye-opener
Most of the disciples of Cloud Sect knew little about heaven and earth, much less the mysteries of the sword intent and other forms of the martial arts.
The questions ranged in complexity. What exactly did sword intent mean? How was it structured? The sword intent was a different kind of mastery altogether. It was difficult to understand and imagine, otherwise, it would not have been arduous to practice it.
The disciples did not understand heaven and earth.
However, most of them were nature creatures, and a few were already into the Illuminating Soul Realm. So, they understood the transformation of life vitality well enough.
After entering the nature level, a person could gather life vitality in his belly. Then through contemplation, he could transform it into various elements.
As long as imagination was present, life vitality could metamorphose into anything.
For instance, Dick turned his life vitality into dark ink, to be used to write with his brush.
Some others converted life vitality into daggers and broadswords. A person could even morph it into a house for people to live in.
The six demonic phantoms that emerged out of Zen's life vitality didn't seem too astonishing of a feat at the beginning of the battle. Most in the audience felt that Zen's phantoms didn't compare with Dick's thirteen mighty words.
A single glance at the thirteen words was enough to sense their killing intent. Zen was only at the second stage of the nature level. How could his six demonic phantoms defend themselves against the attacks of the array of thirteen kills?
However, the crowd was soon stunned by what unfolded before them. A lone demonic phantom managed to successfully block the attack of the array of thirteen kills. Not only that, it broke three kill songs of the array in one blow.
Unbelievable!
A single formation of the demonic phantom had as much strength as that of a fairy weapon. What was even more sensational was that the demonic phantom could return to its original state right after getting smashed to smithereens.
“His life vitality transformed into an entity, which condensed to its original state right after getting smashed to pieces. This… is unbelievable!” a voice called out.
“Heavens!” someone else exclaimed. “Zen has a lot of power in him. How are those phantoms so strong too? Is this guy truly only at the second stage of the nature level?”
“I've said before that Zen must have his own trump card. Just because his cultivation level is too low, nobody bothers to investigate him. Otherwise, everyone would be on their toes when fighting against him!”
“Whether or not he has a trump card is not the issue. But his power is far too unusual! The entity formed from his life vitality can return to its original state after getting demolished to pieces. Who has ever heard of that? It's certainly my first time seeing anything like this, ever since I became a nature creature!”
For a while, the comments flew back and forth.
In the area for Skytop Peak, two tall men stood upright at the front of the line, gazing at the battlefield with indifference.
One of them was named Sheeny Wu, and the other was Wing Xie. The two were known to be the anchors of stability within the peak, the very foundations because of which Skytop Peak ranked first among the thirty-three peaks at Cloud Sect.
Three years ago, they had participated in the All Peaks Competition for the very first time and won the seventh and twelfth place respectively. This time, they wanted to reach to the top. Neither of them had lost a round so far in the group games.
Skytop Peak was indeed an abode for some of the most powerful disciples. They not only had two very talented students, Sheeny and Wing, but also Rocher, who was the best among the elite. Each of them was comparable to the personal disciples guided by the masters. Most people thought that Skytop Peak would rank first among the thirty-three peaks in Cloud Sect this year.
Sheeny had an ordinary appearance, but he always wore a faint smile. Talking to him, one could never guess what he was thinking. At the moment, he turned to Rocher and said, “Rocher, what do you think?”
Rocher's eyebrows were furrowed as he stared at Zen, who was immersed in fighting on the battlefield. Mystified, he shook his head and replied, “I can't understand. It seems he has practiced higher levels of cultivation. I myself have not done such things.”
Sheeny turned to throw Wing a questioning glance.
“Heck, even Rocher doesn't know. How would I? Sheeny, don't ask me!” Wing said, also shaking his head.
Although all three belonged to the same peak, they shared a competitive relationship with each other. If they encountered competitors from a powerful peak such as Blackrock Peak, each of them was on their best foot. And if they had to fight against each other, they would still not hold back.
Victory or defeat was not what mattered to them. If they weren't on top of their game in every battle, it might affect their cultivation improvement.
Both Wing and Rocher knew that Sheeny wanted to pry information out of them. Wing didn't want to let him in on anything, but Rocher considered it no big deal. He mulled over the features of the demonic phantoms for a while, before saying, “If I'm guessing correctly, he has been trained on a high level of cultivation method.”
“A high level of cultivation method?” murmured Wing. Rocher's words surprised him.
Rocher nodded. “It is well-known that the cultivation methods across the Eastern Region are classified into four tiers,” he continued. “These methods are disseminated from well-known noble clans or the Cloud Sect. They have been passed down through generations since ancient times. Think about it. Is our practice only limited to four tiers of cultivation methods? The Eastern Region is only one of the five domains. Compared to the expanse of the Central Region, it is only two-tenths in size. And although the Cloud Sect is considered to be a large sect in the Eastern Region, it is not that outstanding, compared to the sects of Central Region. Everything else aside, I don't believe there are no higher quality cultivation methods practiced among prestigious noble clans across the entirety of Central Region. There must be at least a few! We just don't know about them yet. If we don't get out of the Eastern Region, we would never get acquainted with such wonderful cultivation methods.”
Wing fell silent listening to Rocher's remark.
For a long time, he had refused to accept that Rocher had any extraordinary talent.
Wing and Sheeny always viewed each other as rivals. They had taken part in various martial arts competitions over time. Rocher appeared out of nowhere at Skytop Peak. Even though he was young and at the consummation state of the nature level, it was said that he could outmatch a cultivator at the Illuminating Soul Realm.
To dispute Rocher's power, Wing invited him to participate in martial arts competitions several times. But Rocher ignored him. Rumors had begun to spread that his power was nothing to brag about.
But now, at the All Peaks Competition, Rocher's performance had dismissed such rumors. Listening to him, Wing was shocked.
Wing wanted to train himself in the Cloud Sect and the Eastern Region alone. In fact, he had worked out the plan a long time ago. He would cultivate within the Cloud Sect throughout his lifetime, which could end up in two possible paths for him. One was that he would get the position of a saint or senior officer at the Cloud Sect. Otherwise, he would join the imperial army to battle demons, and ultimately become a general.
The idea of leaving the Eastern Region had never even entered his head.
The Eastern Region was large enough for him to hone his skills.
In contrast, however, even though Rocher had become prominent within the Cloud Sect, he was still not satisfied. He wanted to venture out into the new world!
If a person considered himself trapped like a flea in a box, he could only soar so far. His vision determined the heights that he would chase in the future.
While Wing only wanted to train in the Eastern Region, Rocher was eager to travel the world to do so. Rocher might not be as powerful as Wing at the moment, but he would surely surpass Wing's achievements if he dreamed that big.
Wing and Sheeny didn't speak a word. Meanwhile, the battle grew intense.
Facing Zen's indomitable demonic phantoms, Dick felt pressured.
He waved his writing brush, and the kill songs rushed out of the sharp tip constantly, hovering over Zen to bolster the array of thirteen kills.
Initially, the attack was effective. As the kill songs smashed the demonic phantoms, some of the former also got destroyed. However, Dick had a lot of life vitality, and the words only cost him about ten percent of it. That could be ignored. He just needed to supplement the kill songs gradually.
But in a few moments alone, Dick began to face a new set of problems.
One of the demonic phantoms resisted the attacks of the assembly of thirteen words, while the remaining five divided themselves into two groups. One group went to intercept the new kill songs Dick created. He made new kill songs at gaps of a few minutes, during which two demonic phantoms blocked the paths of the new words.
Not a single kill song could come to the aid of the array of thirteen kills. They were outmatched, unable to defeat even one of the demonic phantoms in power. Finally, those supplement kill songs were destroyed by the demonic phantoms, and the latter remained uninjured. It was obvious that the demonic phantoms were indeed powerful. Only under the throttling force of the thirteen words would the demonic phantoms be destroyed, and in turn, they would break a few kill songs of the array. If it was a one-on-one fight, a lone demonic phantom was able to beat a single kill song easily.
Dick's heart sunk. He knew that if the array of thirteen kills did not get their replenishment, they would fall and the battle would be over soon.
The two groups of demonic phantoms separated themselves into two lines, and as Dick watched, three of them rushed toward him.