Chapter 100 — The Dark Serpent
劍問蒼天 · Page 2 of 7
Lu Xueling's face turned cold as frost. She raised the Heaven-Cutting Sword to meet the sky and said icily, "Since you have entered the demon path, why still use the arts of the Canglan Sect?"
Ming Li hung in midair, the Blood-Devouring Pearl at the head of Soul-Eater blazing crimson in his grasp, so that his eyes too were flooded with bright red and his killing aura surged. "And what of the Qingyun arts?" he shouted. "What of the demon cult's foul sorcery? I use them all alike to take lives—what of it?"
Amid a shrill whistle, that red glow mingled with the pale light and came crashing down from above.
A flash of anger passed through Lu Xueling's eyes. She yielded not half a step; the Heaven-Cutting Divine Sword rose to meet it in midair, and the two peerless treasures of heaven and earth collided with a thunderous roar!
"Boom!"
At the great report, Ming Li's body was hurled upward, while Lu Xueling, standing upon the tree trunk, could not help but stagger several steps back, her face paling. Yet the cold, clear woman only knit her willow brows, and her body rose with the sword; centered upon the Heaven-Cutting Divine Sword at her breast, dazzling blue light burst outward in all directions, and within that radiance she was lovelier than all the world.
"Ten years ago, in that battle, I was the one defeated!" She hung in midair, staring at Ming Li before her, speaking slowly, word by word. At the same time, her own daoist art drove the Heaven-Cutting Divine Sword, its blue halo growing ever brighter, until it seemed as though even the sunlight in the sky were being forced back by her.
"Ten years later, I ask your instruction once more—you, the only man alive who has mastered the true arts of the Buddhist, Daoist, and demon paths all at once!"
Ming Li laughed aloud. "What a memory you have!"
No sooner said than he acted: Soul-Eater spun before him in a blur, pale light rolling in waves, while his left hand traced strange seal patterns without pause. In an instant a Tai Chi diagram of brilliant pale light flashed into being before him—the true esoteric Tai Chi Mystic Clarity art of the Canglan Sect.
Lu Xueling saw it, and her face grew colder still. With a clear cry, the light of the Heaven-Cutting Divine Sword surged; as her wrist turned, the sword seemed to lengthen tenfold and came cleaving down at Ming Li.
Ming Li's expression shifted. He himself had poured immense effort into the Tai Chi Mystic Clarity art, and from the power of this single sword stroke he knew that in ten years her cultivation had advanced by leaps and bounds. Among the younger generation of the Canglan Sect in those days, not one could so easily have gathered the Tai Chi Mystic Clarity art into sword-light so pure, with such overwhelming force; he himself had seen it used only once, in his boyhood, when his master Tian Buhui disciplined Qi Hao—and even then, Tian Buhui's mastery of the Tai Chi Mystic Clarity art had already reached the "Supreme Clarity Realm."
And now Lu Xueling struck out as though at random, her sword-light like a mountain, her blue radiance keen as a blade, its momentum enough to topple seas and overturn mountains—scarcely less than Tian Buhui's had been. The speed of her progress over these ten years was simply inconceivable!
Yet for all Lu Xueling's astonishing gifts, Ming Li bore three schools of rare arts, and had trained night and day for ten years—how could he be counted ordinary?
Now, facing that mountain-like sword-light, Ming Li flung out both arms, and the Tai Chi diagram before him suddenly whirled at furious speed, swelling rapidly to shield his breast.