Chapter 311: The Sword Cultivator's Etiquette

The second level is the Yin Fog Sword Intent of the Foundation Establishment realm.

Jiang Ding's divine sense probed within, and his vision blurred; it was still a world filled with white fog and rising water vapor, with a round moon hanging high in the sky, casting down its clear radiance.

"It's more real now."

Jiang Ding Zi murmured, looking at a blurry human figure formed by gathering fog and condensed water vapor before him — faintly a woman of advanced years, holding a sword-shaped wisp of fog-light.

"... Yin... Fog..."

Her mouth opened and closed, vibrating the water-fog, and this sound came forth.

In the void, a force resembling divine sense shifted in a complex yet flashy manner, fully displaying the Yin Fog Sword Intent's cold, corrosive, and hallucinatory attributes.

It did not attack immediately, waiting quietly.

"... A kind of etiquette."

"... An etiquette belonging solely to sword cultivators who have comprehended Sword Intent..."

"... Even if the next moment they must face each other in life and death, and one side's head falls to the ground..."

Jiang Ding, who was concentrating in anticipation, fell into thought.

It wasn't complicated.

Hum!

The phantom image of a vast azure sun manifested behind him.

The terrifying aura of destruction, law-prohibition, and law-annihilation spread out in all directions; within a ten-kilometer radius, the seemingly endless white fog dissipated into nothing, leaving only the cold white fog within a hundred meters around the white-fog human figure still churning and shifting.

Faintly,

fine sword-light of cold, corrosive, and hallucinatory nature flashed, attempting to break through something, but once it stepped beyond the hundred-meter range, it would dissipate into nothing.

"Extinguish."

"My name is Extinguish."

Jiang Ding whispered.

Yet he felt somewhat listless.

He did not take the initiative to attack, waiting for the opponent to strike.

"... Sword child..."

"... Kill!"

The blurry figure's voice trembled slightly, yet refused to admit defeat; the white-fog flying sword condensed into substance, its light resplendent, tearing through the air to come — thought arrived, sword arrived.

Halfway through the air, one sword split into six swords.

With another blur, it split into a hundred swords, forming a sword array; array patterns spread, and a terrifying aura far surpassing Foundation Establishment permeated in all directions.

An ordinary Foundation Establishment cultivator would only need an instant for their liver and gall to rupture, unable to muster any will to resist.

"Sword-light differentiation, six swords."

"In the Foundation Establishment realm, she is even slightly stronger than Jin Dan Jing cultivator Li Hai Zhen in the realm of sword Dao; this Yin Fog Master Dinghai Zhenjun is no ordinary figure among Nascent Soul cultivators."

Jiang Ding sighed in admiration.

The hundred-sword fog array descended, enveloping all directions, sealing off and cutting off the surrounding spiritual energy of heaven and earth; streams of white-fog sword Qi surged forth, crushing down with hundreds of times the volume — even a Jin Dan Zhong Qi cultivator would have to bow their head beneath this sword.

"Now, however, it's a bit weak."

Clang!

A vast azure flying sword manifested in the void.

Without doing anything in particular, just its aura spreading, the vast majority of the hundred white-fog flying swords began to tremble, their bodies turning transparent and hazy, as if about to dissipate at any moment.

The white-fog sword array became even more unstable; the great majority of the sword-Qi torrent surging in like a flood directly turned into watery illusions.

"Illusion art, illusion sword."

"Believe, and it is true; disbelieve, and it is false."

Jiang Ding murmured to himself.

He saw clearly that the opponent's aura rapidly dropped from Jin Dan Zhong Qi, becoming barely comparable to a Jin Dan Chu Qi cultivator.

"This Yin Fog Master Dinghai Zhenjun, when at the Foundation Establishment realm, must have been a prodigy and outstanding figure similar to a candidate Dao Child of Brother Brother Xuanwu's Heavenly Palace."

"Cut!"

Boom!

Streaks of magnetic-field auxiliary linear array patterns from the Third-Order Magnetic Field Spiritual Energy Killing Arrays flashed, and a violent air-blast sound rang out within the soul of every enemy.

The Taiqing flying sword's speed reached the extreme, disappearing from the Yin Fog Sword Intent's perception.

Whoosh!

When it reappeared, it swept horizontally through the hundred-fog sword array; ninety-six streams of white-fog sword Qi stalled, and along with them, the sword-Qi torrent generated by their array formation froze motionless.

Then, in an instant, it all collapsed.

Only six streams of sword-light differentiation sword Qi with physical substance retreated in panic; wisps of white fog were born within the sword Qi, attempting to form the sword array once more.

"Good."

"Among those of the same realm, I cannot remember how long it has been since I met a cultivator who could take one sword strike from me."

Jiang Ding sighed in admiration, somewhat satisfied.

Clang!

The Taiqing flying sword grew even more excited, humming softly; its azure light flared brilliantly, and it vanished.

"No!"

The white-fog human figure panicked, barely forming a Six Directions Sword Array with the six streams of differentiated sword-light; a ring of white fog encircled it, its aura powerful, brushing against the threshold of a Jin Dan cultivator, ready to cross over at any moment.

Enough to reign supreme among Foundation Establishment cultivators, invincible.

Crack!

The six streams of sword light were struck by a terrifying, colossal force. The five white-mist flying swords were severed in two in an instant, and the remaining sword light—representing the main body of the Yin Mist Sword Intent—let out a wail, a thumb-sized gap appearing on it, its spiritual light dimming by a large margin.

"You can die now."

Jiang Ding flicked a finger.

Whoosh!

The Taiqing Flying Sword flickered once more, its azure light blazing brilliantly. Pressing the advantage, it precisely cleaved into the gap, and amid the terrifying screech of tearing metal, severed it into two.

With another flicker, the azure sword light pierced straight through the brow of the blurry human figure.

The heavens darkened, the earth split, space shattered, and the Illusion Realm dispersed.

"Not bad, but not all that satisfying."

The Destruction Sword Intent on Jiang Ding's body flashed and vanished, and his divine sense, without the slightest hesitation, plunged into the sword intent of the third layer—the Jin Dan Jing—of the Mist Spirit Pearl.

His vision blurred.

Jiang Ding's sword intent and divine sense swept the surroundings, and his scalp went numb.

Sky, earth, the four directions—everything, all of it, was shrouded in white mist. Relying on the Destruction Sword Intent to fix his position, he could only barely lock onto one direction. In some impossibly distant place, an old woman in a coarse cloth Daoist robe gazed coldly at the sky.

"Slash."

She did not perform the sword cultivator's ceremonial etiquette as she had in the Foundation Establishment realm; she merely calmly uttered a single word.

Whoosh whoosh whoosh…

Within a radius of sixty kilometers, the white mist churned ceaselessly like ocean waves, like a gale. A thousand white-mist flying swords formed a sword array in an instant, coalescing into a colossal white-mist sword that pierced heaven and earth, carrying the boundless momentum of the world as it pressed down to suppress.

"Peak Jin Dan!"

Jiang Ding's expression changed.

All of his divine sense, all of his magic power, poured into the flying sword.

The Taiqing Flying Sword blazed with dazzling light. Filament-thin golden net-like patterns surfaced on the sword's body, and its sword light shone like a sun of the End-Law era. Within a radius of ten kilometers, dashed-line formation patterns of magnetic-field spiritual-energy killing arrays wove together, and it met the attack head-on.

Boom!

The white-mist colossal sword and the azure sun clashed directly. Azure and pure-white spiritual light annihilated each other, locked in a stalemate for a moment.

A thunderous explosion!

Countless blue and white lights spread out in all directions, ravaging dozens of kilometers of sky.

Faintly,

a single flying sword, its spiritual light utterly dim, the light of Law-Breaking flickering on its body, barely cleaved through the midsection of the white-mist colossal sword—which had shrunk by a large margin—and by virtue of the sword's sharpness, forcibly severed the white-mist colossal sword into two.

"A peak Jin Dan sword cultivator is nothing more than this…"

Jiang Ding sneered.

A transparent flying sword, no one knew when, appeared inside his forehead. Searing agony struck, cutting off his words.

His vision went black, and he lost consciousness.

The outside world.

Jiang Ding, without a sound, tumbled toward the ground with his eyes rolled back.

Jin Jin Lingfeng and An Siyan, who were currently overseeing the military formation's attack, flinched, and a tremendous chaos erupted.

"Sigh."

Lu Ling Master Dinghai Zhenjun sighed, having long foreseen this. With a sweep of his sleeve, a white cloud like a cotton boll appeared out of thin air, catching Jiang Ding's falling body.

The white cloud rose, climbing back to its original position.

A sweep of divine sense, and he paid it no further attention.

Three days later.

"…hurts…"

Jiang Ding's head throbbed as if splitting. He rubbed his head, forced himself to sit cross-legged, and sank into a state of quiet cultivation. While healing his wounds, he recalled every single moment of the previous battle, firmly engraving it in his heart.

"Yin Wu Master Dinghai Zhenjun, you remember this for me—everything you did to me today!"

(End of this chapter)