Chapter 8: Five Mountains Sword Technique

Huashan, Siguo Cliff.

Linghu Chong had already been living on Siguo Cliff for over a month; although the cliff was desolate, Yue Lingshan would often run up to visit Linghu Chong, so he was not lonely, and instead had more time to practice martial arts.

Under the guidance of Yue Buqun, Lu Li had already handed the Purple Mist Divine Skill over to Linghu Chong.

At this time, Linghu Chong's internal energy was constantly increasing, and compared to the original work, his martial arts were much higher.

At the same time, since the eldest disciple Linghu Chong had been punished and sent to Siguo Cliff, Lu Li, the second disciple, naturally took over the responsibility of teaching the disciples martial arts.

Now, Liang Fa and the others truly felt the meaning of the name "Shura," and were trained by Lu Li until they were crying out in misery.

Previously, it had always been Linghu Chong supervising their sword techniques, with Yue Buqun only occasionally checking them.

However, Linghu Chong had a carefree and unconventional personality, always looking for ways to be lazy and cut corners; it would be strange if he could teach well.

Yue Buqun, on the other hand, had a conservative nature, and when teaching sword techniques, he was always rigid and inflexible, much like Guo Jing teaching Yang Guo, focusing on how practice makes perfect.

This was certainly not wrong, but everyone taught this way came out of the same mold, and their standard was truly average.

Now, Lu Li's sword technique had already reached the level of Mastery, and he was exploring even higher realms.

To him, teaching his junior brothers sword techniques was also a way to check for gaps and make improvements himself.

Lu Li taught according to the students' aptitude, implementing devilish training for the Inner Disciples.

Everyone wailed daily, but within a short month, everyone's sword technique and internal energy had reached a new level; their progress could be called rapid.

Some of Lu Li's sword technique concepts and habits benefited everyone greatly.

Even if they could not fully digest them now, they kept them in their hearts, and only when they encountered certain bottlenecks in the future would they suddenly realize their meaning.

This day, Lu Li carried a food box and walked up to Siguo Cliff.

From afar, he saw Linghu Chong sitting upright on a rock at the edge of the cliff, his face full of sorrow, looking at the mountain clouds and mist as if he had lost his soul.

Lu Li walked over from the mountain path, yet Linghu Chong did not notice him at first.

Lu Li put down the food box, which made a "thud" sound; Linghu Chong heard the noise and only then woke up from his daze.

"Oh? Junior brother, how do you have time to deliver food in person today?"

Linghu Chong said.

Seeing Linghu Chong so absent-minded, Lu Li teased, "What is wrong with Eldest Senior Brother? Could it be that you are depressed from missing Little Junior Sister? I remember yesterday's lunch was delivered by her, truly 'a day apart feels like three autumns'."

Linghu Chong's expression was quite miserable; he only shook his head and sighed, "Junior brother, the sword techniques of our Huashan have all been broken by someone."

Hearing Linghu Chong say this, Lu Li already guessed that he had discovered the hidden cave recording how the Five Mountains Sword Technique had been broken by the Demonic Cult.

Lu Li felt a surge of joy in his heart, but his face did not reveal a single thing.

"Could it be that Senior Brother has stayed on Siguo Cliff for too long and is having hallucinations? How could our Huashan sword techniques all be broken?"

Linghu Chong gave a bitter smile and said, "At first I didn't believe it either, but they even carved the breaking moves onto the stone wall."

Seeing Linghu Chong looking like a bankrupt tycoon, with the air of someone who had given up on everything, he immediately told the story of how he discovered the hidden cave entrance.

"Junior brother, two days ago when I was practicing my sword, I was distracted and accidentally thrust my long sword into the stone wall, burying it up to the hilt."

"I figured that no matter how much my martial arts improved, I couldn't pierce through mountain rock with one sword thrust, so I concluded there must be something strange about it."

Upon investigating, I indeed discovered a tunnel."

"... It is not just the Huashan sword techniques; the sword moves of our Five Mountains Sword Technique have all been broken by someone."

Hearing Linghu Chong say this, Lu Li confirmed that it was the cave recording the Five Mountains Sword Technique.

He immediately pretended not to believe it, lit a torch, and walked toward the cave entrance.

Linghu Chong was thinking about this matter and had no mood to eat, so he followed Lu Li into the mountain wall tunnel.

Just as they stepped into the tunnel, they saw a skeleton by their feet.

It was only a step away from the outside; if not for Lu Li's alertness, he would have stepped right on it.

The flesh and clothing on this skeleton had long since rotted away, but beside it were two large axes, which still emitted a sharp, cold chill under the reflection of the torchlight.

Linghu Chong explained from the side: "This person was trapped inside the mountain wall and wanted to use sharp axes to carve out an exit, but even though they were only one step away from the true path out, they still died of exhaustion."

Lu Li shook his head and said, "I fear it was not dying of exhaustion, but that there was no hope left in their heart."

Lu Li knew that the people trapped here were not just one person, but several Demonic Cult experts.

These people still had the strength to carve the moves to break the Five Mountains Sword Technique on the stone wall, so how could they lack energy? They must have had no reference point inside the mountain wall, not knowing the passage of time, nor knowing where they were, and ultimately lost the hope of survival.

If a person is trapped in such a mountain wall, the invisible pressure accumulates crazily, and their spirit must collapse even faster.

Lu Li remembered that someone had conducted a cruel experiment.

They fixed a prisoner's body in place, blindfolded their eyes, and then lightly made a cut on their wrist, letting the prisoner mistakenly believe they had been slashed and would die from excessive blood loss.

But in reality, the cut was very light, and the wound on the prisoner's wrist healed quickly.

However, the executioner turned on a faucet just a little bit, and the sound of water dripping constantly entered the prisoner's ears, making the prisoner believe their wound was constantly bleeding.

Every sound of a water drop hitting the ground struck the prisoner's mind like a thunderclap.

In the end, the prisoner died from their own fear and pressure.

A single drop of water can kill, let alone this mountain of unknown thickness.

"When he put down the axe, he must have been very desperate."

Lu Li sighed in his heart.

Walking a few more yards, following the tunnel as it turned to the right, they reached a stone chamber of great size.

They saw that inside the stone chamber, there were nearly ten more skeletons, some sitting or lying down, with various strange weapons placed beside them.

A pair of judge pens, a single-edged sword, a chaos-disrupting blade, a parting hook, a copper-iron staff... on the other side of this group of skeletons, there were several broken long swords stuck in the ground.

Among them were various styles; the wide-bladed ones were the swords of the Songshan Sect, the curved ones were the swords used by the Hengshan Sect (Hunan), and the rest were the standard swords of Huashan, Taishan, and Hengshan.

Linghu Chong pointed to the stone wall beside them and said: "It seems that many years ago, people from the Demonic Cult and experts of the Five Mountains had a great battle here."

Lu Li looked in the direction he pointed and saw sixteen large characters written on a stone wall.

"Five Mountains Sword Sects, shameless and base, losing in duels, using underhanded tricks to harm people."

The strokes of the characters were sharp and carved three points deep into the stone; clearly, the person who wrote them was an expert.

Beside these sixteen characters, there were countless smaller characters, messy and unbearable.

Lu Li swept a glance over them; they were nothing but crude, insulting language.

Under normal circumstances, if Linghu Chong had seen such words insulting the Huashan Sect, he would have long since cursed back at them.

But he had already seen the broken sword techniques, and his heart was filled with a complex mix of emotions.

Only hearing him say in a hoarse voice, "Junior brother, look at this stone wall."

Lu Li raised his eyes to look, only to see a line of characters written on the stone wall.

"Zhang Chengyun and Zhang Chengfeng have completely broken the Huashan Sword Technique."

Below this line of characters, some simple sword move diagrams were sketched; Lu Li saw at a glance that they were indeed the Huashan Sword Technique broken by someone.

Lu Li focused his full attention on the stone wall, and his hands began to gesture along involuntarily.

After he finished looking at the Huashan wall, he turned to look at the other stone walls.

Linghu Chong still thought that Lu Li was like him, shocked by the scene before his eyes.

Seeing that the torch was about to burn out, he went out to get a new one to replace it.

Little did he know, there was no feeling of dejection in Lu Li's heart at all.

His attention was entirely on these exquisite sword arts that had already been lost.

Lu Li's current level of Sword Dao was already extremely high; he could execute many sword techniques just by glancing at them once.

Until half an hour had passed, Lu Li had already looked through all the Five Mountains Sword Technique.

When he came back to his senses, his Five Mountains Sword Technique had already reached Entry!

Meanwhile, Linghu Chong at his side was still immersed in the shock and sorrow of the sword techniques being broken.

"Junior brother, what should we do about this?"