Chapter 486: 460 Testing the Sword

Almost in an instant, the hall plummeted downward following Meng Huazhou's hand gesture.

This was not the hall collapsing on its own, but the ground suddenly splitting open as if cleaved by a massive sword, revealing a bottomless chasm, while the hall simultaneously deformed, its walls retracting inward until the entire structure became a sphere and was stuffed inside.

In the blink of an eye, the ground split, the hall crumbled; it was nearly an overturning of heaven and earth.

Yet, all of this happened with abnormal smoothness, almost without any superfluous movement; a few simple tremors, like bubbles bursting, and everything was completed in a single breath.

Then the earth returned to its original state with extreme normalcy, not a single wrinkle remaining. It was truly leveled to the ground.

During this process, the earth seemed to be made of paper, tearing at a touch, and the hall seemed to be made of dough, flattening at a pat; all of this was the result of one person's casual manipulation.

"Ha... Hahaha..."

Having confirmed the earth was completely restored and not even an earthworm could crawl out, Meng Huazhou finally let out a slight sigh of relief, only to burst into loud laughter.

"What kind of damn Sword Guest are you, actually believing such a simple trap? And you believed you could control the hall? Don't you know that besides the hall, the ground is also woven from Cloud Silk? I say the sky is high, and it is high; I say the earth falls, and it falls. Both heaven and earth obey my command; what do you have to fight me with?"

He laughed until he swayed back and forth, exceptionally smug, as if anyone could kick him from behind and send him sprawling to the ground.

"Ha..."

After laughing for a good while, his smile gradually faded; once he restrained himself, there was not a trace of a smile left on his face.

There was no unusual movement around him; it remained deathly silent, with only the shadow giants in the distance shaking in a way that was stiff to the point of being comical.

At this moment, his lips curled up slightly, and he let out a soft scoff.

This was the smile that truly came from his heart.

Just now, when the ground closed up, everything seemed to go smoothly and Tang Zhao appeared to be trapped to death, but Meng Huazhou did not lower his guard. He knew well how troublesome a Sword Guest was and feared that Tang Zhao might have some ultimate technique to escape, or perhaps had not fallen for it at all and was lying in ambush to counter-kill him.

Therefore, he laughed wantonly, appearing as if he had lost himself in triumph, full of openings, and speaking arrogant words to provoke as much as possible, but in reality, he had not relaxed his vigilance in the slightest; he held a surprise he had prepared for the Sword Guest in his hand, and if Tang Zhao had appeared just then, he would have slapped it onto the other's face without hesitation.

However... it seems he overestimated him.

What a foolish fish that took the bait on its own.

Although it was still possible that the Sword Guest was enduring, lying in wait underground to ambush him, the probability was low. If a Sword Guest were plotted against by a Mortal and sent underground, and even then, after being so provoked, still endured and planned to ambush, then what kind of Sword Guest was he? He might as well be a turtle.

Meng Huazhou felt slightly reassured, standing on the ground and looking up at those shadow giants, revealing a ferocious grin of certain victory, his palm unfolding to hold a dark wooden slip.

The wooden slip was ancient in shape, seemingly an antique passed down for many years, with fine lightning faintly flickering upon it.

Those who knew the trade could see that this was clearly a Dharma Artifact.

Meng Huazhou gripped the wooden slip, and the lightning threads on it seemed about to leap out and transform into real Thunder Light.

At the same time, Meng Huazhou's hand also trembled slightly, as if truly stimulated by the lightning; he forced his arm muscles to stabilize, and with a trembling finger, pointed at the nearest giant: "You—"

His finger moved to another hall not far away: "Go there—"

The giant paused, freezing for a moment like a statue, then actually stepped forward, arrived before the Hall, and although it stumbled, it still listened to Meng Huazhou's command and squeezed into the hall.

Meng Huazhou could actually directly command the giants!

"Close the hall door... wait?" Just as Meng Huazhou was about to follow the previous method to seal the hall shut and then sink it into the ground as a dead object, he suddenly thought: Would this be too wasteful?

One giant wasting one hall; even with the vastness of Yutang, it couldn't withstand such squandering.

As long as he found that thing, this place would eventually be his; why should he waste his own property?

It would be better to just squeeze them in.

He manipulated the hall to close the door, leaving only a small window, and then pointed at the next giant.

Under Meng Huazhou's command, one giant after another walked into the hall.

He thought it was a good plan: although those giants had some intelligence, they were ultimately composed of shadows; theoretically, let alone one hall, even a Time Jar could hold hundreds of them, they just needed to be squeezed in.

But he overestimated himself. One must know that making giants squeeze into a room made them uncomfortable, so this was a forceful command that required him to be extremely imposing while ordering them. Even with a powerful Dharma Artifact, controlling each giant required additional Mental Power and Sword Essence.

And Meng Huazhou was merely a newly promoted Sword Student, not even a Sword Guest; his Spirit was mediocre with no special traits, and his Sword Essence was practically non-existent; he broke into a sweat just by manipulating the third one.

Barely managing to stuff four giants into one hall, the cage of storms outside nearly fell apart; Meng Huazhou could not hold on, let out a grunt, and the hall immediately closed, once again forming a ball, followed by the ground splitting to press the hall down, taking four giants away from the clouds forever.

"Phew..."

Meng Huazhou temporarily set down his burden, feeling his whole body lighten, and muttered: "This works too, at least it's four times faster..."

Then he heard someone ask: "Won't that be treating the symptoms but not the root cause?"

Meng Huazhou sneered: "Treating the symptoms is not—"

His voice stopped abruptly, his face paler than it had been from exhaustion, and he was sweating even more.

A ghost story that had been proven fake had actually happened for real?!

He hardly dared to move, nor did he dare to turn his head to confirm the source of the voice, but he could not stop the owner of the voice from walking over, standing beside him, looking down at the split and restored earth, and very earnestly discussing: "Although those shadow warriors are sealed, they haven't been eliminated; they are just imprisoned underground. As long as the Cloud Silk dissipates, they will come out again. Do you think that just because you can't see them, they don't exist? Isn't this just 'covering one's ears to steal a bell'?"

Meng Huazhou stared at that handsome yet detestable face and said in a hoarse voice: "Where did you come from?"

He realized that the direction Tang Zhao came from was not the direction he had sunk into at all; on the contrary, this person was in a clean long robe, as if he had just walked down from the Zhugong.

Tang Zhao explained very seriously: "I haven't been here just now. The one you saw was an illusion."

Just as he said, the Tang Zhao who had entered the hall just now was originally an illusion he had created, which was a ray of light split from his Sword Image. The reason he split an illusion was, firstly, to see what good methods Meng Huazhou had to counter-kill a Sword Guest, and secondly, to verify his own thoughts.

Just now, he had the illusion bring a Pearl Origin Crystal inside to try and detonate it using Sunlight under high pressure and high temperature to see if it was feasible; if it was feasible, what kind of effect would it have?

As it turned out, the Origin Crystal did not disappoint him and truly destroyed the shadow giants, but Meng Huazhou disappointed him.

He said to Meng Huazhou: "I thought you had some brilliant plan; it turns out you were just using the authority to command the Cloud Silk..."

Just as Tang Zhao was speaking, Meng Huazhou roared: "Split!"

The earth split in response, and a figure fell into it.

Meng Huazhou only felt the world go black; he himself had actually fallen into the rift in the earth!

What was going on?

Immediately following, countless Cloud Silks split from the earth and bound him like a New Year pig.

Tang Zhao squatted down, looking at the falling Meng Huazhou from the ground, and said patiently: "The reason I used an illusion was because I had things to do, not because I was afraid of you manipulating the Cloud Silk. Why do you still think that because I didn't come last time, I escaped by luck, and that you can use the same trick again? In Baiyujing, you definitely cannot compete with me; my priority is above yours."

Meng Huazhou said angrily: "Impossible, I inherited the authority of the Baiyujing Manager..."

Tang Zhao found it strange; who was this Baiyujing Manager? A grand eunuch? Why hadn't Ling Baoyu mentioned it? He said: "What manager? I even inherited the Ruyi Sword itself."

He was not joking about this; there were three Congjun Orders in total, and Ling Baoyu had entrusted one to him via the Sun Bird. This was a genuine "Rujin Qinlin," was it something to play around with?

Meng Huazhou no longer put on an act at this moment, shouting, "You thief, you actually dare to steal a divine artifact of Baiyujing for your own possession. A fine thief indeed, I will surely hack you into ten thousand pieces in the future..." Having said this, his body suddenly flashed, the space twisted, and he actually vanished from where he stood.

Tang Zhao watched him vanish, unperturbed, and shook his head, saying, "As expected, you still have a trump card for escaping? It is a pity, if I let you run away, wouldn't I have tied you up for nothing just now? You refuse to leave a whole corpse and insist on being hacked into ten thousand pieces?"

He reached out and gave a tug, pulling up a strand of Cloud Silk, which was tied to the wooden slip Meng Huazhou used to manipulate the giant.

The space fluctuated slightly, and Meng Huazhou's body suddenly appeared, landing on the ground.

"Where is this?" Meng Huazhou was stunned, discovering he had landed in an unfamiliar place, "Shouldn't I have returned to Fulu Lou?"

The surroundings were very dark, but there was no oppressive feeling of a Shadow; he even felt a wave of warmth, and in this ghostly place, this warmth made him feel exceptionally comfortable.

In Baiyujing, everything was gloomy, dim, and cold; it was rare to have some warmth, making it immensely satisfying for him.

He used his hand to support himself on the ground and slowly stood up, first touching the sword on his back—

Fortunately, it was still there.

As long as the sword was still there, he would find a place to go into seclusion, and within a few months, he would be a Sword Guest; by then, he could kill everyone who had bullied him one by one.

He had this confidence.

He had originally thought there would be a chance to choose a better sword, but he had not expected his future to be severed by the suddenly appearing Tang Zhao, so he could only settle for the next best thing and commit his life to this sword.

Thinking of this, Meng Huazhou hated him even more, wishing he could slice Tang Zhao into a thousand pieces right now.

Just at this moment, footsteps came from nearby.

Meng Huazhou's expression changed slightly, and as he stood up, he felt his body sink, as if someone were pulling him with a thread from far away.

Before he could look closely, a familiar white shadow walked up.

It was a woman with a beautiful appearance and a graceful figure.

Especially familiar.

"Black Widow!"

Meng Huazhou cried out, with thirty percent surprise, forty percent joy, and another thirty percent... cruelty!

You came at the right time, it is perfect to use you, this bitch, to test my sword!

"Meng Huazhou! You came at the right time! It is perfect to use you, this bitch, to test my sword!"

Without waiting for him to speak, Black Widow cried out in surprise first.

Your sword...

He saw Black Widow draw a sword from behind her—

That was truly a beautiful sword; the blade was snow-white and bright, like a streak of Bai Ni in the sky.