Chapter 814: The Sentimental Swordsman's Fu Hongxue

In the snow.

A child stood there.

The child was dressed in black, so conspicuous in the vast, white snowy landscape.

Though young, he was handsome and cold; that face was as cold as the ice and snow on a distant mountain.

At the child's waist was a blade, a pitch-black blade. The scabbard was pitch-black, the hilt was pitch-black.

The child slowly pressed his palm down and gripped the hilt.

In this instant, his entire being changed.

A heavy aura actually emanated from this child, giving one the omen of an approaching storm.

The next moment, the hand gripping the hilt moved abruptly.

Draw the blade, slash!

A flash of blade light, faster than lightning, more terrifying than lightning.

When this child unleashed a strike, the blade seemed to carry a power from hell.

One thought of heaven, one thought of hell; he had no right to choose, for there was simply no path to take. On the long road of vengeance, the blood-stained blade and hatred were his only baggage.

If a top-tier master of blade techniques of the current age saw this strike, I fear they would instantly break into a cold sweat. Although this child only had this one strike, this strike was truly too terrifying; there are not many who could receive it.

The blade light flashed and was already back in the scabbard.

The child did not feel proud because of this strike, but instead, like a machine, "drew the blade, slashed out, returned to the scabbard," slashing out again and again, waving the blade again and again, returning it to the scabbard again and again, tireless. His blade slashed through the snowflakes and shattered the cold wind. Every time he slashed out, it was as if he were entrusting his own life and soul to this strike; it was the release of hatred and blood.

He had begun practicing the blade when he was one year old.

Practicing the blade only consisted of three movements: drawing the blade, slashing out, and sheathing the blade.

He practiced thousands of times every day, and every time he practiced, a scene would always emerge in his mind.

It was a black room, and in the room, a woman knelt before a black shrine.

Her face was covered by a black veil, and her black robes were scattered on the ground like dark clouds, revealing only a pair of withered, aged, ghost-claw-like hands.

She pressed her palms together and muttered, but she was not praying to God for good fortune; she was cursing.

Cursing God, cursing the people of the world, cursing all things between heaven and earth.

She just kept cursing like that, as if she had been cursing there since time immemorial, and could continue cursing until all things were destroyed.

She suddenly stood up, looked at the little boy behind her, and said to him in a murmuring, hoarse voice that was almost a curse: "Fu Hongxue, you were born carrying a blood feud. You must use your blade to cut off the heads of all your enemies, cut them off one by one. Otherwise, not only will Heaven curse you, I will also curse you!"

Yes.

He carried a blood feud.

He was born for revenge, for slaughter.

And to want revenge, one must have power.

Therefore, he needed to draw the blade again and again, and slash out again and again.

"Blade techniques have a thousand variations, but there is only one movement to drawing the blade. When this movement is tempered a thousand times, no one will be able to block this strike." Suddenly, a voice rang out, and a black figure walked out from the white snow: "You only need to spend another ten years, and then you will rarely meet an opponent in this Edo; almost no one will be able to block a single strike from you."

Fu Hongxue never trusted strangers.

Because they were usually very dangerous people.

So the hand Fu Hongxue used to grip the blade tightened even more.

He was already prepared to draw the blade.

This stranger walked slowly toward Fu Hongxue, getting closer and closer, so close that Fu Hongxue could cut his throat with one strike at any moment.

Fu Hongxue was suddenly sweating; he had always known how fast his blade was, he had always been confident, but now he suddenly became unsure.

This person stood there casually, his whole body appearing completely relaxed, yet Fu Hongxue could not find a single opportunity to strike.

"You want to strike at me?"

Yu Liancheng stood still, looking at Fu Hongxue with a smile.

Every muscle and every nerve in Fu Hongxue's body was taut, like a leopard ready to spring at any moment.

"Your killing intent is insufficient, and your blade is too weak. Even if you draw it, it is a wasted effort." Yu Liancheng shook his head.

Clang! Fu Hongxue finally moved. At the very instant Yu Liancheng's word "effort" fell, the blade light suddenly flashed. The blade light was actually faster than before, so fast that the naked eye could barely see it.

He was clearly still just a child, yet he possessed such a fast blade.

One could imagine that in a few decades, he would surely become a God of the blade, his reputation not inferior to the likes of the Flying Swordsman Afei.

The blade light flashed and vanished.

Yu Liancheng's two fingers clamped onto the blade light.

"With your current blade technique, even if you practice for another hundred years, you won't be able to hurt me."

Yu Liancheng turned his wrist, and the blade in Fu Hongxue's hand suddenly arrived in his own hand.

"If you want to hurt me..."

Those five fingers slowly gripped the hilt, his posture incomparably elegant, as he made the motion of drawing a blade.

But in this instant, this blade seemed to be stained with a layer of scarlet, as if it had been fished out from a netherworld sea of blood. A surging, tidal wave of killing intent and baleful aura erupted, seemingly impatient to send all living souls into the underworld, to send them into reincarnation, to sink into eternal doom. This aura affected the Heavenly Phenomenon; above the firmament, the wind and clouds actually changed color, dark clouds rolled, and thunder cracked.

Fu Hongxue's face was even pale to the point of being almost transparent; he felt no sense of security at all, as if he might fall off a cliff at any moment.

"At the very least, it must be a strike like this."

Boom—!

The long blade left the scabbard!

A violent blade aura swept out, instantly crossing dozens of zhang of space. Amidst the violent trembling, all the flying snow was shaken away, and the soil beneath the snow was kicked up toward the sky like a curtain. That blade light was even more heaven-piercing and earth-shattering, and after leaving a deep blade mark on the ground, it headed toward the far distance, and the daylight suddenly brightened.

Boom—!

A moment later, a mountain peak not far away emitted a roar, collapsing and pouring down like a mudslide, shaking the heavens and the earth. Above the firmament, it even seemed as if a long mark had appeared, the cut spreading, invisible to the eye. It was as if, under this strike, the entire firmament had been split in two. Fu Hongxue, who had been staggered backward by the force, turned deathly pale, shocked to the point of losing the ability to speak.

Yu Liancheng looked toward the horizon and smiled slightly, seemingly also quite interested in his own blade technique.

"The slash I just performed was actually evolved from a sword manual. That sword manual is called the 'Heaven-Slaying Sword-Drawing Technique.' If one day you can grasp a trace of the spirit of my slash, perhaps I will return to take you to see the world beyond the heavens, and you might realize that this pugilistic world is merely a corner of the earth."

After saying this, Yu Liancheng turned around and stepped back into the vast, swirling snow.

"You, who exactly are you?"

After a long while, Fu Hongxue finally came to his senses and shouted toward the vast wind and snow, but there was no figure to be seen.

Later, Fu Hongxue told the woman in the black veil about this matter; the woman was silent for a long time before slowly saying one sentence: "A fleeting glimpse in the human world, the six ultimates of the Exiled Immortal."