Chapter 596: Sword Prison

Li Fei walked into a patch of darkness.

A protective barrier formed by the Dream-Like Decree still covered his body, making his entire figure appear blurry and indistinct.

This barrier could shield his heavenly secrets and conceal his identity.

It could also keep him in a relatively invisible state within this subconscious world.

As long as he did not interact with the entities in this subconscious world or explore secrets hidden in the depths, it would be difficult for him to be discovered.

This was also the strategy Li Fei had adopted while exploring subconscious worlds previously.

He was like an invisible person, walking quietly through another's subconscious and leaving just as quietly, without leaving a single trace behind.

But this time, that would not work.

This time, Li Fei was determined to stir up some commotion in this subconscious world, as that was the only way to have a chance at pinning down the one who was following close behind.

He entered through the prison gate, passed through a dark corridor, and arrived at a grand hall.

There were eighteen corridors in the hall, and at the entrance of each corridor stood a guard holding a sword.

These guards were the "vigilance" of this martial arts master's subconscious.

Not everyone's subconscious "vigilance" took the form of guards; some might be certain monsters or traps.

Nor was every type of "vigilance" necessarily strong; it depended specifically on one's realm.

The higher the realm, the stronger the mental power and the greater the control over one's self-consciousness, so the subconscious "vigilance" would also be stronger.

This was also the reason Li Fei had never infiltrated the subconscious of a martial arts master before.

At this moment, when he walked into the hall, the eighteen sword-wielding guards did not look toward him, because he was still in an invisible state.

Li Fei looked around, chose a corridor at random, and walked straight toward it.

Just as he brushed past the guard stationed at the corridor entrance, the opponent turned abruptly and drew their sword!

*Swish—*

A flash of bright sword light lit up the dim corridor.

This was an excellent sword technique; the sword moves, sword intent, and sword momentum were all top-tier!

However, in Li Fei's eyes, this strike was too slow.

The sword light ultimately pierced through empty air, shattering the afterimage Li Fei had left behind.

Li Fei ran toward the corridor without looking back.

With his current strength of phantom thought, combined with the Dream-Like Decree, he could maintain the combat power of a Dao Foundation realm cultivator in the "Dream World," but he could not use Blood Soul Skills, and his physical strength, extraordinary abilities, and internal force were only about seventy percent of his original body's.

Fortunately, he could still use the Ten Thousand Blood Pearl to absorb damage for him, which was the source of his confidence in entering this subconscious world.

The corridor was narrow, only wide enough for one person to pass.

On the left and right sides were rows of prison cells.

With a thought, a Ghost-Slaying Blade appeared in Li Fei's hand, and as he passed the cells, he casually smashed their doors to pieces!

He wanted to make a big scene to create trouble for the Nightmare Sect True Person following behind.

He did not know what was locked in these cells, but he figured they wouldn't be anything "good"; if the pursuers behind wanted to chase him, they would have to face these "things" first.

*Rumble—*

After Li Fei ran a certain distance and smashed open a dozen cell doors, the ground suddenly began to shake, and the entire prison emitted a massive roar.

Sensing something, he looked up and saw that the doors of the cells ahead had all opened!

A vast amount of malice was released from within these cells, and Li Fei felt as if he saw an infinite sea of blood surging from the deepest parts of the cells, sweeping toward him!

The next second, the sea of blood vanished, and sword-wielding swordsmen appeared in front of Li Fei.

These swordsmen had strange and varied appearances, with different builds, but the only similarity was that each one radiated killing intent.

When these swordsmen appeared, Li Fei discovered that the internal force in his body had vanished, his implants could not be used, and his physical strength was also significantly weakened, being only slightly stronger than an ordinary person's.

This was the rule of this subconscious world.

Being in someone else's subconscious world meant having to follow the rules of that world; this was the greatest danger of infiltration, equivalent to fighting on someone else's home turf.

When the power in his body vanished, the rules of this prison—or rather, this subconscious world—were laid out clearly before Li Fei:

Fight for your life with the sword!

Li Fei did not use a sword; he only had a Ghost-Slaying Blade in his hand.

He charged forward with the blade.

A burly man with a face full of scars thrust his sword toward Li Fei; he had a ferocious expression, wore coarse hemp clothing, and his eyes were filled with killing intent. He thrust his sword with both hands, as if pouring all his strength into that one strike.

No hesitation, no retreat!

Li Fei calmly swung his blade in a horizontal slash, striking the middle of the sword blade to deflect the blow, then kept his blade pressed against the sword as he pushed forward rapidly, closing the distance with his opponent.

The next second, the upper half of the blade tilted forward, and the tip pierced into the opponent's neck.

Mountain-Pushing Style.

These were the two basic blade techniques Hao Yi had taught Li Fei back then: one was the Rolling Thunder Style, and the other was the Mountain-Pushing Style.

After killing this swordsman, a fragment of memory automatically flooded into Li Fei's consciousness:

It was a clip of a young disciple wearing the Daoist robes of the Great Luo Sect practicing swordplay, and the sword moves practiced were exactly the ones the swordsman had just used.

This memory did not affect Li Fei's train of thought, and he continued forward.

Next, Li Fei advanced over a dozen steps, killing seven people in a row!

These swordsmen each mastered different sword techniques; some were bold and unrestrained, some were delicate and varied, some were treacherous and cunning, and some were indomitable.

Yet regardless of what sword techniques these swordsmen used, Li Fei responded with only two moves:

One was the Rolling Thunder Style, and the other was the Mountain-Pushing Style.

These two blade techniques Hao Yi had taught him were meant to build his foundation and were not particularly profound ultimate skills.

However, Li Fei had walked step by step to where he was today, having experienced so many battles and fought so many strong opponents, so he was no longer the person he once was; even using only the most basic blade techniques was enough to resolve many opponents.

He was essentially taking down one opponent per blade strike, quickly dealing with the swordsmen he encountered.

And every time he killed a swordsman, a memory related to the sword technique would be added to his consciousness.

According to the rules of this world, fighting for one's life with the sword, Li Fei could obtain a memory for every person he killed in this world.

However, the further he went, the more the strength of these swordsmen began to increase:

The sword techniques became increasingly formidable, and their physical fitness grew stronger, gradually advancing from the level of being slightly better than an ordinary person to the level of a Body-Breaking realm martial artist.

Correspondingly, Li Fei's physical fitness also improved.

But he could no longer manage to resolve an opponent in a single move.

Without using internal force, the two blade techniques Li Fei mastered were not considered particularly powerful, and he himself had not spent much effort studying pure combat techniques, so he gradually fell behind the appearing swordsmen in terms of skill.

However, the protective barrier brought by the Dream-Like Decree remained on Li Fei; this barrier was like a suit of armor that had no weight and provided all-around protection, which naturally gave Li Fei a massive advantage!

He continued to advance at a very fast speed, and as he acquired more and more memories, he finally knew whose subconscious this was—Master Qinxie, a martial arts master of the Great Luo Sect.

He was the very martial arts master who had been ordered to pursue True Person Qingyu and had ultimately beheaded him!

As one of the twelve peak masters, True Person Qingyu's strength was already near the top among the True Persons of the Great Luo Sect; for Master Qinxie to be sent out by the Great Yu to pursue True Person Qingyu alone, his strength was naturally extraordinary.

This martial arts master excelled in swordplay and primarily cultivated the Great Luo Sect's "Great Prison Sword Scripture."

This was an peerless martial art that pursued "manifesting the Dao through technique"!

Dao force is the unification of a martial artist's "essence, energy, and spirit," and the vast majority of Dao force is power of the heart and mind, meaning "spirit" occupies the dominant position.

But the "Great Prison Sword Scripture" had "energy" occupying the dominant position, pursuing the ultimate changes in internal force.

This sword scripture's pursuit of technique had reached an extremely perverted level!

"Command the spirit to control energy; let intent disperse and technique manifest."

This was the core tenet of the "Great Prison Sword Scripture."

Ordinary martial arts use the heart and spirit to lead internal force and drive its changes, but the "Great Prison Sword Scripture" did the opposite, completely letting go of control over the heart and spirit, using the changes in internal force to guide the heart and spirit to change along with it.

But swordplay is ultimately a killing art; all changes in internal force are, in essence, for the sake of better slaughter.

Completely letting go of control over the heart and spirit and letting internal force guide the heart and spirit ultimately resulted in the killing intent in one's heart becoming increasingly intense and harder to suppress!

Therefore, before practicing the "Great Prison Sword Scripture," one had to build a "Heart Prison" to control one's own killing intent.

But even so, the probability of suffering qi deviation while practicing this sword scripture was very high.

Today, in the entire Great Luo Sect, only Master Qinxie had successfully mastered this sword scripture.

Locked within this subconscious prison were the killing intent deep in his heart, as well as those tempered, murderous sword techniques that had pushed technique to the extreme!

When the combat power of the enemies Li Fei faced rose from the Body-Breaking realm to the Qi-Transformation realm, he began to feel the strain.

Opponents in the Qi-Transformation realm could already break through the protective barrier brought by the Dream-Like Decree.

It was not that the barrier was too weak, but that it had weakened under the suppression of the rules.

Without the advantage in defense, it was quite difficult for Li Fei to defeat his opponents relying solely on technique.

All along, Li Fei had not invested much energy into technique.

His speed of breaking through realms was too fast, and there were too many things to cultivate, which led to his obvious shortcomings in technique.

It was just that Li Fei had the Ten Thousand Blood Pearl on him, allowing him to ignore his lack of technique.

Others fought across realms relying on exquisite and peerless skills, while he relied on having high health and not being afraid of getting hurt!

Of course, there were also various powerful Blood Soul Skills.

These things were like high walls, surrounding Li Fei.

Before breaking through these high walls, others simply had no way to attack his weaknesses.

At this moment in this Sword Prison, facing the swordsmen projected by Master Qinxie using the "Great Prison Sword Scripture," and facing the ultimate killing arts, Li Fei truly realized how obvious his lack of technique was compared to these true powerhouses.

Especially after acquiring those memories of Master Qinxie practicing swordplay, Li Fei understood even more how poor his foundation was and how great the gap between him and his opponent was!

The more memories he acquired and the more he understood, the more he could realize his own ignorance and insignificance!

But this was something that could not be helped; the time Li Fei had spent practicing martial arts was simply too short.

Breakthroughs in cultivation realms could rely on the Myriad Blood Bead, but the improvement of techniques could only be polished slowly over time.

And Li Fei was only 18 years old this year.

His speed as he moved forward through the passageway was becoming slower and slower, and he could clearly perceive the movement behind him.

That was Shen Zhen in pursuit, and the speed at which the other party was advancing was extremely fast!

If things continued like this, it was only a matter of time before Li Fei was caught.

Once caught, his identity would inevitably be exposed!

After being forced back by a swordsman with fierce sword moves, Li Fei stopped.

He suddenly realized that he had entered a misconception, misled by the rules of this world.

All along, he had not relied on technique to defeat strong enemies; that was not his strength.

Why should he use his own weakness to strike at the enemy's strength?

"Heh."

Li Fei suddenly started to laugh.

The pursuers behind him were getting closer and closer, but he had completely relaxed.

He stepped forward, and dozens of sword beams bloomed ahead, like a peacock spreading its tail, exquisite and peerless!

But Li Fei completely ignored these sword beams; he did not think at all about what moves to use to dismantle or block them, nor did he look for the flaws in these sword beams.

He simply and crudely plunged headlong into this sea of sword light!

Letting the sword light pierce the protective barrier on his body and strike his vital points, Li Fei calmly slashed his blade at the enemy in front of him.

Swish—

A head flew up.

Li Fei stepped past this swordsman and continued forward.

Under the suppression of the world's rules, his strength was also suppressed, but the Myriad Blood Bead was still there!

Powerful techniques and exquisite moves were indeed a path leading to becoming a powerhouse.

But there was not only one path to the summit.

"When I kill, a direct push is enough; what need is there for technique?"

Li Fei faced the beautiful sword light ahead and slashed his blade upward.

Two more chapters to go, requesting monthly votes.

(End of chapter)