THE MARTIAL KING - Season 9 Episode 62

In another moment of despondency, the sword spirit within Zen’s body suddenly emerged from him. Together with Lily, the black sword that was previously stored in his space ring appeared.

As soon as Lily’s faint figure flickered to life, her hand immediately shot out and held the hilt of the wicked black sword. Pulling the black sword out of Zen’s space ring, she pointed it to the other woman’s direction before slashing it directly as a shield from the black light.

Crack!

Surprisingly, Cheryl did not dodge the sword at all. Even though she had seen the gigantic sword appear in front of her, she gave it no attention and did not give up on her attack. With a resolute mind, she confidently thought that nothing could have stopped the black light on her fingers.

Before they knew it, five deep gashes suddenly appeared on the surface of the black sword. Looking up to the end of the blade, Cheryl momentarily saw Lily’s appearance from behind the sword when she slashed the weapon towards her.

“What?!”

With her mouth agape, Cheryl blinked briefly in surprise at what had just happened.

To everyone’s disbelief, the sword in Lily’s possession stopped right beside Cheryl’s neck and did not finish what it had intended to do.

As the crowd witnessed the astonishing scene right in front of their very eyes, they all sported the same looks of shock and confusion—what exactly was going on in the arena? All of them at that moment had wondered the same thing: why did such a scene appear just as the battle was getting more and more intense?

Zen shook his head and heaved a sigh of relief at the perfect timing of Lily’s arrival. In reality, he still had a few tricks up his sleeve, secret skills that he could utilize in order to defeat Cheryl. However, he was not willing to use them if he was not in a life or death situation. Never would he have imagined that the same girl who had looked so gentle before would be someone so ferocious when provoked. It was also unexpected that Cheryl, at that last few seconds, appeared to not care about her own life and was instead hell-bent on just reaching him with her claws.

With his heart hammering beneath his ribcage, Zen realized that there was a problem, a deeply troubling yet strange problem.

‘Why did my sword spirit suddenly become unruly?’ he thought to himself, puzzled at the behavior Lily manifested just now.

The sword spirit had always been unfalteringly obedient to Zen’s orders up until that moment. If he sought her out and commanded her to fight, she would incessantly chase after his opponent.

Moreover, if he needed her to defend him, then she would unquestionably be there to protect him with whatever it took.

Assessing the desperate situation that just occurred seconds ago, Zen did ask Lily to block Cheryl’s attack, but when she appeared, she actually stopped the momentum of the sword in her hand when she swung it at Cheryl. Biting his lower lip unconsciously, he contemplated by himself once again, ‘What is going on?’

This was something that had never happened before.

“Why did they suddenly stop fighting?” one of the spectators asked out loud, confused at the sudden halt of movements from the warriors in the arena.

Upon noticing the arrival of a new being in the arena, someone in the crowd exclaimed, “Look! Another woman is right there with them!”

“Is she also from the Demon Night?”

“I felt the aura of a sword spirit from that woman. That should be Zen’s sword spirit!” a man from the audience responded.

“Let’s not talk about the sword spirit first. Who can tell me why Cheryl has suddenly stopped moving?”

As the crowd continued to discuss among themselves, Cheryl stared unblinking at Zen’s sword spirit before softly uttering a single word in reverence, “Queen!”

Right after she spoke, she immediately knelt down in front of Lily, bowing her head in respect at the other woman.

There were still many members of the Demon Night in the audience. It was as if Cheryl was the source of the domino effect that made the others follow her lead. Within the span of mere seconds, they also stood up and knelt in veneration towards the center of the arena.

Even one of the seat owners, Madeline, also knelt on one knee to give her salutations as she faced the arena with a look of piety.

At the same time, a few other war lords that happened to be part of the Demon Night from the other side of the arena walked over. Looking closer, they all noticed that the one leading the small group was surprisingly also a seat owner—Elder Mei.

Upon glimpsing Zen’s sword spirit, Elder Mei also knelt on one knee with the other war lords following her example and bowing as well towards the direction of the arena.

After Phoebe astonishingly discovered the identity of Zen’s sword spirit, she instantly sent a message to inform Elder Mei to report her arrival. This was possible due to the fact that she had been tracking her location for a while. Elder Mei had not been in the Tower of Sin or in the sacred place, but had been engaged in another mission.

The minute the mission was completed, Elder Mei did not hesitate to rush towards the Tower of Sin immediately.

The girl, Phoebe, had always been by Zen’s side. Although she was a war general herself, she unfortunately did not have the authority to enter the tenth floor. Because of this, she could only wait in anticipation on the ninth floor.

Now that Elder Mei had just arrived and had directly witnessed Zen summon the queen of the Demon Night, she naturally had to bow before her presence at this moment.

“What’s going on?” someone asked conspicuously to the others beside him. “What exactly is Zen’s sword spirit?”

“Shh, lower your voice a little!” the one in front of the faceless person said, turning around to chastise the inquisitive boy.

“Don’t get yourself into trouble. Look at the two seat owners of the Demon Night. If you anger any of them, you will die for sure!”

“But how did Zen get involved with the Demon Night in the first place?” he persisted, despite the warnings of the older man, although he merely glared at him and did not bother to answer his questions anymore.

After the two of them saluted, Elder Mei and Madeline strode towards the center of the arena with purpose.

Strictly speaking, even for warriors above the eleventh floor, walking into the arena on the tenth floor was directly against the rules. However, in the perspective of these two seat owners, these so-called rules mattered little compared to the sudden presence of their queen. Simply put, those regulations were not something for them to worry about.

“Queen! Is that you?”

Elder Mei walked in front of the sword spirit and asked in a trembling voice.

Glancing between the excited and awed expressions of Elder Mei and Madeline, Zen pouted his lips and crossed his arms petulantly. Through Phoebe’s guidance, Zen was already well-aware that his sword spirit seemed to be related to some queen of the Demon Night. But of course, he ultimately knew that his sword spirit could not speak at all.

He felt kind of bad for the members of the Demon Night if they disappointingly found out that Lily could not speak after all their enthusiasm.

Just as Zen was thinking this, the next scene caused his mouth to fall wide open and his eyes to become the size of saucers. It was unmistakable that he clearly heard his sword spirit say, “It is me.”

The frigid tone that the sword spirit had used distinctly revealed an unparalleled dignity. With just those three words coming out of her mouth, every creature that happened to hear her voice immediately felt insignificant and small in comparison. With their expressions visibly exuding wonderment, some of the other creatures could not help but also want to kneel in front of her.

Once again, Madeline and Elder Mei dropped to one knee in the presence of the sword spirit without further ado. In the meantime, even Zen, Malcom, and Fabian had to rely on their strong wills to restrain their urge to kneel down.

Understandably, the most shocked individual out of all of them was Zen.

“Th-this…” he started to stammer. His heart seemed to want to jump out of his chest at the moment due to being overwhelmed. How and why did Lily suddenly speak?

Sword spirits were indeed created when swordsmen constantly trained their sword intent, but it was relatively easier for Zen to get his sword spirit. What he had done to achieve this was he climbed up the mountain and kept on absorbing the sword spirits of other swordsmen.

Logically speaking, even if he had absorbed and acquired numerous sword spirits back then, it should not have been so easy for his sword spirit to have a human figure.

However, after having absorbed this woman’s sword spirit, a strange thing had happened—his sword spirit had become how she looked as of now.

Shaking his head vehemently at his thoughts, he was sure that no matter what she looked like, she was still his sword spirit. Furthermore, the sword spirit was not a living being, but it was supposed to act according to his own will.

At this moment, however, the sword spirit had spoken and left Zen speechless and startled by the implications that dawned on him right then and there.

It was no wonder why the sword spirit had brandished the black sword and stopped before slicing Cheryl’s neck—she had her own rational thought processes, so she was naturally unwilling to kill her own clansman despite the order of Zen.

In a flash, Lily turned around and stared indifferently into Zen’s eyes, her frame emitting an endless aura of a queen. It was as if a person like her was simply born to be superior over others, and all life forms were born to pay their respects and kneel at her feet.

“You..” Zen started to speak, his hesitation wanting to clamp his mouth shut but he continued anyway. “Who are you?”

As a matter of fact, no matter how big or intimidating the creatures that Zen encountered, he had never been as flustered as he was now, anxiously waiting for Lily’s reply. Even when having faced the Soul Symbol of the owner of the Tower of Sin, Zen did not feel an ounce of nervousness.

Amidst the confusion rampant in his mind, his own sword spirit opened her mouth to speak. Such a strange occurrence had caused Zen to be tongue-tied.