THE MARTIAL KING, VOLUME 6 - Season 14 Episode 67

Countless warriors had spent years in this place but none had ever been successful in comprehending the mysteries behind it.

Zen did not expect himself to comprehend anything at all in the short amount of time he was there.

In all honesty, he didn’t stay to comprehend anything, but he was just curious about the white sword shadows that had been left behind by Supreme Lord Sword.

When he carved this poem, Supreme Lord Sword also inserted his insight of swordsmanship into the words.

These words, inscribed with his insight, had constantly released white sword shadows for over a million years now…
But not everyone could see these sword shadows. Fortunately, Zen was able to see them with his concentration.

He was able to resist these sword shadows using his own sword intent. He was still curious, however, and decided to try blocking them with his sword. To his surprise, the sword shadows quickly avoided his blade but still continued to dash towards him.

It seemed that these white sword shadows couldn’t be blocked.

But Zen wasn’t going to give up that easily.

Again!

He did not release his sword intent since doing so would cause the sword intent to be devoured by these white sword shadows.

There was no doubt that he would suffer serious injuries if he wasn’t careful. He had to take this seriously!

He tried it once again. Using his five-foot long sword, Zen lightly blocked the white sword shadow. It quickly bounced off his blade but suddenly began spinning in the air and headed towards Zen once again.
This was all according to plan. Once it got close, Zen swung the Thunder Wind Divine Sword and flicked the white sword shadow away once again…

and again, and again, and again.

He did this for a couple more times, his sword brandishing blue sword flowers and deflecting the white sword shadow time and time again.

A mere three seconds had passed and Zen had already deflected the sword shadow for a total of seven times.

After seven hits, the white sword shadow stopped its attack and suddenly shattered!

Zen’s eyes widened in wonder, “It broke?”

The white sword shadow shattered into hundreds of faint, light sparks that all floated in the air and shot towards Zen’s body.

“Is it the sword spirit?” he asked curiously.

“Sword spirit?” Lavender, who was still inside his body, asked. “Why can’t I see it?”

Zen shrugged, “I don’t know…”

Not even Lavender seemed to be able to see the white sword shadows and the white light dots. It seemed Zen was the only one.

And the white light dots that headed towards him didn’t seem to be the sword spirit at all…

Zen couldn’t help but feel as if there was something terribly wrong.

The poem etched onto the stone continued to emit countless sword shadows and one of them was aimed right at Zen.

But after he shattered that one sword shadow, the others had strangely disappeared.

He stared at the words etched on the stone and he couldn’t help but feel an ominous foreboding in his mind.

It wasn’t just him. Both Landry and Damian also felt that something was off.

Of course, they couldn’t see the white sword shadows. The reason why they felt something was terribly off was because the constant piercing sensation they had felt suddenly disappeared.

Both of them had meditated in this place for tens of thousands of years—Landry for sixty and Damian for twenty.

During this time, there was no doubt that a lot of things had changed in the mortal world—nothing was constant in the way people lived after all.

However, the only sure thing that never changed nor disappeared was the piercing sensation they constantly felt during their tens of thousands of years of meditation. Landon and Damian couldn’t help but shoot confused looks at each other.

They had always been able to feel the sharpness of the words through a constant stabbing pain in their hearts. But it suddenly disappeared with no warning. After tens of thousands of years of being subject to such a sensation, they couldn’t help but feel a bit weird, not really used to being free of the piercing pain.

What happened? Could it be that the words left behind by Supreme Lord Sword suddenly lost all power and momentum? Was that even possible?

“What’s going on? This is impossible…” “Do you think this matter is related to that guy?”

“Impossible… It couldn’t be…”

“But the pain is really gone…”

Their eyes were mirrors of disbelief. They had simply watched Zen perform ridiculous moves with his sword, wanting to see how long his strange performance was going to last.

They didn’t expect they would be affected in such a strange, sudden way. They couldn’t find any other explanation other than the fact that this was most probably related to Zen.

Just as they looked to the youth for answers, Zen had suddenly turned around and ran away at an extremely fast rate, surprising the two Spirit Supreme Realm warriors.

“What is he doing?”

“I haven’t got the slightest idea…”

Unbeknownst to them, Zen was currently running for his life.

The words on the huge stone hadn’t lost any of their momentum or power. In fact, white sword shadows had suddenly shot out from the stone and all flew towards Zen.

It seemed his earlier actions irritated someone. But all he did was to block and shatter a tiny white sword shadow. Was there really a need to attack him all at once?

He had no idea what just happened. All he knew was that he had to get away from this horde of white sword shadows that chased him. He didn’t know how but every time he got stabbed by one of them, his heart would feel this intense, piercing pain. If all of these white sword shadows stabbed him all at once, he wasn’t sure if he would survive the amount of pain they would bring him.

There was no way he was going to let that happen.

The only thing he could do now was to run!

“Whoosh…”

He rushed with great speed but the white sword shadows weren’t lacking in agility.

Despite doing his best to escape, Zen was soon taken over by the onslaught of these white sword shadows that quickly overwhelmed him.

The initial wave of attacks shot a stabbing pain to his heart. It wasn’t long before the pain became too much and he felt as if his heart was going to explode. The pain had paralyzed him, sapping him of the strength to flee. There was no more hope to escape as hundreds of white sword shadows pierced into his body.

His eyes rolled to the back of his head as he fainted and fell from the sky. However, just before he hit the ground, Lavender shot out from his body to catch him.

There had been no need given that Zen’s body would’ve surely survived the fall. However, Lavender decided to still come out at the last moment and break his fall.

She gently placed him on the ground and observed his face. “It seems that the sword spirit has become stronger,” she murmured.

The sword spirit belonged to Zen. Lavender’s soul was merely attached to it.

However, Zen had also given Lavender complete control which meant that the sword spirit’s body could now be considered her temporary shell!

He had never paid attention to his sword spirit but it seemed that it had gotten stronger, as Lavender had said.

Now that she was stronger, Lavender realized that there was no longer any need for her to be attached to the sword spirit. It only served as a hiding place for her now since she had gotten used to using it as her shell.

Looking at it now though, she couldn’t help but wonder how Zen was able to strengthen it. Did something happen during the time he spent blindly swinging his sword in the air?

Thankfully, the young man quickly came to. The piercing pain he had felt was only illusory and did not really have the capacity to cause any physical harm to his body.

“Lavender?” he called out, seeing her beside him.

“You seem to have honed your sword intent just now,” she told him.

But Zen scratched his head. “I’m not really sure,” he said. The image of the white sword shadows crossed his mind but he felt a bit scared just thinking about it.

“I’ve become stronger!” Lavender smiled at Zen.

The wording wasn’t really correct. Lavender’s soul was at a level that the sword spirit couldn’t hope to match. It was Zen’s sword spirit that became stronger and not really Lavender, but she still said it for the heck of it.

“Ah…” Zen murmured, and the weird foreboding feeling still hadn’t left him.

The aura released by the sword spirit seemed sharper and more forceful. It did not come from Lavender’s soul at all, but from the sword spirit itself.

Still, he smiled back at Lavender. “Indeed. It seems I can hone my sword intent by using the white sword shadows!”

Though his sword intent had reached the consummate level, it was not yet at its limit. Back when he entered the Killing Sword Mountain, Zen had only inserted his sword into the mountainside.

It was good that he was able to strengthen his sword spirit but the white sword shadows still made him feel queasy inside.

Did the path towards becoming stronger entail so much suffering? It seemed so.