Demon?
The sun gradually rose above the mountains and noon approached. Ling Tian spent all the time pondering over his purpose and reason for living and yet he did not find an answer.
It wasn't a trivial matter, the purpose of one's life; the great dream one wanted to accomplish in the journey known as living was something that not even some old men knew for themselves. If someone knows exactly what they want out of life, they are blessed. Those who don't must search and find it, because if not, what are they even living for? A life of regrets?
He raised his hand in front of his face, the rays of light from the sun penetrated between his fingers and reached his face, "No matter what, grieving won't solve anything... Lingering in the past is for those who are afraid to face the present and future. I will search and find my reason and passion for living, my dream. But in any case, I must live to the fullest, not just for myself but also for the one that left the world too early..."
He sighed, and buried his sadness deep in his heart, and stood up, he still had an aura of gloom, he checked his system to distract himself and calmly observed his points. He had a total of 1.02m EP! He had massacred a small city with a population of over 50,000 after all; Even if most of the population didn't individually give him more than 5 points due to not being cultivators.
He didn't appear happy, he allocated 100k points to his body cultivation and he broke through immediately. His Qi increased exponentially in his veins and blood, it transformed his body and then the blood Qi gathered in his heart and formed a space similar to his Dantian. With every beat of his heart, Qi circulated through his body and gave him power.
This time, he didn't grow much stronger or faster, however, his durability, endurance, stamina, and senses grow much more powerful. He channeled the Qi in his heart and suddenly a limitless amount of Strength entered his body, he realized that with the Qi in his heart, he could summon his strength and speed anytime so he probably didn't need to grow used to his strength for everyday life.
One of his worries from before had been about this; He worried that if one day he grew too strong with his body he wouldn't be able to live normally and control his strength. It was not the case as Qi acted as an enhancer for body cultivators in that regard. it seemed the durability and everything else received permanent enhancements in every breakthrough from Inner Heaven realm and up but strength and speed needed to be summoned through channeling blood Qi from the heart.
He didn't stop and added 250k to Qi cultivation and 250k to body cultivation again. He broke through again, the Qi in the area grew chaotic and the surroundings shook slightly due to the fierce winds generated. His hair and cultivation robes also fluttered faintly due to the wind. A lot of Cherry blossoms fell from the tree creating a magical sight. This time it wasn't as attention-catching as the peak Xiantian one, it was much more peaceful.
The Qi in his body was in a semi gas and liquid stage, a part of it grew several times purer and began truly liquefying in his Dantian. In his heart, the liquefied Blood Qi replaced a small part of his blood directly. He had reached the Middle-Inner Heaven realm in both body cultivation and Qi cultivation. He had no idea how much stronger he got due to the breakthroughs.
He noticed he still had points, he hesitated and decided to buy another sword. In the previous battle, he noticed that if he had dual swords, the fights would have been much faster and easier. He decided to leave Wave Repulser as a form of a gravestone and turned around to walk away. The sword remained embedded on the ground near the tree, it appeared peaceful but a slight killing intent was present in it, no ordinary person would be able to pick it up. It was a sword used to slaughter a city, after all, some bloody aura remained on it.
While walking away, he turned to look one last time before sighing and leaving for good, his eyes shone red for a moment as he muttered a word, "Empress..." He left the site... The feelings getting buried deep within his heart.
He bought two swords, another Wave Repulser like the one he had previously, and a new sword with a black handle and red blade. The new sword had red crack-like designs on the handle as if it was on lightning, the blade was a metallic red that had a sinister feel to it; Its special ability was to enhance cutting power by absorbing the killing intent of the user. He specifically chose it since he had a compatible sword intent. A sword with a blue theme on his right hand and a sword with a red theme on his left hand.
He strapped them in an 'X' shape to his back in black scabbards and began searching for Lian Qiu. He needed 500k for the next breakthrough or to upgrade his talent, he only had roughly 400k EP.
He had no sword art for dual-wielding so he decided to take some time and train in the way of using the sword. To completely master his Water Emperor Sword art since he was adept at using it but it wasn't instinctual and second nature as it should be even with the muscle memory, the system could only do so much, he had to consciously think and plan to use his sword and if it had been a battle between equals in reaction speed and power, he would have lost due to this weakness. His speed was superior to all his opponents mainly due to his body cultivation so he didn't encounter this problem.
He needed a sword art for dual-wielding to get an advantage in any situation since 2 is better than 1. Upon thinking of these matters, he realized something very important. The function of the system to upgrade sword arts gives the knowledge and experience but it is not truly his, even the muscle memory won't do much good if he doesn't make it his so that it becomes second nature to him; This function seemed to be made to pass on sword arts and skills... This led him to doubt whether there was a database of such things ready to be discovered...
If there was, then only a limited number of sword arts and skills could be learned like this and improved. If he made a sword art, not in the so-called database, that function would be useless for him. It seemed the traditional training and practice was an absolute necessity for him to be called a true swordsman.
All his opponents till now were weaklings compared to him, He hadn't faced a true enemy on par with himself who had the same level of power and speed. He realized that he was bullying the weak...
He sighed and stopped thinking, he was not in the mood for such thoughts anymore. He soon found Lian Qiu chasing a rabbit? The latter seemed to crouch and suddenly pounced on the rabbit only to hit the ground head first, the rabbit escaped and didn't even spare him a moment of its attention. It had even left a little poop that was now stuck to Lian Qiu's face.
Ling Tian temporarily got distracted and looked at Lian Qiu incredulously, "What the hell are you doing?!" Lian Qiu stood up and awkwardly scratched the back of his head, "I had heard of a technique to catch rabbits without extraordinary methods when I first began wandering, it seems I was scammed, the technique that I paid to learn doesn't work.".
Lian Qiu began wiping his face and cursed under his breath, Ling Tian asked again, "What was the technique?" The man with a little poop on his face answered unsurely, "He said to approach and sprinkle this powder on the rabbit and pounce on it, he gave me the powder. I wanted to learn in case one day I had no Qi and needed to hunt..."
Lian Qiu took out the powder and gave it to Ling Tian, the latter examined its scent and chuckled lightly, "This thing's scent is like the ones used to cause extreme diarrhea in blockage cases. The scammer must have been a rare talent with a super black heart, not only did he scam you but he also made you pounce on poop..."
Lian Qiu blushed in embarrassment, "What? That Bastard! If I get my hands on him..." Ling Tian ignored him and walked away. Lian Qiu hurriedly followed after him with a conflicted smile, "hmm, are we going to my sect?"
Ling Tian nodded and said lightly, "Yes, I have nothing better do and nowhere better to be anyway; I will check it out."
Lian Qiu's smile turned genuine as he thought, 'I can finally return! I swear I won't leave ever again! I have seen a lot of shit in the world... Speaking of that, Ling Tian doesn't have the usual carefree aura, he seems more mature and calmly indifferent... I preferred it when he acted like an idiot but what happened back in the city... I can't imagine what kind of relationship he had with those two to slaughter the entire city 'Shiver' I better be careful to not offend him! I had heard this stuff in stories but to think I would witness such a massacre one day, how cruel... that red aura, no, sword intent, how terrifying!'
They journeyed back towards Holy Dao city, as they grew closer after hours of travel the sky got dark clouds and the atmosphere turned sinister. Ling Tian noticed the change and frowned, "It wasn't like this previously..."
They were flying on Lian Qiu's fan to travel since it was fast and it could grow big enough for both of them to sit on; It consumed a lot of Qi but Ling Tian supplied most of it so they encountered no problem to fly. The previous Ling Tian would have made a huge deal out of flying like immortals and such but the current him simply accepted it and put it aside, his mind focused on more important matters such as sword arts, cultivation, the sect, and his future, etc.
Lian Qiu said with confusion, "Indeed, something is wrong!" They increased the pace and soon approached a mountain and after going above it, they saw the city. They both froze in mind-numbing shock.
The city was destroyed, everything was in ruins, the great tower was broken in half, the nearby mountains had crumbled, The sky above the city was filled with pitch-black cracks and dark clouds that were actually made from smoke and ash of the burning city. The cracks were gradually mending themselves showing they were spacial in nature. The gravity was in a mess near the city, some ruins, boulders, and things were simply floating mid-air and some parts were flattened due to different levels of gravity or it not existing at all.
They witnessed the sight from far away. It was a sight straight out of a post-apocalyptic calamity on a city. There was more...
A mountain of corpses could be seen, it was massive in size at least a dozen million bodies were stacked on top of each other. A Demon that was the same size as the mountain used his hand to grab hold of a huge number of corpses and devoured them in its maw. Then it did it again, and again. It was the same Demon they had seen on the day they arrived the first time in Holy Dao city. The sword of the demon laid beside it, resting on a mountain slope.
Ling Tian looked beyond the city and saw a trail of destruction that stretched through the horizon. It was obvious an army of ginormous proportions had marched on further... This demon was left behind to eat the leftovers it seemed. He realized that the great and massive amount of Qi and tremble that he had sensed before entering the Dark Demon city was perhaps the great barrier getting destroyed and a one-sided war happening here.
Lian Qiu trembled with terror when he witnessed the demon so casually eating so many human corpses, tears streamed down his face... "We... We are doomed!"
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