Jaya, Ysabel, HPC, Laoren, Komeng, Chua, you are welcome. Kids, welcome to the thread (officially ... since your post number is only 2), and thanks for your response on the poll. Anh!! I swear, I was just thinking about you the other day. Not that I expect you to post, but I have not seen your post for quite some time, and I thought 'is Anh all right?' But I am glad you reappear. Xu Xiong, we are in agreement ... (at least I also hope to see Shan Wanjing again, don't know about Shi Qingxuan, because 'officially' she did not make appearance.)
End of chapter 3.
Unleashing the full potential of the true qi within their body, in an instant their spirit and mind reached the highest boundary. Not only their eyes, ears, nose and other senses were several times sharper, rarer still was that they had some kind of perception, which transcended physical senses.
This was exactly the mystery of the ‘Secret to Long Life', which was beyond the context of the general martial art study. Not only it surpassed the self-sufficient treasure trove hidden deep within oneself mentioned by Yi Jian Dashi [see Book 1 Chapter 3] Fu Cailin, it even reached the ‘oneness of heaven and humanity' realm, which people who practiced martial art spent their lifetime striving to achieve.
Since time immemorial, people whose innate talent surpassed others like Xu Ziling and Kou Zhong were extremely rare. By coincidence, they had the opportunity to train the ‘knowledge' from the ‘Secret to Long Life', which has long been called a scam, and made a breakthrough into the extreme boundary of first-class martial art skill, attainable only by Ning Daoqi, Bi Xuan, and the like, people who were able to understand the realm of ‘divine truth'.
Therefore, in just two short years, each of them doggedly trained their respective method and achieved unique mental cultivation in martial art, which has time and again helped them avoid great catastrophe.
This moment, for instance, even though there were numerous martial art experts surrounding them like a cloud, relying on their unique senses, they were able to ‘sniff' danger one step ahead, and their hearts automatically guided them another way to evade the enemy's detection. Not even for an instant did they ever stir up the alertness of the martial art masters in the house.
Naturally at this point in time the two boys did not have such a clear understanding of what was going on. They only thought that their own qinggong was so superb that they were this formidable.
They swiftly crossed the rear courtyard, along the side of the guesthouse, and straight toward the main garden in front of Shen Luoyan's private chamber.
Crouching in a cluster of underbrush, they focused all their power into their ears to listen carefully, and immediately ascertained that there was no one inside the second floor of the building.
Although there was not a trace of noise inside, they saw faint lantern light coming from downstairs.
Xu Ziling said, "I'll go upstairs to return the folder, you stay here and be on the lookout for me.”
Kou Zhong nodded.
Xu Ziling looked around, and after he was sure that there was nobody around, fast as a ghost he leaped out of the underbrush and flitted toward the main door of the small building; pushing the door open, he slipped in.
Just as expected, the hall was quite with no one in sight; coupled with light from the palace lanterns, the room exuded some kind of tranquil sensation. But Xu Ziling did not dare to hesitate; he swiftly flew upstairs.
At this moment there was only emptiness in his heart and mind, no thought no reasoning. It was not a deliberate state of mind on his part, but it simply arose spontaneously.
He had just stepped into the small hall in front of Shen Luoyan's private chamber, when a hard-to-describe feeling suddenly burst forth in his heart.
He could not explain what he felt, just that it was very uncomfortable, as if there was an invisible pressure disturbing his clear-water-reflecting-the-moon state of mind.
Xu Ziling's consciousness suddenly arose to its upper limit, his true qi flooded his meridians; without the slightest hesitation he drew his short halberd.
The hall brightened instantly.
It was not because someone lighted the lantern at all, but because of the true qi at work in his body, his eyesight sharpened considerably. As he scanned the room down, even the dust particle remained on the floor after being swept could not escape his sharp eyes.
It was a new level that Xu Ziling has never been able to reach before.
Previously, although frequently he was able to multiply his reaction speed due to applying the entire power within his body, he has never been able to reach the clarity like he did this time.
It was not only because this time he had reached the extremely-still state of mind, but most importantly it was because he sensed an enormous danger.
The most frightening thing was that this sense of danger flashed across his heart, and then immediately vanished. Like right now, he suddenly felt the situation was no longer threatening.
After scanning the floor back and forth several times, Xu Ziling's eyes faintly saw some kind of clues; thereupon he scanned the floor again very carefully.
Immediately his heart shivered in fear.
Turned out in several places on the floor he caught a glimpse of a pair of dust traces, so tiny that it was nearly invisible. It appeared that someone was using the tip of his toes flitted over out of Shen Luoyan's private chamber and stopped at the top of the stairs.
Thinking to this point, a dark shadow suddenly flashed out of the room.
Xu Ziling was not someone who had never seen a battle, but he had never thought that there was such a terrifying martial art skill in the world.
By the time he realized that he was under attack, his entire body had already fallen into some kind of whirlpool with nearly irresistible power. Hundreds, thousands of strands of forces; some pulled him forward, some pressed him back, still some acting laterally and rotationally. It just felt like falling into a vortex in the midst of a raging sea, where it was impossible for anybody to have any control of anything.
Fortunately Xu Ziling was one step ahead since before the attack came he was already on guard; otherwise perhaps by this time he was already swaying indeterminately from side to side, and was unable to stand steadily. Knowing that this was the critical moment, without even thinking Xu Ziling transferred all his strength into the short halberd in his hand. Leaning over, he assumed a horse stance, while at the same time he stabbed at the incoming person and looked up at him.
Momentarily, all he could see was a dark shadow.
And one dot of the tip of the sword, which was growing fast in front of his eyes.
A sword qi, which no stronghold can overcome, burst out of the sword, making his breathing stop, and his whole body felt like it was cut in two.
From the moment Xu Ziling climbed the stairs to get here and detected that something was wrong to the time this dreadful adversary mounted a sneak attack on him, it was only two blinks of an eyelid, yet it already caused Xu Ziling to fall into dangerous situation that he had never encountered in his whole life.
When the blade of the short halberd in his hand was about to block the enemy's weapon, the opponent's sword suddenly changed direction; unexpectedly Xu Ziling's short halberd struck empty air.
This kind of situation, where he used incorrect amount of force that the momentum was out of his control, was very uncomfortable that Xu Ziling almost vomited blood.
The enemy was out of his line of vision.
Fortunately, utilizing his crystal clear senses he knew that by some strange and inscrutable footwork, the opponent has moved to the blind spot on his left.
The strangest thing was that his eyes were still seeing a little bit of the sword tip, which was flashing continuously so that although his eyes were open yet he felt as if he was blind, and was only able to react relying purely on his feeling.
A stream of tapering sword qi seemed to be moving to stab the small of his back from the left side.
Such a formidable body movement and sword stance was definitely terrifying to the extreme. How could Xu Ziling take his time to think? Withdrawing his short halberd that was striking empty air, he twisted his body and hacked; while at the same time he turned his head around to look at this frightening enemy.
A shadow flashed. For the second time in a row Xu Ziling's short halberd struck empty air.
This time Xu Ziling was a bit smarter. Before the force reached its limit, he immediately changed his stance, while swiftly moved back.
He did not have any intention to run away at all; rather, he wanted to stabilize his footings.
Although it was only two moves, he had done everything he could, staking his little life to fight bravely to the end.
Suddenly the sword tip seemed to swell; four sides eight directions seemed to be full of howling and flashing sword rays, what is true and what is false was hard to fathom.
But Xu Ziling was able to clearly grasp that not only the opponent was right in front of him, the frightening sword was also moving at lightning speed toward his lower abdomen.
The opponent's speed was clearly several notches above his, so that even if he retreated swiftly, the initiative was still in the opponent's hands. In this life-and-death border, Xu Ziling moved the short halberd to bring out the short halberd's rotational characteristic, by twisting it and striking at the blade of the opponent's stabbing sword.
Since the battle began, it was the first time that he came in contact with the opponent's weapon in a tangible way. Due to the short halberd's unique structure, supposedly it was the best way to lock the enemy's weapon.
Who could have thought that as the halberd and sword clashed, none of his expectation happened?
First of all, Xu Ziling felt that his true qi, which was concentrated on the body of the halberd, was very quickly sucked dry by the enemy's sword; afterwards the sucking force of the enemy's sword grew so that he was unable to yank his halberd back, even if he tried.
At this critical moment Xu Ziling did not panic; he was about to abandon his halberd and flee for his life when the opponent's sword, with the halberd still attached to it, like a viper rose up and stabbed toward his lower abdomen.