Chapter 442 Destruction
A flash flickered in Su Li’s eyes and she asked, “Are you… a living person?”
The middle-aged puppet laughed and shook his head, “I am just a sub-awareness lodging in the puppet’s body.”
“Before this…”
Su Li hesitantly spoke. The middle-aged puppet replied slowly, “That was your destiny, and I would not stop you. Since you’ve broken through, it means you are hard enough to be killed and able to inherit my mantle. Otherwise, I would not have shown up.”
Su Li was silent for a moment and asked in a cold voice, “How are you so certain that I will accept your mantle?”
“Ha ha ha ha…”
The middle-aged man laughed, “I won’t force you to do it. If you are not willing, just refuse me. However, I saw your interest in the swordsmanship.”
Lights were flowing in Su Li’s eyes and a smile appeared on her face, “You are right, Senior. I would appreciate your guidance.”
The middle-aged man nodded slightly with a gentle smile on his face.
“Attack me with the sword move that you have comprehended.”
Su Li narrowed her eyes. She turned the long sword in her hand into lightning and rushed to the puppet. A faint black Will of Sword lingered around the lightning.
Dang! Dang! Dang! Dang!
The two swords collided and produced crisp sounds, while the middle-aged man guided her gently.
“I don’t know where your soul went and it has been metamorphosed into the perfect nature soul. This realm can affect reality but has no positive effect on your understanding of the Will of Sword. As the Arbitration of Nature Soul said, the Will of Sword was nothing but an obsession. You have comprehended but in a wrong way. Obsession… is not the will.”
Su Li paused the sword in her hand, and the shadowy light in her eyes faded away quickly.
The middle-aged man’s face revealed a sense of relief, “What is the purpose that you wield the sword? What I am saying is not the pure purpose but your purpose of using the sword, do you understand?”
“No!”
Su Li gritted her teeth. She attacked tirelessly with the sword in her hand, but was blocked by the middle-aged puppet easily. After dispersing the thought of the Nature Soul, she sensed the blankness in her mind once again.
After experiencing the blankness repeatedly, she gradually heard many voices from the unseen world.
“Li, would you like to be my Madam?”
“Li, I don’t care if you like me or not, I’ll stick with you forever!”
“… Master, your life ring has been broken. I am sorry for you!”
“Is it worth exchanging your life for your child’s future?”
“It’s fake. The entire world is fake. Senior Sister Apprentice, you are just a tool that would be discarded after being used. Are you really thinking someone will fall in love with you?”
“Daughter of luck, the natural law will never allow such a woman to be born. So, your life you have experienced was deliberately arranged by others, until you are punished by heaven and resented by the people with a bad end!”
“Bad end!!”
“Ah!!”
In the calm nothingness sounded an extremely despairing cry like a cuckoo sang all the time until it spat blood.
The common long sword was instantly plated with a layer of black flame and filled with the pneuma of destruction. She slashed it to the middle-aged man!
The middle-aged man suddenly changed his look and didn’t spare his strength. The purple light on his sword quickly coalesced so that he could block the slash. However, the puppet was tainted with a trace of black flame and instantly burned up.
The middle-aged man’s look changed again and again. He had to give up his physical body and retreated to the nothingness where he kept watching Su Li. Su Li madly swung her sword alone on the high platform.
She had mixed different excellent swordsmanship including Ao Sword Skills, Cuixing, and Suiyu Tactics, and made waves in the nothingness.
“Is it… the Destruction Will of Sword?!”
The sub-awareness of the middle-aged man hiding in the nothingness was terrified to see this scene, “How could it be… the destruction? How disappointed this woman felt in her heart and she even wished to destroy everything?”
The middle-aged man looked grave. He began to realize how serious the matter became. Someone who had comprehended such a Will of Sword would be disastrous to the cultivation circle if he or she wasn’t right-minded.
“What kind of evildoer did I lure? I never thought I would commit such a sin after my death. It’s the providence…”
The middle-aged man felt bitter. He was just a sub-awareness and unable to influence the operation of the Star Path.
A few days later, the power of pneuma and blood, the strength of genuine energy as well as the physical strength in Su Li’s body were all used up. She could only lie on the high platform and gasp. Her blood-stained clothes were soaked with sweat, and she looked like a pawn who survived from a battlefield.
The sub-awareness of the middle-aged man approached slowly. Looking at Su Li who had lost her destructive power, he sighed softly.
After a few seconds, Su Li’s physical strength recovered a little bit. She stood up from the ground and bowed low at the middle-aged man after a moment of silence.
Seeing this, the middle-aged man sighed even more heavily.
“Leave now. I will not give you my mantle, because what you have learned is too messy. And each of them could set off a foul wind or a rain of blood in the world. My mantle might be lost soon in your hands.”
Su Li barely made a smile and spoke calmly, “I understand.”
The middle-aged man was slightly stunned after he saw the smile on her face, “What did you… understand?”
“I understand what you are worried about. But those… are stories long ago. I just want to find out the truth. It’s even better if I don’t have to kill. But if someone stands in my way, I have… no other choice.”
Su Li smiled gently as if she was talking about something that had nothing to do with her.
The middle-aged man became silent once again. During his cultivation for tens of thousands of years, he had met different people and different things but never seen a peculiar woman like Su Li.
It’s clearly that Su Li was filled with deep resentment and able to comprehend the Destruction Will of Sword. But she could remain a clear mind.
A person like this…
The middle-aged man took a look at his transparent hands and laughed with relief suddenly, “I already have no physical body, so there is no need to be righteous in mind. Didn’t I suffer enough before my death…”
As he said, he became serious, “Girl, the practice methods or the swordsmanship you’ve learned are all world-class. Combined with your Will of Sword, you will be invincible at your level, and can even kill people beyond your level. However, I’ve found you still need one thing after I checked what you’ve learned.”
Su Li nodded and she was not surprised, “I need a killing move. I know.”
“Ho-Ho…”
The middle-aged man smiled and took out a transparent bead from his chest, “With your intelligence, you must have thought of it long ago. Here is my inheritance for you. You can use it by yourself or give it to someone you like as you wish. However, there is a sword move not included in the inheritance. It only could be taught by me.”
Su Li frowned, “A killing move?”
The middle-aged man grinned, “Sure, and it’s a… very powerful one!”
An hour later, the middle-aged man’s shadow dissipated into starlight in the nothingness.
Watching this quietly, Su Li bowed and said softly, “Farewell, Senior.”
After the starburst completely melted into the nothingness, Su Li’s lightly warm face returned to be cold. She said slowly, “I have already finished the test on the eighteenth step. So, I’m asking for the rewards from the Star Path to attempt to break through to Jindan Realm!”
Once these words were spoken, an icy voice in the nothingness sounded instantly.
“As you wish!”
Whoosh—
The disappeared stone steps emerged one by one. A strange light gushed out from the fifth step and formed a giant orb in the nothingness after leaving the stone step. Stalled for a moment, the orb rushed towards Su Li. It wrapped Su Li’s whole body, and turned itself into a transparent cocoon.
Su Li closed her eyes slowly. Like an old monk in meditation, she began to focus on absorbing the pure power.
Shortly after she entered the meditative state, a white light flashed and stared at the cocoon. It was the Arbitration of Nature Soul judged from the figure.
“Jian, you old man, you have found a brilliant successor…”
The absorption took Su Li several years. As time passed by, the transparent cocoon shrunk gradually, and only a layer of epidermis was left at last.
At a certain moment, Su Li suddenly opened her eyes. She calculated the time and found that she had stayed here for ten years.
“It’s time to go out.”
Su Li looked calmly at the Star Gate at the end of the Star Path. She checked the round golden orb in the middle of her pubic region, and stepped into the Star Gate without hesitation and disappeared.
In the core of the tea plant, Black Lotus was still cursing. The Reincarnation Mirror was floating in the nothingness sickly. Nobody knew what happened in this period.
Suddenly, a Star Gate emerged and Su Li came out. But she looked unkempt and ragged like a beggar.
Swish! Swish! Swish!
The Black Lotus Ring, the Reincarnation Mirror, and nightmare… all her treasures returned to her instantly.
Black Lotus was stunned at first when he saw Su Li. And then, he seemed to see a ghost, “Su Li, you you you… just came back like this?!”
Su Li frowned slightly and asked him, “How long has it passed?”
“Only an hour!”
Black Lotus shouted, “An hour. My master, what did you do in the Star Path? You have made a record for the shortest time out of the Star Path. Could it be possible that the owner of the Star Path disliked you and kicked you out directly?
But that didn’t make sense. I haven’t heard that anyone could come out alive after a failure in the Star Path…”
Su Li put Black Lotus’ ramblings aside but she was slightly shocked.
Ten years… an hour?
The conversion of time of this round was more exaggerated than that of the last time. But everything was normal except for that rebellious spirit.
“Could the reason lie in the Arbitration of Nature Soul I summoned?”
Su Li could not understand why some accidents happened whenever she was in the Star Path. But the good thing was that she managed to get out no matter how difficult it was.
Thinking of this, Su Li flipped her palm and a transparent orb appeared in her palm. She put it away before Black Lotus saw it.
“Little Su Li, tell me what you encountered in the Star Path!”
“I was chased all the way to the seventeenth step and almost be killed there. But finally, I survived after I pleaded for the Arbitration of Nature Soul.”
“Tell the truth!”
After playing with Black Lotus for a few moments, the weight in Su Li’s heart seemed to reduce a bit. She took the Cave of Cang Lei back into her hands and walked out from the main entrance of the tea plant’s core.
She had learned some tricks to use the Nature Soul, so she didn’t have to be cautious as before.
According to the words of Senior Jian, a perfect nature soul was extremely rare even among practitioners of Huashen Realm. If she hoped to meet someone of Huashen Realm in Yuxu Sect, she had to break into the forbidden area.
“Su Li, you just came out like this?”
On the Tea Peak, Black Lotus trembled as he saw the disciples who passed by Su Li but noticed nothing.
In case of an exposure, it is not clear if they could escape or not. Su Li really had got guts.
Su Li did not reply. She turned at a corner of a mountain road, and a chill suddenly came to her.