He drifted and moved along the sea water, like roaming without a direction .
Li Tianlan indeed didn’t need a direction .
What he needed was quietness .
Whether it was cold or hot, whether it was hell or heaven, he just needed a quiet place .
Only in the quietest place could he temper the purest and most dedicated willpower, which was what he needed and would become a solid foundation of his Martial Arts .
The sky was dark all day, in the polar region during the polar night . Time had lost its meaning . Li Tianlan, who had completely let go of everything, walked past the glacier and walked on sea surface like a ghost, dimly discernible and illusory .
The polar region was rich in resources .
Resources meant benefit .
So the edge of the polar region wasn’t as desolate as he would have expected .
Every country had their own working station . Whether it was polar day or polar night, it was crowded and noisy on the edge of the polar region .
Li Tianlan kept moving forward .
In the dark, in his world, the lights in the working stations started to dim, fade out, then disappear completely .
The lonely and cold glacier .
The deep darkness .
The whistling wind and snow .
That was Li Tianlan’s path; he walked on it in silence, as if he was about to walk forever .
The polar region was very vast .
In the ice and snow, he could see the endless sea and the undulating glacier .
Li Tianlan didn’t know how long he had been walking; his world was getting quieter and quieter .
The snow and the glacier seemed to be the only things left in his world .
The darkness of the polar night started to fade away slowly .
Sun started to rise and the moon started to set in the polar region . Day started to alternate with night .
Li Tianlan reached an island covered with glacier .
He finally stopped his pace .
It wasn’t that he didn’t want to move forward .
It was because after walking ten thousand miles, something had gone wrong in his body for the first time .
A sharp pain suddenly attacked his whole body .
He started to feel extreme coldness inside, which seemed to have been assimilated by the cold temperature .
The pain travelled through his whole body .
Li Tianlan could clearly feel his body getting stiffer and stiffer slowly; the sharp pain and coldness were tearing his body apart, as if they wanted to crush every bit of flesh and bone in his body .
He fell down on the crystal-clear and ghastly glacier, and his body started to shake .
A grown-up Golden Retriever was beside him .
He subconsciously held the Golden Retriever into his arms .
The Golden Retriever obediently snuggled in his arms, and occasionally licked Li Tianlan’s face .
His mind had fallen into a painful trance . Li Tianlan bit his teeth hard and struggled .
His state was too weak for him to hunt for food in the polar region .
The man and the dog had to starve .
The cloud-streaked clothes began to lose their activity .
But Li Tianlan slowly felt the heat .
As if the coldness came from deep inside his body, the glacier inside his body seemed to melt completely, then it turned into a erupting volcano .
The hot temperature was brewing in his body .
He started to feel numb to the pain in the heat .
Li Tianlan started to feel itchy .
The maddening itch seemed to come from the inside of his body; it started in his legs, then his arms .
He felt like there were countless ants crawling under the skin of his limbs .
Li Tianlan, who had been keeping his clear willpower, suddenly crashed into a complete breakdown .
Everything was quiet in the polar region; only his painful howling was echoing on the glacier .
He was rolling around and struggling on the thick ice; his clean fingers forcefully stuck into the ice .
The helpless and desperate howling echoed on the desolate glacier; dog barks joined in occasionally .
His limbs seemed to give up completely, that kind of indescribable pain and itch kept eating his nerves .
Li Tianlan used up all his strength and passed out completely on the glacier .
The sun rose and the moon set .
That was the warmest period of time in the polar region .
The average temperature was around ten degrees below zero .
But that was also the most desperate period of time for Li Tianlan since he started this journey .
Li Tianlan slowly woke up from the coma .
He had no idea how long had he been unconscious; the pain and the itchiness in his limbs were still there, but they had gotten better .
He felt hungry .
The dying hunger was torturing his nerves .
The Golden Retriever lay beside him; it looked as if it were at its last gasp .
Li Tianlan felt powerless, that state of his was even worse than when he lost all of his Martial Arts foundation .
He struggled to get up and dragged the Golden Retriever to somewhere away from the wind . Then he tried the best he could to kill a polar reindeer nearby .
When he dragged the reindeer back, the Golden Retriever had gained back some energy, but it still looked sick .
Li Tianlan, who was so exhausted that he might have passed out again, pointed at his prey .
He didn’t have any strength to start a fire .
The man and the dog roughly cleaned the body of the reindeer and directly ate the raw meat .
He swallowed down the raw meat and blood with the coldness in the polar region .
Li Tianlan’s eyes were calm, but he already couldn’t see clearly anymore .
He seemed to have starved for a long time; he ate the reindeer meat with blood streaking on it piece by piece .
The taste?
It was an indescribable taste .
He only cared about the energy that could keep him alive .
In a trance, the pain and itch in his limbs seemed to fade away as he ate .
Li Tianlan ate more and more .
The man and the dog almost finished the entire reindeer .
Li Tianlan passed out again .
The moonlight in the sky gradually disappeared .
The sun rose up and never set .
The sky had entered the polar day .
It was sunny all day above the Arctic Ocean .
The sunlight was bright but cold .
After waking up, Li Tianlan started to zone out again .
The feeling of weakness inside his body had disappeared completely .
The change that had lasted for a few days but was able to kill him had ended .
Li Tianlan finally realized that it wasn’t an illness .
It was an unimaginable fortune .
Or rather, it was a treasure .
Under the sunlight, a smile climbed on his calm eyes .
The smile spilled out from his eyes and spread to the corners of his mouth, looking more and more obvious .
He laughed out loud .
His clear laughter kept echoing in the thick ice of the glacier .
There seemed to be amazing divine light shining in Li Tianlan’s eyes .
Till that moment, he finally figured out his path .
The path led him to the destination of Martial Arts .
He stopped marching forward .
Right on the glacier where he stayed, he crushed the thick, hard ice with his bare hands and made a simple small hut for him and the Golden Retriever to stay .
Preys were stacked high in the hut .
Polar reindeer .
Polar bear .
Polar wolf .
And some local fish from the sea .
Li Tianlan became calmer and calmer . But when doing those things, strange but bright lights kept flashing in his eyes .
The polar day passed slowly .
Another Spring Festival was about to come .
The temperature had once more dropped to the freezing point; the polar region welcomed a snow storm .
For the first time, Li Tianlan held the Divine Punishment behind him .
Divine Punishment was still scarlet red like it used to be .
The long sword was straight and slightly wide .
But it looked a lot lighter and duller than it used to be .
Divine Punishment was very light .
It was light like nothing .
Li Tianlan still didn’t draw out the sword .
In the endless darkness of the polar night, the snow storm was howling violently .
Li Tianlan walked into the snow storm and started to wave the Divine Punishment with its sheath on .
The Golden Retriever was eating the cooked meat in the hut Li Tianlan built, while letting out happy whimpers .
Li Tianlan was waving the sword .
He moved in slow motion .
He looked very clumsy .
The scarlet red sword cut through the whistling wind and snow with its sheath on, making a dull, deep sound .
Li Tianlan didn’t use any force; he was just exploring the sword intent that had been carved in his bones with the smallest strength .
That was the Twenty-fourth Blade .
The First Blade — Wuji .
The Second Blade — Tacit Understanding .
The Third Blade — Burn Out .
The Fourth Blade — Mad Thunder .
The Fifth Blade — Flying Snow .
The Sixth Blade…
He practiced all the way to the Twenty-Third Blade .
The Twenty-fourth Blade was only half a movement .
Li Tianlan just skipped that half and started again from the First Blade, doing it over again and again .
His movement was getting lighter and softer, as if he were casually waving the Divine Punishment in his hand .
But the sword intent in the snow storm was getting clearer and clearer .
The sword intent blended into one another perfectly in the snow storm .
Li Tianlan started to fasten his movements .
The First Blade was still the First Blade, but it seemed to turn into something else .
All the sword intent started to change .
The perfectly circling sword intent was torn into pieces by Li Tianlan; everything was a mess .
All the sword intent finally crashed and disappeared .
Only the wind and snow were still howling, as if they were mocking something .
Li Tianlan put the sword back with a calm face .
He meditated, rested, then waved the sword .
The darkness of the polar night was still the same .
The Spring Festival had passed .
Li Tianlan’s sword intent became more and more out of order . The First Blade wasn’t the same, the Absolute Sword wasn’t the same; it was so messy that it looked funny .
But Li Tianlan didn’t give up .
He saw the path, the path that only belonged to him .
It was so clear that he had no reason to quit .
What was the Invincible Realm?
That was the ultimate sublimation of the Four Realms of Martial Arts .
Every superior of the Invincible Realm had their own ideology of Martial Arts . In the same realm, there might be difference in power . But in their own ideology, they were definitely the most powerful .
That was the Invincible Realm in a traditional sense .
It was the Invincible Realm, rather than being invincible .
Any impartation was from the ancestors’ path . Looking down from the invincible position, impartation was the start .
If the impartation was different, there would be a different starting point .
Most of the geniuses that amazed the world and the successors of top superiors were stuck in the Half-step Invincible Realm .
Because in order to improve from that realm, the faith in oneself and the practice of Martial Arts would be needed .
That was a process where people needed to get rid of any impartation and start to look for their true selves .
Step Forward to enjoy a better view .
Step back to end up a nobody .
Even to step back to ruin themselves .
After the Thunder-shocking Realm, any genius that aimed at the Invincible Realm would choose to practice his or her Martial Arts . While the Four Realms of Martial Arts were the direct stairs for them to look for their true selves .
Qi-controlling Realm, Ice-condensing Realm, Fire-flaming Realm, and Thunder-shocking Realm .
In order to find their Martial Arts, they would keep trying and practicing . The process might last five years, ten years, or a lifetime .
The Wang family of Beihai had the impartation of the Sword of Six Paths of Reincarnation .
The Li family had the impartation of Map of God of War .
But each superior of the Invincible Realm that came from the two superpowers was unique .
Wang Tianzong’s Sword of Six Paths of Reincarnation would definitely be different from the one of the Patriarch of the Wang family of Beihai .
Li Honghe’s Twenty-fourth Blade would also be different from Li Kuangtu’s .
Right now Li Tianlan was also practicing his Martial Arts .
But he didn’t need the so-called Four Realms of Martial Arts anymore .
He tempered the sword instead of his realm .
The sword only belonged to him!
During the polar night in the polar region .
His sword intent became more and more out of order .
His sword-waving practice time became less and less .
The polar night still covered the sky .
Li Tianlan was still waving the sword; the chaotic sword intent kept intertwining together in the freezing polar region .
Li Tianlan became calmer and calmer .
His sword intent was still chaotic, but the sword intent he brought out was less and less .
The sword intent disappeared bit by bit as he waved his sword .
When Li Tianlan waved the sword one more time, there wasn’t any sword intent left in the polar region .
Where the long sword reached, it was a void .
Li Tianlan himself was surprised as well .
He put away Divine Punishment, then sat on the glacier and looked at the dark sky .
The Golden Retriever walked toward him and rubbed itself on his arm .
“We should get going,”
Li Tianlan stroked the Golden Retriever’s head and said softly .
That place couldn’t make him stay anymore .
Because there wasn’t any sword intent left .
On that day, darkness still prevailed in the polar region .
In the outside world, that day would be February Second in the Zhongzhou State calendar .
It was the Dragon Head Raising Day!
Li Tianlan looked down at the Divine Punishment in his hands .
His hand held the sword hilt .
The whole Divine Punishment started to shake violently .
Li Tianlan’s eyes were calm like water; he drew out the famous sword from the Lin Clan bit by bit .
“Thank you . ”
He said softly .
There wasn’t any sword intent left in Divine Punishment .
The sword intent that had been accumulating for hundreds of years had disappeared completely .
The blade was rid of the sheath completely .
A cold wind blew over .
“Crack…”
Divine Punishment, a sword that had existed for hundreds of years shook for a second . Along with the whistling wind, thousands of cracks appeared on the scarlet red and heavy long sword .
Li Tianlan let go of it .
Divine Punishment fell down . Before it hit the floor, it dissolved in the cold wind .
The metal pieces flew around in the air as if they were weightless . In Li Tianlan’s eyes, all of them became invisible dust in the wind .
Divine Punishment no longer existed in the world .
Li Tianlan stood up .
In the night wind, the faint sword intent, vast like the mountain and sea was surging under the night sky .
The whole glacier started to shake violently .
Li Tianlan carried the Golden Retriever on his back .
A bright white figure directly broke through the shaking polar night and went straight to the high sky .
The glacier below was crushed quietly; the thick ice pieces fell into the sea .
The faint sword intent went straight into the sea from the high sky .
In the towering giant waves, the polar night lit up in the polar region .
It was vague and illusory, but yet so bright .