Chapter 171 — Eleven
The Sword Questions the Heavens · Page 1 of 7
Unlike the earth-shaking great contest and slaughter before the mountain, the battle between Ming Li and Lin Jinghong—two childhood friends—was far smaller in scale, yet its ferocity seemed if anything to surpass it.
Who could ever have imagined that men once close as brothers would come to this? Their figures now scattered apart, now crashed together, sweeping like a violent storm over the land around the Phantom Moon Cave, felling every tree—some uprooted, some split in two—and even the hard, thick earth was completely transformed by the fearsome power of their sorcery, pocked and pitted, strewn everywhere with deep craters and shattered stone.
If one spoke only of cultivation and magical power, Ming Li possessed several true arts and had also mastered the three volumes of the demonic sect's classic celestial tomes; his cultivation was in truth beyond any ordinary cultivator's, pressing close upon the first rank of figures in the world today—and even a prodigy like Lin Jinghong fell somewhat short of him.
Yet now, as the two fought, somehow they were evenly matched. The reasons came down to two. First, Lin Jinghong was by nature fierce and impetuous; for ten years he had followed the mysterious old man in the Ancestral Hall in his cultivation, and what he had learned was precisely a violent, unorthodox art that drew out one's own latent potential—joined to his nature and the unstoppable, never-returning momentum of the Dragon Slaying Sword, its battle-fury and spirit actually raised him a notch above his true cultivation. And now, his breast full of rage, every strike of his sword sought life, almost like the legendary Solitary Sword of Ten Thousand Blades of a century before—irresistible.
Ming Li's own cultivation was high, his foundation solid, yet he had one weakness that ever constrained him. In those years he had cultivated both the Canglan Sect's Daoist true art "Taiji Mystic Purity Way" and the Brahma Sound Temple's Buddhist "Great Brahma Prajna"; the two clashed, and his progress had slowed to a crawl. Later, though he had been fortunate enough to learn the general outline of the celestial tome and could thread the two wondrous true arts together, advancing greatly in cultivation, yet at his very core his foundation had already been replaced by the demonic sect's classic celestial unorthodox art.
Only this unorthodox celestial art was abstruse and arduous, and had a further flaw: though the general outline was all present, the arts within the three volumes were incomplete, and whenever he cultivated to a crucial point there came a break—like a man walking a broad road only to find a sheer cliff suddenly barring his way, unable to proceed, and seeking another path, finding no other way at all. Such cases were by no means few; indeed, in recent years the Blood-devouring Pearl's malevolent qi had turned back upon him, and Ming Li had been powerless to withstand it—mostly for this very reason. Thus his whole cultivation could never be brought fully into play.
Even so, Ming Li's several true arts were no common thing; incomplete though the unorthodox celestial art was, it was after all a wondrous art of heaven-and-earth creation, its marvels beyond ordinary imagination.
The two fought fiercely for a long while, and at last Ming Li gradually gained the upper hand; the Blood-devouring Pearl's red glow and blood-qi, like a venomous serpent's flicking tongue, slowly pressed down the Dragon Slaying Sword's azure light.
Lin Jinghong was both startled and furious. Though for ten years Ming Li had turned his back on Qingyun, thrown in with the demonic sect, and stood against the righteous path, he had never openly clashed with Qingyun, and Lin Jinghong had likewise cultivated all along in the Ancestral Hall; so though the two had met once in the Death Marsh of the southwest, one could say they had never truly crossed swords. In Lin Jinghong's heart, Ming Li was still mostly the dull, wooden Zhang Qingyue of old.