Chapter 842: One Step Into the Domain!
Time kept passing, and before anyone quite realized it, a full month had gone by since Li Yun entered the Puppetwood Corridor.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Inside a narrow stone passage, eighty-one wooden puppets filled nearly every available space, their positions locked into an extraordinarily complicated formation. Li Yun’s figure darted rapidly between them, and at this moment he stood only a few dozen yards from the exit.
Boom!
All eighty-one puppets suddenly attacked faster, striking at the same instant. Despite fighting in such a cramped passage, their movements never interfered with one another in the slightest, and every attack complemented the rest perfectly.
"Sword Control Art."
Li Yun shouted, and more than two thousand precious swords shot outward at once. The blades formed layer after layer of defense around him and blocked the assault from all eighty-one puppets, while at the same time he pushed Aurora Step to its limit. His speed instantly doubled as he rushed toward the exit.
Da! Da! Da!
Just as he was about to break through, the eighty-one wooden puppets shifted as one and appeared directly in front of the exit. Nine stood in every row, and nine rows overlapped one behind another, sealing the passage so completely that not the slightest opening remained.
Under ordinary circumstances, breaking through a formation like that would have been close to impossible.
"Destruction Sword Intent."
Li Yun erupted without warning, and a Sword Qi filled with incomparably sharp destructive power shot forward like a meteor. It tore into the puppet formation and pierced one puppet, then another, and continued straight down the line.
Nine wooden puppets were punched through in succession, which forced a narrow path open through the wall of bodies.
Swish!
Li Yun turned into a streak of light in that instant. Almost the moment the Sword Qi carved the opening, he followed behind it and rushed through, and in the next breath he emerged on the far side of the passage.
"Finally."
Genuine excitement showed on his face. He had spent an entire month here and failed thousands upon thousands of times, and now he had finally cleared this stage of the Puppetwood Corridor.
That was not even his greatest gain, though. A powerful light flashed through his eyes.
"My Destruction Sword Intent is finally approaching forty percent source mastery."
A month of relentless training inside the Puppetwood Corridor had strengthened his overall combat ability considerably, yet his greatest progress lay in his sword intents.
Once all three of them reached hundred percent source mastery at the Xiantian Stage or higher, the momentum and understanding they contained could be elevated further, and at that point Li Yun could begin developing Sword Domains from them.
A Sword Domain was a true domain formed from the Dao of the Sword. Within its range, its owner became the absolute ruler of all sword-related power. The suppression it imposed on enemies without domains was overwhelming, and against other sword cultivators it became even more terrifying.
Two cultivators might possess similar strength, yet if one had a Sword Domain and the other did not, the weaker swordsman might find that even drawing or properly controlling his blade had become difficult. The gap between them was a difference of fundamental level.
Li Yun’s Immortal Sword Intent had already reached sixty percent source mastery, and his Slaughter Sword Intent had reached seventy percent, while his Destruction Sword Intent was now approaching forty.
What he needed most was to comprehend his first Sword Domain through the Slaughter Sword Intent, because once he understood that process, using the other two intents to reach their own domains would become significantly easier.
"One month has passed," he said, calculating the time. "I should have more than seven days left inside the Enlightenment Pagoda."
His gaze sharpened.
"Next, I’ll cultivate there and try to comprehend a Sword Domain through my Slaughter Sword Intent."
Half an hour later, Li Yun entered the Enlightenment Pagoda. He sat cross-legged inside the cultivation chamber, laid the Profound Origin Sword across his knees, and slowly closed his eyes until his entire being settled into complete stillness, as motionless as an ancient tree that had stood in the same place for thousands of years.
Countless scenes began surfacing in his mind, and every one of them involved the sword. In one he was swinging his blade, and in another he was carefully polishing a precious sword.
Elsewhere he was controlling swords through the air and using them to kill his enemies, while other images showed him practicing alone through endless days and nights.
Without realizing it, Li Yun placed both hands on the Profound Origin Sword, and his aura gradually merged with the weapon until the distinction between man and sword faded away. For one strange moment it seemed as though he had become the Profound Origin Sword, while the sword itself had become him.
A mysterious sensation rose inside his heart. He felt as though he could see everything the sword had experienced, sense its existence, and feel its rhythm. Something connected the two of them that went far beyond ordinary control.
Li Yun had no idea how much time passed. Then a strange aura suddenly spread outward from his body, and a silvery-white radiance appeared.
The light wove around him and gradually formed a domain roughly ten meters in radius, and within that space his presence changed completely. He seemed taller, more imposing, and more absolute, because inside this domain he was the undisputed ruler.
"Hah..."
Li Yun exhaled slowly, and then something astonishing happened. Three thousand Violet Thunder Swords flew out of the sword-nurturing gourd at the same time, with no command needed at all. They surrounded him on their own and circled him like a school of silver-purple fish.
"Condense."
At his quiet command, all three thousand swords rushed toward his body at once. They locked together perfectly and formed an intricate suit of sword armor around him.
"Disperse."
The armor immediately came apart, and the three thousand swords spread out through the domain. Every blade took up its own position, and not a single one overlapped another.
"Control."
The swords moved again, gathering in front of him and forming a streamlined, shuttle-shaped formation. Li Yun stepped onto it, and the formation lifted into the air and carried him smoothly around the cultivation chamber three times.
"Slash."
His voice turned sharp, and all three thousand swords shot upward. They rearranged themselves in an instant into a terrifying sword formation and then slashed forward together.
Boom!
A terrifying Sword Qi erupted. The power behind that single strike was several times greater than Li Yun’s previous full-force Destruction attack, and it could have killed an ordinary cultivator at the 4th level of Spirit Manifestation Realm with ease. Even many ordinary experts at the 5th level would have found it extremely difficult to survive.
"Finally."
Excitement flashed through Li Yun’s eyes, because he had succeeded at last. He had comprehended the Sword Domain, or more precisely, he had entered its first stage, Absolute Control. He had not yet fully infused the domain with his Slaughter Sword Intent, but he had undeniably taken the most important first step.
The Sword Domain contained three major stages, which were Absolute Control, All Things Are Swords, and Thoughts Give Birth to Swords.
Absolute Control was exactly what the name suggested, since within his own Sword Domain a cultivator gained absolute command over swords, and any sword cultivator without a domain of his own would suffer overwhelming suppression.
The second stage, All Things Are Swords, was considerably more profound. At that level a blade of grass could become a sword, a tree could become a sword, and a flower, a fallen leaf, or even a grain of dust could be turned into a weapon. Everything tangible within the domain could be transformed into a sword. Powerful as that stage was, it still relied on physical objects.
The third stage was something else entirely. Upon reaching Thoughts Give Birth to Swords, a cultivator no longer needed any material at all, because a single thought could create and command countless blades.
Ten thousand swords could move together while wind and clouds howled beneath their momentum, and the power of such a domain could shake heaven and earth, overturn seas, and tear the sky apart with nothing more than a thought.
Naturally, reaching that level was unimaginably difficult, and even among cultivators at the perfection stage of the 9th level of Spirit Manifestation Realm, very few ever comprehended it.
Li Yun let out a long breath and slowly calmed his excitement, then left the Enlightenment Pagoda. The moment he stepped outside, he heard several cultivators nearby talking in excited voices.
"Have you heard? Today is the day Huang Tianlin and Yin Cangxiao agreed to fight."
"Yin Cangxiao has challenged almost every cultivator from the Heaven’s Chosen Assembly during this period. Even Drunken Monk, who placed third in the assembly, lost to him half a month ago."
"Now it’s finally Huang Tianlin’s turn."
"Huang Tianlin may be the Ninth Prince of the Profound Sovereign Dynasty, but there’s a whole cultivation level between them, so I’m afraid he’ll lose this one too."
"Exactly. Against ordinary cultivators at the 2nd level of Spirit Manifestation Realm, Huang Tianlin might stand a chance, but Yin Cangxiao is different. He ranks three hundred and seventy-ninth in the Genius Training Camp, and among everyone below the 3rd level of Spirit Manifestation Realm, he’s practically invincible."