With the Blade

Du Chengfeng once thought he was already omnipotent.

After having a battle with that nameless giant, he finally had a relatively accurate understanding of his current power—although due to the lack of information channels, he did not know if there were others in this world stronger than him. At least in terms of sheer strength, he should have already reached the first echelon of this world.

This is the first echelon of an entire world, which means on an individual level, he’s basically invincible. At least in the nation of the Southern Chen, he fought like this at the royal tomb, and no one dared to bother him. This was enough to show his current level of power.

And this is after he got used to being humble.

In the past, he always felt he was not strong enough, and without enough strength, he couldn’t achieve anything. He could only be driven forward under the pressure of death, pushed by the fear brought by destiny, moving towards the path of pursuing power, a road of no return.

Indeed, a road of no return. He understood that after embarking on this path, he would instead be moving further and further away from what he truly wanted. He might be poisoned by enemies, assassinated by killers, or meet a grand death in a life-and-death duel, but he would never be able to live happily as he originally wanted—peacefully live out his life and die of old age in his small yard.

He was already prepared to die on this path at any time, though he wouldn’t tell anyone about this, but he was clear in his heart. As a person of Taiping, he was far from heartless as he appeared. He felt fear, panic, confusion, and fear of death. But he knew clearly that only by swallowing these ordinary human emotions alone could he become less ordinary and gain the power to secure his position.

And now, power was in his hand.

Power had been gained, which should have been exciting. He finally got what he desired, that ultimate strength he longed for.

But instead, Du Chengfeng didn’t know what to do.

He seemed unprepared to be the strongest and hadn’t thought about how to use this power. He originally thought he would have to endure more hardships and defeat more formidable foes to be considered truly strong—how many such hardships and foes there would be, he was unclear about. In any case, he thought he would have to fight some things?

Yet fate played this enormously huge joke on him. When he thought it would take him decades more of effort to grasp power, that power fell into his hands like a gust of wind.

Of course, strictly speaking, it couldn’t be considered just a windfall. Like the founding ancestor of Southern Chen, that nameless giant, even with a naturally gifted immortal body, had to fight his battles in the north and south. He too, in that sunless, moonless environment, faced down those who wanted him dead, defeating those evil qi again and again, battling alone for an unknown amount of time.

From this perspective, the power seemed deserved, having fought with blood, sweat, and sheer effort.

However, it was precisely due to this shared experience that Du Chengfeng encountered a predicament very similar to that of the nameless giant.

That is, he didn’t know what to do.

In the past, Du Chengfeng also faced such times, but that was because at that time, he lacked capability and had too few choices—or rather, back then, he essentially had two choices: either strive to become stronger to grasp his destiny or live a nameless, ordinary life, eventually dying from some disease or in some chaotic war.

He certainly couldn’t die—no one wants to lose their life—so even though there seemed to be two options, there was essentially only one.

That was to become stronger, to risk his life to become stronger.

Now, he had finally grown strong and had a power that belonged to him, and his options also increased—this feeling was challenging to describe. If one had to say it, it was like ordering takeout. He used to only look at the cheap takeout costing a mere ten or so bucks and wouldn’t even glance at anything over twenty, but now he could order without looking at the price, which, instead, brought new troubles.

That is the classic problem: what to eat for dinner.

When you can choose anything, you don’t know what to pick.

Of course, this problem might be solved through brute force, by doing the same classic comprehensive approach: since one does not know what to choose, just try everything one by one. However, this was the part that gave Du Chengfeng a headache—he couldn’t even use this method.

Because when he touched the memories of that nameless giant, he had already tried them all once.

Even if that nameless giant was a humanoid weapon, he at least ascended to the position of a founding emperor. Having immense power in his hands, he naturally had the time and energy to try many choices. While experiencing those memories, Du Chengfeng also went through the feelings of the nameless giant—to the extent that he once understood the mood of the giant when he secluded himself at the royal tomb, closing himself off, just because this so-called colorful world really wasn’t that interesting.

Perhaps this is what’s meant by, gaining something and also losing something. He indeed got the memories of the nameless giant, which allowed him a qualitative leap in martial arts, but that overly advanced experience also made him lose interest in most things.