With the Blade

But now, looking at the outcome, Wu Zhao was forcibly captured alive.

His entire body was dissected, his head and internal organs placed in transparent jars, and even his spine was extracted to be made into a sword.

"Why make it into a sword?"

Du Chengfeng suddenly realized another inconsistency.

He could understand the slicing and dissection as a pursuit of knowledge, but turning the spine into a sword didn’t seem like civilized behavior at all; it felt more like the strange man’s own idea.

"This is definitely not the world I lived in."

Du Chengfeng made this judgment.

It was very similar, yet very different. This distinction was also shown in the following images—after seeing the subsequent scenes, Du Chengfeng finally understood why Wu Zhao was captured alive. It was simply because, after the strange man left with the sword, there was not a single living person in the vast manor outside.

Only some iron-built robots occasionally carried boxes of heavy goods, passing by.

So it’s not Wu Zhao’s fault he couldn’t escape. Even if it were him, he probably couldn’t disguise himself as some kind of robot. At the very least, he couldn’t replace his legs with tracks or his head with iron.

"But... why are there robots?"

Du Chengfeng was directly stunned, admitting he was a bit hasty comparing his world to this one.

His peaceful world might be more advanced compared to the Southern Chen, but compared to a place overflowing with intelligent robots, it was somewhat lacking.

Yet this only made Du Chengfeng more puzzled.

If one were to forge weapons in such a place, it would seem more reliable to make them into firearms, not the kind of cold-weapon spears, but weapons that could kill people with a pull of the trigger. Yet the strange man still forged a longsword and even seemed to use it as his main weapon during the battle.

Why do this? Personal preference? Or...

"Wait a minute."

Du Chengfeng suddenly realized the problem.

In the images from his memory, the strange man threw the longsword into the air, and his entire being merged with the sword light, flying away.

"Ah, this..."

Du Chengfeng was speechless for a long time.

Indeed, he was stuck in conventional thinking, which made him think of the longsword as merely a cold weapon—but judging from the previous battle, in the hands of the strange man, was the longsword just an ordinary cold weapon?

"Even a heavy machine gun’s barrage might be sliced apart with that Fallen Sun Sword move, wouldn’t it?"

Thinking of the unparalleled cutting density and precision that sword move presented, Du Chengfeng had to admit, apart from the bit of embarrassment of shouting out the move’s name and the unfocused power, as an all-in-one offensive and defensive technique, there was really nothing wrong with it.

"Especially suited for remote attacks against multiple enemies."

At this thought, an inexplicable emotion surged in Du Chengfeng’s heart.

And just then, the strange man landed along with the sword light, in front of a brightly lit skyscraper with quite an artistic shape—notably, the building’s security was not very friendly to the strange man. Not only were the security robots armed to the teeth, but even the cleaning bots sweeping the rooftop extended gun barrels from beneath their mops.

But these things were meaningless.

They were doomed.

"Divine Sword, Fallen Sun."

The familiar, embarrassing shout resounded, and all the machines present were sliced to pieces by the sword light.

Seeing the wreckage all over the ground, Du Chengfeng suddenly felt that the move’s name did not seem as shameful.

In the end, it was destructive power that determined the level of shame. If it had been like the sword move brushing by him before, it certainly wouldn’t live up to a grand name like Divine Sword or Fallen Sun—but judging by the shattered pieces now, the name was far from exaggerated.

Even the strange man himself now possessed an aura matching his grand attire.

"Did he really pull it off?"

Du Chengfeng was left speechless.

However, perhaps it wasn’t just a show, since the track robots responsible for cleaning appeared again—suggesting that the place was still the strange man’s property, and the brutal slaughter witnessed by Du Chengfeng was as insignificant as casually breaking a vase.

At least for the strange man, there was no difference; he displayed no joy on his face even up to now.

There was only fatigue and emptiness after fulfilling a desire.

"Indeed, once you have everything, it becomes easy to feel this way. A person still needs a goal to strive for."

Du Chengfeng made this evaluation, feeling well qualified to speak on this matter. Although the Forget Sorrow Village was limited by everyone’s imagination and couldn’t achieve this level of advancement, many had experienced similar situations more or less—thankfully, life quality could still continue to improve, for instance, Du Chengfeng himself, aside from figuring out how to become stronger, was pondering how to simplify Yang Fatty’s braised meat recipe so that everyone could learn it easily.

In life, one must have some pursuits, and Du Chengfeng considered he had no grand ideals, yet he still pursued how to be well-fed and eat well.

The strange man might have demands too, but his ambitions were not as trivial as Du Chengfeng’s—perhaps he aimed higher, such as surpassing his predecessors. It was also at this moment that Du Chengfeng realized that there was actually an elder above the strange man, and seemingly, this elder looked even younger than the junior.

"Something happened back home."

The black-clothed youth glanced at the ancient longsword.

"Need to go back and deal with it..."

"I’ll take care of it."

The strange man volunteered for the task.

"Just a small matter."

"...You consider this a small matter?"

The black-clothed youth frowned.

"Do you even know what that is..."

"To me, it’s merely a small matter."

The strange man said, his words full of confidence in his power.

Indeed, from the strange man’s perspective, perhaps it was really just a small matter; after all, he possessed exceptional skills, extraordinary power, practically everything. So wouldn’t these trivial matters be effortlessly handled?

"Ultimately, that place is our home; though we’ve wandered for a while, it remains our home... that world is ours, land, sky, sea, everything in that world is our possession."

Upon returning to his residence, the strange man began to talk to a robot.

"It’s just going back to do a little cleaning, isn’t it? The old guy is too timid, not at all like someone capable of doing things... Conveniently, I’ve been bored lately; this gives me something to do."

Talking to a robot that couldn’t open its mouth, Du Chengfeng thought the strange man might be crazy, but such things were hard to say, given that it seemed like there weren’t any other living people here.

However, he eventually encountered living people. After descending to Southern Chen with the sword light, the strange man met Jiang Wenyuan and Shanbing—it was at this moment that Du Chengfeng realized that Shanbing’s Sun Penetrating Move was actually learned from this strange man. Perhaps that’s also why Shanbing and Jiang Wenyuan, finding the strange man amicable, brought him to Jiankang Imperial City.

Unfortunately, after arriving at Jiankang Imperial City, all the strange man did was kill people.

Killing, slaying those masters, demonstrating his prowess in the most vivid manner possible. Rather than a competition, it was more like a one-sided entertainment; the discrepancy in their powers was vast, far from any idea of a fair contest.

Until Du Chengfeng once again saw his own big face.

Not only having to look at his own big face but also having to witness himself being naked, which for Du Chengfeng was undoubtedly a mental torment. Fortunately, what followed was educating this strange man, also known as Huangtian—although Du Chengfeng always felt this might be a name made up by the peculiar stranger on the spot, since everyone called him that, he followed suit.

Yet after being disarmed, the man who called himself Huangtian still drove his throat onto the sword’s point.

"I will return."

These were the words the man who called himself Huangtian hadn’t uttered, overheard only by the ancient longsword.

And now, Du Chengfeng had also heard them.