Daoist Master of Qing Xuan

There was the moonlight, there was the starry night, and there was the flying celestial, Shen Lian. He swirled up a sword aura akin to that of the Milky Way, and which operated like the Zhou Tian principles, as he followed the Xuan philosophy of heaven and earth.

The whimpering sound from the void was similar to the cry of the demons and the divines.

Shen Lian had a missing arm, along with the Five Elements Magical Sword. The skeleton right hand symbolized death, and the swish of the Five Elements Magical Sword went by the ground like a spring breeze.

This act of the sword was unprecedentedly stunning.

Under the order of the Mountain God, Chen Jinchan arrived at a giant protruding rock located some distance away. Looking from afar, he could see the glittering sword river. Shen Lian who was stepping on the wavefront of the sword river looked like a flying celestial as he headed towards Chen Beidou at the cliff.

In the face of the sword river which operated according to the Zhou Tian principles, the cliff of Mount Zhong which was once respected by all living beings seemed to turn into something as insignificant as a speck of dust. The jade-green cliff even seemed as if it was shivering under the grandeur of the sword river.

Chen Beidou stood on the cliff, looking otherworldly. He did not let any divine light shine through. His black hair was flowing with the wind and his clothes were as black as ink. He was so calm that perhaps not even doomsday could make him move an inch.

The sword river finally rammed into the cliff, and the cliff which had undergone the tempering of the heaven and earth seemed like it was not better than something made out of paper. It was full of debris, and under the starlight, it looked like a meteor shower.

All of a sudden, an explosion could be heard from Mount Zhong. It shook the void, and also the woods and grass on top. Countless specks of dust on the mountain began to hover underneath this vibration. They were vibrating at an extremely high speed, and it affected everything on Mount Zhong, including Chen Jinchan.

He groaned and the rocks underneath his feet formed a deep hole, as the rocks too felt the vibration. Unknowingly, he too transferred his power into the rocks underneath his feet.

Chen Jinchan suffered under the vibration and blood flowed out of his mouth. The smell spread around, and as the affected plants around him gained the blood, they were killed and revived again each time.

The smooth giant rock, entwined with green Chinese wisteria wrapped around Chen Jinchan to help him distribute the power when Shen Lian’s sword river crashed into the giant rock.

When Chen Jinchan tried to analyze internally, he realized there were cracks in his organs.

He had kept a far distance, and even with his special body, he still could not avoid being injured. He could not imagine what was happening to Shen Lian and Chen Beidou in the battle.

Chen Beidou did not attack when the sword river crashed into the cliff, but now he had initiated an attack.

The countless resentful spirits on Mount Zhong – the resentment which would never disappear, all turned into a killing sword, a sword of death under Chen Beidou’s command.

About thirty of them had such strong divine aura that they could even compete with the full blast of a master celestial of sword at the level of immortal Zhenren.

The star lights in the sky, as well as Shen Lian’s sword river formed with the breath of heaven and earth, could not undermine the gleam of the swords formed under the resentment of the living beings.

This was the real cry of the demons and the divines. Mount Zhong roared along with it.

Shen Lian who stood on top of the wavefront of the sword river had no reaction. The sword river then transformed into countless sword nets, which captured the swords of the resentful spirits.

The sword gleams already possessed spirituality as it blended in with the resentment of the living beings. They were struggling to get out of the nets formed by the sword river.

Then, the nets were kept like a wild beast who took a lazy yawn in the midst of its sleep. All the sword auras disappeared.

The sword nets in the sky did not stop and all of a sudden it took a leap. They were broken down into countless small swords, directed at Chen Beidou.

The cliff shattered a little, and while a part of the sword river formed sword nets, the sword river was still endless. It seemed that Chen Beidou was in a pinch and there was nowhere to escape to.

He never thought of escaping. He just raised his hand.

The tiny sword auras formed by the sword nets were all caught in one grab. There was no way to describe how profound that motion was. It seemed like with that technique, he could even pluck the stars in the sky.

He was calm and his eyes looked insipid. It seemed that Chen Jianmei only did something minor, but occasionally some sword auras would appear on the cliff, and soon they would become countless tiny holes which seemed to have no end to it.

Shen Lian stood calmly as he continued to command the sword river to attack the jade-green cliff.

Underneath Chen Beidou’s feet appeared a film of water like Qing Guang which blended into the almost transparent cliff. The spiritual tides were rolling in the cliff like the source of spring water. Seven dots were lit up in the cliff, in the shape of a dipper, pointing at Chen Beidou.

Qing Guang, the spiritual tides and the cliff became one and was inseparable. Shen Lian’s sword river could no longer damage the rest of the cliff. It was clear to him that Chen Beidou had laid down the Big Dipper formation in the blink of an eye.

The Big Dipper formation was not some supreme formation, but as it was laid, it broke the connection Shen Lian had with the power of the stars. It also snatched away Mount Zhong’s power to control.

The geography and the mountains and rivers in the world contained the profoundness of the Great Way, but it was only during a quiet night when Daoists understood the most profound principles of the world when they were observing the stars of the sky when they were trying to find something unchanging in the ever-moving stars. In the beginning, as they did not know what the name was, they referred to it as Dao. From the movement of the stars, they then reconstructed the formation based on the spiritual objects on earth, which then transferred the Dao of the stars onto earth.

This Dao could make enormous stars follow a certain path. If it fell on the mortal world, its impact was unimaginable, and the principle it demonstrated was something beyond Shen Lian’s capabilities.

Without the replenishment of the Qi of heaven and earth and also the power of starlight, the sword river began to slowly subside under the impact, but Chen Beidou and the cliff both did not move.

From the time that Shen Lian began to cultivate the Milky Way sword aura, this was the first time he felt helpless, even though he borrowed a lot of power from heaven and earth.

He remained silent, not expressing any anger.

There was no spark when his eyes met Chen Beidou’s, but Shen Lian’s mind seemed to be absorbed into Chen Beidou’s Big Dipper formation, and through the meaning of Dharma in his eyes, he saw the eternally lonely stars.

The stars were something that would not change even after a few hundred centuries. Every single one of them burned brightly to show the world their uniqueness. The Big Dipper had the brightest stars out there. It was like a clone of Chen Beidou.

It seemed that the rumor was not wrong, that every individual would have their own corresponding star.

Shen Lian did not know where his star was.

There was no knowing of Dao, and there was no end to the heart’s desire, and there was no understanding of the repeatability of objects.

In that dazzled state, he felt separated from the self. He could see the heaven and earth, the universe, and the void.

The last bit of sword aura of the sword river eventually stopped flowing while Shen Lian was in a state of trance. There was only the void underneath his feet.