Chapter 632: Have You Looked Your Fill Yet?
Beyond Black Bee City, in the wilderness.
Xiao Mo and Jiang Qingyi stood facing one another.
For Xiao Mo to see Jiang Qingyi's true face, they would naturally need to duel first and Jiang Qingyi did not refuse, eventually settling on a remote wilderness area several dozen li from Black Bee City.
Jiang Qingyi looked at the man before her, tilting her head, asking, “Are you certain you want to duel me again? I won't hold back this time."
"Yes." Xiao Mo nodded.
"You men always love doing pointless things. You've never once beaten me. This time will be no different." Jiang Qingyi's calm words carried the weight of unshakable fact.
"How would we know without trying?"
Xiao Mo broke off a branch from a nearby tree.
"After you, Sect Master Jiang."
"Overestimating yourself."
The moment Jiang Qingyi's words fell, her figure vanished from where she stood.
By the time Xiao Mo came back to himself, she had already swung her own branch at him.
Xiao Mo raised his branch horizontally to block.
Fierce sword-qi spread outward from around them both.
Though Jiang Qingyi had suppressed her own cultivation to match Xiao Mo's, the early stage of the Dragon Gate realm.
Regardless, her mastery of the Dao of the sword still far surpassed his own.
"I never expected Your Majesty to stabilize your position at the Dragon Gate realm so quickly. Truly impressive." Jiang Qingyi laughed coldly, the branch in her hand, wrapped in sword-qi, striking with ever greater force.
Jiang Qingyi swung down heavily, and Xiao Mo left a three-zhang gash across the grass as he was forced back but just as Jiang Qingyi moved to press her advantage, Xiao Mo took a step forward, the branch in his hand thrusting toward the space between her brows.
Jiang Qingyi dodged sideways, her sword sweeping toward Xiao Mo's waist, but he transformed his left hand into a palm strike, deflecting it aside.
The two branches clashed ceaselessly, both of them wielding the Grass Character Sword Formula, the fierce sword-qi radiating from their bodies carving gash after gash into the surrounding tree trunks.
At first, Jiang Qingyi held the clear upper hand but gradually, the balance between them shifted.
Jiang Qingyi noticed that Xiao Mo's swordsmanship seemed to carry more spiritual insight than before, with certain moves she had never seen him use before.
"BOOM!"
A streak of Jiang Qingyi's sword-qi swept past, Xiao Mo dodging aside, a small mountain peak behind him split cleanly in two.
Rocks large and small tumbled down ceaselessly.
"It seems someone taught Your Majesty swordsmanship while I was away?" Jiang Qingyi's cold laugh seemed to carry a note of jealousy. "I wonder if it was Consort Xue, or Consort Mu?"
"Just a friend visiting the Zhou Kingdom." Xiao Mo said with a smile, shaking his head. "Sect Master Jiang had best be careful. Three days apart, and one should look with new eyes. I'm actually quite formidable myself."
With these words, boundless sword-qi condensed toward Xiao Mo, wrapping around the branch in his hand.
The bark on the branch gradually peeled away, the sword-qi condensing into a solid, brilliant white form.
"ROAR!"
The imperial dragon-aura upon Xiao Mo's body surged skyward, forming a golden dragon, staring directly at Jiang Qingyi.
"How interesting." Jiang Qingyi watched all of this unfold before her, knowing she truly needed to take this seriously now.
"ROAR!"
Another dragon's roar echoed through the sky, and Xiao Mo swung down at Jiang Qingyi.
Jiang Qingyi's own sword-qi, extending from the branch as its base, stretched a full ten zhang in length, striking down with a single blow.
The sword-qi clashed with the dragon, and centered upon the two of them, trees within a three-li radius toppled instantly, river waters churning violently.
Some lesser demons, of lower cultivation, having opened their spiritual intelligence but not yet achieved human form, sensed this overwhelming sword-qi and cowered in fear within their dens, not daring to emerge.
One stone golem even gathered fallen trees around itself, sticking them onto its own head, remaining perfectly still, afraid of being discovered by others.
Nearby cultivators looked toward the source of the sword-qi, wondering which two sword cultivators, bearing some deep, irreconcilable grudge, were fighting to the death out there.
Within the wilderness, dust clouds a hundred zhang high, kicked up by the battle, were sliced apart as though by a sharp blade, dissipating instantly.
Xiao Mo and Jiang Qingyi continued their fierce exchange.
Jiang Qingyi's brow could not help but furrow.
She noticed that Xiao Mo's swordsmanship had not only shown new developments, perfectly integrated into the Grass Character Sword Formula, but he even seemed to have cultivated some kind of technique alongside it.
This technique allowed Xiao Mo's spiritual energy to recover remarkably quickly.
It felt rather like a Daoist technique, carrying a sense of natural Dao-intent about it and just as Jiang Qingyi found herself momentarily distracted, Xiao Mo split into two, then two into four.
In the blink of an eye, dozens of Xiao Mo figures charged at Jiang Qingyi together.
Jiang Qingyi knew these Xiao Mo figures were illusions, yet they could still genuinely inflict harm upon her but the next instant, Jiang Qingyi chanted a sword incantation.
Every blade of grass and leaf around her, every grain of sand and dust, even the faintest breeze, all transformed into Jiang Qingyi's own blades, scattering every illusory figure of Xiao Mo entirely!
And it was in this very instant.
The moment she located Xiao Mo's true body, Jiang Qingyi thrust her sword forward, and Xiao Mo did the same.
The two of them drew ever closer to one another.
The branches trembled ceaselessly.
Both their sword-qi and sword-intent, constrained within the early stage of the Dragon Gate realm, had reached their absolute peak.
"BOOM!"
The branches in their hands collided against one another.
Ripples of spiritual energy shook outward.
Sword-qi tore at both their robes and hair.
"Are you truly that afraid of Xiao Mo seeing you?"
Looking at the man before her, a voice rose within Jiang Qingyi's own mind.
"You know full well, he's already forgotten you. What would it matter, even if he saw you now?"
"And yet you've kept your face veiled this entire time, never daring to show him your true face."
The voice within Jiang Qingyi's mind grew louder, even carrying a note of mockery.
"You searched for him for so long, and now that you've finally found him, you still don't dare meet him face to face. How truly laughable you are..."
"What... exactly are you so afraid of?"
As the woman's inner voice fell silent at last.
Jiang Qingyi's grip on the branch gradually loosened, faint cracks appearing within her sword-intent and sword-qi and in that very instant, the branch in Jiang Qingyi's hand dissolved into scattered fragments of wood dust.
The branch in Xiao Mo's hand swept past Jiang Qingyi's face.
The ribbon holding her veil in place was severed by the branch, the thin gauze veil slipping slowly down from the side of her ear, at last falling to the grass below.
Jiang Qingyi slowly raised her eyes, meeting Xiao Mo's gaze.
The sword-qi surrounding them both gradually dissolved, leaves falling one after another beside them.
The woman's face, beautiful enough to topple kingdoms, revealed itself fully before Xiao Mo's eyes.
…
"From now on, I will be your master. Are you willing to come up the mountain with me?"
"Master, look, isn't that shooting star so beautiful?"
"Master, I've reached the Foundation Building realm! I will surely never fail your expectations, Master. I will surely become a great sword immortal!"
"Why? Why did you lie to me?!"
"Master! I don't want you to go, I don't want you to go!"
Every scene that had unfolded within the Book of a Hundred Lives rose up within Xiao Mo's mind at once, everything he had experienced feeling as though it had happened only yesterday.
"Hey..."
Xiao Mo's gaze remained fixed on Jiang Qingyi's face, refusing to look away for a long while, and she bit her lip lightly, a faint blush rising to her cheeks.
"Have you looked your fill yet?"