Sunshine Sankesh, misunderstanding what was happening, turned around. Tendrils of black and blue energy swirled around the body at the edge of the cliff. They poured into the body. Dense, swift, and terrifyingly strong, they were even capable of affecting the physical world! They lifted the dead body higher and higher, until it was wrapped in a glowing sphere. The gaping wound healed, leaving behind a terrible scar on the man’s body, but all the other scars were drawn back into his body. His hair grew out and his muscles tightened.
“Transformation of the Mortal Shell,” Sankesh whispered, “but how-”
Only a true cultivator understood the significance of the Transformation level. As long as a person was still a practitioner, they couldn’t fully realize what energy could do for one’s body. The real Transformation took place only after…
“No…” Sankesh couldn’t believe his eyes!
As Hadjar’s body changed, becoming stronger and larger, a haze appeared behind him. It was shapeless, but still…
“The Awakened Soul…”
Finally, Hadjar opened his eyes. They were as clear as ever. If his will, reflected in them, had been strong enough to break the Heavens before, now it was sharp enough to cut through the threads of Fate.
“The New Soul,” Sankesh murmured.
A savage, inhuman roar filled the plateau. Black lines formed a complex but unfinished pattern across Hadjar’s body. On his shoulders was the cloak of black fog. In his hand, he held the black blade. Despite it being made of the same fog, it felt very real.
“SANKESH!”
Sunshine wasn’t sure that he was still looking at a human, and not a monster or a beast. Those blue eyes were inhuman. There was something alien in them. The power emanating from the creature was definitely that of a true cultivator, a Heaven Soldier. Someone who had been able to transform their body, spirit, and soul. Only a person who saw their way clearly, who knew how to move forward, could be considered a true cultivator! However, the power Sankesh felt from his foe was far greater than what a newly advanced cultivator should be capable of.
A mad smile spread across his face.
“HADJAR!” A second roar, full of power and fury, clashed with the first.
The two warriors rushed at each other.
Chapter 414
Hadjar looked at the Spirit Knight charging toward him. Sankesh, who was enveloped in golden light, hadn’t summoned his spirit. He still wasn’t treating his enemy like a worthy opponent.
Hadjar felt the changes in his body and soul. Only now did he fully understand why only those who were at the Heaven Soldier level and higher were called cultivators, and everyone below that was called practitioners. All the stages and levels he’d gone through up to that point had been preparing him for this. The Bodily Nodes level had allowed him to start absorbing energy from the World River. The Bodily Rivers one had given him a chance to saturate every cell of his body, every atom, with its power. The Formation level had created a place within his soul where the borrowed energy could condense and gradually change, becoming his own. The most important step was the Transformation level and its many stages. After the body and soul had already changed, one only had to consolidate these changes to create a foundation upon which a completely new person would be born. Now Hadjar felt as if he had crawled out of his old skin, like a snake. Or like he’d left an old shell behind. Both a physical and mental one.
He felt his body harden to the point that an arrow shot by an ordinary mortal wouldn’t be able to even scratch his skin. He felt a core of energy crystallizing inside his soul. It was much smaller than before, but denser and... purer. The amount of energy at his disposal now was incomparably greater than at the level of a mere practitioner.
The last change that Hadjar could clearly discern was his own spirit. A blue haze began to take shape. The little dragon, which had been as big as his palm before, was now as long as his arm. The sword inside his soul had become so strong that Hadjar could summon it into the physical world and hold it in his hand. It felt like an Earth level artifact, which hopefully meant that, in the future, a truly powerful blade could be created using this black sword.
All these thoughts flashed through Hadjar’s mind in less than a split second.
A golden energy storm raged around Sankesh. It was the first time Hadjar had seen anything like it: a cultivator who didn’t use the energy of a fire spirit, but a spirit of light. Hadjar had thought that no one could control the light itself. What had Sankesh’s path in life been like, if he had been able to comprehend the mysteries of such a powerful spirit?
Sunshine’s halberd flashed with golden flame. The waves of solar fire that spread out from it vaporized the stones in a 10ft radius. Black dust rose into the air, only to then disappear in bright flashes.
Even thirty feet away, Hadjar felt such a powerful wave of heat strike his face that he had no doubt that, if he weren’t a Heaven Soldier, he would’ve burned to ashes from a mere exchange of blows with Sunshine Sankesh.
They finally collided. Sankesh left a trail of golden fire behind him, and black fog with blue tinges followed in Hadjar’s wake. Sankesh’s downward slash was more like an axe strike — all-consuming and overwhelming, with immeasurable power contained in just that one swing.
Hadjar gripped the hilt of his Black Sword with both hands. His feet were firmly planted on the ground. With a roar, he swung upward with all his might.
The two opposing powers met in an explosion of light and darkness. The muscles in Hadjar’s arms creaked. The darkness swirling around his sword tried to hold back the waves of radiant light that Sankesh’s halberd emitted. Sunshine’s face twisted into a ghastly grin.
The pressure was so great that the stone floor under Hadjar’s feet was covered in huge cracks. Hadjar felt like a match trying to defy a huge fireball. Dancing petals of yellow fire started spreading across his pants.
“Nonentity!” Sankesh shouted over the roar of the flames.
He pressed down even harder with his halberd and Hadjar’s knees buckled. The light, which had covered a radius of ten feet previously, now burned stones that stood twice as far.
The pressure became so intense that the skin on Hadjar’s back burst open and hot blood flowed down his body. The ground beneath his feet became a deep hole.
“Strong Wind!” Hadjar shouted.
New, pure, and dense energy poured out from his inner core and into his arms. The blue energy merged with the black sparks inside his blade. The darkness around the sword thickened, creating the illusion of a black dragon crawling across the blade. The pressure became a little easier to withstand.
The more power Hadjar used, the more the darkness around him grew. It was pushing aside what felt like an avalanche of the fiery light. Hadjar’s knees, previously bent to an almost 90 degree angle, gradually straightened back up. The ground beneath his feet cracked even further, spikes of rock shooting up.
Sankesh stopped grinning. Pulling his halberd toward him, he spun around, delivering a powerful and swift heel kick. At that moment, the pressure of his Technique almost completely disappeared. Such a small delay wouldn’t be enough for most to prepare a counterattack or put up a defense. Even Hadjar wouldn’t have had time to do so this morning. But that was then, this was now…
His movements blurred into a misty shadow as the black blade came up parallel to his chest, right where the enemy’s attack was aimed.
Even though Sankesh followed the path of the Halberd Spirit, his kick was still powerful enough to match the force of two battering rams. Hadjar skid three paces across the ground and was then launched back. After flying at least fifteen feet through the air, he regrouped and, like a cat, landed on his feet. It only took him a split second to do so, but that was enough for the Spirit Knight. The storm of golden energy around him exploded into a thirty-foot tornado. After spinning the halberd above his head, he brought it down for a monstrous slash.
“Executioner of Cities!” Sankesh’s roar merged with the
roar of the golden firestorm.
A wave of light, in which the outline of a huge halberd could be seen, swept toward Hadjar. The air around it thrummed with golden fire. No ash or dust remained of the evaporating stones. One look at this monstrous Technique was enough for Hadjar to realize that it could’ve wounded even Traves. And yet, he didn’t take even a step to the side. He didn’t try to dodge. He exhaled sharply, and a storm rose around him. Composed of black and blue energies, it was only eighteen feet high, but looked as fierce and dense as Sankesh’s own.
Sunshine’s eyes widened in surprise at the sight. Was he, someone who stood at the middle stage of the Spirit Knight level, feeling pressure from the energy of a miserable Heaven Soldier? Impossible!
Hadjar, feeling a new power surging in his arms, made an imperceptible swing with his sword.
“Rustle in the Treetops!”
Similar to the huge wave of fire, which had taken the form of a halberd blade, a black line appeared in the air. A huge dragon’s maw with vicious fangs emerged from it. Its massive mouth closed around the golden wave. The battle between light and darkness began once more.
Hadjar didn’t expect to completely stop the Spirit Knight’s attack. Sankesh had been at that level for at least a century and had fought in hundreds of deadly battles. Hadjar, standing a step below him, had only recently acquired his new power and didn’t know how to use it to its fullest extent just yet.
When Sankesh’s Technique, after losing a good half of its power, finally dispelled the ‘Rustle in the Treetops’, Hadjar directed his energy into his hands again. This time, without using any Techniques, he swung his sword wide. This launched a black, foggy crescent from his blade, one that had a blue dragon with a sword for a body trailing behind it. Hitting the wave from the side, it deflected it by just one inch, but that was enough. Sankesh’s Technique passed within a hair’s breadth of Hadjar’s shoulder, leaving a long and deep gouge in the floor near his left leg.
Sankesh, spinning his halberd once more, plunged its base into the ground.
“Seventy years have passed since the last time anyone escaped the ‘Executioner of Cities’!” Sunshine folded his arms. His eyes flashed with a golden glow. The storm of energy around him began to condense and grow more turbulent. “It’s been seventy long years since I last fought a worthy foe!”
Suddenly, the storm disappeared, but the pressure didn’t. On the contrary, it only intensified. Hadjar found it hard to breathe. He had to increase the flow of energy toward the dragon dancing inside his soul. The black cloak on his back grew a little longer. It seemed to protect him from the influence of Sankesh’s energy.
“Spirit Manifestation!” Sunshine roared the words.
A spirit appeared behind him, radiating golden light. Hadjar had never seen anything like it before. He’d thought that a Spirit Knight could only wield the spirit of a beast, but now… Behind Sankesh, a three-foot-long halberd whirled in the air. The power emanating from it overwhelmed the very air around the warriors.
Sunshine kicked the shaft of his weapon and swung the tip forward.
“Sun Beam!”
At first, Hadjar thought nothing had happened. But then, a second later, he felt a stinging pain coming from his long-suffering left side. He looked down and saw blood running down his torso. It spurted out through a fresh wound. Only then did he see the beam that revealed the fast lunge Sankesh made.
“Damn it!” Hadjar cursed, understanding that things had just gotten a lot worse for him
.
Chapter 415
This time, Hadjar could see the sunbeam. However, that didn’t help him much. He tried to block it, but his sword sliced through nothing but a trail of afterimages left behind by the beam that represented Sankesh’s attack.
Hadjar gritted his teeth as a pea-sized hole appeared on his thigh, just inches away from the bone. All this time, he had thought that Sankesh’s main specialty was close combat, but Hadjar had been horribly mistaken.
The halberd wasn’t meant to be used up close. It had been created in order to keep one’s enemy away and to also pierce their body with quick attacks. Sankesh’s strikes, as he was someone who possessed the mysteries of the Light Spirit, were really instantaneous.
“It’s time to finish this!” Sunshine shouted.
The light of the spirit behind him grew stronger and brighter. His motionless halberd suddenly quivered, and this time, Hadjar saw three brief flashes. Three sunbeams that represented swift lunges flew through the space between them at incredible speed. Even so, Hadjar’s thoughts were faster than Sankesh’s. In recent years, Hadjar had done nothing but fight. He’d fought against armies, bandits, monsters, his own demons, and even mythical creatures.
His combat experience surpassed even those who had lived in this mortal world for centuries and had reached the Spirit Knight level. All this knowledge had needed only a small push to come together and give Hadjar the insight needed to progress further on the path of cultivation.
His transition to the Heaven Soldier level was only related to his soul. When his old heart had no longer been able to live in his body, he’d had to discard his mortal shell and acquire a new, more fitting one. A shell which didn’t see honor as something ‘to be followed’, but something you couldn’t not follow.
As for the path of his Spirit, Hadjar had already reached his current limits. After becoming a Wielder of the Sword, he had been left without any way to progress forward and advance his sword mastery even further.
Behind all of this was something Hadjar had been deprived of for seven long years. Once upon a time, in a cold grotto, Hadjar had sacrificed a piece of his soul to save his army and his own life. He’d given it to the Sword Spirit and it had given its power to him in return, and had then allowed him to approach it a little. A tiny fraction of its might had been enough to make Hadjar the strongest swordsman in Lidus. However, Hadjar had sacrificed the wind for it... no, the Wind.
However, was it really that simple? South Wind had once told him the old legend about the light, which was present everywhere and always, fighting a constant battle against the retreating darkness. Looking up at the night sky, Hadjar had realized that light was not ‘everywhere’, it was only the fastest thing that the eye could see. There were forces in the universe that were faster than even light. While invisible to the eye, they were truly present everywhere and always. For example, darkness. It would always be ahead of the light. Both literally and metaphorically.
Hadjar had never felt a kinship with the darkness. Even now, with the three deadly sunbeams rushing toward him, he couldn’t quite subdue the dark fog emanating from the black blade, nor the cloak on his back.
What else, also invisible to the eye, was always there? What force, despite the seal of the Sword Spirit, did Hadjar feel a kinship with? The Wind…
Even at such a dangerous time, Hadjar could hear the faint whispers of the wind as it swept over the horizon, where Hadjar’s own path and heart drew him.
Maybe that was why he’d felt a connection to the wind since his birth. An ephemeral, mystical relationship. As if the wind were an old friend he’d been separated from a long time ago. Maybe a few lifetimes ago. The wind was always with him. It had always been with him. And it would always be with him. Not even the Sword Spirit’s seal that had severed their bond could change that.
Hadjar sighed, feeling the wind seep into every cell of his body. It had indeed always been there, right by his side.
“Sixth stance: Wind!”
Hadjar’s movements were as light and silent as a summer breeze; as impetuous and rapid as a spring storm; as elusive as the Wind itself.
Sankesh, who had moments ago been confident in his victory, once again couldn’t understand what was happening. A few hours ago, he’d looked down on this unusually strong but still simple practitioner. One attack, imbued with the Halberd Spirit, had been enough to send him to his forefathers. However, he was still alive. Moreover, he’d broken through and bec
ome a true cultivator, which only one in a hundred thousand practitioners could do. Becoming a Heaven Soldier was a great achievement.
With every exchange of blows, with every second that passed, Sankesh felt his enemy… not just refuse to weaken, but actually become stronger. His foe had just made another breakthrough.
Sankesh had already seen Hadjar use the ‘Ten Ravens’ Technique, which was very popular among practitioners and weak cultivators. It didn’t require much talent, and resources needed to cultivate it were common even in the barbarian kingdoms. Its upper limit, accessible to a peak Heaven Soldier — merging the shadow of ten ravens into one — was considered the weakest of Speed Techniques.
Now, however, Hadjar wasn’t using this shameful Technique, but something completely different. Sankesh had little understanding of the Sword Spirit path, so he couldn’t fully comprehend what was going on. Even then, he’d never seen a cultivator or practitioner use a fighting stance for anything other than to attack.
For a brief moment, it was difficult to follow Hadjar’s movements. Sankesh only felt the wind swirling around his opponent, and then the three deadly sunbeams pierced not Hadjar, but the air behind him. The barbarian himself stood quite a ways away from where he’d been just a second ago.
“Who or what are you?” Sankesh roared.
He swung his halberd over his head. Moving his hands so quickly that his weapon turned into a huge sun disk, Sankesh roared:
“Dawn Sun!”
An exact copy of the disk above him detached itself from his weapon. The flaming disk spun with such speed that vortices of burning air formed both below and above it. This ‘hourglass’ was sent after Hadjar, burning a deep furrow across the ground, travelling at a speed only slightly inferior to that of the sunbeams. It promised only one thing — death.
Hadjar felt that his Call would soon disappear. Without it, the cloak that shielded him from the pressure of the Spirit Knight’s power and the black blade would disappear as well. Not to mention the power that allowed a Heaven Soldier at the initial stage of the level to wield the kind of might that only the ones at the peak stage had access to.
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