A Scroll of Infinite Glory

Chapter 328 Ancient Martial Arts: A Sword Severing an Eyebrow; Immortal Cultivation: A Flick of the Sleeve Disrupting the Five Elements

According to reliable sources, Zhao Lingtian and Zhuang Gujian are currently at the Nanhu Resort in D City. Su Sheng directly used his incense power to condense a white cloud with a faint golden light, which lifted everyone into the sky and headed towards D City.

This auspicious cloud of incense is a method of flight in the divine realm. When Guan Luoyang, Qi Dongqiang, and the other players were on this large cloud, they seemed to have temporarily transformed into spirits and felt no air resistance whatsoever.

Birds in the air even passed right through Qi Dongqiang's body without causing any harm to either of them.

As the auspicious cloud carried everyone across the sky, not a single shadow could be seen on the glass curtain wall of a nearby building, clearly because everyone was invisible.

A single cloud of light can combine the advantages of concealment, extreme speed, and ignoring conventional physical damage, making all the players quite envious.

Any kind of modification technology or cultivation method in the game world can be directly practiced in the real world. In other words, if these players have the opportunity to learn Su Sheng's City God Way, they can also try to become righteous gods and possess many unpredictable divine powers.

A moment later, Su Sheng had led these people to the skies above South Lake in D City.

Looking down, the lake stretched out before them, its surface shimmering in the slanting sunlight.

To the east, west, and north of the lake, not far apart, there are traces of urban architecture: concrete high-rises, highways, overpasses, and so on. The buildings are densely packed with little space.

However, the southern area, as far as the eye can see, has a sense of vastness and sparseness. Each house is surrounded by large lawns and flowerbeds, with winding roads that exude a natural and comfortable feeling.

That's the resort.

However, now, many houses in that area have been destroyed, leaving only half of the walls standing on the ground. In some places, there are no ruins at all, only bare foundations, where traces of the houses can still be seen.

Thousands of figures were engaged in a fierce battle. Most of them were players, and their methods were almost entirely a combination of biochemical and mechanical modifications.

They all look perfectly normal in normal times, but once a battle begins, their muscles swell, their limbs deform, and they unleash the secrets of psionic energy with every move they make, tearing apart the ground and grass with a stomp and condensing air into projectiles.

Players who pay more attention to appearance, while not turning into muscular monsters, still have many mechanical parts on their bodies. They can flip open their flaps to fire missiles and light cannons, unleashing a dense barrage of soul bullets like a rain of fire.

The resort originally had a long corridor along the shore that extended into the lake, with a long bridge spanning the water and thousands of railings. Where the corridors intersected, pavilions were formed, providing places for the resort's residents to fish, chat, and listen to the breeze on summer nights.

But now, many people have stormed the lake and turned it into a battlefield, causing long bridges to break, eaves to tilt, and pavilions to fall into the water, leaving it riddled with holes.

The explosion created towering waves on the lake. Players flying by at high speed carved deep trenches into the water. After they passed, the air flowed back, filling the flight paths they had left behind and drawing the lake water back into the air, creating a long, flowing curtain of water.

"In the other three directions of South Lake, a large number of people are lurking, and they have released some bionic birds and insects to closely monitor the situation in the resort."

Above the auspicious clouds, the invisible group continuously received information from the chat group. Jiangnan hero Yue Buqun spoke up, "Zhuang Gujian and Zhao Lingtian only exchanged blows for a moment, and then Zhao Lingtian disappeared. It seems that Zhuang Gujian is searching deep inside the resort."

As he spoke, Master Yue flipped his right hand, and a piece of bionic skin at the base of his palm lifted up, projecting a floating image onto the screen. "This is footage taken during their previous fight."

The footage shows hundreds of people arriving at the resort in speedboats, looking quite aggressive.

Zhuang Gujian took the lead, stepping onto the shore without distinguishing his identity. With a wave of his hand, his sword energy rained down, blasting everyone on the shore into pieces. Blood rained down, falling on the grass and drifting into the lake.

A large group of people poured out of the resort. Zhao Lingtian, wearing a bright yellow silk bathrobe, saw the bloodstains and flew into a rage.

"Who are you, daring to kill my men?!"

"So what if I killed her? Zhao Lingtian, hand over my sister."

Zhuang Gujian coldly swept his gaze over them, "Otherwise, today you will all be torn to pieces by my innate sword energy!"

"Innate sword energy? So you're the current leader of the martial arts world."

Zhao Lingtian suddenly realized, then revealed a mocking expression and sneered, "You ancient martial arts practitioners, after practicing your fist and foot skills for two or three years, if you can break bricks and split wood, you're considered to have entered the realm. In the acquired realm, breaking walls and dismantling cars can be called a master, and the innate realm is even regarded as an unparalleled master. But you don't know that in the eyes of cultivators, the mere innate realm is just the beginning of the foundation building stage."

He shouted, "Above the Foundation Establishment Realm are four major realms: Golden Core, Nascent Soul, Deity Transformation, and Ascension. I am already an Ascension cultivator. In my eyes, mortals are like ants. You ancient martial artists are nothing more than slightly stronger ants."

"Kneel down immediately and kowtow three hundred times, and I might consider sparing your corpses!"

Among the players behind Zhuang Gujian, someone scoffed, "Ants, ants? Then someone like you with a huge harem, wouldn't you be a pervert who sleeps with ants?"

Zhao Lingtian's face stiffened, as if he were looking at a dead man. He shook his head at the people opposite him and said, "Fine, I'll just use my Golden Core stage magic to broaden your horizons."

He placed his left hand behind his back, raised his right hand high, and pressed it forward, shouting, "Behold my Mount Tai Crushing Earth Seal!"

A golden hand appeared out of thin air and crashed down.

Zhuang Gujian held his long sword without drawing it from its sheath. With a single upward swing, as if slicing through a block of tofu, he easily cut the golden hand in two, shattering it into hundreds of points of light.

"Fools, what you know as the Innate Realm is nothing but a pseudo-Innate Realm. The true ancient martial arts, the heaven-defying, god-slaying technique, I'll show you—the True Innate Sword Qi, which only I have mastered in this world!"

He gripped the sword hilt, and in a flash, he passed right through Zhao Lingtian.

Zhao Lingtian stared blankly down at his chest, and before he could even utter a word, he was blown to pieces, leaving not a trace of blood on the ground.

The image projected by Yue Buqun, the great hero of Jiangnan, has come to an end.

Su Sheng said, "This Zhao Lingtian is not the real body. He should only be an avatar created by using ancient jade and a few drops of heart's blood."

The weak scholar fears the Master: [A clone, with that Golden Core stage magic power, looks like it already has level five spiritual energy. Just like the forums speculated, the chosen ones in the first four major main quests increased in strength step by step. This time, among the chosen ones in the urban area, there should be a powerful figure with level eight spiritual energy, which also represents an opportunity to break through to level eight.]

In the chat group, a few knowledgeable players discussed it for a bit.

The chivalrous Yue Buqun from Jiangnan said, "Our faction, including myself, currently only has five people with level six spiritual energy. The opportunity to directly break through to level eight is out of the question. But it's strange that those powerful figures with level seven spiritual energy in reality don't seem to be participating. This opportunity must be the most important to them?"

The weak scholar fears the Master: [That's really strange. We haven't heard of any level 7 psionic players appearing in the Historical Conquest area either. They're probably hiding their identities and still lying in wait.]

Above the auspicious clouds, Qi Dongqiang, who had been looking completely calm, suddenly said, "Something's strange."

Guan Luoyang asked, "What did you find wrong?"

"It wasn't something I noticed with my own eyes, it's just... something feels a bit strange."

Qi Dongqiang pointed to the people engaged in fierce combat below and said, "These extraordinary individuals should be similar to you, Master Yue, right? You all possess knowledge of the Great Destiny and the prophecies of the Inner World, so you should also know about the existence of other competitors. Isn't it strange that they're already fighting like they're going to their deaths before the other competitors have even officially entered the fray?"

Jiangnan hero Yue Buqun, after some thought, said, "It's not surprising. People like Zhao Lingtian and Zhuang Gujian are too individualistic and too arrogant. Now that they have a conflict, it's unlikely they'll listen to advice and continue to endure."

Qi Dongqiang said with doubt, "But this conflict seems inexplicable. Judging from Zhuang Gujian and the others' reactions, his sister must have been kidnapped recently. With all the open and covert struggles unfolding lately, in such a tense time, why would Zhao Lingtian have time to forcibly abduct a beauty, needlessly creating a mortal enemy for himself?"

Master Kong laughed and said, "It's his personality. Everyone should know about Zhao Lingtian's past deeds. He's encountered countless mortal enemies before, and many powerful enemies have formed alliances to press his advantage, only to be humiliated and defeated by him. Do you think he would suddenly become vegetarian and cautious just because a new batch of opponents is about to appear?"

Qi Dongqiang recalled the stories he had recently heard about Zhao Lingtian's deeds and was convinced: "It seems so."

The author secretly grumbled: "This Qi Dongqiang is so unlike a chosen one. What kind of normal chosen one is he?"

Master Yue said, "Normal people are more likely to side with each other. Look at Su Sheng and Guan Luoyang; they both seem quite normal right now. These kinds of allies may not have the best chance of winning, but they're definitely the most reassuring. To put it bluntly, when things really come to a head, it's us who will betray them, not them. Hey, that's great!"

Unbeknownst to the players, Guan Luoyang, who was overlooking the battlefield, was wearing a slight smile.

His eyes reflected the crisscrossing wireless signals in the air, like thousands of strings spread across the heavens and earth, connecting countless players.

At this moment, a blue crystalline glow was intermittently transmitted from the players behind him along the signal, and was received by the other players.

In the other three directions of the city, some conspicuous signal sources soon appeared. Every player account infected by the radiance of the Heavenly Demon Crystal would become a new signal source and carry out a second transmission and spread.

Then, due to the intertwining of battles, eavesdropping, and infiltration, these crystalline lights were quickly transmitted to players of other factions along signals, some bright and some dim.

Currently, these demonic crystals remain dormant, and the number of player accounts they come into contact with is still a minority within the entire player community.

However, as the struggle among these chosen ones in the urban area intensifies, more and more groups discuss the matter, the transmission frequency of the Heavenly Demon Crystal will increase, and the transmission channels will expand.

"This battle needs to get increasingly intense."

Guan Luoyang's gaze swept across the entire area, and he silently raised a finger, seemingly pointing to some ruins in the resort.

His movements were slow and deliberate, but just as he raised his finger and pointed to that spot, a mechanical player with six metal wings spread out on its back flew there at incredible speed.

This person's body was modified to be thicker at the top and narrower at the bottom, like a whale, which was very suitable for reducing air resistance when moving through the air. It had six long, narrow metal wings with a total of thirty-six jet nozzles, from which blue flames shot out with astonishing impact.

Throughout the entire battle, this player never raised a hand. Instead, he flew at low altitudes, turning and circling constantly. With his extremely high speed, he used the tips of his metal wings to cut and kill his enemies.

Just as he flew over the villa, which was now only half-built, the six-winged player suddenly veered to the side. He didn't sense any external attack; it was as if one of his modified parts had malfunctioned, causing a major change in direction. He was thrown off at an angle and crashed into the ground.

It was a garage, and after the player blasted it in, more than a dozen luxury cars exploded into fireballs and shattered on the spot.

Many car wrecks flew into the air, triggering a series of explosions. The roof of the garage was completely blown off, the walls collapsed, and a large hole appeared in the garage floor, which then collapsed.

The cave was bottomless, and even the players, including Master Yue, who were on the incense and auspicious clouds, couldn't see how deep it was for a moment.

The impact of that six-winged player shouldn't have caused such great damage, but the garage floor was originally hollow.

The moment the large hole appeared, the apricot-yellow sword tassel fluttered in the wind, and a figure appeared at the edge of the hole.

Zhuang Gujian, holding his longsword, looked down.

"So that's where it was hidden!"

He turned the scabbard in his left hand and held it horizontally in front of his eyes, while his right hand gripped the hilt and slowly drew the sword from its sheath, its cold light shining like a rainbow into his eyes.

"You coward, come out here!!"

As the sword tip left its sheath, Zhuang Gujian spun around, seemingly transforming into a giant ball of light floating in mid-air. In the blink of an eye, he had already unleashed two sword strikes.

Boom!! Boom!!

Two silver-white sword lights, one horizontal and one vertical, cleaved the earth, intersecting to form a cross.

The sword light, running north to south, stretched from the mountains and forests in the south to the lakeshore in the north.

The sword light, running east to west, cut off the road surface at the highway in the east, and cleaved through the hole and tore apart the grassy slopes at the golf course in the west.

This huge, bright cross-shaped sword mark cuts the entire resort into four parts.

The point where the two points intersect is located in the cave beneath the garage.

On the auspicious cloud, the players felt a slight stinging in their eyes and even a feeling of wanting to cry just by looking at the bright sword marks, and they couldn't help but be shocked.

Although Yue Buqun, Master Kong, and the others were not moved to tears, they silently raised their hands to wipe their eyes and looked down to see a tuft of eyelashes in their palms.

With just a slight bow of their heads, their eyebrows fell out one by one.

The sword intent was extremely sharp and imminent. Whether it was real flesh and hair or bionic hair follicles, they all died under the sword intent, and their eyebrows and eyelashes were completely severed.

This is outrageous!

In the chat group, one player exclaimed, "An attack of this magnitude, even a glancing blow would cause brain death in real life! This looks like two of his normal attacks?!"

Guan Luoyang's eyes lit up, and he secretly praised, "Excellent swordsmanship."

He saw not just the two swords, but the entire method for cultivating innate sword energy.

At the beginning of sword practice, one does not cultivate internal strength, but only focuses on swinging the sword. Through countless swings and slashes, one embeds one's obsession into nature, nourishing the true essence of swordsmanship.

After that, whenever he swung his sword, thunder and lightning would strike, wind and rain would rage, and sword energy would naturally grow outside his body.

Only at this stage can one pierce the crown of the head with the sword from the outside in, drawing in external sword energy to cleanse the body and cultivate an innate sword body.

Compared to this swordsmanship, the internal energy cultivation techniques of the Tang Dynasty, and even the True Spirit Electric Energy of the psionic world three hundred years ago, which required amputation to even begin to learn, all seem far too gentle.

This sword energy, if used incorrectly, means certain death; if one cannot endure the pain, it means certain death; if one's talent is slightly weak, it means certain death.

However, once mastered, it becomes incomparably domineering, possessing unparalleled killing power among those of the same level.

After the cross-shaped sword mark cut into the ground, Zhuang Gu's sword, like a white rainbow, pierced into the cave.

In the blink of an eye, a howling sound, like the roar of thousands of tigers and bulls, came from underground, and the ground of the entire resort shook and trembled.

The cross-shaped sword mark expanded, causing the four plots of land to shift and resulting in numerous buildings swaying and trembling as if about to collapse.

The players, who were still engaged in fierce combat, were so shocked that they stopped fighting and moved aside, splitting into two camps. They floated in mid-air, watching the dramatic changes on the ground with bated breath.

The hole that was originally in the garage floor collapsed and expanded rapidly.

The dark cave entrance was larger than the original garage area, filled with dust and swirling yellow light, so dark that you couldn't see your hand in front of your face.

Finally, a white rainbow flew out from the ground, and Zhuang Gujian stood tall in the sky, his long sword pointing diagonally.

Zhao Lingtian, dressed in a luxurious Taoist robe, with a jade crown and angry eyes, held a pagoda in his hand and slowly rose into the air.

"To think that ancient martial arts could be practiced to this level, killing even one of my clones, is enough to make the main body take notice."

The nine-tiered golden pagoda with its eight sides in his hand slowly rotated, gleaming with precious light. He said arrogantly, "But since I awakened my memories, I have cultivated for so many years and finally refined the three treasures left behind by my previous life. The methods that dominated the cultivation world a thousand years ago—let's see how many rounds you can withstand them!"

Zhao Lingtian's pagoda remained unmoved; with a wave of his right hand, a dark green steel ring flew out from his sleeve.

The steel ring spun, the wind and clouds collided in the sky, the water plants on the ground thrashed about, and suddenly all sorts of noises emerged between heaven and earth, like the chirping of hundreds of insects coming together.

This is the noise generated by the subtle disturbances and mutual stimulation of the five elements that constitute nature.

Amidst the clouds in the sky and the water plants on the ground, streaks of lightning shot out from all directions, converging on the small steel ring.

When the five elements are in disarray, they all manifest as thunder and lightning, creating a ring of wind and thunder!

In an instant, the steel ring had transformed into the size of a wheel, incredibly heavy, crushing the air and creating a massive vortex of lightning, just like a wheel, as it rolled out.

"Afraid of you?"

Zhuang Gujian swept his sword horizontally, striking the side of the Wind and Thunder Ring.

Suddenly, the heavy, powerful vortex of wind and thunder changed direction in perfect coordination.

The wheel-like wind and thunder rings crashed out first, followed closely by Zhuang Gujian's sword energy, which, like a white rainbow piercing the sun, made a tearing sound in the sky.

One ring and one sword, one after the other, both struck at the hidden incense and auspicious clouds.

Zhao Lingtian slightly raised the pagoda in his hand and it also crashed towards this side.

The two of them seemed to have a tacit understanding beforehand, and were going to wipe out Su Sheng's side of the camp together first.

(End of this chapter)