Chapter 1534 — A Single Sword Pierces the Firmament, the Heart of Dao Mirrors the Cold Frost

Kai Huang Shen Ye, first among all in the sword dao, whose sword dao was branded upon thirty-five voids. Anyone who set foot on the sword dao and comprehended the sword domain would see his back, would feel that vast and profound sword-dao power and cultivation, and would be struck with the sense of a high mountain to be looked up to!

Kai Huang was, for nearly every sword-dao powerhouse, the god in the heart — a god in the heart that could not be shattered; and for the village head Su Muzhe above all, this god pressed upon him so heavily that he could scarcely breathe.

"You want to strike, to break the god in your heart, yet you dare not strike, because you feel that the moment you draw your sword, every sword form will be wrong."

Kai Huang looked at the village head's hand. That hand was still trembling; still it could not grip his sword. In a low voice he said, "But it has never occurred to you that Mu Tianzun was not taught by me. His sword dao was trained by you — you are his true teacher. In his heart there is no god in the heart at all; in his sword dao there is no such god as I blocking the way."

The village head Su Muzhe's voice was hoarse, aged, rasping: "His sword dao has not been cultivated to a profound realm, and so it is hard for him to see this great god of yours standing in his path..."

"Wrong!"

Kai Huang's gaze fell upon his face, looking straight into his eyes. "His sword dao has already reached the twenty-ninth heaven."

The village head was startled; he raised his head and looked to the sky. He saw Shen Mu's sword dao, vast and dim, transforming into the Primordial One Qi, as he executed that great divine power, the form called One Qi Primordial Dao, Roaming Together!

That was not merely Shen Mu's understanding of the great dao, his understanding of divine powers — it was also his understanding of the sword dao!

The twenty-ninth heaven of the sword dao was thus executed in Shen Mu's hand; to expound and interpret the dao of the Great Beginning through the sword dao was so perfect and harmonious!

"This kind of sword-dao genius was taught by you, nurtured by you; I could not teach him."

Kai Huang's palm pressed upon the hilt of the Carefree Sword. In a low voice he said, "You could teach such an unmatched, peerless disciple, and yet before me you do not even dare to draw your sword? It was you who told him he was an Overlord Body; it was you who nurtured his invincible confidence; it was you who taught him how to conduct himself and how to act. That he has no god in his heart is your doing. Can his teacher not do the same? Draw your sword!"

The village head's eyes grew brighter and brighter; his hand grew steadier and steadier.

Suddenly, with a clang, his divine sword left its sheath, and sword-light filled the heavens!

Kai Huang's Carefree Sword left its sheath; sword-light clashed, and the two figures charged at each other, crossed, and passed.

Kai Huang halted his steps. Behind him, the village head Su Muzhe, white-haired and hoary, returned his sword to its sheath and stood there steady and firm.

Ch-ch-ch —

A thousand hundred sword wounds split open across the village head's body; his surging qi and blood burst the wounds wider still, impossible to suppress.

He smiled, his body swaying, and suddenly pitched face down to the ground.

Kai Huang slid the Carefree Sword back into its sheath. A single strand of hair at his temple drifted slowly down. He turned his head and said, "Su Muzhe, you have walked out from my shadow. You may stand as a fellow traveler of the dao upon my sword path."

The village head's lungs had been wounded by his sword; he wheezed like a broken bellows, yet he laughed with great joy, like a child, rolling in the bloody mire, clutching his divine sword and tumbling to and fro.

Kai Huang shook his head and walked out of the Heaven Yin Realm.

Yan Yunxi and Emperor Shitian hurried to follow him. Yan Yunxi said softly, "Did Your Majesty yield to him? He cut off a strand of your hair — with his strength, that should have been impossible."

Kai Huang shook his head and said lightly, "I yielded to him in cultivation, but not in the sword dao. The sword dao is the way of attack; he had the qualification and the strength to sever a strand of my hair."

His face was calm. "I do not wish to become the Ten Heavenly Venerables of the sword dao. Not now, and not in the future."

"The Ten Heavenly Venerables of the sword dao?"

Yan Yunxi was startled, then understood his meaning: to shackle those who come after, to grip power firmly, to hold the resources, to control everything, to leave those who come after no hope of surpassing him — was that not precisely the Ten Heavenly Venerables?

Whether Kai Huang had yielded a move to the village head Su Muzhe, Yan Yunxi could not tell; both Kai Huang and the village head surpassed her by far in sword-dao attainment.

But she could feel that state of mind in Kai Huang — the state of mind of one who has attained the dao.

Such a realm was beyond the reach of the Ten Heavenly Venerables.

Emperor Shitian Li Youran looked back toward the Heaven Yin Realm. In the Dao Fire Ancestral Ground of the Heaven Yin Realm, a towering, mighty figure stood amid layer upon layer of dao fire, his dao-realm growing ever deeper.

He could feel the way of forging advancing without cease, perfecting itself without cease.

He was no longer the First Heavenly Artisan.

Someone who came after had surpassed him — and yet in his heart there was endless joy.