Chapter 1455 — Dancing Butterflies, Charmed by Fragrance; the Fragrance Speaks Not
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 3
The blood-hued baleful aura of the God-Slaying Platform was refined by Shen Mu, Zaifu, and the other three, and stored within their bodies; their cultivation and strength waxed ever greater, and their comprehension of the realm that was the God-Slaying Platform grew ever deeper.
Their attainments in the Saber Dao rose with the tide as well.
The Dao the God-Slaying Platform contained was not the Saber Dao but the Dao of Baleful Aura within the Great Dao of Heaven and Earth, and it held besides a tempering of the Dao heart.
To refine the baleful aura and wrest away the might of the Blood-Bale God-Slaying Sabers could only raise their cultivation and deepen their insight into the Dao of Baleful Aura; it could not raise their attainments in the Saber Dao.
That they had advanced so mightily in the Saber Dao was in truth owing to the advancement of their Dao hearts, and to the saber arts and saber Dao they had comprehended for themselves in the course of contending against the baleful god-sabers.
Among the five, every one but Shen Mu was wanting in the tempering of the Dao heart; in ordinary times they could never have entered the God-Slaying Platform — the trial of the Dao heart alone was more than they could endure, and they could not have withstood the Platform's slaying. But Shen Mu's Dao heart was overbearing enough; in Surging River Enlightenment the essence, qi, and spirit of the five were refined into one, and with the Saber Dao they branded the twenty-fifth layer of the void — and it was under the lead of Shen Mu's Dao heart that the Dao hearts of Zaifu, Zhe Huali, and the rest were forcibly raised up.
That Zaifu and the others could stand upon the God-Slaying Platform was likewise owed to Surging River Enlightenment and to branding the Saber Dao into the twenty-fifth heaven. Had Shen Mu stood there alone, he too could not have gained a foothold; the might of the two Blood-Bale God-Slaying Sabers was simply too great.
His Dao heart might bear it, but his fleshly body and primordial spirit could not be kept whole, and his Great Dao would be severed as well.
Standing alone upon the platform, he would only be slain again and again, and could comprehend nothing. His Dao heart was strong, but his attainments in the Saber Dao were still somewhat weak; in Surging River Enlightenment, that he could brand the Saber Dao into the twenty-fifth heaven rested upon the joined strength of the other four ancestors of the Saber Dao, not his own merit alone.
Only with the five joining hands could they reach such a height, and only so did they have the wherewithal to contend with the God-Slaying Platform.
And now, that their Saber Dao was branded into the twenty-seventh layer of the void was likewise owed to the five joining hands, borrowing the Platform's might and gathering the wisdom of all five to lift the Dao of the Saber to the height of the twenty-seventh heaven. They needed the five of them joined to summon forth the power of the Saber Dao's twenty-seventh heaven.
Five cobblers together still could not match one Kaihuang.
Kaihuang, by his own strength alone, had deduced the Sword Dao to the thirty-fifth heaven and branded it into the thirty-fifth layer of the void, far beyond them in might.
Yet their Saber Dao was still advancing, on the verge of breaking through to the twenty-eighth heaven, to brand the Saber Dao into the twenty-eighth layer of the void.
Only, the further they pressed, the harder it became; to rise to the twenty-eighth heaven would not be easy.
The might of the two Blood-Bale God-Slaying Sabers on the Platform was still exceedingly overbearing, and the threat they posed still immense; Zaifu and the others still had to spend every ounce of their strength to withstand the two god-sabers, and even so they were wounded without cease.