When Zhang Ruochen revealed his true strength in the Martial Market Arena, Zhang Tiangui should have already determined that he was “Chen Ruo”.
In that case, wouldn’t the Sword Mind Realm be exposed as well?
“Chen Ruo’s use of the Sword Mind Realm had only been witnessed by Lin Nianshan, and although Lin Nianshan had later told Zhang Tiangui and Lin Chenyu, they hadn’t believed him at all.
After all, amongst the legends, only Half-Saints, could reach the Sword Heart Understanding.
They only thought that Lin Shanshan’s cultivation level was too low, and that’s why they mistakenly thought that Chen Ruo had reached the realm of Sword Heart Enlightenment.
It was like an ant mistaking an elephant for a mountain.
Seeing Zhang Ruochen’s indifference, Lin Chenyu laughed coldly and said, “Zhang Ruochen, the person standing in front of you is Sister Han Chu, the daughter of the Head of Yuntai Zongfu. Senior Sister Han Chu’s attainments in swordsmanship have long since reached the realm of the unfathomable. Her initiative to compete with you is to give you face, don’t be shameless. Don’t think that you’re so great just because your sword skill is superior, there’s a sky beyond the sky, and there’s a man beyond the man, maybe you won’t even be able to catch ten moves from Senior Sister Han Chu.”
Han Chu’s brows frowned slightly as she chortled coldly, “I’m arguing with Zhang Ruochen over the sword, what are you, a lackey, interrupting?”
“Senior sister redeems herself.”
Lin Chenyu’s face went white and he immediately knelt on the ground, his hands crouching on the ground in a very frightened manner.
In Han Chu’s eyes, Lin Chenyu was just a lackey of Zhang Tiangui, yet Zhang Ruochen was a young genius who was able to defeat Qing Chibai in swordsmanship. The two men’s statuses were worlds apart.
Han Chu could make friends with Zhang Ruochen in swordplay, but he would never be an equal friend with Lin Chenyu.
Most of all, Han Chu did not know about the conflict between Zhang Tiangui and Zhang Ruochen, and treated Zhang Ruochen as one of Zhang Tiangui’s genius younger brother.
Han Chu stared at Lin Chenyu and said contemptuously, ”You are also qualified to call me senior sister? Since you said the wrong thing, you should naturally be punished. Cut out your tongue yourself so that I don’t have to do it myself.”
Lin Chenyu’s eyes panicked and looked towards Zhang Tianwei for help.
One must know that Lin Chenyu had already suffered a palace punishment and a broken arm, if he even had his tongue cut out, it simply couldn’t be more miserable.
Zhang Tiangui said, “Senior Sister Han, Lin Chenyu is actually Zhang Ruochen’s cousin.”
“Oh!”
Han Chu was a bit surprised, previously, she only knew that Lin Chenyu was a slave beside Zhang Tiangui, but she didn’t realise that he had such an identity. A small person such as Zhang Tian Gui, Han Chu did not pay much attention to.
To actually take Zhang Ruochen’s cousin as a slave, in that case, Zhang Tiangui’s relationship with Zhang Ruochen was probably not as harmonious as it appeared.
Han Qiu no longer paid attention to Lin Chenyu, his eyes stared over towards Zhang Ruochen and decided to explain clearly, “Ninth Prince, I sincerely want to exchange sword techniques with you, I don’t mean anything else, I hope you don’t think too much about it.”
Zhang Ruochen said, “Alright! It’s just a sword competition, it’s not that big of a deal.”
Han Chu’s heart rejoiced, finally being able to spar with a sword master of the same level.
It was unknown what level Zhang Ruochen had reached in terms of his attainments in swordsmanship.
In the sky, snowflakes drifted, and the entire sky and earth were white.
Those guards, eunuchs, and palace maids who were busy also stopped and looked at Zhang Ruochen and Han Qiu standing in the snow from afar.
They appeared very excited, martial arts experts competing with swords was not something that could be seen at any time.
“I’ve always heard that His Highness the Ninth Prince’s sword skills are superior, I wonder to what extent?”
“It’s definitely already transcendent, it’s not something we can imagine.”
“The person fighting with His Highness the Ninth Prince is the Heavenly Pride of the Yuntai Zongfu, does His Highness the Ninth Prince have any certainty of winning?”
“The Yuntai Zongfu is a holy land of martial arts, even the Great King was a disciple of the Yuntai Zongfu back then. The sword technique she is using is surely exquisite, and Your Highness the Ninth Prince will probably find it hard to win.”
Zhang Ruochen’s left hand was behind his back, and his right hand transformed into a phantom, reaching forward and using two fingers, he accurately caught a snowflake floating in mid-air.
The snowflake was very thin, crystal clear, and emitted a faint cold aura.
The strange thing was that the snowflake clamped between his fingers actually did not melt.
“Swish swish!”
Zhang Ruochen’s arm continued to extend, presenting dozens of phantom shadows in front of his body.
When his hand came back to a stop, one hundred and eight snowflakes appeared on his fingertips, connecting into a long string to form a crystal clear sword.
The surrounding eunuchs and palace maids, all of them sucked in a breath of cold air and let out gasps of surprise.
Just this “snow into a sword” was already subtle to the extreme.
Only by reaching the peak of the sword following the heart could one achieve the realm where every flower and every blade of grass could be turned into a sword. Even a single snowflake could become a sword in Zhang Ruochen’s hands.
“Amazing!”
After Han Qiu saw Zhang Ruochen’s technique, she also immediately stretched out her two slender jade fingers and waved her arms ceaselessly, and soon, she also condensed a piece of snowflake into a sword with a piece of snowflake.
Only, the sword she condensed was only seventy-two snowflakes.
This was already the limit of what she could do!
Zhang Ruochen swung the Ice Crystal Snow Sword, the true qi in his body exuded outwards, and the snow on the ground all flew up under the surge of the sword qi, forming a vortex of sword qi.
Han Qiu looked at Zhang Ruochen who was standing in the midst of the flying snow and gently shook his head, saying, “There’s no need to compete, in terms of sword attainment, I’m not as good as you.”
“Wow.”
The Ice Crystal Snow Sword in her hand cracked and turned into seventy-two snowflakes that fell to the ground.
Zhang Ruochen also collected his True Qi and threw the Ice Crystal Snow Sword in his hand, turning it into a snowflake.
Han Qiu stared at the back of that one teenager, her beautiful eyes rippling as her voice was clear and crisp, “Your Highness, the Ninth Prince’s sword skill is superior, I hope that when we return to the Heavenly Demon Martial City, we’ll still have time to discuss swords together.”
“Miss Han’s sword skill is also very superior, the younger generation is considered to be at the top level. Farewell!” Zhang Ruochen said.
Han Chu’s attainments in swordsmanship were indeed quite impressive, and at a young age, she had already reached the peak realm of Sword Follows Heart, and was not far from Half-Saint disciple Qing Chi Bai.
Han Chu stared at the departing Zhang Ruochen, his eyes revealing a few moments of admiration as he said, “With his natural talent, in at most five more years, the number one expert of the younger generation will be him.”
When Zhang Tian Gui saw Han Qiu’s expression, a few points of killing intent appeared in his eyes.
Zhang Ruochen was nothing, he was not even in his eyes before, and now he had actually cultivated his sword technique to such a state. Fortunately, his cultivation level was still not high, it was not a difficult task to deal with him, just a little bit of tactics would make him die in the cradle.
The winter solstice day, the sacrificial ceremony.
What was the most important thing for a county?
Of course it was the Sacrifice Ceremony.
Not only was it every county, but even every clan, every family, every city, every village and town, all of them viewed the sacrifice as a top priority.
Because, only at the time of the sacrifice could the gods be communicated with.
Only by communicating with the gods could humans open the Divine Martial Seal and embark on the path of cultivation, thus becoming martial artists.
Without opening the Divine Martial Seal, humans would not be able to absorb aura into their bodies.
A country’s national festival was especially important, determining the rise and fall of a country. The grander the sacrifice, the more Divine Martial Seals the gods bestowed, and the higher the grade of the Divine Martial Seals.
The more martial artists a country had, the stronger the country would be.
The Yunwu County Country’s national festival could only be considered a medium level of festival. However, in the eyes of those martial artists of the Yunwu County Kingdom, it was already considered a rather remarkable festival.
Almost all of the humans in the royal city gathered at the Shrine of the Emperors, and at a glance, one could not see the end of the sea of people.
Sacrifice was an incomparably sacred matter, even those evil martial artists didn’t dare to make trouble during the sacrificial ceremony for fear of angering the gods and suffering the wrath of heaven.
This year’s sacrificial ceremony was hosted by the Seventh Prince Zhang Tiangui instead of the Yunwu County King, which seemed to be revealing a signal to the crowd that the Yunwu County Kingdom had the intention to establish Zhang Tiangui as the son of the throne.
This year’s sacrificial ceremony appeared to be unprecedentedly grand, with more than 100,000 cows and sheep used for the sacrifice alone, as well as thousands of huge-bodied savage beasts.
After the bell rang, the State Master began to read out the sacrificial text.
Subsequently, Zhang Tiangui led the civil and military officials and ascended the altar with a spirited look, as if he was already the county king of Yunwu County Kingdom.
Standing on top of the high altar, Zhang Tiangui looked around for Zhang Ruochen’s figure, but he didn’t find Zhang Ruochen at all, and in his heart, he was quite pleased with himself, thinking that Zhang Ruochen must have not come to participate in the sacrificial ceremony at all because he had been robbed of the limelight.
Zhang Tiangui merged his true qi into his voice and said aloud, “Ritual Ceremony, begin.”
On the altar, *screws*, and the sound of a large horn rang out, making a sound that shook the heavens and moved the earth. At the same time, various musical instruments followed suit.
One by one, sergeants in armour began to behead livestock and put blood into the altar, sacrificing blood to the gods.
Under the impetus of the blood, the altar began to slowly operate, and an ancient inscription appeared.
“Wow!”
A thick pillar of blood rushed up from the altar and shot straight up high into the sky, shattering the clouds as if it was going to rush into the vast emptiness.
Meanwhile, Zhang Ruochen sat in the centre of a hall in the royal palace.
The Martial Soul, which flew out from his body, took on a divine form and radiated ten thousand lights.
“Transform!”
The Martial Soul suddenly changed its appearance, turning into a divine figure in blood-red armour, its feet stepping on the auspicious clouds as it flew out of the royal palace to the sky above the Shrine of the Emperors.
Before Zhang Ruochen had cultivated into the body of a False God, ordinary people couldn’t even see his martial soul. However, it was different now, as long as he was willing, even ordinary people who hadn’t cultivated martial arts could see the virtual shadow of his martial soul.
Of course, the prerequisite was that he took the initiative to release his False God Body, otherwise, ordinary people would still not be able to see his martial soul.
The divine shadow became bigger and bigger, swelling to a hundred and twenty feet tall, his eyes were like two blazing suns as he looked down at the crowd below, exuding an incomparably terrifying aura.
It was almost like a projection of a god appearing in the human world.
I don’t know who was the first to discover the divine shadow above the sky, and excitedly said, ”The divine spirit has manifested! The deity has manifested ……”
Subsequently, all of the people raised their heads and looked towards the gigantic divine shadow above the dome of the sky.
“It’s the deity ……”
“Quickly kneel to the deity.”
Throughout the entire royal city, almost everyone knelt on the ground and bowed to that one divine shadow above the dome of the sky, both excited and pious.
Deities manifesting saints, in the Kunlun Realm, it was not an unheard of thing, it was just that the number of times it appeared was quite low, and, moreover, it almost only appeared in that kind of top-notch sacrificial holy ceremonies.
The appearance of a divine spirit manifesting was bound to be blessed by the gods, proving that the gods were paying attention to the people of a side of the world.
Not only those poor people, even those martial artists with strong cultivation and court officials were excited. What an honour it was for the Yunwu County Kingdom to actually have a deity manifest itself.
“A deity manifesting while I’m presiding over a sacrificial ceremony, could it be foreshadowing something?”
Zhang Tiangui’s heart was so excited that he immediately knelt down on the ground and bowed to the deity’s silhouette above, his mouth exclaiming, “Heaven blesses the Yunwu County Kingdom, Mortal Zhang Tiangui bows to the True God Lord!”
Since His Royal Highness the Seventh Prince had already knelt down and worshipped, the State Master, the Grand Marshal, the General …… and all the officials all knelt down and kept kowtowing. It was hoped that their piety could be known by the gods, thus sending down blessings.
The blessings of the gods, even if it was just a little bit, would allow them to be used endlessly.
Even the Queen Mother, who was sitting above, immediately stepped down from the golden phoenix seat, rolled up her dress, knelt on the ground, and respectfully bowed to the divine shadow.
