Zhang Ruochen’s gaze was fixed on the upper left side of the stone wall, where there was the word “Heaven”.
As his own Sword Intent, and the Sword Intent of the font, overlapped with each other, gradually, the words on the stone wall rotated and flew out, transforming into a gatekeeper with a translucent body.
The gatekeeper of the first level of the third mountain was obviously many times more powerful than the gatekeepers of the previous two mountains, and was condensed from the Sword Saint’s Sword Dao Intent.
The gatekeeper had only just flown out and casually stood on the opposite side, giving Zhang Ruochen a huge oppressive force.
“Defeat me and you can break through this level.”
The gatekeeper’s hands came together, and a bright and dazzling light emanated from the intersection of his palms.
A three-foot long sword, from the light, flew out.
“Swish!”
Zhang Ruochen also immediately drew the Valley Water Sword and mobilised the sword intent of his entire body, injecting it into the interior of the sword body along with the true qi in his body.
Immediately, hundreds of sword-shaped sword qi appeared within a thirty-foot radius, as if it was a vortex, rotating around his body.
The Gatekeeper had cultivated Sword One to the ninth level of the realm and was in between Zhang Ruochen.
However, the Gatekeeper was condensed from the Sword Sage’s Sword Dao Idea, and in certain aspects of his ability, on the other hand, he was far superior to Zhang Ruochen.
Hence, Zhang Ruochen did not dare to make any move, instead, he stared at the other party with full concentration, ready to respond to all changes with no change.
That big man clasped his hands in front of his chest with an air of calmness, looking at Zhang Ruochen from afar, “I hope I won’t be disappointed.”
“Swish!”
The gatekeeper took the lead, thrusting his longsword forward and attacking.
Both the person and the sword transformed into a white stream of light, like a meteor breaking through the air, reaching Zhang Ruochen’s body in an instant.
What a fast speed.
It was Zhang Ruochen’s first time to fight against such a powerful Sword Dao expert, and he was quite inexperienced. Thus, in the first moment, he was somewhat unable to adapt and could not think of any moves that could break the opponent’s attack.
Thus, he could only cross his sword and block, pushing his entire body’s holy qi, forward.
The body of the Gu Shui Sword, which collided with the Guan Guan’s stabbing sword, curved slightly, and then formed a catapulting force that sent Zhang Ruochen flying backwards.
Zhang Ruochen flew straight out hundreds of metres away and landed on top of the cliff, looking like he was about to fall down the Ancient God Mountain.
Suddenly, he immediately mobilised the power of the five elements, and the aura of the earth attribute, the aura of the water attribute, and the aura of the wood attribute converged towards him in a steady stream, forming a tri-coloured aura cloud.
With both feet stomping on the Qi cloud, Zhang Ruochen rushed back again and landed at the foot of the third mountain once more.
“What a formidable guardian, just a single sword is so powerful.”Zhang Ruochen held his breath, secretly admonishing himself that he had to be more careful and cautious.
Fighting the gatekeeper head on, Zhang Ruochen in truly realised that his own combat experience was lacking, especially the experience of fighting against top sword dao experts.
Qi Fayu had only cultivated Sword One to the eighth level of the realm, and was able to fight against the Gatekeeper for more than 2,000 moves until the Holy Qi was difficult to sustain, and only lost by one move.
He had already cultivated Sword One to the ninth layer of the realm, and was a little more advanced than Qi Fayu, but under the barrier keeper’s attack, he was caught off guard, and almost couldn’t block a single move.
In the end, it was still because, the experience was too insufficient.
In fact, Qi Fayu might not necessarily be even more advanced than Zhang Ruochen, the key was that it wasn’t the first time she had fought with the Pass Keeper, and thus, knew a lot of strategies to deal with it.
When that big man saw that the gatekeeper had repelled Zhang Ruochen with just one move, a disappointed look appeared in his eyes and he gently shook his head.
Originally, he thought that a sword dao wizard had really come out of the clan, and he was a little impatient to meet this person, but he never thought that this person’s sword dao was so poor.
Could it be that Lin Yue had really just received a strange encounter, and that was why in a short period of time, he had become so powerful?
A strange encounter could indeed make a cultivator’s strength, in a short period of time, reach an astonishing height. But relying only on strange encounters, one could never become a topmost powerhouse.
Zhang Ruochen wasn’t discouraged, although just now, the Gatekeeper’s attack had indeed caught him a little off guard.
However, now that he had a certain understanding of the Gatekeeper’s strength, he naturally knew how to deal with it next.
“Wow.”
Zhang Ruochen controlled the Martial Soul and released it.
The aura of the Martial Soul was so powerful that it manifested behind Zhang Ruochen into a huge three-length tall shadow. Under the mobilisation of the Martial Soul, the surrounding aura, like a tidal wave, gathered towards Zhang Ruochen in a steady stream.
In an instant, the aura on Zhang Ruochen’s body climbed by a large margin, and the whole person’s essence was greatly enhanced again.
Not only had Zhang Ruochen refined the Half-Saint’s Light, but also, he had absorbed quite a lot of Saint Dragon Qi from the Dragon Pearl. His martial soul was, naturally, quite powerful.
That big man was originally very disappointed with Lin Yue and was ready to leave, when he saw Lin Yue’s martial soul, another strange lustre appeared in his eyes, so he temporarily stopped.
“In the Fish Dragon Realm, I’m afraid that there aren’t many people whose martial souls are stronger than his.”That big man’s heart secretly said. Moreover, he could clearly feel that the intensity of the sword intent on Lin Yue’s body had grown quite a bit more.
Could it be that earlier, he hadn’t shown his full strength at all?
If that was the case, then the next battle was still worth continuing to look forward to.
The gatekeeper held his sword in one hand, and in mid-air, he drew a sword qi circle with a diameter of three zhang. Eighty-one powerful sword qi were rapidly rotating in the circle, emitting gusts of wind and thunder.
As the gatekeeper swung out, the sword qi circle set off a huge storm that enveloped Zhang Ruochen.
“Boom!”
Zhang Ruochen grabbed the Valley Water Sword and violently struck it towards the ground, and instantly, the ground shook violently, tearing open a long gully that stretched towards the gatekeeper.
“Imperial Sword.”
The Valley Water Sword passed through the gully and charged straight up from the ground, creating a piece of bone-piercing cold air. Even though the gatekeeper retreated extremely fast, he was still frozen half of his body by the cold air from the sword.
Taking advantage of this opportunity, Zhang Ruochen rushed forward, his finger quickly pointing forward and striking a sword wave, striking at the centre of the circle of sword Qi.
Because of the loss of the gatekeeper’s control, the power contained in the Sword Qi Circle naturally dropped a lot, and suffered from the attack of the sword wave, shattering apart in an instant.
Piercing through the sword qi circle, Zhang Ruochen immediately sped over and quickly attacked the gatekeeper.
“Boom Boom!”
The two of them quickly exchanged blows, constantly attacking with sword techniques, fighting on equal footing.
After a series of one hundred and thirty-eight strokes, it was ultimately the Gatekeeper who was more skilled, and his sword pierced through Zhang Ruochen’s Protective Sacred Deity, and the tip of the sword pierced through the skin at the location of his heart, leaving behind a spot of blood.
In fact, even if the Gatekeeper continued to stab, he could not help Zhang Ruochen.
This was because Zhang Ruochen’s heart was guarded by the Dragon Pearl, which was enough to bounce back the gatekeeper’s sword.
However, the gatekeeper did not know this and only thought that with that sword just now, he had the ability to strike through Zhang Ruochen’s heart.
The gatekeeper took his sword back and said expressionlessly, “You have failed to break through the gate for the first time, after one hour, you will have a second chance to break through the gate.”
With that, the gatekeeper took a quick step backward and leapt back to the stone wall, reshaping into a text.
Zhang Ruochen looked at the blood spot at the location of his heart and smiled hopelessly, although, he had the ability to defend against this sword, it was undeniable that he had indeed lost to the gatekeeper just now.
The first level of the first heavy mountain, on the first day of every month, there was only one chance to break through.
The first level of the third mountain, on the first day of every month, however, had three chances to break through.
Just now, when he fought with the gatekeeper, Zhang Ruochen didn’t suffer too much injury, and only consumed some of his True Qi.
Anyway, there were still two more chances to break through the barrier, so Zhang Ruochen was not in a hurry, swallowing a mouthful of Wood Spirit Red Still Water, sitting on the ground, running his gongfu, and starting to recover his true qi.
Of course, Zhang Ruochen also detached a spiritual force to secretly guard against that big man.
After all, he had still offended quite a few people in the Two Element Sect, and it was possible that both Qi Fayu and Xu Changsheng might invite experts to deal with him, so there was no harm in being careful after all.
“Quite cautious.”
That big man smiled slightly, and with just a gentle lift of his palm, he instantly sent Zhang Ruochen’s spiritual energy surging backward, forcing it back three feet away, unable to get close to his body at all.
Spending an hour, Zhang Ruochen not only just restored his True Qi to its peak state, but also made full use of this time to re-digest the battle he had just fought.
In the Sea of Qi, he used the Heart of Sword Intent to break down each and every one of the Guardsman’s moves, carefully trying to figure out the subtleties and carefully searching for any breaks in them.
It seemed like just a short hour, but Zhang Ruochen’s understanding of the Sword Dao had improved quite a bit.
“Break through the barrier again and give it a try.”
Zhang Ruochen stood up, a sharp light in his eyes as he took big steps towards the stone wall.
This time, his gaze was still fixed towards the word ‘Heaven’ as the gatekeeper once again flew out from the stone wall.
Without any words, the two quickly battled together.
Zhang Ruochen did not take the initiative to launch an attack, he simply saw the moves and kept observing the way the gatekeeper made his moves.
Soon, one hundred moves passed, and Zhang Ruochen still appeared to be calm and unruffled, and did not show the slightest sign of rout.
Next, two hundred moves, three hundred moves, four hundred moves
When Zhang Ruochen had exchanged a thousand moves with the gatekeeper, the big man who stood on the sidelines was finally a little moved, and could not help but reveal a look of approval as he muttered to himself, ”In just one hour, the progress has turned out to be so great, this son’s enlightenment is too astonishing. In that case, it seems that the second level of the Third Heavy Mountain should not be able to stop him.”
It had been a battle of 2,000 moves, and Zhang Ruochen and the gatekeeper had not been able to distinguish a winner from a loser.
However, Zhang Ruochen took the initiative to admit defeat.
Zhang Ruochen once again took the Wood Spirit Red Stillwater and continued to start recovering his True Qi.
After spending a whole hour, Zhang Ruochen recovered his True Qi again, reaching his peak state again.
His gaze, glancing in the direction of the mountaintop, locked onto the location of that Sword Pavilion, he took a deep breath and muttered, “This time, it should be about right!”
Even that big man, he was also rather looking forward to it.
He was curious to know, after going through this cultivation, Lin Yue’s strength, how high had it risen to?
Could he defeat the gatekeeper?
