Chapter 181 - 154: Chopping Wood Ten Thousand Times, Sweeping Through a Thousand Armies

Chapter 181: Chapter 154: Chopping Wood Ten Thousand Times, Sweeping Through a Thousand Armies

Mu Chaoyun’s tall figure plunged into the dense fog.

Her gaze narrowed as she watched the distant, glittering golden whip.

’In my current state, tangling with Deng Wan while he’s wielding a Profound Weapon is likely impossible.’

Deng Wan’s cultivation wasn’t exceptionally high. Even Mu Chaoyun, who had just broken through, was capable of severely injuring him.

Years of indulging in the city’s pleasures had dulled his former ferocity as a bandit. He had merely suppressed his violent, bloodthirsty nature deep within his veins. In terms of strength, he was a good bit weaker than Lu the Third.

However, he was fabulously wealthy and possessed numerous treasures. Right now, the golden whip alone, a Profound Weapon, was enough to make Mu Chaoyun wary.

Deng Wan wasn’t at his peak, either. He had been lightly injured by Mu Chaoyun upon entering the array, and using the Profound Weapon had consumed a great deal of his energy. Still, he was in far better shape than she was.

Mu Chaoyun paced slowly through the fog as she silently retrieved several small porcelain vials she kept close to her chest.

With a glance, she uncapped them all and downed their contents in one go.

As the pills entered her stomach, an unnatural, almost beautiful flush instantly spread across her face.

These were potent medicines, mostly used to cling to life in desperate situations. Taking so many at once would boost her condition, but their conflicting effects would cause immense harm to her body. It could even damage her foundation and impede her future on the Martial Dao.

But at this moment, Mu Chaoyun obviously wasn’t thinking about the future.

She felt a slight pain in her abdomen as a scorching, domineering energy rose from her Dantian and swiftly spread to her limbs.

Mu Chaoyun lowered her eyes. She brought her palms together, then parted them, and they were suddenly wreathed in black and white light.

Her figure flickered, melting into the fog, and in the next moment, she appeared behind Deng Wan.

Wielding the golden whip, Deng Wan keenly sensed the movement behind him and sneered, "Finally decided to stop hiding!"

He roared, flicking the whip behind him in a glittering arc of golden light.

Just as her palms were about to strike the whip, Mu Chaoyun’s body twisted strangely. As if gliding on water, she traced a graceful arc, instantly flashing to Deng Wan’s left side and thrusting her palms forward.

Deng Wan’s eyes flew open. He raised his left hand to meet her palm strike, but it didn’t land squarely. Midway, Mu Chaoyun’s palms carved another profound trajectory. Shrouded in the light of yin and yang, one struck high and the other low, enveloping Deng Wan.

Deng Wan’s pupils shrank, and alarm bells screamed in his mind.

In this moment of crisis, he displayed an agility that completely betrayed his portly frame. He dropped into a clumsy roll, awkwardly creating distance, then cleared the surrounding fog with a swing of his whip.

The forest was silent. Beyond a three-foot radius around him, everything was shrouded in a white fog as thick as milk.

Deng Wan’s expression was grim. ’She’s recovered so much of her strength in such a short time. Is she going for broke?’

The eerie black-and-white light lunged from the fog again. Not daring to be careless, Deng Wan furiously swung his golden whip, adopting a purely defensive stance that was airtight.

A heavy pressure transmitted through his Profound Weapon. Deng Wan’s face grew grave. ’The strength Mu Chaoyun is displaying right now is no weaker than Lu the Third’s!’

However...

A glint flashed in his eyes as he sneered inwardly.

’A violent storm can’t last all morning, nor a fierce wind all day.’

’You’re already severely injured. How long can you keep this up? I have a Profound Weapon and I’m only defending. What can you do to me?’

Deng Wan knew when to adapt. He turtled up, using his Profound Weapon as a shell, and for a time, he and Mu Chaoyun were locked in a stalemate.

After a moment, the pressure on him suddenly vanished. He swept his whip in a circle, but the area around him was quiet and empty.

’Can’t she keep it up anymore?’

’Or is she trying to lure the snake out of its hole?’

His expression cautious, he watched the dense fog as he slowly circled on the spot.

Mu Chaoyun had retreated several yards away, her face flushed red as if she were drunk.

She coughed silently twice, glanced at the golden light, then turned to look at the large boulder, her eyes filled with anger.

During her furious assault just now, she had happened to glance over and discovered that Xie Yuan hadn’t left!

Mu Chaoyun’s vision went dark. ’Isn’t he just wasting the chance I bought with my life?’

She gritted her teeth, withdrew from the battle, and rushed toward the boulder in two strides.

’Hesitating at a time like this... so indecisive, so irrational.’

She shouted in a hoarse voice:

"Xie Yuan! You..."

She stopped abruptly. She saw Xie Yuan sitting cross-legged, his palms held horizontally before his Dantian, levitating the Eight Trigrams Lotus. His eyes were a swirl of black and white, completely unfocused. He was clearly in a state of deep comprehension.

"You!"

Mu Chaoyun was both anxious and furious. In a rare show of emotion, she stomped her foot in frustration.

’What time does he think this is?! Still staring at that blasted Black Celestial Book! What could he possibly figure out from it now?’

Biting her red lip, she wanted to slap Xie Yuan awake but feared injuring him in his state of deep concentration. She could only call out to him in a low voice.

"Xie Yuan, Xie Yuan! Wake up..."

Xie Yuan’s body swayed. He looked up, and the ethereal quality in his eyes quickly faded.

"Miss Mu..."

"Don’t call me Miss Mu!"

Mu Chaoyun felt she had never been this angry before. Unable to stop herself, she gave him a light punch and said through gritted teeth:

"Get the hell out of here!"

She didn’t know why she was so angry herself. It was his own choice not to escape, so why was she so worked up?

If it were anyone else, with her usually detached personality, she wouldn’t have cared if they were seeking death. She might even have used them as part of a plan.

But seeing Xie Yuan waste so much time and fail to escape, Mu Chaoyun felt a sense of panic. She told herself it was just anger at his indecisiveness and his squandering of her sacrifice, but deep down, she knew this frantic feeling was different.

Xie Yuan let out a breath and suddenly said, out of the blue:

"Miss Mu, do you trust me?"

Mu Chaoyun’s slender brows knitted together. Gazing at Xie Yuan’s calm expression, she pressed her lips together and replied:

"Of course I trust you."

"And I trust that Miss Mu can protect me for just a little while longer."

Xie Yuan smiled.

"In a little while, perhaps... there will be a turning point."

[Black Celestial Book: (98/100)]

Xie Yuan glanced at the ethereal numbers before him, then quickly immersed himself once more in the unpredictable transformations of the Eight Trigrams Lotus.

He couldn’t bring himself to abandon a companion to save his own skin.

If he did something like that, he feared he would never again be able to focus wholeheartedly on his training for countless days and nights to come—not even with the help of his panel.

After all, if he abandoned Mu Chaoyun and fled when there was still a sliver of hope, he knew that for the rest of his life, even the sight of a blooming flower garden would feel like a painful, glaring sting to his heart.

Besides, if he didn’t fight for this slim chance, even if he did manage to escape, how could he possibly evade the pursuit of two Grandmasters—Deng Wan and, eventually, Lu the Third—once Mu Chaoyun was defeated?

He had to give it his all.

’When paths are narrow, the brave are victorious.’

Seeing Xie Yuan sink back into his state of comprehension, Mu Chaoyun gritted her teeth and turned back to enter the array.

’Can he really comprehend anything in such a short time?’

’He looks just like those people in my clan who were seduced by the Black Celestial Book.’

’But right now, what choice do I have but to trust him?’

Mu Chaoyun’s expression became serene. Since he needed time, she would risk her life to buy him some.

She silently approached the figure glittering with golden light in the fog, raised her palms, and struck.

...

[Black Celestial Book: (99/100)]

’Almost there, almost there...’

’Just a little bit more.’

Sweat beaded on Xie Yuan’s forehead. His focus was sharper than ever as he sank into the world of the lotus’s birth and decay.

He felt as if he were at the very heart of the lotus, surrounded by enormous petals that enveloped him. They constantly opened and closed, withered and were reborn. Each cycle contained countless profound principles.

Gradually, he began to discern a pattern in the petals’ movements. With every tremor of the giant petals, faint, flickering figures with blades and weapons seemed to appear upon them.

An old man with a white beard and hair throwing a punch; a young child practicing his stances; a nocturnal rover leaping high through the night; cavalry charging across a battlefield...

Xie Yuan looked closer. Each petal seemed to reflect the experience of training, each one a complete Cultivation Technique!

[Black Celestial Book: (100/100)]

Xie Yuan stood within the giant black-and-white lotus as countless petals, like high walls around him, trembled in unison.

Countless figures displayed their Cultivation Techniques, each executing a Divine Skill. An endless storm of fists and blades bored into Xie Yuan’s mind, nearly driving him mad!

"No! I can’t look at them all..."

Xie Yuan closed his eyes and chose to feel with his heart instead. His spirit broke free from the enclosure of the petal walls, soaring high above to look down, and his thoughts became clear once more.

He saw the countless petals, the countless Cultivation Techniques. And he saw, sitting above them all, a small, dark lotus. It was inconspicuous, hidden and formless, yet impossible to ignore, reigning supreme over the thousands of techniques below.

"The Celestial Concealment Skill..."

Understanding dawned in Xie Yuan’s heart, and he instinctively reached for that lotus.

But as he looked at the many petals below, he was unwilling to let them go. He couldn’t help but reach out his other hand, instinctively grabbing at the petals.

"One in each hand! I want them all!"

He extended his hands and drew them back. Looking down, he saw he was holding the dark lotus in his left hand, and a rotten, decaying wood-chopping axe in his right.

"What is this... Can’t forget my old trade, I guess."

Xie Yuan’s thoughts drifted. Just as his mind began to wander, he was ejected from the world of the giant lotus.

Back in reality, he was still holding the Eight Trigrams Lotus, as if nothing had changed at all.

’What’s going on?’

Before he could even react, a storm erupted in his mind with a deafening ROAR.

An invisible, dark lotus flew from an unknown place to spin quietly in his sea of consciousness. Profound knowledge flooded his mind, and all the wonders of the Celestial Concealment Skill were imprinted upon his heart.

[Celestial Concealment Skill: Novice]...

[Celestial Concealment Skill: Proficient]...

[Celestial Concealment Skill: Mastery]...

[Celestial Concealment Skill: Minor Success (1/5000)]

In a single instant, the Celestial Concealment Skill had jumped three realms, directly reaching Minor Success.

Xie Yuan recalled that, by Mu Chaoyun’s own description, her proficiency was only around the early stage of Mastery.

Before he could be surprised, Xie Yuan suddenly heard a sound—THWACK, THWACK, THWACK—coming from an unknown source.

The sound was all too familiar to Xie Yuan. Whether in the past or now, whenever he had free time, he would always pick up his wood-chopping axe and split firewood. He heard that sound every day.

’Who’s Chopping Wood?’

’It seems... it’s me...’

Xie Yuan’s memories shifted, as if a past life’s memories had been added to his mind.

He had chopped wood for decades. The horizontal and vertical swings of his axe had become instinct. With the "Three Axe Swings" he had comprehended, he was unrivaled in his village, capable of fighting tigers and bears, and he gradually made a name for himself.

The world was suddenly thrown into chaos. He enlisted in the army and, relying on his axe, repeatedly earned military honors, becoming a renowned general.

However, during one ambush, his subordinates were decimated. He was trapped, surrounded by a force sent specifically to kill him—Martial Dao experts and elite soldiers, layered three deep.

Outnumbered and caught in a deathtrap, his eyes widened in fury. He swung his great axe, pouring decades of accumulated experience into a single blow.

A terrifying ring of light erupted outwards. Within a ten-zhang radius, no one was left standing.

[Through accumulated days and months of ceaseless axe swings, in this moment of certain death, you have a sudden epiphany and comprehend "Sweeping Through a Thousand Armies."]