Death... and me

3068  No Heart For It

Tynin was just as shocked. "No! That's not it! I didn't do it on purpose! I truly didn't!"

"Try again," Roan narrowed his eyes. Woterto and Tassio nodded. "Tynin, keep your Sword Intent active. Do not block us again, otherwise..."

"Yes, yes! I will not!" Tynin sighed in relief and maintained his Sword Intent active.

Yet, just as Woterto and Tassio began to absorb it, they were once again cut short. "Try again," Roan asked before anyone could say anything.

Then, the same thing happened once more.

"Again!" Roan insisted...

...and the same result prevailed.

Woterto and Tassio barely had time to do anything. "Alright, someone must be tired of seeing the outside light."

Tynin immediately kneeled on the ground, tears coming from his eyes. "I'm not doing it on purpose. I swear. It is happening on its own. As soon as I feel my Sword Intent going away from me, my body reacts on its own, cutting off the interaction. I... I don't know why!"

Woterto was about to complain, but Diliy stopped him. "He is not lying."

Woterto and Tassio looked back at Diliy, but it was Roan who spoke from there. "Diliy is right. He is not lying." In front of Roan, a youngster like Tynin would never be able to hide the truth. "Now we know why Kruwan trying to kill or deeply injure you, Diliy."

Diliy reached the same conclusion as Roan. "Indeed. If you don't incapacitate the target ahead of time, their own instincts will fight against it."

*Swish, swish, swish...*

*arrrgh!*

Suddenly, Diliy's sword flashed, cutting into Tynin's flesh at several points. Blood gushed out as Tynin fell to the ground in deep pain. Diliy didn't look the least bit regretful, though. "I put you in a near-death state. You won't live for more than a few minutes if you stay like that. Now, use your Sword Intent again."

Tyning gritted his teeth and forced himself up while holding his Sword. So what if he could die? That would be salvation compared to being sent back into confinement. Tassio and Worteto understood the meaning of Diliy's actions and immediately tried to absorb Tynin's Sword Intent. This time, they were able to do it for a few seconds before Tynin fell to the ground again. Still, the absorption was cut in the end.

05:46

"Seems like we were right," Diliy commented.

Roan agreed with him. "Yes. The last method would be with his death since Woterto and Tassio were still blocked in the end."

*Swish!*

In the next moment, Woterto cut Tynin's head with remorse. "Hmph! I don't like this. We set him free way too easily after what he had done."

"Don't waste time and try to absorb it," Diliy and Roan commented. They didn't pay any attention to Tynin's death at all.

Woterto and Tassio nodded and quickly resumed their trial. Sure enough, they were able to continue to absorb Tynin's Sword Intent, which lingered even after his death. It wasn't after four or so minutes later that Tynin's Sword Intent completely disappeared.

After seeing that, Roan was satisfied. "The results are out. You can be sure Kruwan wanted your life, Diliy."

Diliy didn't need to hear it from Roan to understand that fact. "Forget that piece of shit. From what I saw, Tassio and Woterto were able to absorb almost all of Tynin's Sword Intent. Just deeply injuring them is not good enough. Only with Death does it seem to be possible to truly possible to absorb a meaningful amount of Sword Intent to make any difference."

Woterto and Tassio confirmed Diliy's words. "That is correct. The little bits we absorbed earlier made no difference for us. After his death, however, we did feel a slight change."

Tassio looked at Woterto. "However, it seems like this tiny bit we absorbed was more useful for me than you."

"Yes," Woterto noticed the same thing. "I'm not at Diliy's level of Sword Intent, but I'm definitely ahead of you. To be honest, this tiny bit of improvement I got hardly makes any difference to my overall comprehension of Sword Intent."

"And that's the barrier Kruwan must have bumped into," Roan added. "At Kruwan's level, only experts like Diliy would have the necessary Sword Intent for him to progress further. The three of you have better Sword Intents than me, so when I tried to absorb yours, even the tiniest bit still made a difference to me. You, on the other hand, will not gain much if you start going after your disciples' heads."

Diliy's expression turned dark. "No one here will go after any disciple. The fact I got this far is testament you can do it on your own."

Roan snorted. "We are in the cultivation world. There are no absolutes. In any case, that's not my problem. Now that I learned how to absorb Sword Intents, it also helped me to understand what I was lacking."

Roan once again focused on his White Star Sword, and his Sword Intent appeared. Yet, it slowly began to disappear. A few minutes later, it was completely gone. Of course, all three cultivators there knew that it wasn't gone for real. Instead, Roan's had just reached Diliy's level of Sword Intent.

"Impossible..." Diliy just couldn't believe his eyes. It took so many years to get there; out of nowhere, Roan reached it in a few minutes. "What did you comprehend when you absorbed our Sword Intents?"

Roan shook his head. "Not much. All it gave me was a clue, but that clue was also where the bottleneck of my Sword Intent was located. From there onwards, I just had to push forward."

Roan then put his White Star Sword away and pulled his White Star Scythe out of the Dimensional Realm. His Scythe Intent quickly changed as well, and not long after, the Scythe Aura disappeared. "Seems like the same principles of Intent work for other weapons as well. You just need to know them."

Diliy, Woterto, and Tassio just wanted to die already. Roan literally just took a completely different weapon and reached the same level of intent with that, too. Above all, he didn't need to absorb anyone else's intent anymore. "Let's just pretend we didn't see anything... My heart won't be able to take it."

And as always, any Golden Tickets and Stones are welcome. ;)