Chapter 186: Comprehending Sword Intent

Jiuyou walked slowly to the stone wall, his gaze lingering on each sword mark. From time to time, he reached out to touch them, his fingertips gliding slowly along their paths.

The marks varied in depth. Some were perfectly straight, while others carried a slight curve. Each strike was steady and powerful, as if someone had chopped the exact same spot countless times just to leave a single trace.

He closed his eyes, keeping his fingertips pressed against the stone. It was as if he could feel the rhythm and power of Perfected Jinli's sword swings across a thousand years.

He stopped in front of a relatively flat section of the wall. The sword marks there were sparse, seemingly left blank on purpose.

Jiuyou hesitated no longer. He raised his hand and summoned an Ember Moon Sword. With a flash of sword light, he slashed horizontally. After an ear-piercing scrape, only a shallow white mark remained on the stone surface. It looked as if it had been lightly brushed by a blunt object, completely harmless to the block of forbidden spirit treasure.

He frowned, channeled more magical power, and swung the sword again. This strike carried much heavier force, but when it landed on the forbidden spirit treasure, it left nothing more than a scratch slightly longer than the last. Its depth remained practically unchanged.

"As expected of a forbidden spirit treasure. Even scraping the surface is difficult, and it only becomes harder to destroy the deeper you go." He retracted his sword, his gaze darkening slightly. "Even a full-force strike with my Nascent Soul Late Stage cultivation barely achieves this much."

He did not stop. With a single thought, forty-two Ember Moon Swords flew out simultaneously. They gathered into a golden torrent above his head, spinning like a wheel, their tips pointed straight at the stone wall. With a long, ringing hum, the golden light slammed violently into the stone. The bombardment lasted for several breaths before slowly coming to a halt.

Stone fragments scattered. Once the dust settled, a crater about one meter deep appeared in the wall. The cut was clean, as if it had been carved out by a thick pillar of light.

Jiuyou looked at the crater, then examined the deeper, much older sword marks surrounding it. The deepest was a full eight zhang deep. Its cut was perfectly smooth, like sliced tofu. His gaze darkened for a moment, as though he were recalculating something.

A moment later, he spoke in a low voice. "I know it is extremely difficult to leave a mark on a forbidden spirit treasure. But the deepest sword mark this person left behind exceeds eight zhang—" He paused. "—If it were purely based on magical power, I'm afraid even a Deity Transformation Cultivator might not be able to achieve this. Perfected Jinli most likely did not break the wall with sheer force, but utilized some kind of more profound power."

He did not say the word aloud, but he already had a faint idea of the answer.

Sword Intent.

Only Sword Intent could leave such deep marks in a material like forbidden spirit treasure.

He reached out to touch the crater he had just made, then looked at the crisscrossing old marks of varying depths around him, silently measuring the gap between them. He had originally thought his strength was enough to handle the vast majority of situations, but this stone wall had shown him an even higher mountain today.

If Perfected Jinli were still alive and both were at their peak, Jiuyou feared he wouldn't last ten exchanges. He did not deny this fact. He merely stood there in silence, waiting for the thought to settle.

Once it settled, he didn't look at the sword marks anymore. He simply turned around and walked a few steps back the way he came, as if he had already seen everything he needed to see. The underground space was as quiet as before. The sword marks remained on the wall, as if waiting for the next person who would stop to touch them.

Jiuyou's gaze slowly drifted among the sword marks, and his divine sense seeped into the stone along with it. It was as if he were gazing across a thousand ages, looking from afar at the figure wielding the sword. He saw how that person gripped the hilt, how he built up his momentum, and how he delivered the strike. The angle, force, and speed at which the sword edge cut into the stone, as well as the trajectory of the Sword Intent bursting forth in that instant—it was all contained within those carvings.

He did not deliberately try to deduce anything. Instead, he let his divine sense slowly glide along the paths of the sword marks, over and over again, as if he were replicating another person's breathing.

He suddenly opened his eyes.

Within every single sword mark across the six walls of forbidden spirit treasure, a faint trace of Sword Intent still lingered. The sharp edge from a thousand years ago was now reduced to a wisp of an aftertaste, drifting in and out of perception like a candle on the verge of going out. But even a lingering remnant was enough to make him reevaluate Perfected Jinli's realm.

"To think that Sword Intent still lingers within these marks," Jiuyou said softly, his gaze never leaving the wall. "It seems this person knew back then that he might not return, so he left these sword marks here as an opportunity for someone destined to find them."

He didn't jump to conclusions immediately. He simply let the thought settle in his mind, and then his fingertips twitched slightly. An Ember Moon Sword flew out from his sleeve, circled him once, and flew toward the depths of the stone wall on its own.

Jiuyou followed it. The Ember Moon Sword stopped in front of the wall where he had blasted a crater, hovering in midair and advancing no further.

He stepped forward. His gaze fell on the crater, then looked into the interior of the stone following the direction of the sword tip. He reached out and touched the stone at the bottom of the crater. A very faint warmth transmitted to his fingertips, entirely different from the icy stone wall surrounding it.

"There's another layer of space behind this." His gaze narrowed slightly. He drove the Ember Moon Sword once more, slashing into the crater. This time, it only advanced less than half a meter before its momentum was exhausted. He retracted the sword and made an estimation. "It will likely only get harder from here. If I can't condense Sword Intent, relying solely on magical power will probably never be enough to pierce through this layer of forbidden spirit treasure. At a rough estimate, it is at least ten zhang thick. And that's just a broad guess based on the older sword marks. The true thickness is probably far greater."

He didn't continue trying, nor did he rush to look for a trick. He sifted through all the Bamboo Scrolls and ancient texts in the cave, summoned the Ember Moon Sword to test it over and over again, and finally even inspected the Yin-Yang Array Disk multiple times. But an array disk would always have only two sides; a third side would never appear. Naturally, there were no shortcuts to take.

After confirming this, Jiuyou finally stopped.

He sat down cross-legged, closed his eyes, and regulated his breathing. When his mind reached its absolute clearest state, he opened his eyes again, his gaze landing on those sword marks.

This time, he wasn't in a hurry to look for anything. He simply calmed his mind, letting his gaze slowly wander along the flow of the sword marks. It was like following a pre-existing vein, slowly probing into the depths.

The sword marks remained quietly on the wall. A thousand years had passed, and no one stopped to look at them anymore. Now, someone sat in front of them, as if they had finally waited long enough for someone willing to sit down and truly take a good look at them.

The snow in Southern Frost showed no sign of the passing seasons.

The daylight outside the cave alternated between bright and dark; there was no telling how much time had passed. Inside, it felt as though he had been sitting there for a very long time, yet it also felt as if he had just sat down.