Chapter 895 Temporal Dao - Way of Time!

Dozens of feet away, the Old Fisherman’s body gradually re-formed with his fishing rod still in his hand. He did not attack again. He simply stared at Li Yun for several breaths, then looked at the swords around him, and then studied the fading traces of Li Yun’s five Intents. Finally, he laughed.

“Hahahaha!”

His laughter echoed across the sea.

“Good. Excellent!” The Old Fisherman looked genuinely delighted. “Eight months. Only eight months, and the little fellow who couldn’t survive a single flick of my fishing rod has already reached this level.”

He slowly shook his head. “You can actually make five completely different Xiantian Stage Intents coexist inside one sword-control technique. Little fellow, your improvement has gone beyond even my expectations.”

Li Yun waved a hand, and the six thousand swords gathered and returned to the sword-nurturing gourd while the phenomena around him slowly faded.

“You’re praising me too much, Senior.”

The Old Fisherman shook his head. “No. I’m only describing what I saw.”

His gaze shifted to the enormous sword scar that still divided the ocean.

“Your Myriad Sword Spirit Command Art has already begun to go beyond the simple idea of controlling more swords. You’re starting to make every sword carry your Dao.”

Li Yun’s eyes flickered, and the Old Fisherman went on.

“When the number of swords is no longer your greatest advantage, and every blade has become an extension of your Intent and will, that’s when this art will become truly terrifying.”

Li Yun quietly committed those words to memory.

The Old Fisherman waved his fishing rod. “In any case, the second floor can’t stop you anymore.”

Spatial ripples appeared beside him, and a vortex slowly took shape.

“You’ve passed.”

Li Yun cupped his hands. “Thank you for your guidance, Senior.”

He walked toward the vortex, but just before he stepped in, the Old Fisherman called out again.

“Little fellow.”

Li Yun turned around.

The Old Fisherman gave him a meaningful smile. “Don’t assume that beating me means the third floor will be just as easy. The distance between the second and third floors is far greater than the gap between the first and second.”

His expression turned serious. “With your current strength, you’ve finally earned the right to understand why the third floor is considered the first real barrier of the Everlasting Pagoda.”

Battle intent lit up Li Yun’s eyes at once. “Then I look forward to seeing it.”

The spatial vortex swallowed him, and he was gone.

The Old Fisherman remained alone on the sea, gazing for a long time at the enormous scar that split the water. Then a faint smile appeared on his face.

“Five Xiantian Stage Intents… interesting.”

He lowered his fishing line into the sea once more.

“Very interesting.”

…

Li Yun appeared above a vast mountain range, and the sight in front of him was extremely strange. Every mountain peak had been flattened and shaped into something that looked like a chess piece. Half of the mountains were black, and the other half were white.

A man in dark green robes floated in the air with an ordinary-looking three-foot sword slung across his back. He waved a hand, and a mountain moved with a rumble. He waved again, and another mountain slid across the landscape. He was using heaven and earth as a chessboard and mountains as his pieces, and he was playing against himself. That scene alone told Li Yun that the third-floor guardian was completely different from the first two.

The green-robed swordsman looked up.

“After all these years, someone has finally reached my third floor.”

His gaze swept over Li Yun, and he shook his head.

“Unfortunately, you’re still far too weak. Come back after you’ve cultivated for a few hundred years, little fellow.”

He took the sword from his back and swung it casually.

Li Yun’s eyes widened. His body stopped, his soul seemed frozen, and he could not react at all. The feeling resembled what he had experienced against the Old Fisherman, but the principle behind it was entirely different.

Against the Old Fisherman, Li Yun had understood what was happening and had only been unable to react because the attack crossed space too quickly. This time was different. The moment the green-robed swordsman attacked, Li Yun felt as though the world around him had actually stopped, and time itself seemed frozen.

The sword swept past, and Li Yun’s body was cut in half. Immediately afterward, the Everlasting Pagoda expelled him.

His reconstructed body appeared outside the pagoda, with shock still in his eyes.

“The Temporal Dao.”

At last he understood. Space reigned as king, but time stood supreme. Among the countless Martial Daos, the Sword Dao pursued extreme offensive power, while the paths of time and space were among the most mysterious and hardest to comprehend. Spatial principles were already extraordinarily difficult, and temporal principles were even more elusive.

Several of the thousands of cultivators trapped on Chronospace Island had managed to touch the Spatial Dao, but Li Yun had never heard of a single one who had comprehended the Temporal Dao. That alone showed how difficult it was.

The Sword Dao itself was certainly not inferior by nature. The problem was comprehension. The green-robed swordsman’s grasp of temporal principles was far beyond Li Yun’s current Sword Dao, and that was what made the Temporal Dao so terrifying. Even the slightest edge in controlling time could create a gap that was almost impossible to close.

“How can I beat him?” Li Yun’s expression turned grave.

Against the Old Fisherman, he had eventually been able to see a path to victory. Against this new opponent, he could not see one at all.

Then he heard the crowd around him.

“Li Yun’s out.”

“Did he pass the second floor?”

Everyone stared at him. A moment later, mysterious energy gathered around the Everlasting Pagoda and condensed into another ancient token, which shot toward Li Yun.

The area erupted at once.

“He passed!”

“A second person has finally cleared the second floor.”

“After all these years, Chronospace Island finally has another one.”

More astonished voices followed. What made his achievement even more shocking was how little time he had spent here. He had been on the island for only eight months, not even a full year, and no one in the recorded history of Chronospace Island had ever passed the second floor so soon after arriving.