Chapter 490 - 331: Advancement and Return

Chapter 490: Chapter 331: Advancement and Return

In the past three years, Su Xue’s realm had advanced with incredible speed. She possessed the secrets of the Su Family and also had Ling Xiao’s Top-Grade Elixirs. As a result, Su Xue had progressed from a Tier Two Sword Emperor to the realm of a Tier Five Sword Emperor! It was no wonder the Zhe Family had so fanatically annihilated the entire Su Family back then, and then gone on to wipe out the Ye Family. This was a testament to the value of the Secret Technique Su Xue possessed. And what the Zhe Family had obtained was incomplete!

Otherwise, how could Su Xue possibly have created a supreme expert like Tiger?

Living up to expectations, Tiger had finally advanced to Tier Four Sword Emperor! His strength as a Tier Four Sword Emperor was believed to be enough to take on two human Tier Four Sword Emperors at once! Tiger was like a Magical Beast; the toughness of his body was outrageous.

Thirteenth Master and Fourteenth Master, who had also recently advanced to Tier Four Sword Emperor, had completely given up on sparring with a monster like Tiger. When they fought him, he would dodge their heavy blows, and their lighter ones had no effect. Meanwhile, every one of Tiger’s attacks packed overwhelming power! Never mind a direct hit—even a glancing blow was agonizingly painful.

Therefore, within the entire Shushan Sword Sect, the only person who could trade blows with Tiger was the Tier Six Sword Emperor, Elder Quefeng!

This was because the other miracle of a person, the Tier Six Sword Emperor Shangguan Yutong, would never fight Tiger in the first place!

When the Shangguan Family’s ancestral inheritance first manifested, no one thought much of it. Although it was startling when Shangguan Yutong’s strength suddenly skyrocketed from a Demon Swordsman to a Sword Emperor, even more miraculous things were said to have happened in ancient times. Thus, even Shangguan Yutong herself didn’t think it was that extraordinary. After all, for the past three years, they had adopted a completely evasive stance when facing harassment from the Zhe, Qin, and Jingwu Families.

They simply refused to confront them head-on. In any case, their enemies didn’t dare to enter the Shushan Inner City. The Mist Array, active year-round, had trapped two Sword Emperors from the Jingwu Family, leading to their deaths! To this day, the Jingwu Family hasn’t even found their bodies.

Furthermore, there was some very good news: Lie Que had been released from his seclusion ahead of schedule. This was because he had beaten Lie Yang to the punch, advancing to the Sword Emperor Realm!

It had to be said that back when Ling Xiao had his breakthrough with the Great Freedom Heart Scripture, both Lie Que and Gongsun Sword, who were nearby, had reaped immense benefits. From a Buddhist or Daoist perspective, it was a form of fated opportunity. Otherwise, Ling Xiao wouldn’t have so easily agreed to become sworn brothers with the two of them.

With Lie Que released from seclusion early, a great deal of intelligence was naturally and discreetly passed to the sect. Consequently, out of the dozen or more assassination attempts the Jingwu Family launched against the Shushan Sword Sect in the past three years, not a single one had succeeded!

This was partly due to Lie Que’s secret warnings, and partly because the Shushan Sword Sect had maintained a near-total lockdown for three years; people only entered, none ever left. The grounds within the sect were vast, and the disciples grew all their own vegetables. All other supplies were delivered by soldiers from the Lightning Legion via a secret passage.

It wasn’t that no one had designs on Mrs. Ling’s secret passage. Some had even managed to get inside. But in the end, the passage’s traps brutally impaled a Tier Three Sword Sect expert from the Zhe Family, killing him inside!

When it came to the Zhe Family, Mrs. Ling’s followers showed no courtesy. They tossed the corpse out of the city like a dead dog, leaving it to bake under the harsh sun. The Zhe Family seemed to have become utterly convinced that Ling Xiao was absent. Even Zhe Wushuang, the Zhe Family’s own Sword Emperor, had once led an assault on the Shushan Sword Sect.

In the end, they were all stopped dead by the Mist Array. There was nothing to be done. No matter how they studied it, they could not figure out the principles behind the Array, nor how to break it!

Some families sent their own children to act as spies, but they were either weeded out through the sect’s normal selection process or were successfully brainwashed. Elder Quefeng’s teaching ability might have been average, but his storytelling skills were first-rate! The disciples adored Elder Quefeng, some even more than they liked Su Xue.

This was because Elder Quefeng was always smiling, whereas Elder Su Xue, despite her beauty, constantly wore a frosty expression that people found intimidating.

Shangguan Yutong’s meteoric rise in strength naturally delighted Mrs. Ling’s followers. During this period, Thirteenth Master and Fourteenth Master grew restless on several occasions, wanting to charge out and fight the Zhe Family experts who came to provoke them, but Su Xue and the others stopped them each time.

The Zhe Family had already suffered several major losses; how could they be so slow to learn? ’Perhaps there’s a Sword Venerable hiding among their Sword Emperors!’ Sure enough, after the Shushan Sword Sect repeatedly refused to accept their challenges, Zhe Wushuang finally erupted in fury and launched a vicious barrage of attacks toward the sect. The destructive Sword Qi and Qi Force entered the Mist Array only to vanish without a trace.

In the end, even Zhe Wushuang himself had to admit that Ling Xiao was a genius. He had mastered what was perhaps a variation of an ancient Illusion Array, a type of formation that had long since been lost to time. Thus, the Zhe Family could only retreat in frustration.

However, to save face, the Zhe Family made a bold declaration, branding the Shushan Sword Sect the "Turtle Sword Sect." They claimed that the entire sect, with its thousands upon thousands of members, could only cower inside their little city, with not a single person daring to emerge.

The Zhe Family threatened that in the future, should any disciple of the Shushan Sword Sect be found traveling the world, they would be killed on sight.

However, this threat didn’t cause the Shushan Sword Sect the slightest bit of harm. This was because nearly all of the sect’s current disciples came from commoner families!

Those commoners had no contact with the gentry, so how could they possibly hear the threats made by the Zhe Family?

It was a supreme irony!

On one hand, the Zhe Family’s threats loomed. On the other, the reputation of the Shushan Sword Sect was soaring among the common people of Lanyue and its neighboring kingdoms.