The Road Ahead

A deathly silence filled the surroundings.

Countless gazes converged. The morale stirred by Black Viper's rewards moments ago rapidly crumbled at this instant.

The surrounding Black Wind Bandits stood frozen, their hearts filled with terror.

No one spoke.

Nor did anyone dare raise their blades at Yang Qingyun again.

That scene—his lightning-swift charge through the bandits, straight into their core, where he slew Black Viper, their leader—had terrified every soul present out of their wits.

Even the most unruly Black Wind Bandits did not dare move at this moment!

Meanwhile,

Yang Qingyun stood in the center of the battlefield. Corpses lay piled beneath his feet, blood flowed like a river, and Black Viper's body, cleaved into two halves, lay stretched before him.

He paid no attention whatsoever to the surroundings.

He held his blade in one hand, his eyes slightly closed.

He carefully savored the feeling of that strike from before.

"An indomitable advance... so this is the heart of the Blade Path."

After a moment, Yang Qingyun let out a long sigh.

He opened his eyes.

Deep within his pupils,

a trace of joyful expression appeared.

That utterly overwhelming strike just now had brought him immense gains!

He had understood certain things that he had failed to comprehend in his Previous Life.

In the Blade Path, he had already caught sight of the road ahead!

In his Previous Life,

with the road ahead cut off, Yang Qingyun had been forced to painstakingly study techniques in order to increase his combat strength.

After ten years of accumulation, he had raised his mastery over the use of Qi and Blood and force to its pinnacle, ultimately achieving the feat of using the peak Viscera Refining Realm to defeat the Innate Realm!

Once, a Grandmaster had expressed shock and admiration for his peak techniques that allowed him to defeat Innate martial artists.

Yet at the same time,

that Grandmaster had also sighed and pointed out:

"Your techniques are near their pinnacle, which is truly commendable. But it is a pity that your blade has no heart. It cannot produce its own momentum, and thus you cannot walk your own path."

"What a pity, what a pity—truly such a pity."

At that time,

Yang Qingyun had not understood that Grandmaster's evaluation.

He did not understand.

What was the heart of the blade? What was momentum? And what was the blade's path?

Perhaps the many webnovels he had read in his Previous Life had also described all manner of principles.

But what he could not do, he simply could not do.

What he could not comprehend, he simply could not comprehend.

It was like being given the standard answer on an exam—if you did not understand it, then you did not understand it.

Until now,

he had finally gained some insight!

"A blade wielder must possess an indomitable heart!"

"When heart and spirit become one, when one's spirit answers that indomitable heart, it becomes this invincible blade momentum!"

"In my Previous Life, because my Talent was terribly poor after I embarked upon the Martial Path, I was cautious at every step of Cultivation. Whenever I encountered an opponent, I would first make countless calculations and weigh my options, proceeding with the utmost care—avoiding what I could avoid, hiding whenever I could hide. In doing so, I lacked precisely that conviction to forge ahead without hesitation. Thus, though I had reached the pinnacle of blade techniques, I could not walk my own path."

"But in this life, reborn and returned, when facing the powerful enemies of old, when facing the chief culprit who had once cut off my road ahead, I am no longer powerless. Severing the fate of my Previous Life and breaking through my shackles have given me even more of that exhilarating, invincible momentum!"

Yang Qingyun understood inwardly.

Ever since he had changed his tragic fate of becoming a mining slave in his Previous Life, and gained a Starting Point ten or even a hundred times greater than before through the Blood Qi Pill and the Longevity Technique, leaving the road ahead smooth and unobstructed,

his heart had changed as well!

Without him realizing it,

his blade had changed along with it.

And this change was precisely a change in the momentum within the blade, a level above mere technique!

It was also because of this

that, when faced with the Black Wind Bandits' encirclement, Yang Qingyun had directly abandoned any thought of circling around with them.

Instead, he had chosen to seize that flash of insight, gather his invincible conviction, carve straight through the crowd with a single strike, spear the king and seize the commander, and unleash that blow containing the comprehension and skill of his thirty years from his Previous Life!

And this

undoubtedly brought Yang Qingyun's Blade Path cultivation

into an entirely new realm!

It also gave him some ideas about how to advance even further.

"Next, it's your turn!"

Yang Qingyun turned his gaze toward the surviving Black Wind Bandits around him.

"Run!"

Someone in the crowd shouted in terror.

The more than one hundred Black Wind Bandits who had come to attack immediately collapsed and scattered in all directions!

Yang Qingyun said nothing.

Holding his long blade,

he drifted into the crowd like a ghost.

A brutal slaughter erupted soon after!

As Yang Qingyun's figure flickered and the long blade in his hand flashed and darted like bursting lightning,

the vicious Black Wind Bandits—who had once looked like fiends before ordinary civilians, with more than one life stained upon their hands—were harvested one after another with ease.

The other Black Wind Bandits who witnessed this were so terrified that their hearts split and their gallbladders burst. They fled in disgrace, scrambling away on both hands and feet.

Half a day later,

this great battle, which had originally threatened Wang Family Village with the danger of annihilation, ended with a whimper.

The villagers of Wang Family Village began moving about, collecting spoils from the Black Wind Bandits, gathering the scattered horses nearby, and carrying away the corpses to be buried in the mass graveyard.

Though the bloody, gruesome sight of corpses strewn across the ground was somewhat unsettling, the young and able-bodied villagers of Wang Family Village undoubtedly felt a little relief in their hearts.

With Young Master Yang possessing such formidable strength, they no longer needed to worry about retaliation from Black Wind Stronghold!

"Young Master Yang is truly incredible!"

During a break from carrying corpses, Wang Zhu sighed and spoke with emotion to the villagers beside him.

As he gazed at the bodies carpeting the ground,

an indescribably complicated expression appeared on his face.

As the man who had found the unconscious Yang Qingyun in the wilderness and brought him back several days ago, Wang Zhu's emotions over this period had risen and fallen like a roller coaster!

Originally, when he had seen the other party collapsed by the roadside, half his motive had been sympathy and kindness. The other half was that the boy looked pampered and delicate, perhaps a young master from some wealthy household who had gotten lost. Once his family was found, he might even receive some reward.

He had never imagined that the youth he had picked up would be such a terrifying existence!

The renowned Second Boss and Third Boss of Black Wind Mountain had both died at his hands. The Black Wind Iron Cavalry, whose name shook Huangshi Town, had been easily wiped out by him.

Even the encirclement of more than a hundred Black Wind Bandits had failed to leave the slightest wound on him before he slaughtered them as easily as chopping melons and vegetables!

This filled Wang Zhu with deep admiration for him!

"Isn't that the truth? If Young Master Yang hadn't taken action to help us, even if we had fought with our lives on the line, we probably wouldn't have killed more than a few Black Wind Bandits before they slaughtered us."

"Martial artists are truly terrifying. Before that man, more than a hundred people were nothing but chickens and ducks, easily slaughtered!"

"That was because Young Master Yang is formidable. I saw Li Jinbao from Cuihua Village before. He is a martial artist too, but he wasn't nearly so outrageous. When ten people besieged him, he was already exhausted."

"How could Young Master Yang possibly be compared to ordinary people!"

That invincible strength, one man against an army!

For these mountain village farmers, who had seen little of the world, it was an impact that nearly overturned everything they knew, leaving a deep impression upon them.

"Stop chatting and get to work. Once we finish packing everything up, we still need to take these spoils to town and sell them. Work hard—if you can earn Young Master Yang's favor and he passes down a move or two, perhaps you might have a chance to become martial artists yourselves someday!"

One of the young men spoke up, and everyone became even more enthusiastic and motivated.