The Second Layer

The hunting was going much faster than Lin Yun had expected.

Their gains from the first three days had already been astonishing, but Lin Zheng was clearly not satisfied. On the morning of the fourth day, he called everyone together for a brief meeting.

"Next, we'll go deeper into the West Lake District." Lin Zheng used a short blade to sketch a rough map on the ground. "Based on our experience so far, the middle section of the canal has the highest concentration of monsters, especially pythons. Mutated Water Python skins and fangs have always been in short supply on the market. The materials from a full-grown Intermediate Beast General Level Water Python can sell for more than thirty million."

Everyone nodded. No one had any objections to the captain's arrangements.

On the fourth day, the squad continued deeper along the canal.

The river grew wider, and the buildings along both banks grew denser. Collapsed skyscrapers, overturned boats, streets submerged beneath the water—everything here spoke of the devastation of the Great Nirvana Period.

"Water Python." Liu Xu, walking at the front, suddenly stopped and spoke in a low voice.

Everyone followed her gaze. Ahead, a mutated Water Python as thick as a barrel was coiled atop the wreckage of a sunken ship, lazily basking in the sun. Its dark green scales glimmered faintly in the sunlight. Its triangular head was slightly raised, as if wary of something.

"Primary Beast General," Lin Zheng judged. "Lin Yun, you take it."

Lin Yun gripped the Blood Shadow Battle Blade and silently crept closer. After several days of actual combat, his Stealth had improved by leaps and bounds. His footsteps were as light as a cat's, his breathing even and measured, and he kept his heartbeat as slow as possible.

The Water Python seemed to sense something and whipped its head toward Lin Yun. But before it could react, Lin Yun's blade was already swinging.

Arc Blade Technique—one of the most practical skills he had learned from Liu Xu. His War Blade swept through the air in a graceful arc, curving around the Water Python's venomous fangs and striking precisely at its vulnerable spot, seven inches below the head.

The blade cut into flesh, and dark green blood gushed out. The Water Python let out a shrill hiss and thrashed violently, its thick tail sweeping toward him. Lin Yun was ready. As he dodged to the side, he swung a second time—this time, a straight downward chop from the front, with two layers of force combined. The full power of the First Form of the Ninefold Thunder Blade burst forth.

The Water Python's head fell with a thud. Its enormous body convulsed a few times, then went still.

"Nice!" Shen Yang praised him over the comms.

Lin Yun sheathed his blade, his expression unchanged. This was already the fourth Primary Beast General Level Water Python he had killed. The progress from his initial nervous, awkward strikes to his current fluid movements was plain to see.

"Your blade work's getting more and more polished." Liu Xu came over and inspected the Water Python's corpse. "But you still have room to improve your Force Application Technique. You've gotten the First Form down, but the Second Layer... have you found the threshold yet?"

Lin Yun shook his head. The key to the Second Layer of the Ninefold Thunder Blade lay in combining three layers of force—adding a third to the two layers of the First Form. He had tried many times, but he still couldn't find the right feeling.

"Don't rush." Liu Xu patted his shoulder. "Take your time."

Over the next two days, the Thunder Blade Squad launched a focused hunt for python-type monsters in the canal area.

On the afternoon of the fourth day, they found two Intermediate Beast General Level Mutated Water Pythons beneath an abandoned bridge. Both were a full size larger than the previous one, their scales covered in dark red patterns and their auras much more ferocious.

"Lin Yun, take the one on the left." Lin Zheng assigned the tasks. "Leng Bao and Luo Fang, support him. Liu Xu and I will take the one on the right."

"Understood."

The battle erupted in an instant.

The Water Python on the left reacted incredibly quickly, attacking almost as soon as Lin Yun approached. Its body shot forward, its open mouth large enough to swallow a person whole. Two fangs gleamed with a faint blue light in the sun.

Lin Yun dodged sideways and swung his blade. But the Water Python's scales were more than twice as thick as those of a Primary Beast General. His blade cut in only two inches before getting stuck. The Water Python writhed in pain, then suddenly coiled its thick body around him.

Lin Yun didn't panic. He yanked his blade free and leaped backward, putting force into his waist at the same time. The First Form of the Ninefold Thunder Blade—1.4 times the force!

His War Blade came down on the Water Python's head. It let out a bloodcurdling hiss and thrashed wildly. Lin Yun seized the opportunity to stab at its vulnerable spot, then dragged his blade sideways, carving a long gash across its body.

Dark green blood gushed out, and the Water Python's strength quickly ebbed. Lin Yun didn't give it a chance to recover. His third strike cut straight through its head.

The whole fight took less than twenty seconds.

"Beautiful!" Shen Yang's voice came over the comms. "A little messy, but you won."

Lin Yun let out a breath and looked down at the bloodstains on his clothes. Water Python blood had splattered all over him, reeking of a foul, fishy stench. He gave a wry smile, took out his canteen, and rinsed himself off.

On the other side, Lin Zheng and Liu Xu had already finished their fight. Lin Zheng's short blade had cleanly severed the other Water Python's head, and hardly any blood had gotten on him.

Lin Zheng came over and, unusually, offered an evaluation. "The core of the Ninefold Thunder Blade is the Force Application Technique." He sat down on a stone stool nearby and gestured for Lin Yun to sit as well. "Do you know why it's called the Thunder Blade?"

"Because it's fast?" Lin Yun replied.

"Speed is the result, not the reason." Lin Zheng shook his head. "It's called the Thunder Blade because its Force Application Technique is like a thunderstorm—first comes the lightning, then the thunder. They're two effects of the same electrical discharge, but they don't reach your ears at the same time. Why?"

Lin Yun thought for a moment. "Because light travels faster than sound."

"Right." Lin Zheng nodded. "The force in the Ninefold Thunder Blade works the same way. The first layer is the lightning; the second is the thunder. You're not supposed to produce the lightning first and then the thunder. You make them at the same time, but they arrive at different moments. The first layer is fast; the second is slow. The slower layer isn't produced later. It's already on its way the instant the first layer is produced—it just travels more slowly, so it arrives afterward."

Lin Yun froze.

He had never seen this comparison in any guide to the Ninefold Thunder Blade. It wasn't in Thunder God's manual, nor in any of the discussion threads online. This was something Lin Zheng had figured out himself, an understanding he had earned through more than a decade of work—and the loss of a leg.

"You've mastered the basics of the First Form, but the way you apply force is 'produce the first layer, then urge out the second.'" Lin Zheng's gaze drifted to the river in the distance. "That's wrong. The right way is to divide the force into two separate channels in a single application. One takes the fast path, and the other takes the slow path. The fast one arrives first and forms the first layer; the slow one arrives afterward and forms the second. Both layers come from the same source and are produced together; they just arrive at different times."

He stood up, drew his short blade, and demonstrated a strike.

The blade flashed through the air, followed by two sharp cracks—the first piercing, the second low and heavy. They sounded almost together, yet their order was clear.

"Did you hear that?" Lin Zheng sheathed his blade. "That's two layers of force. If you produce the first layer and then urge out the second, the second sound will come much later than the first, and its power will be greatly diminished."

Lin Yun listened carefully, replaying the sound of Lin Zheng's strike in his mind. Two cracks, almost simultaneous, yet clearly distinct.

He suddenly thought of the Thunder Element magic in Coiling Dragon World. When lightning struck, the flash came first and the thunder afterward. But the light and sound were produced by the same electrical discharge; the lightning wasn't discharged once and then again. The essence of lightning was the instantaneous neutralization of positive and negative charges, a process that produced light and sound simultaneously.

If he compared the body's strength to electrical charges, and the application of force to a discharge, then a single application of force should produce multiple layers of force at once, rather than one after another.

"Captain, I think I understand." Lin Yun stood up and gripped the Blood Shadow Battle Blade.

He closed his eyes and pictured the channels of force. Not one, but two. One took the fastest route, from his feet to his legs, waist, arm, and blade. The other took a slightly slower route through the same parts of his body, but at each joint he deliberately created a tiny "delay"—not a pause, but a moment when the force lingered, building momentum.

That was the slow path.

The force on the fast path reached the blade first, forming the first layer. The force on the slow path arrived later, but by then the first layer had not yet completely faded. The two forces combined at the blade, creating Resonance.

He opened his eyes and struck.

"Whoosh—"

A sharp crack rang through the air. Only one.

Lin Zheng shook his head. "Still not right. You've only produced one layer of force. The second hasn't come through."

Lin Yun didn't get discouraged. He kept practicing.

Once, twice, three times...

Liu Xu watched from the side, a hint of concern in her eyes. But she didn't speak. She knew that no one else could help him understand this; he had to figure it out on his own.

Lin Zheng didn't say anything either. He simply stood there quietly, watching Lin Yun swing again and again.

On the fifth try—

"Whoosh—crack!"

Two sharp sounds rang through the air. The first was piercing; the second was faint, but it was definitely there.

Lin Zheng's eyes lit up. "Again."

The sixth time. The seventh. The eighth...

With every strike, the second sound grew clearer. By the fifteenth attempt, the two sounds rang almost simultaneously, their layers distinct.

"Stop." Lin Zheng stepped forward and took hold of Lin Yun's hand on the hilt. "Your force is traveling in the wrong direction. The second layer shouldn't travel along the outside of your arm. It should travel along the inside. The muscle groups there are shorter, so they transfer force more quickly. That will narrow the gap between the two layers."

He adjusted Lin Yun's grip and turned his wrist slightly inward.

"Try again."

Lin Yun took a deep breath and swung.

"Whoosh—crack!"

The two sounds nearly overlapped perfectly, the sharp and the deep intertwining like real thunder.

A smile flickered across Lin Zheng's face—this was the first time Lin Yun had seen him smile.

"You've got it." He said, "You've reached the entry level of the Second Layer of the Ninefold Thunder Blade."

Lin Yun stood where he was, panting heavily, but the light in his eyes was brighter than ever. The Second Layer—three layers of force combined, delivering 2.1 times the force. He had only just grasped the basics, but it was still a qualitative leap.

"Congratulations." Liu Xu came over and patted him on the shoulder. "Breaking through in the middle of a real fight proves you really do have a knack for this."

"Thank you, Sister Liu." Lin Yun spoke from the heart. "Thank you, Captain."

Lin Zheng waved a hand and turned toward the Water Python's corpse. "Don't thank me. You figured it out yourself. Keep cleaning up. We need to reach the next campsite before dark."

That evening, the squad settled in an abandoned hotel beside the canal.

Lin Yun sat alone on the rooftop and practiced his newly mastered Force Application Technique over and over. Under the moonlight, his figure moved like a tireless machine: swing, sheathe, swing, sheathe.

After mastering the basics of the Second Layer, he could feel his blade work undergoing a qualitative leap. Combining three layers of force still wasn't smooth, but every strike sent two distinct sounds slicing through the air.

"Still practicing?" Lin Zheng's voice came from behind him.

Lin Yun turned and saw Lin Zheng coming up to the rooftop, leaning on his cane. His steps were slow, but each one was steady.

"Captain." Lin Yun lowered his blade. "I want to practice a little more while the feeling of breaking through is still fresh."

Lin Zheng nodded and sat down beside him. They were silent for a while, neither of them saying a word.

"Do you know why I was willing to take you along?" Lin Zheng suddenly asked.

Lin Yun shook his head.

"Because you've got a certain spark." Lin Zheng's gaze settled on the canal in the distance, where moonlight shattered into silver flecks across the water. "Of course, most importantly, you have a... refusal to give up."

He paused, then continued, "The hardest part of the Ninefold Thunder Blade isn't the Force Application Technique. It's perseverance. Countless Warriors around the world choose this blade technique, but those who manage to train beyond the Fourth Layer can be counted on one hand. It's not because they lack talent. It's because they can't persevere."

"Captain, how did you master the Fourth Layer?" Lin Yun asked.

Lin Zheng was silent for a long time before he replied, "In a hospital bed."

Lin Yun froze.

"After I broke my leg, I spent three months in the hospital." Lin Zheng's voice was calm, as if he were telling someone else's story. "During those three months, I couldn't do anything. All I could do was practice in my head. I imagined the process of applying force over and over, correcting the mistakes in my movements again and again. When I left the hospital three months later, I'd advanced from the Third Layer of the Ninefold Thunder Blade to the Fourth."

He turned and looked at Lin Yun. "Do you know what that means?"

Lin Yun shook his head.

"It means that mastering the Ninefold Thunder Blade doesn't depend on the body, but on the mind." Lin Zheng pointed at his own head. "No matter how strong your body is or how much strength you have, if your mind hasn't grasped it, you'll never break through. On the other hand, once your mind understands, your body will naturally catch up."

Lin Yun nodded thoughtfully.

"You've mastered the basics of the Second Layer." Lin Zheng stood up. "Over the next month, don't try to reach the Third Layer. Instead, make the Second Layer as natural as breathing. To what extent? To the point where you can produce two layers of force with your eyes closed, and even if someone ambushes you in your sleep, you can instinctively produce two layers of force."

"Once you reach that point, then you can think about the Third Layer."

"I understand." Lin Yun replied solemnly.

Lin Zheng nodded and went down from the rooftop, leaning on his cane. When he reached the stairs, he stopped and glanced back.

"Get some rest. We have to travel again tomorrow."

"Yes, Captain."

Over the next two days, the Thunder Blade Squad continued hunting python-type monsters in the canal area.

On the fifth day, they killed three Primary Beast General Level Water Pythons and one Intermediate Beast General Level Water Python. Lin Yun took down the Intermediate Beast General Level one by himself, using the newly mastered Second Layer of the Ninefold Thunder Blade. The three layers of force combined, and one strike snapped the Water Python's spine cleanly, leaving its opponent no chance to recover.

"Lightning-fast progress." Liu Xu's praise consisted of just four words, but the approval in her voice was unmistakable.

On the sixth day, they encountered a group of Water Pythons—seven in all, gathered near a collapsed bridge. Four were Primary Beast General Level, two were Intermediate Beast General Level, and one was especially large, with golden patterns on its scales and an aura far more powerful than the others'.

"High-Level Beast General." Lin Zheng's voice was very low. "Everyone, be careful."

This time, Lin Zheng didn't have Lin Yun face the High-Level Beast General alone. He and Liu Xu teamed up against the largest one, Leng Bao and Luo Fang took care of the two Intermediate Beast General Level Pythons, and Lin Yun and Shen Yang handled the four Primary Beast General Level ones.

The battle was more intense than any they'd fought before. The High-Level Beast General Level Water Python was not only enormous, but its scales were also extremely tough. Lin Zheng's short blade left only a white mark when it struck them. Its venom was highly corrosive; wherever it splattered on the concrete, white smoke immediately rose.

Lin Zheng used the Fourth Layer's Force Application Technique three times in a row before, with Liu Xu's help, he managed to split the Water Python's scales. Liu Xu drove her sword into the wound, piercing its heart.

Meanwhile, Lin Yun had already dealt with three Primary Beast General Level Water Pythons. The power of the Second Layer of the Ninefold Thunder Blade was on full display—every strike rang out with two distinct sounds, and every strike landed precisely on the Water Python's vulnerable spot. One hit killed, with no wasted motion.

The fourth Primary Beast General Level Water Python tried to flee, but Shen Yang shot it through the head.

Leng Bao and Luo Fang had finished their fight as well. One Intermediate Beast General Level Water Python was pinned to the ground by Leng Bao's spear, and the other had its throat slit by Luo Fang's short blade.

All seven Water Pythons were dead.

"A High-Level Beast General Level Water Python's materials are worth at least a hundred million." Shen Yang calculated as he processed the bodies. "With the rest, today's haul is worth at least three hundred million."

Everyone was panting, but they couldn't hide their smiles.

Lin Yun stood by the river and watched the Water Python corpses floating on its surface, yet a faint sense of unease stirred in his heart.