Blade Seed

"What? The Black Sha was actually devoured by the Seven Kill Blood-Transforming Stele?"

That wisp of Black Sha was, after all, a newborn embryo. No matter how strong or fierce, it had its limits.

There was no way it could challenge the Seven Kill Blade Intent. Liang Qisheng had known this all along.

But what happened inside his mind was too bizarre. The entire process ended in an instant.

No matter how much Liang Qisheng racked his brains, he never expected the Black Sha to be directly swallowed by the Seven Kill Blood-Transforming Stele, which was itself a manifestation of will.

In the blink of an eye, it vanished without a trace, leaving only the Seven Kill Blood-Transforming Stele standing there, spewing bloody Sha Qi.

It turned out that the appearance of the Black Sha had disturbed the Seven Kill Blood-Transforming Stele.

And the Stele's goal was to devour the Black Sha, another will, and break free from its seal.

It had to be said, this was quite a spectacular show.

No one could guess the opening, and no one could predict the ending either.

Just as Liang Qisheng's mind was filled with shock and doubt, uncertain whether the great drama that had just unfolded in his head was good or bad, a sudden surge of information flooded his mind once more. Data churned and began to change.

"Seven Kill Blood-Transforming Divine Blade: continuous seal!"

"One wisp of Seven Kill remnant thought, stripped! Searching for compatible martial technique..."

"Ghost Slaying Blade Art beginner, compatible, evolving..."

"What's happening now?"

When Liang Qisheng was startled by the information transmitted into his mind, he fixed his gaze on the changing data.

He suddenly noticed that the once-bright characters of his Ghost Slaying Blade Art, which he had only just mastered at the beginner level, were gradually blurring. One by one, they became indistinct and then disappeared.

Clearly, right after the Seven Kill Blood-Transforming Stele devoured the Tiger Demon's Black Sha, a change had occurred.

Among it, that wisp of Seven Kill remnant thought that had breached the seal was stripped away. It wasn't wasted but instead fused with the Ghost Slaying Blade Art.

As the Ghost Slaying Blade Art vanished, Liang Qisheng's entire mind tensed up.

He trained hard, and his strength had skyrocketed almost by leaps and bounds, but his starting point was simply too low.

With his current ability, he hadn't even fully completed the four Body Tempering stages of Skin, Flesh, Sinew, and Bone. He had never touched upon the level of the spirit.

So, faced with all these changes before him, he could only watch nervously, waiting.

However, having grown familiar with the data changes, Liang Qisheng could now grasp some trends.

The information just now had made it clear that the Ghost Slaying Blade Art was evolving, not truly disappearing.

As Liang Qisheng waited, he felt the rolling killing intent he had accumulated as an executioner, having killed over a hundred people during this time, begin to gather from the energy flowing through his limbs and bones, converging toward his mind...

It seemed as if a seed had appeared in his mind.

And this seed was like a child's heart, thumping and beating, as if alive—strange and inexplicable—voraciously devouring the killing intent throughout his body.

Liang Qisheng understood that so-called killing intent and killing aura, though seemingly ethereal and intangible, truly existed. They were things of the spiritual realm.

And now, under its pull, the killing aura throughout his body was continuously converging toward the center.

"...Evolution, kills over a hundred, killing aura fills the wilds."

"Ghost Slaying Blade Art, Seven Kill remnant thought fusion, condensing, metamorphosis, Ghost-Devouring Blade Seed, continuing metamorphosis..."

Soon, the data in his mind changed again.

This immediately made Liang Qisheng's heart pound violently. His eyes flew wide open, and his pupils seemed to contract sharply.

This gave him a glimmer of an answer to the doubts that had been plaguing him.

The Ghost Slaying Blade Art, which he had already mastered at the beginner level, had not disappeared. Instead, it was forcibly fused with that wisp of stripped Seven Kill remnant thought. After some special evolution and transformation, it had turned into the Ghost-Devouring Blade Seed.

And the seed that had appeared in his mind was precisely the Ghost-Devouring Blade Seed.

A martial seed that Liang Qisheng had never heard of, never seen before.

"Is this the Ghost-Devouring Blade Seed? By continuously absorbing killing aura, killing intent, and Sha Qi, drawing nourishment from these ethereal spiritual remnant thoughts, taking root, sprouting, and growing, will it eventually condense and give birth to a new blade art?"

This seed could be called a blade art seed.

At its core, it had condensed all the essence of the Ghost Slaying Blade Art. And with the enhancement of the Seven Kill remnant thought, it had undergone another metamorphosis and evolution, ascending to a higher level.

When this blade art seed fully matured, it would also become a new, more powerful blade technique.

This evolution, or metamorphosis, was all based on Liang Qisheng himself. The Merit Points were merely the trigger. With him as the foundation and the perfect-level Decapitation Blade Technique as the core, it was a special kind of evolution.

But at this moment, Liang Qisheng's tense heart had not calmed down. Instead, it was somewhat restless.

Until the final result appeared, he couldn't be sure of his guess.

Liang Qisheng didn't say much. He felt that the blade art seed was still trembling within his spirit.

This time, what it needed wasn't killing aura or killing intent. It clearly told him it required a massive amount of blood energy.

So he directly executed his stance, circulating his body. His limbs and bones moved freely. The blood throughout his body flowed, and the blood energy generated from his bones was continuously gathered into his mind, using his sinews and bones as conduits.

Compared to the blood energy that naturally dissipated, the blood energy produced by a martial artist during movement—deliberately cultivated and guided through changes in the mind and the process of moving the body—was far more abundant.

Originally, the blood energy had only drifted like wisps of blood, like mist coiling around.

As Liang Qisheng took the initiative to throw a punch and let his body move on its own, the blood within him surged like a mighty river.

Streams of blood energy gathered into his mind and spirit, condensing into a thick blood mist that directly enveloped the blade seed.

Over the next few days, Liang Qisheng continued to diligently hone his fists and refine his blade technique each day.

He let things take their natural course, no different from before.

But at every moment, he was gathering blood energy to nourish that illusory, seemingly nonexistent blade technique seed.

At the same time, the Seven Kill Blood-Transforming Divine Blade within his mind kept vibrating.

Though sealed away, the strands of Seven Kill intent it released still poured unceasingly into the seed.

Aside from eating, sleeping, and attending to bodily needs, Liang Qisheng spent all his time gathering the blood energy throughout his body.

This caused the originally tiny blade technique seed to gradually grow larger under the continuous nourishment of blood energy.

It swelled from the size of a sesame seed to that of a soybean, and it was still growing.

"I wonder when this Ghost-Devouring Blade Seed will finally succeed in its transformation?"

Liang Qisheng split his focus, tempering his fist stance as he began his initial attempts at cultivating the Tiger Demon Bone-Forging Fist.

However, the true essence of this fist art seemed to lie in forging the bones. Liang Qisheng had only touched the surface and could not yet enter the hallowed halls of mastery.

Even spending a large number of Merit Points was like tossing a stone into the sea—the result was the same.

He gathered the blood energy within his body while pondering in his mind.