Clang~!
The straight-hanging sword spine carried its thin, keen tip as it spun through the air.
Heavenly light split along the spine, and for one instant, a rainbow bloom flashed forth.
The white-haired man clenched the broken sword in an empty grip. The hilt that should have been the very model of a sword's upright balance had twisted apart into a tangled mass of gold-and-wood filaments, tightly enclosed by his five fingers. Those filaments had also sliced his right hand's five fingers open with countless dense wounds.
Lu Shuanghe noticed neither his wounds nor his sword. He only looked at Jiang Wang.
Within those eyes, cold and indifferent as the Heavenly Dao, a trace of doubt stirred—a rare ripple—
Jiang Wang's sword, where years and fate had converged, had not killed him.
He stood at the pinnacle of True Insight, a man who had waited a long time for Jiang Wang. Killing him needed no reason; not killing him did.
If he had been the victor today, he would never have spared Jiang Wang.
It was not that he bore Jiang Wang any hatred. He did not hold the slightest resentment toward Jiang Wang. It was simply... unnecessary.
Having struck that sword which surpassed the former limits of True Insight, he would naturally continue onward.
Whether grass and trees or flowers and birds lay ahead, whether humans and ghosts or demons and monsters, he would pass them all with a single stroke.
He would not hold back for Jiang Wang.
Whether Jiang Wang lived or died was unimportant. Jiang Wang was no different from any other thing in this world.
But why had Jiang Wang deliberately held back a little for him, Lu Shuanghe?
Had the lesson by the Phoenix Creek River not been profound enough?
Yet even this ripple