One Kill

Zhao Cheng's opponent was, like him, a second-year student. However, the other party had joined the kendo club more than half a year earlier than him. Half a year ago, when others were joining the club, Zhao Cheng was still slacking off every day; in terms of swordsmanship, they were naturally worlds apart.

However, the most wondrous thing about life is its impermanence. As time passes, the ordinary can become extraordinary through various encounters, and the extraordinary can become even more so. Of course, it is also possible to suddenly "fall" and never recover.

In this world, the brave who can master impermanence view it as a delight. In their hearts, they see all things as impermanent and observe them as such. Those who cannot master it, however, feel only terror when they contemplate it deeply.

Half a year ago, the two were like clouds and mud, yet half a year later, they stood in the same place.

Such impermanent changes caused a ripple to rise in Zhao Cheng's heart, though it was but a mere ripple. As he leveled his sword, the ripple dissipated, replaced by a surge of fighting spirit, his heart-sword stained with "blood."

Accompanying this, a faint blood-colored light seemed to flicker in his eyes, though if an onlooker were to look closely, they would find no such light at all—it seemed merely a momentary hallucination.

As Zhao Cheng leveled his sword, his opponent shuddered, feeling as if the person standing before him had been replaced in an instant.

He felt a slight stinging sensation between his brows. The opponent had clearly only just leveled his sword, yet he had the distinct feeling that the sharpness of the blade was already upon him.

He knew clearly that this was a manifestation of his opponent's mental sharpness. A master of the sword, with a spirit condensed to the extreme, could battle across the sky, subdue the enemy without fighting, or even transform the intangible into the tangible, creating a sharpness capable of severing metal.

Although the opponent's mental power was still a long way from that stage, it had already displayed a hint of extraordinary phenomena.

Mental power and mental sharpness, while essentially the same thing, held completely different meanings for a practitioner of the sword.

Pure mental power is like a block of iron; even if powerful, it can only be used to smash things, lacking sufficient lethality. Mental sharpness, however, is the iron block forged into a sword blank; it may not be sharp enough yet, but the effect it can exert is incomparable to that of a mere block of iron.

He even knew that if not for his Breathing Visualization Method steadying his heart, he would have lost three-tenths of his courage just from being pricked by such sharpness.

This was the first time in his life he had experienced such a thing; among all the opponents he had faced in sparring, none had ever cultivated the sharpness of a sword on a mental level.

A sword, once it possesses sharpness, is a sword that takes life; otherwise, it is merely a sword for health preservation.

Cultivating the sharpness of a sword is related to the level of one's swordsmanship, but there is no necessary correlation. A person with high-level swordsmanship may not possess it, and one with low-level swordsmanship might. This is because so-called sharpness is, in reality, a manifestation of one's intent.

That intent, mixed with mental power, is like water stirred into concrete. Water is soft, and the raw materials of concrete are fine and soft, but once mixed and solidified, the result is something as hard as iron.

Intent is something that either exists or it does not.

"Where did this freak come from!"

Such a thought could not help but flash through the mind of Zhao Cheng's opponent.

Little did he know that Zhao Cheng's sharpness was forged through repeated life-and-death struggles within the simulated dungeon.

If you cannot win, you get hammered to death; a sword tempered in such circumstances is naturally a sword of slaughter.

However, he had been practicing the sword for many years and had cultivated his intent. If it were an ordinary person, their fighting spirit would have vanished by now, but he was different. Although he felt extreme "danger," he still had the courage to level his sword.

"Please!" he said.

As his voice fell, a long sword slashed down with the momentum to tear the air and sever the currents.

Bang!

He swung his sword to meet the strike. In that single exchange, he judged that Zhao Cheng's explosive power and speed were not much greater than his own.

The only problem was that the opponent's sword path was too fierce and too ruthless. From the very first strike, it displayed a life-or-death intensity.

Bang! Bang!

Zhao Cheng stepped forward and swung his sword, his momentum like a rainbow. Although his physical body in reality had yet to form muscle memory regarding the nuances of force, resulting in a large gap in lethality compared to the simulated dungeon, the feeling of combat was exactly the same.

The only thing he was unaccustomed to was that his swordsmanship, on a conscious level, far surpassed his opponent's. At a glance, the opponent's sword path was full of openings.

But while his mind understood, his body had not yet fully mastered it; he could see the openings but could not exploit them to crush the opponent.

Zhao Cheng was confident that if he possessed the muscle memory from the simulated dungeon, he would have sealed his opponent's throat by the second strike.

It would not have taken three consecutive strikes just to force his opponent to take a single step back.

However, this retreat was exactly the opportunity Zhao Cheng needed. As the opponent showed signs of retreating, before he had fully moved back, Zhao Cheng had already preemptively stepped forward half a step.

As Zhao Cheng stepped, the opponent was only halfway through his retreat.

At this moment, the opponent's center of gravity was shifting.

The shift was slight, but it was fatal.

Zhao Cheng did not move his right hand holding the long sword first, but rather his left arm. He used the bracer on his arm to forcefully block the opponent's wooden sword, and only then did his right hand slash through the air, his blade aiming for the opponent's neck in a posture that was almost like throwing himself into his arms!

Facing the sword slashing toward his neck, even though he knew it was a wooden sword and that he wore protective gear, the feeling transmitted to his mind was as if his neck were about to be severed by a sharp blade.

Danger! Extreme danger!

In that instant, his pupils constricted.

Facing a life-and-death crisis, some people will erupt and fight to the death, but others will be paralyzed by fear, closing their eyes and waiting for death.

In reality, the former are a tiny minority, a miracle, while the latter are the norm.

At this moment, he was scared stiff. His entire body went rigid, and even the sword in his hand lost its force.

Then came a dull bang—the sound of a wooden sword colliding with high-strength plastic.

The arena fell into silence.

Almost all the students were left in a daze.

It ended too quickly, and far too abruptly.

With their keen eyes, they could only discern that Zhao Cheng's sword was steady and his sword path fierce; beyond that, in terms of speed and explosive power, the two were actually evenly matched.

In such a contest of equals, it was generally expected that after twenty-some moves, once both parties' stamina began to wane, whoever revealed a flaw first would likely be the one to lose.

So many sword trials had gone exactly like that.

Yet today, at this very moment, an anomaly had occurred. He held no advantage in speed, no advantage in explosive power, and not even an advantage in the refined execution of his sword force.

And yet, he had defeated his opponent in a mere four moves.

If this had been a true life-or-death struggle, it would mean that with only four strikes, Zhao Cheng could have reaped a life at the cost of a mere arm injury.

Now, the greatest mystery to everyone was how Zhao Cheng had managed to win, and why his opponent had lost.