Zhao Cheng's opponent was, like him, a second-year high school student. But the other boy had joined the Kendo Class more than half a year earlier. Six months ago, when the others joined the Kendo Class, Zhao Cheng was still slacking off every day. Naturally, when it came to swordsmanship, the two had been worlds apart.
But the most wondrous thing about life was its unpredictability. As the years passed, the ordinary could become extraordinary through all kinds of chance encounters, and the extraordinary could become even more extraordinary. Of course, they could also suddenly "fall," never to rise again.
In this world, the brave who could master the unpredictable saw it as a source of amusement. Their hearts embraced a thousand changes, and they looked upon them without fear. Those who couldn't master it, however, would be seized by terror the moment they thought too deeply about it.
Six months ago, the two had been as far apart as clouds and mud. Half a year later, they stood in the same place.
This unpredictable change stirred a faint Ripple in Zhao Cheng's heart. It was only a faint one. As he leveled his sword, the Ripple had already faded, replaced by surging battle intent as his Heart Sword was stained with "blood."
Along with it, a faint glimmer of blood seemed to flicker in his eyes. But anyone who looked closely would find no trace of blood at all. It was as if they had only seen a momentary illusion.
The instant Zhao Cheng leveled his sword, his opponent shuddered from head to toe. He felt as if something inside his opponent had been replaced in the blink of an eye.
He felt a slight sting between his brows. Zhao Cheng had only just raised his sword, yet he had the sense that its edge was already about to reach him.
He knew this was the manifestation of his opponent's spiritual edge. A master of the sword, having honed his spirit to its utmost, could battle in the open sky and subdue an enemy without fighting. He could even turn the intangible into the tangible, transforming it into an edge capable of cleaving iron.
His opponent's spiritual power was still nowhere near that level, but it had already revealed a hint of something extraordinary.
Spiritual power and spiritual edge were fundamentally one and the same, but to a swordsman, they meant two entirely different things.
Pure spiritual power was like a block of iron. No matter how strong it was, it could only be used to bludgeon someone; it lacked killing power. But spiritual edge was like that iron forged into a sword blank. It might not yet be sharp, but its potential was beyond anything a mere block of iron could match.
He even knew that if he hadn't steadied his mind with the Breathing Visualization Method, this edge would have shaken three-tenths of his courage from him.
This was the first time in his life he had experienced anything like it. In all the opponents he had faced during Sword Trials, no one had ever honed a sword's edge on the spiritual level.
A sword only became a weapon for killing once it had an edge. Without one, it was no more than Life Nurturing swordsmanship.
Honing a sword's edge was related to one's level of swordsmanship, but the two were not necessarily linked. A highly skilled swordsman might not have an edge, while a poor one might. That was because what people called an edge was, in truth, a manifestation of the heart.
When the heart and spiritual power mixed, it was like water stirred into cement. Water was soft, and the raw materials of cement were fine and soft too, yet once mixed and set, they became something as hard as iron.
The heart was simple: either you had it or you didn't.
"What kind of freak is this?!"
The thought flashed through Zhao Cheng's opponent's mind.
How could he know that Zhao Cheng's edge had been forged through one life-and-death battle after another in simulated dungeons?
If he couldn't win, he would be beaten to death. A sword honed under such circumstances was naturally a sword for killing.
But after years of practicing the sword and cultivating his heart, he was no ordinary person. Someone else might have already lost all will to fight, but though he felt that he was in extreme "danger," he still had the courage to raise his sword.
"Please!"
He spoke.
As soon as the words left his mouth, a long sword came slashing down, with enough force to tear through the air and cleave the currents of wind.
Clang!
He swung his sword to meet it. From 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 his opponent's swordsmanship was too fierce, too ruthless. Even with just his first strike, Zhao Cheng had shown the kind of resolve that meant one of them would die.
Clang! Clang!
Zhao Cheng stepped forward, swinging his sword with unstoppable momentum. His control of force and the subtlety with which he channeled it were far inferior to his swordsmanship in the simulated dungeons, since his real body had yet to develop the muscle memory. As a result, his swordsmanship's killing power was greatly diminished.
But once he entered the heat of battle, the feeling of fighting was exactly the same.
If there was one thing he wasn't used to, it was that his swordsmanship surpassed his opponent's by too much on the level of consciousness. At a glance, his opponent's every move seemed full of openings.
But his mind had learned; his body had not. He could see the openings, yet couldn't exploit them to break through his opponent's defense.
Zhao Cheng was confident that if he had the swordsmanship muscle memory he'd developed in the simulated dungeons, he would have sealed his opponent's throat with the second strike.
As it was, it took three consecutive strikes just to force the other boy back a step.
But that step back gave Zhao Cheng his chance. The moment his opponent showed signs of retreating, before he had even begun to step back, Zhao Cheng had already lunged half a step forward.
As Zhao Cheng advanced, his opponent had retreated halfway.
That was the moment his opponent's center of gravity shifted.
The shift was small, but fatal.
Zhao Cheng didn't move the long sword in his right hand first. Instead, he swung his left arm, using the forearm guard on it to take a hard hit from his opponent's wooden sword. Only then did he slash through the air with his right-hand sword, its edge cutting toward his opponent's neck in a movement almost like throwing himself into the other boy's arms!
Faced with a sword slashing toward his neck, he knew it was wooden and knew he wore protective gear. Yet the sensation coming from the spiritual level was as if a razor-sharp blade were about to cut his throat.
Danger! Utterly overwhelming danger!
In that instant, his pupils constricted.
When faced with the threat of death, some people would rise to the occasion and fight with everything they had. Others would be so frightened they could only close their eyes and wait to die.
In reality, the first were exceedingly rare, almost Miracles. The second were the norm.
At that moment, he was scared out of his wits. His entire body went rigid, and even the sword in his hand lost its force.
Then came a muffled thump—the sound of a wooden sword colliding with high-strength plastic.
The training hall fell silent.
Almost all the students stood there, stunned.
It had ended too quickly, and far too suddenly.
With their level of skill, all they could tell was that Zhao Cheng's sword was steady and his swordsmanship fierce. As for speed and explosive power, the two had been evenly matched.
In a contest this evenly matched, it usually took more than twenty moves. Both sides would begin to tire, and whoever revealed an opening first would most likely lose.
That was how it had gone in every Sword Trial, time after time.
Yet today, right here and now, an anomaly had appeared. Zhao Cheng had had no advantage in speed, no advantage in explosive power, and not even an advantage in the finesse with which he channeled force through his swordsmanship.
And yet, he had beaten his opponent in only four moves.
If that had been a real fight to the death, it would mean that Zhao Cheng could take a life with just four sword strikes, at the cost of an injured arm.
The biggest question on everyone's mind now was how Zhao Cheng had won—and why his opponent had lost.