"You have passed the first two regions, which already proves that your Sword Dao is far from ordinary."
"But this is the core region of the Sword Graveyard. These forty-nine swords were all personal weapons buried here by the successive patriarchs of the Sword Dao Holy Land."
"They do not merely value rank; they value compatibility even more. Whether your Sword Dao aligns with theirs will determine whether they acknowledge you."
The azure-robed phantom paused and pointed to the stone platforms behind him.
"We forty-nine swords each represent forty-nine entirely different schools of the Sword Dao."
"You need only use your own Sword Dao, your own understanding of the sword, to win our recognition."
After listening, Ye Lin nodded slightly, still utterly unhurried.
He walked three steps forward and stopped before the azure-robed phantom.
He did not release his Sword Seal, nor did he activate his ten thousand eight hundred sword veins. He merely stood there plainly, like a tree that had taken root.
"You want to see my Sword Dao?"
The azure-robed phantom nodded.
"Then watch."
Ye Lin raised his right hand.
He pressed two fingers together like a sword. Without stirring any cultivation, without using any Sword Intent, he simply followed the rhythm of his breathing and slowly traced an arc through the air.
At first, the arc was slow, like morning mist drifting, carrying no trace of lethality.
But halfway through its path, every sword soul watching it felt a strange resonance at the same time.
The arc drawn by Ye Lin's fingertips was like the first crack of ice splitting across a river in early spring, like the last withered leaf of autumn spiraling down from its branch, like a wisp of wind swept up by the tip of a lone wolf's tail as it flashed