Bloodstain

Bloodstain

Daoist Yan laughed aloud and stepped forward, slowly closing the distance. As he walked, he said, "What other talismans do you have? Bring them out and let your master here have a look!"

Yu Ci seemed to grit his teeth, abruptly plunging his right hand into his left sleeve while his left hand remained tucked inside, a very awkward posture.

Right at that moment, crimson light flashed ahead. Daoist Yan had already rushed forward in silence, slashing down with his sword. Only then did he roar,

"Go to hell, Daoist's enemy!"

Daoist Yan had almost been struck by lightning moments earlier and still harbored lingering fear. How could he possibly let Yu Ci take the initiative?

Yu Ci jerked his head up, fixing his eyes on the dazzling sword glare at the tip of the talisman sword. He neither dodged nor evaded, appearing stunned. Yet the instant the sword light reached him, he flicked his backhand, and a blue radiance popped out from his sleeve, cutting upward in a counterattack. With a ringing clang, it actually met and blocked the sharp edge of the Nine Yang Talisman Sword head-on.

Daoist Yan felt a slight surprise, then immediately let out a cold chuckle. He drew his sword back slightly, applied double the force, and brought it down in another slash. Given the terrifying might of the Nine Yang Talisman Sword, the blue radiance had blocked the first blow only to produce a buzzing tremor and light that nearly scattered. With this second strike coming down, it looked as though Yu Ci was about to be split in half.

Yu Ci's eyes widened. Abruptly parting his lips, he spat out an arrow of blood that struck the unstable, vibrating blue light, and then squeezed a single syllable from between his teeth:

"Swift!"

A chilling gleam suddenly appeared.

Under Daoist Yan's incredulous gaze, bright blood-red threads spread through the blue radiance. As the bloody color soaked through, the blue light grew increasingly dazzling. The light in its central region nearly condensed into substance, emitting a luster close to physical reality.

The Nine Yang Talisman Sword slashed down, and Yu Ci met it with the blue radiance for the second time. It was still the ringing clash akin to metal, but this time, only the light on the outer periphery peeled away. The condensed blue region remained completely undamaged.

Yu Ci's face turned pale, yet he cracked a grin and laughed.

He had never truly thought of fleeing. His prior flight was merely to buy time to draw talismans and face the enemy. Time had been tight, however, leaving him only enough to hastily slap together a Mist Flow Shadow Stasis Talisman and a Palm Thunder, neither of which yielded results during the engagement.

Thanks to Daoist Yan running his mouth and talking too much, he had seized the opportunity to swiftly condense a "Seven Star Sword Talisman" inside his sleeve, finally driving it with a mouthful of heart-blood. He transformed the illusory into the real, forging this lethal weapon. The process had been so smooth it felt as though gods were lending a hand.

Of course, merely relying on a single talisman sword did not guarantee victory over Daoist Yan. But Yu Ci using talismanic arts and Yu Ci using a sword were vastly different. He excelled at talismans, but he loved the sword even more. Compared to the tedious calculations required when using talismanic arts, he was much more accustomed to the simple, straightforward choices of life and death in a close-quarters blade fight. Wandering for twelve years, how many times had he drawn his sword to kill?

This was his true nature.

Sweeping away all stray thoughts, facing a fiend a tier higher than himself, Yu Ci grinned broadly.

"Let's see how this Seven Star Talisman Sword of mine compares to your Nine Yang Talisman Sword!"

"Ignorant of the immensity of heaven and earth!"

Daoist Yan had not expected that, after a round of combat, he would be looked down upon by a junior. Fury surged straight to his head. With a loud roar, he rushed forward once more, wielding the Nine Yang Talisman Sword as it hissed and shrieked.

The empty void seemed crisscrossed and sealed by dozens of fine red threads, every single red line condensed from the purest, most refined fire energy. With the slightest tremor, raging flames spewed forth, instantly enshrouding the surrounding forest for several zhang with almost no gaps left.

Yet the roaring sound of blazing flames still could not drown out the clanging metallic resonance within. Daoist Yan felt a slight tremor in his hand, and then he saw a streak of blue light shoot out from the sea of fire. It looked like a straight line, but in reality, it twisted and flexed slightly, precisely dodging the sharpness of the Nine Yang Talisman Sword to avert fatal harm in an extremely clever maneuver.

Enveloped in sword light, Yu Ci broke out of the sea of fire. Although multiple spots on his body were on fire and even his hair and eyebrows were not spared, his life was secure. With a single roll on the ground, he extinguished those flickering flames.

Yet the crisis was not over. Relying on the magic power of his talisman sword, Daoist Yan seized the initiative. Instantly shifting his sword stance, he pursued the laterally shifting Yu Ci. Abandoning all subtleties and relying purely on the sharpness of the talisman sword, he slashed straight down at Yu Ci's head.

This sword turned cleverness into clumsiness, its might actually surpassing the massive fire from before. Yu Ci neither dodged nor evaded, driven purely by an unarticulated instinct deep within his body. With a backhanded stroke, he neither parried nor blocked, thrusting straight for Daoist Yan's cheek in an outright mutually assured destruction move.

"Junior!" Daoist Yan no longer knew what to curse. Naturally, he was not going to die together with this mortal brat, so he had to improvise, shifting his sword to knock Yu Ci's sword light away.

Their sword glares collided, whistling shrilly through the void like someone blowing a bamboo whistle. This made Daoist Yan's chest feel stifled once again. He saw it with absolute clarity: this Seven Star Talisman Sword had truly been conjured out of thin air by Yu Ci using talismans and a mouthful of vital essence. How on earth was it managing to fight to a draw with the Nine Yang Talisman Sword he had spent two arduous years melting and refining?

Damn scumbag!

Pressured by this stifling frustration, Daoist Yan wished he could hack Yu Ci into eight pieces the very next moment, making his sword light even more vicious and cruel. Yet Yu Ci's resilience exceeded his expectations. He could tell that this pretty boy's swordsmanship was merely mediocre, lacking any exquisite moves. What was bizarre, however, was that even without following proper form and with wounds steadily accumulating on his body, whenever a crisis struck, he could always point a sword straight at a vital point, forcing Daoist Yan to pull back and save himself, succeeding every single time.

This should have been impossible!

Fighting for one's life sounded simple enough, amounting to nothing more than attacking what the opponent must rescue and competing in sheer guts. But constantly walking the line between life and death—where did one get a limitless supply of guts to burn? Not to mention that while wearing away that courage, one also had to gaze accurately, strike swiftly, and control steadily, delivering genuine, fatal threats to the opponent.

Such perceptive vision, technique, intellect, and nerve fused into a single whole, allowing him to strike dozens of swords in a row without a single miss. To put it simply, if Daoist Yan were placed in the exact same position, could he do it?

If his divine intent and mental cultivation were smoother and more refined, perhaps... he still couldn't!

When this thought wrapped around his mind, Daoist Yan inevitably became distracted. Right at that moment, he swept his sword across, aiming for Yu Ci's neck. Yu Ci merely tilted his torso slightly, letting blood spray from his shoulder to buy a sliver of an opening. He pressed his body forward, the chilling light of the Seven Star Talisman Sword like stars as it thrust straight for Daoist Yan's facial vitals.

Turning defense into offense! Yu Ci finally snatched a shred of the initiative.

His mind naturally concentrated entirely on the sword tip without a single shred of hesitation, thrusting forward with his sword.

Ever since he was twelve years old, when the Crimson Yin Female Immortal taught him swordsmanship and he fled a year later, Yu Ci's foundation had not been particularly solid. Later, as he wandered everywhere, he had no famous master to guide him. Purely in terms of swordsmanship, he was indeed mediocre. Yet his courage was extraordinary, and his thinking was similarly unconventional. Drifting through the jianghu and frequently engaging in life-or-death brawls, he gradually came to realize:

Swordsmanship has levels of superiority, and cultivation has strengths and weaknesses. But between life and death, my opponent and I are absolutely equal. I will not compete in swordsmanship, nor will I compete in cultivation; I will only compete in that single moment of life-or-death transition to see who can seize a thread of survival.

Gamble with courage as the stake for a single thread, trading death for life to snatch the preemptive initiative.