"Don't parade that so-called swordsmanship of yours around. You're only making a fool of yourself."
Jiang Ding walked through the dazzling Annihilation Sword Domain.
The surrounding space shimmered indistinctly. Great Sun Annihilation Sword Intent covered every direction, and heat waves rose as the temperature reached tens of thousands of degrees Celsius—enough to reduce any carbon-based creature to charcoal and ash. It had begun to show a ten-thousandth of the majesty of a true sun.
After all, the temperature at the sun's core was only twenty million degrees Celsius.
Calling it a young, growing star was hardly an exaggeration.
"I have indeed made a fool of myself."
Xu Yan retreated, coughing blood. He planted his sword against the ground, steadied himself in the void, and spoke in a low voice.
He knew now that his arrogant dream of forging a path to Void Refining alone through more than two thousand years of exploration was nothing but a bubble of illusion.
Forget advancing to Void Refining by that path. He could not even defeat a Great Sun Sword Heir in the Nascent Soul Realm. He had been crushed outright.
That path had failed.
After exploring alone, with at most a few ineffectual descendants of the Xu Clan helping him, all he had produced was a balloon riddled with holes. A casual flick was enough to burst it.
It was not that he lacked talent or brilliance.
Forging a path alone was simply too difficult!
No matter how gifted someone was, without an orderly inheritance from predecessors, help from the outside, or the shared efforts and encouragement of many fellow cultivators, they could not do it.
Forging a great path like this was simply impossible!
No Rogue Cultivator, however extraordinarily gifted or renowned across the realm, could accomplish it alone.
Hum!
Hum, hum!