Snowfall

Like bandits, they swept through the Celestial Dragons' extravagant, palace-like treasure vault of a residence.

Ye Qiong's gaze suddenly stopped on a white wall inside the room. A long sword actually hung within a glass display case, its scabbard ancient in style and utterly out of place amid the expensive luxuries surrounding it.

"A famous blade?"

Puzzled, Ye Qiong raised a finger, and the glass frame containing the sword detached from the wall and fell into his hand.

With a hard shake of both hands, the glass shattered. He gripped the embedded blade and found it had satisfying weight—not some pretty but useless noble's art piece.

Ye Qiong grasped the hilt engraved with ancient patterns and slowly drew the long blade. As the blade left its sheath, a flash of gleaming silver-white chill flowed forth. The blade was as pristine as fresh snow, without a speck of dust or flaw, its edge thin as a cicada's wing—undoubtedly sharp enough to sever hair with a breath.

His eyes brightened as he fully drew it from its scabbard. The blade was long and narrow, like a gleaming stretch of autumn water, or a slender crescent moon.

He flicked it with a bent finger. The blade trembled continuously, letting out a crisp cry like a dragon's roar.

"Good blade!" Ye Qiong could not help but praise it, filled with delight. Though he did not know its origins—whether it was one of the Twelve Supreme Grade Blades, the Twenty-One Great Grade Blades, or an unknown weapon—it was certainly no ordinary item.

Since cultivating the Dark Night Style, Ye Qiong had never truly encountered the series of famous swords and swift blades. Now that he had the fortune to obtain such a superb blade, it could be considered fate.

Rather than being hung on a wall as an art piece for Celestial Dragon nobles to admire, it would be better off following him into battles against powerful foes.

Swords had always been weapons of slaughter. To never drink fresh blood was their greatest disgrace.

"Since you're following me, from now on, your name will be Snowfall."

Ye Qiong laughed loudly. Holding Snowfall, he slashed upward with force, its edge fully revealed. A crescent-shaped black sword light burst upward, tearing through the air as razor-sharp sword energy easily cut apart the entire sturdy building.

He kicked off the ground and shot through the opening he had cut in the roof.

From atop the building, he could clearly see fires spreading through the slave district of the distant Holy Land, continuously burning toward other areas. Most of the fat, pampered Celestial Dragons who had rushed out at the commotion were wandering about to watch the spectacle, some even leading slaves around by the hand as though walking dogs.

One survives through vigilance and dies through complacency.

Having lived high above all others in comfort for so long, these Celestial Dragons had long since lost any concept of facing danger.

"If I'm doing this, I might as well go all the way..." A cold smile touched Ye Qiong's lips, and icy killing intent flickered in his eyes.

At this point, his relationship with the World Government had reached an irreconcilable stage. He might as well give them something to rage over, something that would make their heads ache—or teach them a painful lesson.

"Doesn't the Navy call me a 'demon'? Then let me show you a demon's bloody methods."

Ye Qiong sheathed Snowfall and spread his hands, opening an enormous R sphere before compressing it inward.

The vast mass of air inside was compressed layer upon layer by the spherical space, eventually shrinking from the size of a basketball court into a basketball-sized sphere of light.

He held the sphere of light in his palm, picked an area packed with buildings, and decisively hurled it over.

The faintly glowing sphere streaked through the night sky like a meteor and fell toward the ground amid the astonished gazes of several Celestial Dragons.

One moment, all was silent. The next—

BOOM!!!

A point of light as bright as day burst from the impact site, followed by an explosion of terrifying force. Scorching, violent shockwaves boiled outward from the center, crushing in every direction and sweeping through the Holy Land. The nearest lavish buildings were instantly pulverized into dust. Dust and shockwaves churned violently, bulldozing forward for over a mile as the buildings caught in their wake shattered and collapsed.

The Celestial Dragons within did not even have time to scream before turning into dust.

"Heh. So this is the so-called descendants of gods. You know nothing about power." Ye Qiong sneered.

That was the nature of this world: the weak were prey to the strong.

Killing a group of Celestial Dragons truly brought him less guilt than slaughtering a pig.

Looking at the circular ruins stretching several miles in radius beneath the smoke and night, Ye Qiong nodded in satisfaction. He spread his hands again, forming another enormous spherical space and compressing it into an air bomb.

"Buy one, get one free. Here's another for you." Ye Qiong smiled like a demon and hurled the air bomb toward another untouched district.

The air bomb streaked across the sky like a meteor. Just as it was about to fall, a bolt of sword energy struck it sideways like lightning, and the sword light blocked the spherical air bomb's descent.

Before Ye Qiong's astonished eyes, the condensed air bomb was knocked away by the sword and sent soaring into the sky. It finally exploded like a thunderbolt, with earthshaking force and spectacle, yet it did not affect the Holy Land.

For an instant, the night was as bright as day.

Ye Qiong frowned and instinctively drew Snowfall, placing himself on full alert.

An elderly swordsman drifted down onto the roof of a nearby building. He wore glasses and an archaic traditional swordsman's outfit.

"Hmm... the 'demon' Ye Qiong, with a bounty of five hundred million." The elderly swordsman's eyes were sharp, and he identified Ye Qiong at once. His voice was vigorous and powerful, without the slightest hint of frailty or age.

Ye Qiong's pupils contracted. He had guessed the man's identity as well.

An elderly swordsman who had reached the Holy Land so quickly, who could knock away an air bomb with a sword technique—only one of the Five Elders fit that description.

That peerless swordsman who, forty years ago, had defeated his master within a dozen moves shortly after his master had obtained the title of World's Greatest Swordsman. According to Night Emperor's assessment, the swordsman before him, one of the Five Elders, possessed unfathomable strength and was absolutely not someone Ye Qiong could currently contend with.

Before this, he had imagined many times what the peerless swordsman destined to become his enemy would look like, what kind of presence he would possess. He had not expected to meet him here so soon, only to find that he was merely a white-haired old man around fifty.

Yet this seemingly ordinary elder, with only somewhat sharp eyes and a trace of majesty gained from long years in high office, gave Ye Qiong a terrifying pressure as though he stood at the edge of an abyss, making his entire body tense to the limit.

When a swordsman's restlessness had fully settled, and the sharpness of his edge had been hidden and restrained, the profundity of his swordsmanship became all the more unimaginably terrifying.

"One of the Five Elders. I've heard much about you." Ye Qiong met his gaze directly, gripping Snowfall's hilt tightly and pointing its gleaming tip straight at the elder. Wariness was one thing; fear was another.

If he fled now without even daring to strike, how could he speak of defeating this man in the future, let alone surpassing him?

"Oh?" The elder was mildly surprised. It was unclear whether he was surprised that Ye Qiong had recognized him, or that Ye Qiong knew of the Five Elders yet showed no fear. He ran his fingers over the polished blade as though stroking a pool of autumn water, without the slightest murderous aura.

Ye Qiong's expression tightened, yet he inwardly sighed. In terms of presence alone, he had already fallen half a step behind.

He kicked off the palace roof tiles and struck decisively. Armament Haki covered Snowfall as its opaque, ink-black blade slashed forward.

"A firefly's glow dares compete with the sun and moon!"

The elder calmly watched Ye Qiong rush close. He raised the longsword in his hand, and in the next moment, his essence, energy, and spirit seemed to awaken and merge as one, his sharpness fully revealed.

At that moment, he was like a peerless famous sword being wiped clean of dust. Though it revealed only the slightest trace of its edge, even the moonlight above dimmed before it!

A snow-white, brilliant edge burst forth. Its cold light illuminated the Holy Land, tore through the night sky, and struck at Ye Qiong as he leaped through the air.

"Dark Night Radiance!"

Ye Qiong swung Snowfall downward, carrying an entirely different force from the elder's. The black crescent was like the boundless night itself, destroying all things and even severing light.

Screech!

The powerful sword lights of both sides collided violently, annihilating each other inch by inch in midair. Even the intangible light and air were destroyed along with them.

Shockwaves surged and exploded as the two landed steadily atop the roofs.

"The Dark Night School?" Light flashed in the elder's glasses as he asked in surprise again.

"So you still remember it." Ye Qiong's voice was cold.

"To be able to battle me at full strength in swordsmanship for more than a dozen exchanges, Night Emperor was a rare opponent." The white-haired elder sighed softly. He had also guessed that Ye Qiong, who had escaped from Impel Down, was likely a disciple who had inherited Night Emperor's swordsmanship.

"That may not be so."

Ye Qiong snorted. Forty years ago, Night Emperor had been a peerless talent in the sword. Within ten years, he had created the Dark Night Style and swept through the world's swordsmen to earn the title of World's Greatest Swordsman. If he had not been defeated and imprisoned in Impel Down, Night Emperor, at the peak of the Dark Night School, might not necessarily have lost to this white-haired elder.

But Ye Qiong had to admit that the white-haired elder's attainments in swordsmanship and blade techniques truly inspired awe, like gazing up at a lofty mountain.

Still, a contest of swordsmanship was now unavoidable. Retreating in the face of difficulty had never been Ye Qiong's style.