The instant his second step landed, the blade intent beneath his feet changed.
It was no longer the overwhelming momentum of a thousand armies and ten thousand horses charging toward him that he had felt in the first step, but a more restrained edge.
The blade turned sideways and swept toward the throat.
Close-quarters combat.
Li Xiang's body sank slightly. His waist and hips lowered half an inch of their own accord, and his right shoulder drew his entire spine into an inward twist.
It was an instinctive reaction.
He was not deliberately imitating anything. Rather, after the blade intent beneath his feet entered his spine, his body instinctively performed the corresponding saber movement.
It was as though someone had whispered a sentence in his ear, and his bones had answered for him.
The second step: a reverse cut after a horizontal saber block.
Li Xiang recited it silently.
His [blade soul] trait began to resonate at that moment.
His passive Swordsman talent and the blade intent Guan Yue had left beneath his feet produced a faint vibration on the same frequency, like an untuned string that gave a discordant yet genuine hum when plucked.
It was discordant because his Swordsman level was too low—only lv11.
It was genuine because the blade soul could not lie.
The third step.
Li Xiang was still moving slowly, even considerably slower than the few people who had failed before him.
Every time his foot came down, he lingered on the footprint for two or three breaths, as though reading the words Guan Yue had carved into the floor tiles through his soles.
The fourth step.
The path along which his waist and hips exerted force changed, shifting from the third step's interception into a cleave.
A saber cleaved down from the crown of