"Upgrade!"
[Valor Points -5000] [Swordsmanship upgraded to lv6]
Boom!
No sword light shot into the sky, nor was there a massive eruption of chakra.
Yet the entire laboratory fell silent in an instant.
Orochimaru No. 7, No. 8, and No. 9 stopped what they were doing and looked up at Cangyue.
The air had not frozen.
But the faint vibrations of every instrument, the flow of energy, and even the dust motes drifting through the light seemed to have fallen into an invisible net.
The Flame and Thunder Swords unsheathed themselves.
The Purple Flame Sword hovered to Cangyue's left, its violet flame subdued until it was nearly transparent.
The Thunder Sword hovered to his right. Its blue-white lightning no longer crackled, but condensed into a dazzling thread along the blade.
The two swords slowly revolved around Cangyue.
Orochimaru No. 9 merely looked at them a moment longer before a needle-like pain stabbed deep into his soul.
That was no illusion caused by the sword light.
Cangyue's sword intent had become concentrated enough to touch the mind directly.
[Valor Points +30]
With his eyes closed, Cangyue rapidly absorbed the insights into the sword way that had poured into his mind out of nowhere.
This time, the greatest change was neither in his sword moves nor a simple increase in power.
His Sword Intent Domain had fully taken shape.
His perception now reached several times farther than before.
The laboratory walls, the underground pipes, and the groundwater flowing in the distance all appeared clearly in his awareness.
Within the domain, every power related to swords fell under Cangyue's control.
More precisely, rules of the sword way that belonged to him alone had begun to form there.
If he wished, plants, stones, air, and even chakra released by his