(Mistakes happen when you're busy ==. The previous chapter's title was wrong; I'll ask the editor to fix it tomorrow...)
Sword rays and sword qi crisscrossed and exploded across hundreds of miles. Countless glowing fissures tore through the sky, and the shock waves churned the entire sea, sending tsunamis thousands of feet high sweeping madly in every direction...
Even a thousand miles away, the muffled explosions of colliding sword qi could be heard... The sheer force was truly astonishing...
Of course!
Although Li Xiaoya's swordsmanship had improved considerably, he had only reached the fifth layer...
Tianyuan, however, had cultivated the Tianyuan Sword Formula to the seventh-layer peak. His attainment in swordsmanship was more than ten times greater than Li Xiaoya's. Of course, exchanging moves with Li Xiaoya was merely a way to help him practice, not a real contest, so Tianyuan naturally held back...
Although Tianyuan had created eight layers of the Tianyuan Sword Formula, the eighth was actually only his theoretical eighth layer of swordsmanship. Even Tianyuan himself had never mastered it, because in theory, this layer required magic power and divine sense to execute. It was a heaven-defying sword dao reputed to be capable of slaying Immortal Tribulation Stage cultivators...
But Tianyuan himself had no magic power and had never mastered it... Naturally, he could not use the eighth layer...
To master the eighth layer, he would have to wait until he left this place and recovered his magic power...
During their exchanges, Tianyuan mostly instructed Li Xiaoya, with little actual sparring. Li Xiaoya's talent for the sword dao genuinely delighted Tianyuan, however. He seemed eager to pass on every bit of his swordsmanship to Li Xiaoya...
Later.
Li Xiaoya learned.
Tianyuan actually felt that he might not survive his next heavenly tribulation. That was why he acted