To glimpse the true essence of this sword strike after facing just two different attacks was truly inconceivable, yet Pei Ye stood silently where he was for a long time.
In truth, just as Yue Muzhou's tone had suggested, he already believed it was an uncrossable chasm.
Just now, he had faced an absolutely ideal environment-a flat, open floor, a motionless target, a straight path for his sword. Just as Yue Muzhou had thrust at him, he had replicated that strike. Indeed, as Yue Muzhou had said, that was not mastery.
Pei Ye now even dimly realized why he had been able to use that strike almost instinctively-although this was his first formal encounter with it, it might well have been latent in his body long before.
In the humble, peaceful Fenghuai Courtyard, as he practiced those extraordinarily difficult sword moves again and again, certain things had settled within him.
Within Snow Sword, one could find its faint shadow.
That was why Pei Ye had driven his sword straight to Yue Muzhou's throat. A fraction faster, and the strike would have succeeded.
But when he approached it differently-for instance, imagining Yue Muzhou inside the hall, on the other side of a door, or targeting the back of his neck as he had just demonstrated... Pei Ye realized he was facing an immensely broad gulf.
When he had to strike through obstacles and take a winding route, he had no choice but to consider his opponent's next response and every detail of his surroundings, and thus introduce more variables... because he needed his sword to reach its target in a single strike. To believe he could do so, he could leave no possibility of failure.
Then, quite plainly, it became a contest of countermoves.
It became a true sword fight.
Thus,