Sword Intent

Old Seven gritted his teeth and slammed both hands against the ground again.

"Gravity Domain, activate!"

A dark yellow light erupted from his body, instantly enveloping a thirty-meter radius.

Within the domain, the air grew as heavy as a mountain. The ground cracked, and loose stones floated into the air before an invisible force crushed them to powder.

Lin Jin felt his body suddenly grow heavy, as though a thousand-pound burden pressed down on his shoulders.

Weblike cracks spread across the concrete beneath him, and his feet sank slightly into it.

Triple gravity.

An ordinary person would have been crushed to pulp in that instant. Even an awakened would have had their movements severely restricted under the suppression of the gravity domain.

But Lin Jin merely adjusted his stance slightly and steadied himself.

Old Nine seized the opportunity to lunge in from the right. With a sweep of his hands, cyan wind blades condensed in his palms.

"Storm Domain, activate!"

A gale sprang up, and countless tiny wind blades rampaged through the domain, slicing through the air with piercing shrieks.

The wind blades swept in from every direction, as dense as a torrential downpour, sealing off every angle Lin Jin could dodge toward.

Two domains overlapped.

Gravity restricted his movements, while the storm sliced at his body.

This was the killing move Old Seven and Old Nine had honed through years of cooperation. Together, they had killed more than one opponent of their own rank with it.

Facing the suppression of these two domains, Lin Jin's eyes remained calm.

Gripping his sword in his right hand, he stepped forward with his left foot and lowered his body slightly. Even under triple gravity, his movements remained unbelievably fluid, as though that thousand-pound burden had no effect on him.

"Uchiha Style: Sword Leap Flame."

Lightning suddenly blazed along Lightning-Cleaver's blade. Then countless streaks of sword light burst from its tip, like scattering sparks and blooming fireworks.

Every streak struck a wind blade with pinpoint precision.

Clang, clang, clang, clang, clang!

A dense clamor of clashing metal echoed through the workshop. Every rampaging wind blade shattered before the sword light, scattering into turbulent currents of air.

Old Nine's pupils contracted.

Had more than half his storm domain actually been broken by a single slash?

Those wind blades might not have been his strongest attack, but with so many packed together, even opponents of his own rank would have had to scramble to evade them.

Yet this man had stood his ground and blocked them all with one slash!

"Don't just stand there!" Ghost Hand's voice came from straight ahead. "Attack together!"

He was a darkness-type awakened, his movements as elusive as a phantom. A layer of black energy covered his hands. It was his darkness power, which corroded anything it touched.

"Darkness Domain, activate!"

Dark light surged from his body, intertwining with Old Seven's and Old Nine's domains.

Three domains overlapped, instantly devouring all the light around them until no one could see their own hand before their face.

Within the darkness, Ghost Hand's presence vanished completely.

Lin Jin closed his eyes.

If my sight is taken away, I'll use perception.

He unleashed Mind's Eye of the Kagura to its fullest.

Within his perception, Ghost Hand's presence was concealed extremely well, but before Mind's Eye of the Kagura, he had nowhere to hide.

He was three meters ahead and to the left, his right hand curled into a claw as he aimed straight for Lin Jin's throat.

The corners of Lin Jin's mouth lifted slightly.

He turned slightly sideways. Ghost Hand's sharp claws swept past his collar, stirring a few strands of hair.

Immediately afterward, Lightning-Cleaver swept upward from below.

White Fang Swordsmanship: Flash!

Sword light flared in the darkness, like a bolt of lightning splitting the night sky.

Ghost Hand's pupils constricted sharply, and he instinctively pulled back his arm to block.

Slash!

The blade cut across his forearm, spraying red blood. Ghost Hand grunted and retreated sharply, putting five meters between them.

He looked down at the wound on his arm, his eyes filled with disbelief.

Under the suppression of three domains, this man could not only move without hindrance but even counterattack and wound him?

His sword was too fast.

So fast that even though Ghost Hand had sensed the attack, his body had been unable to react in time.

"Is this all the three of your domains amount to?" Lin Jin opened his eyes, his scarlet Sharingan looking unusually bewitching in the darkness.

Old Seven, Old Nine, and Ghost Hand exchanged glances, each seeing shock in the others' eyes.

Even while suppressed by the Magic-Sealing Formation, this man's strength was still considerable!

Why was his swordsmanship so formidable?

Ghost Fox stood at the rear, his gaze fixed on Lin Jin. He had noticed something the others had missed.

Every time Lin Jin swung his sword, an extremely thin layer of energy coiled around the blade. That layer was so thin it was almost imperceptible, yet it was enough to let his swordsmanship exert its proper power.

He was achieving the greatest destructive power with the smallest expenditure of energy.

This was skill.

It was the path of technique, tempered countless times until it returned to its simplest essence.

A chill Ghost Fox had not felt in a long time rose within him.

He had lived most of his life and seen many masters of the sword, but he had never seen anyone of this age refine their skills to such a degree.

This man's swordsmanship had already surpassed consummate mastery and reached the level of intent.

And that intent...

Ghost Fox stared at the sword in Lin Jin's hand, sensing that faint, elusive pressure.

It was a will called "Slash Through Everything."

Whatever stood before him, he would cleave it with a single slash.

This sword intent was both domineering and utterly pure.

"Don't give him a chance to catch his breath!" Ghost Fox said in a low voice. "Crush him with the power of your domains!"

Old Seven, Old Nine, and Ghost Hand gritted their teeth at the same time and drove their respective domains to the limit.

The gravity domain intensified to five times normal gravity.

The storm domain condensed several massive wind dragons that circled and howled.

Within the darkness domain, countless black tentacles rose from the ground and reached to coil around Lin Jin.

The powers of the three domains overlapped, forming a forbidden domain fifty meters in diameter.

Within this forbidden domain, even someone at the peak of the Domain Realm would have been so suppressed that taking a single step would be difficult.

Lin Jin stood at the center of the forbidden domain, feeling the crushing pressure of those three powers.

Fivefold gravity pressed the ground steadily downward, and his feet had already sunk into the concrete.

Wind dragons tore at his clothes, leaving fine streaks of blood on his skin.

Black tentacles wound around his ankles, trying to pin him in place.

An ordinary Domain Realm fighter would already have collapsed under the pressure.

But Lin Jin was no ordinary Domain Realm fighter. He was at the Transcendent Stage!

He drew a deep breath and tightened his grip on Lightning-Cleaver.

Although the chakra within him was suppressed by the Magic-Sealing Formation and its circulation slowed, that will of Slash Through Everything could not be suppressed by anything.

He closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, a fierce gleam flashed through his scarlet Sharingan.

That was Lin Jin's own sword intent.

The sword intent of Slash Through Everything, of overcoming all techniques with sheer force.

Lin Jin moved in an instant.

He pulled his left foot out of the concrete, stepped forward with his right, and spun halfway around, sweeping Lightning-Cleaver diagonally upward from below.

White Fang Swordsmanship: Reverse Slash!

Sword light shot skyward like a ribbon of silver, cleaving the wind dragon before him in two.

Immediately afterward, he turned, held Lightning-Cleaver horizontally before him, and slashed forward fiercely.

Uchiha Style: Iaido Slash!

Sword light flashed, and the space before him seemed to tear apart. The black tentacles reaching to coil around him broke apart inch by inch before the sword light, dissolving into black mist.