Sword Light drifted across the sky.
The luminous rays of Daoist Arts and formations shone upon one another.
Yet the two figures remained so steady, just like the voices in which they spoke.
The Sword Light gradually receded, the Daoist Arts gradually dispersed, and still neither could do anything to the other.
Their conversation, too, had reached its end, with those words: "The Great Dao leads toward heaven; each takes his own side..."
Jing Jiu and True Person Taiping stood on opposite sides of the Heaven-Bearing Sword.
The Heaven-Bearing Sword had become slightly deformed.
Extremely intricate patterns were engraved upon its scabbard, countless formations hidden among the profusion of flowers. The scabbard itself was made of Immortal-Tier Precious Materials nurtured within Sword Peak through the ages. It could bear the heavens and contain One Sword for All Things; by all rights, it should have been utterly impossible to deform.
Yet now it was almost unable to withstand the strain.
From this, one could imagine the terrifying power of the Green Mountain Sword Formation compressed into a space a little over a hundred feet across, and of the silent attacks these two fellow disciples had exchanged.
"If you still refuse to let go, the Heaven-Bearing Sword will be destroyed," True Person Taiping said, looking at Jing Jiu.
Jing Jiu looked at him and said calmly, "That was my goal all along. Why else would I have brought it out? Do you think the sect rules have any hold over me, or that Yuan Qu and Gu Qing could persuade me?"
A breeze brushed the slightly scorched grass. The miserable traces on the ground seemed somewhat ridiculous, yet also somewhat saddening.
True Person Taiping stared into his eyes and said, "If the Heaven-Bearing Sword is destroyed, the Green Mountain Sword Formation will