"When His Majesty first came to White Emperor City, he felt the scenery was too monotonous, lacking a little liveliness..."
Jiang Wanwan looked up at the waterfall of sword intent hanging high in the nine heavens and spoke in a tone of matter-of-fact certainty and boundless reverence:
"So His Majesty casually slashed his sword toward the sky."
"And then there was this 'Nine Heavens Sword Waterfall,' also known as the 'Heavenly River.'"
"This water has no source, and this intent never ends. It flows day and night, one of White Emperor City's signature wonders."
Casually... slashed his sword?
Zhu Zhuqing was utterly dumbstruck.
"Just because that Heavenly Emperor thought White Emperor City's scenery was monotonous... he casually slashed his sword and carved out a waterfall in the nine heavens?"
She gasped!
Zhu Zhuqing looked up at that "Heavenly River" again, the shock in her heart already beyond words.
She felt only her scalp tingling, a chill shooting straight to the crown of her head.
What tremendous power!
What freedom to do as he pleased!
Meanwhile, on the Douluo Continent, in the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect.
When Sword Douluo Chen Xin heard Jiang Wanwan's words, "a stream of water in the nine heavens casually slashed into being," he sprang from his seat as though struck by lightning!
"This... th-this... how is this possible?! No! This is absolutely impossible!"
He stared fixedly at the "waterfall" hanging down in the sky screen, flowing without end.
His face, usually as unruffled as an ancient well, was now filled with unprecedented shock, frenzy, disbelief, and a trace of...
Mad excitement.
"Uncle Jian, what's wrong?"
Startled by Chen Xin's violent reaction, Ning Fengzhi hurriedly asked.
Bone Douluo Gu Rong also cast him a puzzled look.
After all, he knew this old friend of his all too well. His old friend had always been aloof and composed.
Although the Heavenly River waterfall in the sky screen was indeed wondrous and awe-inspiring, surely it did not warrant such excitement?
His body was even trembling slightly, and the hand holding his sword was quivering.
For a Peak Douluo who had immersed himself in the Sword Dao for decades, whose will had long been as firm as rock, and who stood first in the Sword Dao on the Douluo Continent, this was simply inconceivable.
Chen Xin seemed not to have heard Ning Fengzhi.
His entire mind, all his senses, were locked firmly onto that "waterfall."
At some point, a faint silver light had even veiled his eyes, a sign that he had driven his Seven Kill Sword Intent to its utmost limit.
Others were merely shocked by the grandeur of that waterfall in the nine heavens...
But not him!
Mountains were no longer mountains, and water was no longer water.
In Chen Xin's "eyes" at that moment, what hung in the sky was not water at all, but countless trillions of strands of "sword intent," pure, keen, and profound to the utmost, surging, roaring, and unfolding endless transformations!
Every "droplet" was the crystallization of a concept of the Sword Dao;
Every "stream" was the fusion of myriad sword intents.
Slashing, thrusting, lifting, sweeping, bursting, pointing, hooking, flicking...
Basic sword forms turned the mundane into the miraculous within it;
Wind, lightning, water, fire, the void, time...
Sword intents of all manner of attributes and artistic conceptions intertwined and resonated.
More terrifying still, these sword intents were not piled together haphazardly!
They overlapped, combined, and flowed in a manner Chen Xin could not comprehend at all, yet found incomparably harmonious and profound, ultimately forming this great river of Sword Qi that seemed to possess life and a will of its own!
Three thousand kinds?
No, probably more than thirty thousand, or even three hundred thousand!
And the realm of every kind of sword intent was so lofty that even a lifetime of pursuit would scarcely bring him within reach!
"So that's it... so that's it..."
Chen Xin murmured distractedly, his face alternating between flushed and pale.
In that instant...
Chen Xin finally understood completely the true meaning of what Jiang Wanwan had said to Zhu Zhuqing back then!
At the time, he had been somewhat unconvinced, somewhat puzzled...
Now that he had seen this "Nine Heavens Sword Waterfall" with his own eyes, he understood it all!
"You don't practice the sword, so looking at him is like a frog in a well looking at the moon in the sky. You know only its greatness, not its height, and recognize none of its profundity."
"But if you practiced the sword as I do, seeing him would be like a tiny mayfly seeing the azure heavens..."
"I feel only my own insignificance, unable to clearly discern what constitutes the firmament of the Sword Dao!!!"
Before such a "Heavenly River," carved out by the supreme Sword Dao, the swordsmanship he, Chen Xin, had painstakingly cultivated for decades, the "Seven Kill Sword Dao" he took such pride in, was no different from a child waving a stick about at random-crude, rudimentary, and utterly laughable!
"A mayfly seeing the azure heavens... a tiny mayfly seeing the azure heavens!"
"But compared to others, am I still fortunate?"
"At least I understand that I'm a tiny mayfly, rather than a frog in a well who understands nothing at all and views the sky from the bottom of a well?"
Chen Xin gave a bleak laugh, filled with self-mockery, yet also with indescribable excitement and longing.
After a long while, Chen Xin finally came back to himself.
He looked at Ning Fengzhi and Gu Rong beside him, their faces full of concern and worry for him, yet utterly unable to understand the "magnificence" of that river of Sword Qi in the sky.
"Fengzhi, Gu Rong, I'm fine."
Chen Xin took a deep breath. "I'm just shocked..."
"Shocked?" Ning Fengzhi and Gu Rong were curious.
Chen Xin nodded. "Yes! In your eyes, that Heavenly River is merely a magnificent waterfall, but in mine..."
"That is no waterfall!"
"That is heaven-shaking Sword Qi casually unleashed by a supreme being... a living, flowing manifestation of the supreme Sword Dao!"
At his words, Gu Rong and Ning Fengzhi looked back at the sky screen's live broadcast in puzzlement, but no matter how they looked, all they could see was a magnificent "Heavenly River."
Beyond that, there was nothing else.
"I know you don't understand..."
Chen Xin's expression was solemn. "I, Chen Xin, have practiced the sword all my life and fancied myself to have gained some modest insight into the Sword Dao."
"But..."
"But the purity, clarity, and profundity of the sword intent contained in any single drop of 'water' in this waterfall are all realms I have striven bitterly for my entire life without attaining!"
Hearing this and seeing Chen Xin's solemn expression, Ning Fengzhi and Gu Rong finally stopped doubting.
Instinctively, they both drew in a sharp breath!
"It's that incredible?"
After all, this was Sword Douluo Chen Xin, a rank ninety-six Power Attack System Peak Douluo whose martial soul was the Seven Kill Sword, whose attack power was unrivaled under heaven, and who was acknowledged as one of the pinnacles of the Sword Dao on the Douluo Continent!
His sword intent, his realm, actually fell short of "a drop of water" in that waterfall?
This... how was this possible?!
"Just how powerful must that Heavenly Emperor Hao Lin Hao be?" Bone Douluo asked hoarsely.
Chen Xin slowly shook his head. "I don't know. I can't imagine it."
"If I can go to the Shrouding the Heavens World, I must visit White Emperor City in person!"
"If I hear the Dao in the morning, I can die content that evening!"
Looking at Sword Douluo, who had nearly descended into madness, Ning Fengzhi did not know what to say for a moment.
He had never seen Chen Xin so bereft of composure, so excited, so... heedless of everything.
Just what inconceivable power and realms lay within that waterfall, that Heavenly Emperor, and that world called "Shrouding the Heavens"?
The entire hall fell into a long silence.
Meanwhile, in White Emperor City.
Jiang Wanwan had already set off again with Zhu Zhuqing, continuing toward the Heavenly Court.
But the two had only taken a few steps.
"Woof!"
Zhu Zhuqing suddenly heard a dog bark, then heard what sounded like "someone" shouting with arrogant swagger: "The Heavenly Emperor has arrived!"