All was silent and peaceful. A forest stretched boundlessly into the distance. A gentle breeze swept through it, sending waves through the trees like flashes of a blade. They rustled mightily as they rolled toward Xiao Yan, carrying away fallen leaves.
"Bang!"
In a flash of light, the tremendous sound of two bodies colliding rang through the green forest. A figure in white stood atop a giant tree, swaying slightly from side to side, somewhat unsteady.
Xiao Yan shook his head slightly, throwing off the dizziness. He glanced at where he was standing and frowned faintly, then moved, drifting down from the treetop to land on the ground.
Looking at the enormous magical beast's corpse on the ground, Xiao Yan pursed his lips. It was a tier-six Cloud-Rending Leopard, known for its speed and extraordinary agility.
Unfortunately, Xiao Yan had been practicing the Heavenly Severing Steps here, but he had been unable to control his speed and direction properly. As a result, the Cloud-Rending Leopard had been unlucky enough to take his collision head-on.
How could the physical strength of a tier-six magical beast compare to that of Xiao Yan, a Half-Emperor-level expert?
Thus, against Xiao Yan's terrifying physique, combined with the speed of the Heavenly Severing Steps, the Cloud-Rending Leopard's tier-six body had been struck once and killed outright by Xiao Yan in an exceedingly bizarre manner.
Wearing an odd expression, Xiao Yan looked at the Cloud-Rending Leopard lying motionless on the ground. He bent slightly in apology, then flashed away and vanished.
Five days had passed since Xiao Yan left the Liu Clan. During those five days, he had been heading toward Ancient Wilderness City, which Liu Huabai had told him about. Liu Huabai had said that Xiao Yan could find a way to leave the Southern Region there.
Xiao Yan had found that somewhat strange, but he had not pressed for details. After leaving the Liu Clan, he had headed straight for Ancient Wilderness City, practicing the Heavenly Severing Steps along the way.
Unfortunately, the Heavenly Severing Steps lived up to their status as a Human Class Dou Technique. They were by no means easy to master, and even after five days of study, Xiao Yan could still be said to have made no progress at all.
The Heavenly Severing Steps were a movement Dou Technique that focused on cultivating the power of space. They sought not speed, but the intangible.
Once mastered, one could disregard the rules of space and travel across the earth as though intangible. All that was real became illusory. One could travel a thousand li in an instant, outstrip life and death, leave a thousand years beyond one's concern, pursue illusions and transformations, and reach what nothing else could.
The Heavenly Severing Steps were truly wondrous. Even their former master, Venerable Heavenly Severing, had failed to comprehend them completely.
The Heavenly Severing Steps centered on the use of space: bringing space into accord and making it follow you, rather than allowing it to stand in your way.
The Heavenly Severing Steps had three realms: Wind Movement, Cloud-Soaring, and Sky Traversal. Each realm was further divided into three minor stages: initial mastery, lesser mastery, and greater mastery.
The first realm, Wind Movement: wind sprang up beneath the feet, stirred by their movement. The wind followed a person's passage; as the person stepped, wind rose beneath their feet. It appeared that the person was moving with the wind, but in truth the wind followed them, reversing the great Daos of heaven and earth and creating a wondrous state between heaven and earth.
At initial mastery of the Wind Movement Realm, wind and clouds were stirred up and heaven and earth thrown into disorder, making it impossible for others to sense the direction of the user's presence. It was an extremely ingenious use of the power of heaven and earth, turning it into aid for a person, with endless wondrous applications.
At lesser mastery, it was even more powerful, but rather than throwing heaven and earth into disorder as at initial mastery, it stirred the wind and clouds in an orderly fashion to lend assistance.
After greater mastery, wind and clouds were set in motion and one's presence shifted and transformed, becoming like heaven and earth, leaving opponents unable to trace it. At this point, the Heavenly Severing Steps also truly began to aid the cultivator.
The Cloud-Soaring Realm excelled mainly in speed. After entering the Cloud-Soaring Grand Realm, a cultivator's speed in every respect would soar dramatically, raising their overall strength. This made Xiao Yan's heart burn, but unfortunately, how could the Cloud-Soaring Grand Realm be reached so easily?
The Cloud-Soaring Grand Realm depended primarily on a cultivator's mastery of wind in the Wind Movement Realm.
If a cultivator's control over wind was strong enough, then in terms of speed alone, even a wind-attribute cultivator of the same level would be utterly outclassed.
From this, one could see just how demanding the Heavenly Severing Steps were at every realm. To grow stronger, one had to master every realm at will.
The final realm was the Sky Traversal Grand Realm. This Sky Traversal was not the same as ordinary sky traversal; the minimum requirement for the Sky Traversal Realm of the Heavenly Severing Steps was mastery of the power of space.
And this mastery differed from ordinary mastery.
The minimum requirement for this mastery of the power of space was comprehension of the Great Dao of the Void.
The Great Dao of the Void was one of the myriad great Dao laws between heaven and earth.
For ten thousand years, through the ages, humans had pursued the Great Dao of Longevity and the Great Dao of Indestructibility. What they desired was everlasting life through the ages, to be the sole existence under heaven and earth. It was also called:
The Great Dao of Eternal Life, or the Heavenly Dao!
Unfortunately, how difficult was the Great Dao of Longevity? Ten thousand years was the ultimate limit through the ages; longevity was nothing but a vain illusion.
Though longevity was difficult, the great Daos were still attainable. From ancient times to the present, although no expert had ascended to the level of the Great Dao of Longevity,
The great Daos of heaven and earth were not limited to one. Apart from the Great Dao of Eternal Life, there were all manner of great Daos of heaven and earth.
From ancient times to the present, many powerful humans had discovered numerous different kinds of great Daos of heaven and earth.
The great Daos of heaven and earth spanned past and present. Among the best known were the relatively powerful Great Dao of Chaos, Great Dao of Thunder, Great Dao of Clouds and Water, Great Dao of Wind, Great Dao of Fire, Great Dao of Light, Great Dao of Darkness, Great Dao of Life, Great Dao of Death, and Great Dao of the Undead, among others.
Of these, the Great Dao of Chaos, Great Dao of Thunder, Great Dao of Fire, and Great Dao of Light had the strongest offensive power, ranking above all other great Daos of heaven and earth.
Among them, the Great Dao of Clouds and Water and the Great Dao of Life possessed the strongest power of life. They were generally used for support and were also quite profound.
Naturally, the many other great Daos each had their own advantages, with endless wondrous uses and extraordinary properties.
The use of a great Dao was also part of one's own strength. How powerful one's great Dao was depended on how much the cultivator had comprehended.
Half a day passed leisurely, and Xiao Yan finally stopped, his appearance somewhat disheveled. All morning, he had lost count of how many magical beasts he had killed by crashing into them, leaving himself thoroughly disheveled.
Xiao Yan shook his head helplessly and leaped onto the crown of an ancient tree that reached into the sky. He watched the waves of trees rolling in from the distance.
Xiao Yan took a deep breath of fresh air, spread his arms, and half closed his eyes, letting the waves of wind rush toward him and sweep over his body.
The wind swept past, lifting Xiao Yan's robes and making them flutter with a whistling sound. He spread his fingers slightly, feeling the air slip between them.
Listening to the wind beside his ears, Xiao Yan shifted his feet slightly and adjusted the angle of his body, letting the wind beat against him and the fierce currents of air slip through his fingers.
His robes billowed and his hair danced wildly. Xiao Yan kept his eyes tightly shut, listening quietly to it all, sensing everything around him and the strong wind against his body. He kept shifting left and right, changing his position as though adjusting something.
A moment later, Xiao Yan's eyes suddenly snapped open. His right leg stepped half a pace forward, a movement that looked extremely strange. But the instant his foot stopped, Xiao Yan abruptly turned backward.
The next instant, a white-robed figure slowly appeared several hundred zhang away from Xiao Yan's previous position. It was Xiao Yan himself.
Xiao Yan turned his head and glanced at the spot where he had just been standing. An afterimage gradually faded away. He smiled, a trace of delighted surprise appearing on his face.