Devil-Slaying Bladesman (Part One)

Saber Madman's surname wasn't Saber, but Jiang.

Apart from that, however, he had forgotten most of his memories, leaving only scattered fragments. Among those fragments, wave after wave of extreme emotions-bloodshed, vengeance, resentment, rage, and despair-washed over his sea of consciousness like breakers.

At the same time, they pushed his saber techniques to one extreme after another.

Beyond that, an instinct that occasionally awakened reminded him that deep within his consciousness, another, more powerful saber-wielding consciousness was awakening, eroding his three souls and spirit. The Saber Qi roaming his meridians was also repeatedly carving his soul.

Once the carving was complete, he would become an entirely different person.

And the slaughter in Demon-Subduing City was merely another form of sharpening the saber, or rather, an outward manifestation of that carving of his soul.

Soon, however, this last shred of his original consciousness would be cut down and wiped out in the vast ocean of sabers, leaving only a pure Devil-Slaying Bladesman.

In the Jade Firmament Divine Dynasty's military system, the Devil-Subduing Heavenly Soldiers and Devil-Slaying Bladesmen had never gotten along.

One was a regular military force, the other a mercenary force.

The former struck at the enemy's strongholds and broke through their gates in great battles, while the latter hunted Devil Creatures like lone wolves.

Even the departments that oversaw them were different: one answered to the Thunder Ministry, the other to the Devil-Purifying Bureau.

Thus, whenever the Yang Spear and Yin Saber appeared at the same time, a victor had to be decided.

Having inherited the "Devil-Subduing Heavenly Soldier," Hu Mang understood this almost at once.

Under normal circumstances, two "divine officers" who had devoured the consciousnesses of Rogue Cultivators would have fought a great battle in the city.

But while Hu Mang was inheriting the "Heavenly Soldier's divine office," various factors had created unusual circumstances, causing the "Heavenly Soldier" who should have seized his body to choose to give up.

None of Hu Mang's consciousness had been taken over at all.

So now, a freshly minted Heavenly Soldier rookie like him had to face the lingering consciousness of a veteran bladesman.

That was a bit of a raw deal.

Hu Mang used the Heavenly Eye Technique to pinpoint his position on his "survey map," while occasionally taking out the ghost-disguising human face Old Man Chen had given him to look at it.

Could it be that because I'm a man, that mature beauty wasn't too keen on taking over my body? And with my connection to that devil-subduing cat on top of it, she just went with the flow and let me inherit it.

Hu Mang felt his guess was the closest to the truth.

I'm almost there.

The place he was headed for was one of the "thunder-net hubs" he had marked through his survey.

Using the Armored Horse Talismans felt peculiar. It was a bit like the treadmill he used to run on at the gym: the belt kept turning beneath him, forcing his feet to keep moving forward.

No wonder Old Man Chen had warned him that the Armored Horse Talismans could only be used for short distances. If he used them too long, he would run until his legs broke.

Would there be a market for these if I took them to the Heavenly Gate and sold them as fitness equipment?

The thought came to Hu Mang out of nowhere.

It wasn't that he insisted on letting his thoughts wander at a critical moment. If he didn't let his mind roam, the pain, like an electric drill boring into his skull, would go straight to his brain.

Scraping poison from bone couldn't have been any worse!

I'm here.

Hu Mang came to an abrupt stop, and the two "Armored Horse Talismans" on his ankles visibly turned into wisps of green smoke.

So this is what it looks like.

Looking down from above with the Heavenly Eye Technique was completely different from actually arriving on the scene.

From above, it had been a patch of little black dots.

On the ground, it was a standard devil-subduing site.

Before him stood slightly raised platforms of dark blue-black stone, each with a Demon-Subduing Well at its center.

Each well opening was only three feet square, but a heavy devil-sealing iron grate locked it tightly shut.

Strands of black Qi seeped out through the gaps in the grates from time to time, twisting in the air like living things, only to be forcibly driven back underground the moment they touched the talisman arrays around the well rims.

The hundred-odd Demon-Subduing Wells were not arranged haphazardly.

Following some ancient array layout, they converged toward the center in nine spiraling rings. From a distance, they looked like a tremendous vortex of spiritual power nailed fast to the earth.

Every well trembled faintly, each at a different frequency, yet at certain moments they eerily synchronized. Then, the whole Hundred-Well Abyss would give off a deep, thunderous resonance, warping even the air.

At the center stood a main well, twice the size of the others.

A damaged Demon-Suppressing Seal floated above it, its spiritual light flickering as though it might go out at any moment.

It was the core that sustained the spiritual-power nodes of the entire array. If the Demon-Suppressing Seal shattered, the Demonic Qi suppressed in the hundred-odd wells would erupt at once, enough to turn the western city into a land of death.

"So many high-voltage electric wells. No wonder the wiring here is the most complicated."

Hu Mang murmured to himself.

"I'd better prepare in advance. I studied civil engineering, so it's perfectly normal for me to know a thing or two about wiring, right?"

With the aid of the Heavenly Eye Technique, Hu Mang headed straight for his target—the Hundred-Well Abyss.

His opponent showed no intention of concealing himself either. Under the watch of the "Heavenly Eye," he took only a moment to get his bearings before charging straight over.

Soon, the saber-wielding Madman Jiang saw the Demon-Subduing Wells and the "Devil-Subduing Heavenly Soldier" sitting cross-legged before the main well.

Hu Mang stood at the edge of the main well in the Hundred-Well Abyss. Underfoot was blackened stone that had been soaked in Demonic Qi and repeatedly scorched by spiritual power for centuries.

The Devil-Subduing Heavenly Soldier's murky yellow eyes were looking at him with excitement.

Before Hu Mang, the great spear planted in the ground was trembling violently, giving off a low hum like a dragon's roar.

The Innate Thunder Patterns on the shaft lit up one by one.

One, two, ten...

Each time one lit up, a thread of violet lightning traveled along its lines, as if something were breathing within the spear's spine.

The lightning brightened and dimmed in waves, as though counting down to something.

The instant the eighteenth thunder pattern fully lit up-

Boom!

The spear shaft grew scorching hot, glowing red from end to end. The heat warped the air into transparent ripples.

Deep within the spear's spine, the long-dormant Heavenly Soldier imprint was fully kindled, bursting forth with dazzling silver-white light.

A vast devil-subduing presence spread out with a roar, centered on Hu Mang.

The hundred-odd Demon-Subduing Wells in the Hundred-Well Abyss seemed to answer its call. The seals at their bottoms resonated with a muffled rumble.

Countless streams of pale golden spiritual power rose from the well openings and intertwined with the presence of the Star-Following Great Spear, forming an enormous Devil-Subduing Heavenly Gang Net in the air.

The next instant, Heavenly Gang Qi surged forward like a raging tide.

It was no longer an insubstantial force, but nearly tangible Devil-Subduing Heavenly Gang Qi. The compressed air erupted with thunderous cracks, stone slabs split inch by inch across the ground, and even the iron grates over the wells trembled faintly.

The wave of Heavenly Gang Qi rushed straight at the bladesman opposite, about to grind him to dust-

But then, a sudden change occurred!

Three feet in front of the bladesman, the unstoppable wave of Heavenly Gang Qi slammed into something like an invisible wall and was abruptly split down the middle.

The left half of the force slid to the left, the right half to the right, while a transparent, razor-sharp saber cut hung motionless at the center.

There was no sound, no warning.

Only that cut in the void, growing ever clearer as it severed all devil-subduing power.

Hu Mang's pupils contracted. Gritting his teeth, he said:

"Saber Domain!"

Madman Jiang stood where he was, lingering saber intent still winding around him, his tattered robes snapping in the aftermath.

He slowly raised his eyes. The whites and pupils had vanished, leaving only two masses of endlessly churning saber shadows-each one a move he had used, a person he had killed, a tribulation he had endured.

Those eyes of saber shadows settled on Hu Mang without blinking.

"You're not her."

The voice did not come from his throat, but rang out from every inch of air in the space around them-

It came from the openings of the wells in the Hundred-Well Abyss, from the thunder patterns on the Shattered Star Great Spear, even from the pauses between Hu Mang's own heartbeats.

Every word was like an invisible saber blade, cutting open Hu Mang's "heart well."

In the black sea world formed by the Mysterious Yin Devil Moon, an enormous saber cut suddenly appeared on the surface, splitting the sea cleanly in two.

With the surface gone, the "moon in the sea" naturally vanished as well.

In that instant, every pore on Hu Mang's body felt ready to burst open.

At that moment, he sensed an unprecedented danger!

Deep in his murky yellow pupils, the Yin-Suppressing Marks suddenly blazed.

And in that instant, the previously empty Hundred-Well Abyss was filled with eerie figures. Every figure was a Devil-Slaying Bladesman, and every bladesman raised the long saber in his hand and slashed at Hu Mang from all directions.

The true nature of the Yin Saber was that of a ghost saber!

Hu Mang's consciousness was on the verge of exploding. Every thought and every breath in his body sent out a cry for help.

The Essence Blood throughout his body surged with every pump of his heart, making a nearly explosive sound. Contracting and expanding like a rushing torrent, the stimulation clearly exceeded the limits of a normal human body, or even a normal demon body.

Then, it was as if he had broken through some kind of shackle.

His Essence Blood boiled, surging from his heart meridian and turning into streams of scarlet sword intent in his meridians, charging and crashing through them like frenzied dragons.

The Blood-Piercing Essence-Reversal Art—the fragment of a Devil Cultivation Method he had picked up overseas-finally broke through its barrier on the brink of life and death, reaching the third level, "Pierce Blood to Form a Sword."

And "a sword was a small spear."

Almost in an instant, Hu Mang's consciousness was condensed to an incredible degree. Spear and sword became one; drawing a sword was drawing a spear. The Dragon-Suppressing Stake descended with the stance of riding a dragon and straddling a tiger.

It landed with a heavy boom.

Amid the roiling dust, the tip of the Shattered Star Great Spear was pinned fast at a fatal point-

Three inches below the Yin Saber!

As the Blood-Piercing Essence-Reversal Art broke through to the third level, Hu Mang had seized the opportunity to turn his spear into a sword. He had combined it with the devil-subduing force he had developed earlier to unleash Great River Breaches Its Banks from the Twenty-Four Swords of Linchuan. Striking first, he had used the power of the Spear-Breaking Stance to break through his opponent's saber force.

Before Madman Jiang could draw his saber, Hu Mang's spear was already pressed against its edge.

Now, beneath the skin of Hu Mang's bare upper body, blood patterns surged like rivers. Waves could even be seen rolling through his muscles like great breakers crashing against a shore, giving off the deep, unmistakable sound of surf.

It was no illusion, but the outward manifestation of Qi and Blood and strength driven to their limit.

The spear tip advanced inch by inch.

He forced Madman Jiang's Yin Saber back.

The man's saber might have been treacherous and vicious, but in sheer strength, he truly was no match for Hu Mang.