Forbidden Technique Domain
“This is how you use a sword.” Grinning, Mu Yu reached for a Ling Zheng.
“You’re going to teach me how to use a sword without even having a sword?”
Ling Zheng bound forward again. Mu Yu popped up and swung his right hand down as though he was wielding an invisible sword. The scenery between the intersection point and Mu Yu’s fingers rippled. Mu Yu drew Shadow Splitter Sword from thin air and hammered down. Immediately after his attack, Mu Yu sent his sword into a void again. Mu Yu leapt up to a clone and hooked his right arm to draw his sword from a void again, vanquishing the clone in one sweeping motion.
Ling Zheng’s clones mounted an orchestrated attack, yet Mu Yu shook off every attack effortlessly and drew his sword from a void only to counter. Lunging, sliding, gliding and bounding, Mu Yu harvested one clone at a time without breaking a sweat. Being armed with a lot of swords wasn’t the same as being proficient with a sword. In moments, Mu Yu had thinned out a fourth of the clones!
“I told you your swordplay is too flamboyant to be practical. You’ve never learnt how to wield a sword, yet you expect to manifest the true potential of sword talismans? You need to stop fooling yourself.”
Swordplay contingent to formations or talismans wasn’t true swordplay. What Ling Zheng lacked in skill, he compensated for in numbers. When it came down to it, he was still using talisman skills alone, not talismans combined with swordplay; it wasn’t swordplay if one couldn’t win in a sword duel.
The authentic version of Demon Sword Dance Talisman saw the caster directing the swords with their knowledge of sword techniques. One hundred men swinging their swords randomly were not the same as one hundred swordsmen executing trained techniques. Celestial Swords Nine Catalysts was the epitome of this concept.
Chang Tiancheng didn’t have a speckle of swordplay knowledge to reference. Thus, he hailed Ling Zheng as a prodigy of swordplay solely because Ling Zheng was unrivalled among his cohorts. Had Ling Zheng learnt the most foundational techniques of any swordplay, he would’ve performed better than he did against Mu Yu.
“How do you know swordplay?!”
“When your head is so far up your rear, you can’t see anything past your own ego. Sword formations are part of my repertoire because I know what it consists of. As for you, you don’t know a smidge about the ‘sword’ part.”
With half of his clones deleted and Mu Yu hammering a sore spot, Ling Zheng scowled. “I am the greatest genius of Talisman Sect! I’m the only who knows swordplay! You’re just bluffing!”
Emotions running high, Ling Zheng’s clones pushed forward with reckless abandon.
Fast was smooth. Smooth was fast. Ling Zheng’s unruly swings got him nowhere – except Mu Yu’s book of jokes.
Mu Yu stopped moving and let Ling Zheng’s swords close in. Once Mu Yu resumed moving, each movement triggered shots of sword qi from his formations. A myriad of Shadow Splitter Swords burst from the formations on Mu Yu, decimating the horde of clones in one fell swoop.
The real Ling Zheng bounced off the ground prior to crashing back again. His talismans were gone, meaning he was defeated.
“I refuse to accept this!”
Ling Zheng ripped out a scarlet talisman, startling Mu Yu. Mu Yu noticed that the talisman inhibited the activation of his formations.
Ling Zheng injected his blood and spiritual energy into the talisman. Upon the talisman bursting, the fragments formed red screens that entrapped the two of them. By an unknown mechanism, the incarceration cancelled all of Mu Yu’s formations as well as shut down his ability to cast them again. Shadow Splitter Sword was also forced out of its void.
“This is my sect’s Forbidden Talisman. No formations work inside this zone. Use your formations now!”
Ling Zheng rubbed the blood off his mouth and stood up.
Forbidden Talisman was created based off Formation and Talisman Stone’s original form. It was a last resort for talisman masters as the only way out was to deplete its spiritual qi. Nobody could enter from the outside to help those within.
“I’m willing to bet you can’t use your talismans, either.”
“Indeed. And so, it’s now a contest of cultivation.” Ling Zheng simpered and flaunted his Body Severing Realm Ninth Layer cultivation.
“Relax, Patriarch Zhuge. Every man has his fate. Neither of us can interfere now, hahaha,” jibed Chang Tiancheng.
Chang Tiancheng gave the expensive talisman to Ling Zheng to ensure the latter could cut off his opponent’s hopes of escape.
Zhuge Xiaosheng hammered his armrest.
“You intend to fight me without formations and talismans?” Mu Yu shook his head with a subtle smile and summoned Shadow Splitter Sword.
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