137: Chapter 137 Victory

Deep in the bamboo forest, the lingering echoes of blade and sword clashing gradually faded away.

Jiang Hanzhou knelt on one knee, the tiger soul saber thrust into the soil beside him, supporting his swaying body.

Sweat slid down his temples, dripping onto the bamboo leaf-covered ground and staining a small dark patch.

He gasped for air, his chest heaving violently. The True Qi within him was nearly exhausted; the mass of intertwined crimson gold and azure True Qi in his Dantian was now as thin as a candle in the wind.

Three zhang away, the youth holding the sword lay quietly.

He was still wearing that moon-white robe, his face still handsome and gentle, only a saber wound deep enough to see bone had appeared on his chest.

The saber wound pierced through his body, yet no blood flowed out; only countless tiny specks of light were slowly drifting away from the wound.

The youth's figure was fading.

Starting from his feet, he turned bit by bit into light dust, like a sand painting blown away by the wind.

But his eyes remained open; those eyes, gentle as water, were quietly watching Jiang Hanzhou, without resentment or unwillingness.

"Good saber technique." The youth suddenly spoke, his voice very soft, yet it clearly entered Jiang Hanzhou's ears.

Jiang Hanzhou did not answer.

He didn't even have the strength to speak now.

That battle just now was the most difficult battle he had fought since stepping into the Dragon Elephant Realm.

Without exception.

The youth holding the sword, a memory fragment of the Dragon Slaying True Person at seventeen, had cultivation only at the Yuan Xiang middle stage, but that sword technique—

Jiang Hanzhou closed his eyes, the sword light from just a moment ago still echoing in his mind.

What kind of sword was that?

He had never seen such a sword.

It was not fast, not ruthless, not tricky, not treacherous.

In that sword technique, there was something he could not describe.

It was as if every sword thrust carried a sense of "inevitability."

Inevitably piercing, inevitably severing, inevitably...

He recalled his own three styles of Heavenly Saber.

Slaying Clouds and Splitting Peaks, The Mortal World, and Sea-Severing Tide.

He asked himself if he had grasped the essence of these three styles, especially Sea-Severing Tide, which was a killing move he had evolved himself after mastering the first two styles.

In the battle just now, he had used these three styles to engage the youth.

One slash, two slashes, three slashes.

Every slash was delivered with all his might.

Every slash was received by the opponent.

It was not a head-on clash, but rather a way he could not understand, guiding his saber momentum into empty space and dissolving it into nothingness.

With the final slash, he had risked taking a sword strike from the opponent, trading injury for injury, to finally strike that moon-white figure.

Even so, that sword strike still pierced his left shoulder.

Jiang Hanzhou looked down.

There was a thumb-sized blood hole on his left shoulder, which was slowly healing.

The powerful recovery ability granted by the Li Huo Golden Body Art was filling the wound bit by bit.

But the pain was real.

That sword strike—if he hadn't slightly turned his body at the last moment to avoid his vitals, he would likely be the one lying down right now.

"As expected of the Immortal Master."

Jiang Hanzhou finally caught his breath and murmured in a low voice.

"So brilliant and talented even in his youth... relying solely on those three Heavenly Saber styles, I am no match."

He felt no frustration.

On the contrary, what welled up in his heart was an indescribable excitement and relief.

He had won this battle.

It was a difficult victory, but he had won.

And—

He had not used any other means.

Pure Yang True Intent, Tidal True Intent, Heavenly Dipper Precious Qi, Li Huo Evil-Breaking Talisman... he hadn't used any of these trump cards.

It wasn't that he couldn't use them, but that he didn't want to.

He wanted to see to what extent he could fight the teenage years of the Dragon Slaying True Person with just these three self-realized saber styles.

The result was—

He almost lost.

But precisely because of this, he saw the gap, saw the deficiencies, and saw the flaws in his saber technique that had not yet been perfected.

This was true tempering.

This was the meaning of battle.

Jiang Hanzhou took a deep breath and slowly stood up.

His True Qi was still exhausted, but he had regained a sliver of strength to move. He pulled the tiger soul saber from the soil, stored it in his sumeru pouch, and then walked step by step toward the youth who was slowly fading away.

The youth had become very faint.

From his feet to his waist, he had already turned into light dust and drifted away, leaving only his upper body maintaining its final outline.

Those eyes were still watching Jiang Hanzhou.

"You are the first..." The youth's voice grew lighter and lighter, "The first person to defeat me with saber technique."

Jiang Hanzhou squatted down in front of him without speaking.

The youth smiled.

That smile was still as gentle and clean as when they first met, like a breeze in the mountains.

"How was my Heavenly Saber style?" Jiang Hanzhou suddenly asked.

The youth shook his head slightly.

"It has sharpness, but no foundation."

He only said these five words before his figure completely dissipated.

Turning into dust of light that filled the sky, drifting through the bamboo forest like catkins.

The last thing to fall was a bead.

The bead was about the size of a dragon's eye, pale cyan in color, with a gentle fluorescent light flowing across its surface.

Unlike the previous milky-white bead, the fluorescent light of this bead was softer and deeper, as if it contained an entire sky.

Jiang Hanzhou bent down and picked it up.

The bead felt slightly cool to the touch and was as smooth as a mirror.

The next instant—

Memories came flooding in.