The moon hung high like a silver platter above the Dragon Clan’s Sword Tomb.
White clouds stacked halfway up the sky, seemingly frozen in silence.
In the Thousand Swords and Ten Thousand Intentions Formation, suddenly, a ringing sound emerged out of the quiet.
A figure, as graceful as a soaring dragon, darted through the thousand broken swords.
Beads of sweat dripped from Yue Jinghua’s forehead as she gazed at the Great Sword in her hand, an hour had passed before she finally swung a sword.
The Red Cloud Dragon, transformed into a human long ago, told Yue Jinghua its name—Yun Zhao—before it left. If fate allowed, they might meet again in the Otherworld. Then, it departed from the Thousand Swords and Ten Thousand Intentions Formation.
Yun Zhao also told Yue Jinghua, that the Thousand Swords and Ten Thousand Intentions Formation was a competitive space. As long as she managed it properly, the arena would continuously increase the difficulty, which could greatly benefit her training. After he returned to the Middle Plane, he would not come again for a short time, thus this arena was his parting gift to Yue Jinghua.
Before leaving the competitive space, Yun Zhao looked back at Yue Jinghua pensively, feeling a familiarity about her aura, as if she was a descendant of an old acquaintance, yet couldn’t remember exactly who at the moment.
Years ago, in the competitive space where two dragons duelled, one was now missing, so this place no longer held its original purpose.
Gathering the Creation Power in her wrist, she pushed out a sword slowly and gently; that sword seemed extremely slow, yet it whipped through the air with an unexpectedly swift and continuous streak of sword shadows like dawn light.
With a nimble flick of her wrist, the swordsmanship became suddenly fierce, changing into incredible swiftness.
Countless sword shadows, like the colored clouds beside the sun at dawn, fell onto the ground, extraordinarily dazzling.
But where these "Cloud Qi" traveled, they left traces several feet deep, resembling the marks from a fierce beast’s claws, revealing their formidable power.
The sword technique taught to Yue Jinghua by the Cloud Dragon was called Cloud Stacking, which Yue Jinghua named as the second form of Lianyun.
The first form of Lianyun, Sky Splitting, utilized the overwhelming power of thunder, launched in one strike, exceptionally fast, but to execute that sword, one needed at least the strength of Heavenly Dark Realm; forced use could backfire if done excessively.
The Cloud Stacking taught by the Red Cloud Dragon, however, was quite the opposite; it prevailed in slowness mingled with swiftness.
This sword technique was also the most commonly used by him during his duels with his old opponent.
The previous master of Lianyun’s sword techniques emphasized speed, and subtly carried the power of wind and clouds.
Whereas Yun Zhao’s Cloud Stacking started slow with his sword play.
Slow, yet actually it was secretly accumulating power, bursting suddenly, catching the opponent off guard.
Yue Jinghua once again stood in the Thousand Swords and Ten Thousand Intentions Formation, faced with myriad sword intents, she swung her sword out, her movements graceful like a startled swan, her sword shadow like rosy clouds, combined with the Small Cloud Trace Steps, there was a beauty as though clad in stars and moon.
"Break," using only a third of the time she usually needed, Yue Jinghua broke through the Thousand Swords and Ten Thousand Intentions Formation, and then she contentedly withdrew her sword technique.
Unexpectedly, in just three short days, she grasped the knack of the sword shadow, able to burst out five residual shadows at one time, and learned to apply them swiftly after formation, striking with the momentum of thunder.
Yue Jinghua didn’t realize that her application of Cloud Stacking was closely related to her temperament. Ever since becoming Yue Jinghua, she had been accustomed to playing a wolf in sheep’s clothing, her sword techniques starting slow then speeding up, aiming to catch her enemy off guard, quite shamelessly so.
After comprehending the second form of Lianyun—Cloud Stacking—Yue Jinghua consumed a drop of Green Liquid, and only after fully absorbing the Green Liquid did she leave the Thousand Swords and Ten Thousand Intentions Formation.
After leaving the Sword Array, Yue Jinghua reassessed her cultivation progress, only to discover that during her brief fainting spell, her spiritual power had improved further, with two radiant Dark Stars in Mo Xi’s Sea of Consciousness. Observing her body’s bones and meridians, with the help of the Green Liquid, had also become much stronger.
"It’s about time to meet that Sea Bat Eel," Yue Jinghua chuckled mischievously, eager to leave Mo Xi’s Sea of Consciousness.
The Senluo Sea, truly a place of exile for the gods, in this sea area where visibility was less than five fingers, when diving more than fifty fathoms, the water already turned bone-chilling cold.
With the water current moving slower, the traces of living fish became hard to find, and the light dim, only seeing a limited amount of seaweed-like marine plants tenaciously growing.