Chapter 769: Breaking Through

Several hundred swords lightly hovered behind him.

Gu Qing Shan could feel the state of each of them, their trembling, their position.

With a single thought, these swords would immediately follow his order and eliminate any enemy.

These swords were like a part of his body, or perhaps more accurate, the manifestation of his mind.

Through his two lives, Gu Qing Shan had never experienced this before.

He suddenly realized.

I’ve broken through.

Indeed, within this phantom image of the Age of Old, he had surpassed the realm of Sword Saint as it was normally understood.

Glowing lines of text quickly scrolled past the War God UI.

[At Void Beholder realm, you can manipulate 700 flying swords at once]

[After the next breakthrough, you will be able to manipulate 1200 flying swords]

[This was a leap, a true breakthrough in the truest sense of the word. You have broken through the shackles of traditional swordsmanship and achieved the realm of unifying the mind and swords]

[From now on, you will be able to use hundreds and thousands of flying swords as you wish, manipulating them with your mind, performing Secret Arts with them or forming powerful swords arrays]

[This is the Great Attainment stage of a Sword Saint!]

Gu Qing Shan felt a bit emotional.

This place was a phantom image fragment of the Age of Old—- because it was only a fragment, it couldn’t affect the final results of what happened in the Age of Old.

But these moments truly did happen.

Gu Qing Shan could even cultivate, obtain Soul Points here, and become even stronger.

This was only a fragment because even when humanity had done everything they could, they were unable to create a complete parallel world, only infinite amounts of fragmented phantom images.

But even so, to be able to do this at all was already far beyond what a normal person can imagine, possibly even beyond what a Divinity can imagine. That’s why even when they were waiting for someone from thousands of years later to return and unlock this secret.

——–where did this ability that was essentially creating an entirely different time and space come from?

Gu Qing Shan didn’t have time to think about it too much.

The huge commotion created by the flying swords was immediately noticed by the Desolate monsters.

Dozens of monsters that had razor-sharp spikes all over their bodies each pulled out a single spike and threw it at Gu Qing Shan with all their power.

The sharp spikes howled as they charged forward at Gu Qing Shan.

Gu Qing Shan put one hand forward.

One of the huge wings of swords behind him scattered into numerous sword images and appeared in front of him.

The flying swords gathered in one place to form a giant hand that gave off a cold gleam.

Gu Qing Shan casually waved his hand.

The giant hand made of swords also moved as he did.

Clang clang clang clang clang!

The spikes were all lightly slapped away by the giant hand.

Gu Qing Shan’s gaze swept through the sky.

All the spikes stopped in the air.

Arcs of blue lightning flowed across the spikes.

Gu Qing Shan had taken control of these spikes by treating them as flying swords!

Shill—-

Shill—-

Shill—-

Cold flashes of light streaked across the sky.

The spikes returned to the monsters even faster than before, piercing through their bodies and anchoring them in place.

Gu Qing Shan didn’t wait any longer.

The sword array was now ready.

He triggered the Taiyi Sword Array, manipulated all the flying swords to scatter, disappear into the void of space, and quickly weaved through the air against the wind.

The sword array descended from above.

A storm of swords had arrived!

Nonstop popping sounds came from the wind.

———this was the sound created by the countless swords being infused with Elemental Lightning as they flew through the air with supersonic speed.

Truthfully, if it was only this much, the Desolate monsters weren’t at all wary.

But the situation was a lot different from what they had anticipated.

Any monsters that were touched by the wind immediately froze in place, unable to move a muscle.

Right after that, countless flying swords would come out from the void of space and circle around the monster, finely dicing their bodies at an unimaginable speed.

With the sound of the vibrating wind storm, the army of monsters was being swallowed up bit by bit.

The sword-infused wind was dyed red.

The wind continued to blow.

The storm howled and roared as it continued deeper into the horde of monsters.

Five breaths later.

Everyone stopped their hands, unable to believe the scene that had just unfolded in front of their eyes.

A huge empty area was opened up on the battlefield.

The Desolate monsters that once occupied that area were completely eliminated by the sword array.

Gu Qing Shan stopped his sword art.

The sword array ended.

Notifications were popping up nonstop on the War God UI.

[You’ve killed a Desolate Lizardman, Soul Points +50,000]

[You’ve killed a Desolate Spike Beast, Soul Points +90,000]

[You’ve killed a Desolate Guard, Soul Points +180,000]

…

Although they were just soldier-class monsters, the sheer amount of monsters killed gave Gu Qing Shan an astronomical amount of Soul Points.

The human cultivators cheered and continued their counter-attack.

“Gongzi, congratulations for breaking though, but you openly used Elemental Lightning that doesn’t exist in this world to kill so many Desolate soldiers, I think you might be in a very dangerous situation soon” Shannu reminded him.

“Hm, I know” Gu Qing Shan replied.

——-if any Divinities followed me to this world, even without doing anything else, as long as they found out about this battle, they would very quickly recognize who I was.

At that time, the problem of my survival will be called into question.

Even if no one came, after this war was over, Gu Qing Shan would still have to go through the trouble of explaining his identity in general.

Since this was a tense battle situation, as long as he was human, no one would question his identity and his Elemental spirit energy, but as soon as this was ended, the humans and Divinities of this world would definitely take notice of him.

What was that power that would be so destructive and counter Desolate monsters so well?

For Gu Qing Shan, this would be the price he had to pay for being emotional.

——–but on the other hand, if he didn’t insist on staying true to his belief even at the risk of death, Gu Qing Shan wouldn’t have been able to break through from his sorrow.

He stopped briefly and coldly analyzed the situation of the battlefield.

At this point, humanity’s side had the advantage, his flying swords would fly to every area of the battlefield that was stuck in a stalemate, unleashed the power of Elemental Lightning, and forced the Desolate monsters to endure attacks while being unable to resist.

Gu Qing Shan leapt up high, concealed his figure among the several hundred flying swords, circulated his Lightning spirit energy, and flew across the battlefield with all of his swords.

Every monster that was attacked by him would be stunned in place, then killed by a flying sword that came from above.

The scales of victory had tilted towards the side of humanity.

“Let’s go”

Gu Qing Shan told Shannu.

He brought the hundreds of flying swords across the battlefield, headed for a faraway location.

——that was his original destination.

The strongest cultivators of humanity and the Divinities were gathered there at the border of two worlds to stall the rulers of the Desolate world.

To avoid letting overwhelmingly powerful Desolate monsters into the battlefield and massacre humanity’s cultivators, the Divinities have concisely ordered all normal cultivators to not go past the frontlines.

Because each Desolate leader was an existence that no normal cultivator could ever go against, even with vastly superior numbers.

The border of the two worlds could only be guarded by Divinities and the strongest cultivators of humanity.

While flying, Gu Qing Shan recalled the war reports he memorized before.

According to the records, the border of the two worlds this time was the Desolate world’s Barren Western Plains, and the Heaven realm’s Cold Jade Forest.

The battle of Divinities would erupt within this vast area.

As for where that Divinity died…

Gu Qing Shan quickly determined the direction by comparing the map and terrain.

He headed towards a large forest full of lush green trees.

——-indeed, this should be where that Divinity would fight against a Desolate monster and breathe his last, the Heaven realm’s Cold Jade Forest!

Looking over this forest, Gu Qing Shan noticed something.

This isn’t right.

Birds are still flying freely over the air.

Many animals are also wandering the forest grounds.

Even if the animals and other living beings of this world had already seen and experienced the intense battles of cultivators with their spirit energy, they wouldn’t be able to survive through such battles.

Pulling all his flying swords back, Gu Qing Shan transformed into a bird and took flight.

He integrated himself with the other flying birds, acting like he was flying in circles aimlessly.

Even after a full circle of flight, he still saw no battle in the forest, and no Divinities or monsters.

Did I remember it wrong?

No, I wouldn’t.

The Divinity fell during the second half of the war, around noon.

Gu Qing Shan looked up at the sky and suddenly understood.

It wasn’t time yet!

That’s great.

—–but how should I remain in this forest without being discovered by both the Divinity and monsters?

While flying, Gu Qing Shan was falling into thought.

Roar!!!

Abruptly, an earth-shattering roar came out of nowhere.

The Desolate monsters are coming!

With this roar, countless animals in the forest fell unconscious.

The birds in the sky also cried out and dropped out of the sky.

Seeing that, Gu Qing Shan was silently glad: “Perfect!”

He also let out a cry and dropped down into the forest following the other birds.