Lu Yun was supremely confident in his talent; all he needed was a spark of inspiration to send him off in the right direction.

Back on the white path of cultivation, he’d successfully grasped the essence of dao and incorporated it into his sword technique. Logically speaking, it followed that Violetgrave’s sword dao would be no problem for him, either.

Moreover, she’d plainly demonstrated that stroke to Lu Yun on purpose, revealing to him all the secrets of the move.

Captivated by the demonstration under the fifth abyss, there hadn’t been anything for him to test his blade on. Now, the scarlet spirits filling the space as far as the eye could see would serve as the perfect targets.

Swoosh!

Violet sword energy enveloped the area, cutting down the spirits and exterminating them in an instant. However, Lu Yun knew that it wasn’t the slash that killed the spirits, but the heavenly power contained within it.

In other words, he was still relying on his heavenly power to kill his enemies like he had before, exhausting what reserves he had in himself. He had yet to master sword dao like Violetgrave had and could only reach her heights through trial and error. As time went on, though, he would require less energy and instead, rely more on the strength of the sword itself.

“Vastdragon Seaturner? Peng of Kun? Starstream Stroke? Endless Cosmic Ocean? Those techniques really are jokes!”

His lips curled into a smile as he recalled the slash Violetgrave had performed. Gone were the overwhelming swarm of scarlet spirits, replaced by a trail of brilliant sword energy.

Sword dao.

It was an independent dao, just like that of equipment, pill, formation, and talisman dao. Sword techniques and intent were nothing but deviant shortcuts by comparison.

“Dao has no form! I wield dao with my sword, thus I am sword dao!”

Swoosh!

With a twitch of his arm, Lu Yun reeled back in his nearly exhausted heavenly power and frowned in concentration, sending out a flash of violet brilliance.

It took nary a moment.

Violet sword energy overwhelmed the local space, relying on no heavenly power at all. This purest of sword slashes eliminated all the scarlet spirits in the area.

“I… did it?! This, this is sword dao! Wielding dao through the sword!

“...but it’s not my sword dao, it’s Violetgrave’s. I’m only an imitation, just copying her moves. I’ll have to find my own way on this path.” Lu Yun looked up.

Hordes of scarlet spirits had gathered again, but they hovered in the air instead of immediately swooping down. This time, there was also a trace of purple among them.

“A... purple yin spirit?” Lu Yun quirked his brow. He’d seen such a spirit before in Azure Province. It was more powerful than the scarlet spirits, capable of killing an aether dao immortal in a single combat. It was responsible for the great casualties Azure Province had suffered, claiming many dao immortals.

So another had shown up here.

However, instead of entering the premises, it prowled around the edges of the local space. Something here gave it pause.

“It looks like my hunch was right. Dao immortals will be slain by the power here the second they set foot inside,” Lu Yun sighed in relief. Raising Violetgrave, he stood before the layout formed by the Yin and Yang Formation Orbs, looking up at the masses of yin spirits teeming in the sky.

The orbs were thirty percent of the way through a complete merger. The layout and the yin and yang tombs were likewise slowly coming together, like a torn wound knitting back into one piece.

“Waugh!” the purple yin spirit emitted a piercing scream. A wave of yin spirits churned toward him with even greater berserk viciousness.

However, Lu Yun no longer feared them. Pointing forward dauntlessly, Violetgrave flared with violet light and swept in numerous dazzling arcs.

Swoosh!

Swoosh!

Swoosh!

Every single slash he made contained the techniques he’d created before—Vastdragon Seaturner, Peng of Kun, Starstream Stroke, and Endless Cosmic Ocean! Sword techniques that should’ve required significant preparation and many prerequisite steps were all on display in every single attack.

Such was the dao of the sword, sufficient to display tens of thousands of techniques in one attack. However, Lu Yun had yet to reach those lofty heights. His sword dao was merely an imitation of the real thing, and it belonged to Violetgrave, not him.

“Who is Violetgrave, really? She taught Qi Hai pill dao in the Primeval Era and made it the most dominant supplemental path of the time. Further in the past, she struck a deal with someone else and gave him a strand of the Nether Fire, which was used to destroy the hell of the human race!

“And now she’s shown me sword dao with a single stroke.” Violetgrave was proving to be quite the curious enigma, when she wasn’t preoccupied with the thought of eating him.

Lu Yun wielded his sword like a writing brush, liberally splattering sword energy all over the locale like ink on a pristine sheet of paper.

Every slash embodied dozens of permutations of the sword techniques he’d invented. However, the structure of the sword dao he relied on was still Violetgrave’s. He was still copying her.

“I need to invent at least a thousand sword techniques and combine them in order to create my own understanding of sword dao.”

This wasn’t something he could do overnight, and success wasn’t guaranteed even if he sequestered himself and spent all his time training. He had to keep fighting and tempering himself, increasing his understanding of heavenly dao along the way.

As for now—

Lu Yun’s movements slowed, and the arcs of radiance he released grew smaller. Energy that had covered the realm created by the lungs shrank to a circle six thousand meters across, then six hundred. In the end, the violet barrier of light covered only the layout created by the Yin and Yang Formation Orbs.

The barrier, however, consisted of concentrated, unusually sharp sword shadows. The scarlet spirits rammed into it like eggs splattering on stone, disintegrating in an instant.

……

“Hmm?” Lu Yun suddenly felt a weight lifted from him as the endless supply of spirits abruptly vanished.

“What happened?” He opened his eyes and looked up into the distance. The faint dash of purple was the only spirit left in the sky. It gave Lu Yun a meaningful look with its gem-like purple eyes, then turned to leave.

Boom!

Boom!

BOOM!

The next moment, explosive rumbles rang throughout the local patch of space.

“It’s done!” Lu Yun’s eyes lit up when he saw the Formation Orbs become one again. Gone were the yin and yang tombs, leaving behind only one giant tomb that was dark, chilling, and foreboding.