Yin Long created his sword once he was obscured by the trees, which were all so large that even the smallest one would require two grown men to hold hands to fully surround it. The leaves were all five-pronged and soft to the touch, almost akin to imitation silk, resulting in the forest floor being soft and comfortable to walk on. Yin Long did as he always did, he took off his shoes and socks, storing them into his interspatial ring before he continued making his way deeper into the forest.
Yin Long moved carefully, stretching out his senses at all times to take in the surroundings. After training under Bai Xiang for another six years, as well as absorbing Qi every day, the range of Yin Long's senses had increased to a full 15 meters, the surroundings turning into a 3-d image in his mind that he could study. Thanks to this 3-d image of his surroundings, his right foot stopped just as it was about to touch the ground again, his body swiftly taking a step back.
He reached out with his sword and brushed away the leaves on the ground, revealing a one-meter wide hole in the ground that continued diagonally downwards. Yin Long crouched at the side of the hole, tracing the ridged walls of it with his finger while muttering to himself.
"So that's an entrance, huh? Gotta be careful, can't afford to leave the outskirts."
Yin Long had been told to head to the outskirts of Underearth Forest, but the truth was that the entire forest spreading out outside the city was the outskirts of Underearth Forest. The true Underearth Forest was located exactly where its name suggested, under the earth. Spreading out beneath this forest was a gargantuan cavern that had its own ecosystem, that was the true Underearth Forest. And this hole in front of Yin Long was one of the thousands of entrances that were spread out throughout this entire forest, falling into one on accident was tantamount to catastrophe.
Yin Long carefully made his way around the hole and continued moving through the forest, looking for any Demonic beasts that might roam around. The truly strong beasts lived within the actual Underearth Forest, the ones roaming the outskirts would at best reach the 9th Mortal Door. But even these Demonic beasts were calamities to the normal populace, a single one could decimate smaller villages if they weren't defended well.
And it seemed like Yin Long's luck was rather excellent, or it could be called poor depending on how one looked at it, he discovered a beast only three hours after entering the forest. At the same time as he discovered it, the beast discovered him, unleashing a rumbling roar as it charged directly at him.
Yin Long's entire body tensed up when he felt the ground tremble as the beast approached him, a mixture of fear, worry, and unbound excitement causing his pulse to go haywire. And then the beast entered his field of vision, bursting through all the undergrowth that sprouted up from the forest floor.
The Demonic beast looked like a large brown bear, nearly four meters long and three meters tall. Other than the fact that it was much larger than a normal bear, this beast also had jagged bony spikes protruding from its shoulders and the joints on its four limbs, giving it a vicious look. The fangs of the bear were also quite a bit longer than normal, it was to the point that they stuck out from its upper and lower jaws, making it hard for the beast to even eat normally.
Yin Long had read about something like this before, uncontrolled Qi mutation. It was likely that this bear was once actually a normal bear that had entered a place where the Qi was particularly dense, unable to control the large amount of Qi, the body of the bear ended up uncontrollably mutating to accommodate the Qi.
The thoughts only flashed through Yin Long's mind before vanishing, the bear was already upon him like a wild elephant, lowering its body slightly to impale him on the bony spikes. Yin Long focused his mind fully on the beast in front of him, throwing himself down and to the side, rolling out of the way of the bear.
The bear charged right past him, its body producing such a strong wind that Yin Long ended up getting pushed back slightly. The bear crashed into a tree that had been a short distance behind Yin Long, the two-man wide trunk splintering and causing the tree to collapse.
Yin Long quickly sprung up into a standing position, his breathing quickening as he looked at the bear that had turned to face him, roaring once more. Yin Long had sparred with quite a few people already, he had even engaged in a quick ambush six years ago to prevent the attack on his sisters. But right here and now, he was engaging in his first life-and-death battle, a place where mercy had no home, where every second was spent on the edge of death.
Being in such a situation for the first time, Yin Long couldn't help but feel a bit of fear, it was only natural. But piercing through all that fear was a sense of overwhelming excitement, his hand trembling slightly due to the sheer might of his excitement. He wanted to swing his sword, he wanted to fight against this bear to see how he could improve his skill, he wanted to fight.
And before he knew it, his feet started moving. It was just slow steps at first, but his pace swiftly quickened into a wild dash as he charged straight at the bear, his narrowed eyes scanning over the entire body of the beast. The bear was somewhat caught off guard by Yin Long suddenly charging at it but its large paw swiped out the moment he got close to it, aiming to splatter his brains across the ground.
Yin Long threw himself to the ground and slid underneath the paw, his sword rising upwards and slashing at the fleshy pads on the paw. A cut opened on the paw, warm blood splashing Yin Long's face and the forest floor as the bear let out an angered roar. It released all the strength in its limbs and allowed itself to fall to the ground, aiming to crush Yin Long with its heavy body.
Alarm bells went off inside Yin Long's mind the moment the bear released the strength in its limbs. He disregarded everything else and used his free hand to push off of the ground, pushing himself to the side and rolling out from underneath the bear before it fell onto him. But he was a touch slow to react, one of the bony spikes sticking out from the hind leg of the bear cutting into his side as he rolled out from underneath the bear.
He rolled away and sprung into a standing position again, his left hand clutching his now bloody waist. His pupils flickered downward to glance at his hand, which was stained with his own blood, more and more blood bubbling forth from his waist with every thundering beat of his heart. In this exchange, it could be said that the trading of wounds did not go in his favor.
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The bear sniffed the air, drawing in several greedy mouthfuls of the sweet scent of Yin Long's blood, a red light emerging in its brown eyes. The bear charged directly at him again, barreling towards him like a rampaging rhino. Yin Long let out a long breath and focused his mind, now that he was wounded like this he had to quickly end this battle, otherwise, it would be his life that was left behind in the forest.
He kicked off the ground and charged forward, flipping his sword and grasping it in a reverse grip. The bear charged straight at Yin Long in a blood-lusting frenzy, lowering its body and aiming the bony spikes on its shoulders straight at him. Its head was lowered so much that there was no room for him to slide underneath it, he would have to face it head-on or try to dodge to the sides fast enough that the bear couldn't turn to slice at him with the spikes.
Yin Long grit his teeth and focused every fiber of his being on the bear, all his senses fully locked onto it. And just as the two were about to collide with each other, Yin Long lowered his body slightly and took half a step to the right. His left hand shot out and grabbed onto the bony spike protruding from the bear's shoulder, its surface actually so coarse and rough that it tore up the skin on his palm.
He kicked off the ground and held on tight to the spike, using it to swing himself onto the back of the bear in a swift motion. He tore open the skin on his left palm, but the maneuver bought him the opportunity to stab at the neck of the bear from a relatively safe spot. He raised his sword high and brought it down with all his might, aiming it directly at the center of the beast's neck.
But just as the tip of his sword was about to enter the bear's neck, the spikes growing from its shoulder actually grew slightly, the base extending and turning into a sort of carapace that covered the neck. His sword stabbed into the carapace and pierced through it, continuing into the neck of the bear for a bit. But the carapace was so hard that most of the energy in the attack was spent on piercing it so he was unable to stab too deeply into the bear's neck.
And even worse, the carapace grew even thicker and harder right after he pierced through it, the bony shield clenching down on his sword and causing it to explode into tiny translucent fragments. The bear roared and tossed its body violently, flinging Yin Long off and causing him to soar through the air for a bit. But Yin Long's eyes were blank and glazed over as he soared through the air, his mind seemingly not present.
Just now, when his sword shattered and scattered, he had seen it. The fur of the bear, the spray of blood that spurted forth from the wound in the neck, all of it had attached itself to the fragments of the sword. And as the sword shattered and the fragments dissipated, the blood and fur ended up in completely different locations. The fur appeared two meters to the left and the blood appeared a meter behind Yin Long, as if they had been teleported away.
Looking at the blood and the fur, and thinking back to what he felt whenever he used a spatial array, it felt as if a door opened up in Yin Long's head. He suddenly lost sight of the surrounding world and found himself in a place he had never been, but one that felt oh so dear and familiar. He was standing on a pure silver ocean, a few faint waves calmly rolling across the water. And floating above this ocean wasn't a sun, but a rainbow-hued sword unleashing a faint and soft glimmer, calling out to Yin Long.
Yin Long gazed at the silver ocean and the rainbow-sword, the scenery not the least bit familiar to him as he had never seen it before. But standing there and feeling the waves rolling beneath his feet, he understood where he was, he understood what he was looking at. It was just as Bai Xiang had said. Yin Long was born a warrior, it was in the throes of blood and death that he could find himself, that he could look into himself.
Yin Long stretched out his arm and grabbed onto the rainbow-hued sword, his own soul. The silver ocean violently rose up the moment Yin Long grabbed onto his soul, tossing and turning as if it was in the midst of a terrible storm, surrounding Yin Long's soul like a tornado. And as the silver ocean, Yin Long's Qi and affinity, rose up and surrounded him, his vision returned to the forest.
He was still soaring through the air when he regained his vision and clarity, it had probably been less than a second since he was thrown off of the bear's back. Yin Long's eyes were no longer blank and glazed over, they were sharp and focused, filled with understanding.
He spun his body in the air and landed on his feet, taking several unsteady steps back to disperse the remaining momentum. Once he stabilized his body, Yin Long opened his right hand, once again creating his sword. But this time was different from all the previous times he created it, now he understood what he was actually doing. Just like a beast would instinctively understand its own abilities, so too did Yin Long understand his own ability after coming into contact with it.
Now he finally understood what Bai Xiang meant every time he said that Yin Long was a sword, that his body and soul were the blade. Each time he created a sword, a small piece of his soul actually went out and took control over the material used to create the sword, serving as the general that controlled the soldiers as it commanded the material to form the sword. And it wasn't wind that was his affinity, as he first thought all those years ago when he created his first sword.
It was just that he didn't fully understand his own ability back then, nor could he properly control it, so his soul simply took control over the element he had the most affinity for to create the element that he had the second-most affinity for. And the element he had the most affinity for was space, one of the highest-ranked elements in existence. And the shape it took was based on the element he had the second-highest affinity for, the element of sword, or law as his teacher had once told him it was called. One of the highest-ranked laws in existence had been molded in the shape of a sword, one of the laws most proficient in killing and combat, coming together in Yin Long's hands. Sword and space, these were Yin Long's two laws, these were his two fangs.
The translucent sword once again formed in Yin Long's grasp, but this time it had grown a bit stabler, a bit stronger and sharper, a bit more perfect. But he wasn't done yet, he had yet to show the full and true capabilities of his soul, he had yet to show what he really was.
The surrounding blood spilled by both the bear and himself suddenly floated up and sank into his translucent sword, filling up the seemingly hollow blade and dyeing it a deep crimson as it started to radiate a faint aura of power unlike any it had ever before.
Grasping onto his own soul, Yin Long understood what his soul was, what he was, a parasite. Just using his law of space or his law of the sword to create his weapon would never be enough, it would be no more than a hollow shell. It was only by drawing in and latching onto other things, merging them into the blade and drawing upon their power that he could make his sword show its true strength, only like this that he could properly utilize his parasitic soul. That was the strength of Yin Long's soul, it could take control over all things and draw them into his blade, it could siphon the strength of all things and turn all of creation into his sword.
Yin Long's dual laws of space and sword served as the fangs of the dragon, but his parasitic soul served as the wings that would take him to the stars and beyond. Right now he could only use his still weak soul to take over the blood of this bear to fill his sword, but he was confident that as long as he kept cultivating, there would be a day where he could turn even an entire universe into his blade.