The already absurd physical abilities of a Kaslana, after being further "insanely enhanced" by the Key of Genesis, had completely transformed them into "humanoid T-Rexes."
And the so-called "experience fighting Kaslanas" that the Seven Swords possessed was still within the realm of normalcy. Only by truly facing Kallen could they understand what it meant to witness speed that the naked eye couldn't track and force that was absolutely impossible to withstand.
Forget it... I'll do it myself.
Fu Hua's words made the group pause for a moment.
Senior Kallen... is different now?
Before they could dwell on it, Fu Hua had already stepped into the center of the training ground, holding an unsharpened longsword. She stood calmly, her gaze sweeping over her six disciples.
"Lingshuang is right. The gap in fundamental abilities is indeed one of the decisive factors."
"And what you are about to face is something non-human, an existence more terrifying than a Titan mech. They have no courtesy for sparring, no warrior's pride, only the purest instinct for destruction.
"To a monster like that, your swords are merely mosquito bites. Your maneuvering is nothing more than the pestering of gnats. Your swords need to be heavier, more devastating.
"You need to discard your previous methods of winning with a single, decisive strike, and instead focus on causing as much damage as possible."
Then, Fu Hua raised her hand, leveling the longsword in front of her. "From now on, you must return to the starting point of swordsmanship, and reuse those techniques with the widest, most powerful swings. Hold nothing back, except the strength needed to protect yourselves.
"Like this."
As she finished speaking, the sword held level in front of her trembled violently. At that moment, among the Seven Swords, the strongest, Cheng Lingshuang, suddenly lifted her half-lowered eyelids, a deep shock overflowing from her pupils.
Among the Seven Swords, she had gone the furthest, even touching the realm of a Sword God, grasping its embryonic form.
While the others still relied on the sharpness of the sword itself to inflict damage, she could already use anything she could hold in her hand to create a sword wound.
A piece of paper, at the right angle, could easily slice through flesh. A twig, if it made contact at the right point, could casually inflict a wound.
This effortless mastery of the "necessary conditions" was Cheng Lingshuang's "Sword God" state. She could wound an enemy with a rotten piece of wood, or pierce heavy armor with a rounded iron bar.
Give her a fine, sharp sword, and she could slice through the armor of a Titan, achieving the nearly impossible feat of "defeating a steel behemoth with mere flesh and blood."
But she absolutely could not defeat a Titan mech with a dead branch!
But Fu Hua's sword strike—could!
In the eyes of the others, Fu Hua displayed no profound technique, no invisible speed, and no overwhelming power.
She simply held the ordinary sword, swung it horizontally in a motion any beginner could perform—a horizontal slash through the air.
Then, a tree as thick as a grown man's thigh, a full several dozen meters away from Fu Hua, silently toppled over.
The tree took a full few seconds to fall. During that time, the crowd was utterly silent, even their breathing subconsciously held, filled with nothing but terror and disbelief.
Something's wrong with this picture.
What was swordsmanship? What were martial arts?
It was a technique, a way to compensate for innate deficiencies, or to maximize the inherent advantages of oneself or one's weapon.
To put it bluntly, swordsmanship was about making a sword cut what it could already cut. Martial arts was about defeating those one could already defeat.
It was used to guarantee one's baseline.
It was not used to unleash something that oneself... or the weapon itself... should not, and could not, possibly possess!
For example, a sword absolutely could not inflict real, cutting damage to something dozens of meters away from it!
This wasn't martial arts.
This was cultivation!!
Ma Feima turned his head to look at Fu Hua, his face filled with horror. After staring for a long time, he finally couldn't help but speak.
"Master... could it be that you've actually ascended?"
So spiritual energy really did recover after the apocalypse!!
With a deadpan expression, Lin Chaoyu raised her hand and gave the back of Ma Feima's head a sharp smack, making him stumble.
In the Taixu Martial Arts School, or similar places, although "ascension" was filled with beautiful metaphors, it was ultimately not a good word, as it was generally used for the dead.