Chapter 248
"Hmph, you Chaldean..."
Before Kingu could finish his sentence, Xia Yu silently appeared on his right flank. She raised her leg high and whipped it down with immense force!
At that moment, even Fujimaru Ritsuka and Mash standing opposite them saw Kingu's beautiful face—inherited from Enkidu—gradually distort under Xia Yu's whip kick. His expression completely shattered, and he was sent flying with a sonic boom, plowing a long, deep trench through the sandy beach.
"How rude," Xia Yu retracted her leg, frowning as she patted the sand off her foot. "Didn't your parents ever teach you not to make a racket while other people are fishing?"
Flying over at five hundred kilometers per hour like that, his sudden approach had nearly sent Xia Yu's fishing rod flying.
To say nothing of catching any fish.
Xia Yu was utterly perplexed. Had this guy not seen her when he charged straight over just now? How did he dare to ignore her like that?
Fujimaru Ritsuka and Mash exchanged a glance upon seeing this, then looked together toward Kingu in the distance.
That beautiful, divinely created weapon was now planted face-down in the sand rather ungracefully.
"Sister Kiana is number one under heaven!"
Seeing this, Fujimaru Ritsuka immediately began to praise her, "A mere Enkidu is nothing to worry about. Taking him down is a breeze!"
"Hey, it's actually not that impressive," Xia Yu said with a humble look. "It's mainly because he's incompetent and can't draw out the full performance of that body."
Though even if he drew it all out, it wouldn't be of any use in front of a Flamescion.
After all, the Herrscher of Flamescion was at least comparable to the tier of Tiamat.
"How dare you!" Watching them chatting and laughing, Kingu grew furiously enraged.
He prided himself on being a new human and Tiamat's most excellent child, yet now he had been kicked into the sand by someone—and right in the face, no less!
What a humiliating disgrace! An absolute, utter disgrace!!!
"How dare you!" He pulled his head out of the sand and glared furiously over here, countless Golden Ripples rippling out around him. "I'll kill you!"
Seeing this, Xia Yu channeled the Blazing Hope and drew upon the Herrscher of Sentience's core.
"Taixuan Sword Ki!" She intended to rely on the traces left behind by the Herrscher jewel of Sentience and Kiana's own cultivation in Taixuan Sword Ki as the Herrscher of Flamescion to forcefully manifest a Sword God.
"The spirit is the ultimate of change, the subtle language of all creation, which cannot be questioned by form!"
"This is..." Back in Chaldea, the Doctor took one look at the detected data and instantly spat out a mouthful of coffee.
"This energy level..." Da Vinci-chan stood beside him with a solemn expression. "This has already surpassed the Noble Phantasms of many Heroic Spirits... It's even somewhat superior to the Noble Phantasm of the Goddess Rhongomyniad back in the Sacred Round Table Realm Camelot."
After all, this was the Eminence of Taixuan. In Fu Hua's hands, it had directly disconnected the God of Honkai behind Sirin, and in Kiana's hands, it had defeated Xiao Shi.
Watching the sword ki formed of flames grow larger and larger, Kingu was left completely dumbfounded on the other side.
The chains he created couldn't even penetrate near that colossal sword ki; they were cut down halfway through.
No, wait, are the humans of this era all this aggressive?
At a time like this, shouldn't they swap a few testing blows to figure out each other's hidden cards before unleashing a finishing move?
Why is she aiming to kill the very moment they meet?
Kingu didn't know, but he was certain of one thing: if he didn't fight back, he was done for!
What he didn't know was that Xia Yu looked at the mass of sword ki she had concocted and sighed.
It was a failure.
How should she put it? Although she possessed Kiana's body, obtained the status of the Herrscher of Flamescion, and could use all the Herrscher Authorities, this Taixuan Sword Ki was the lone exception—since she couldn't comprehend the Sword God, she simply couldn't comprehend it.
She had also discovered the shortcomings of her own abilities. The things inherited through the physical body wouldn't be discounted at all, but anything regarding willpower required her to grind it out herself; a typical example was Firefly.
Although Firefly was already the strongest under her command second only to Acheron, if she were to use this body to fight the genuine article back in Honkai: Star Rail, she would undoubtedly be pinned to the ground and thrashed.
What she lacked was precisely that willpower to break through. Firefly could destroy planets, but Xia Yu could probably only manage a satellite even if she pushed herself to the limit.
The same applied to the Eminence of Taixuan on Kiana; she couldn't inherit the breakthrough of willpower.
The Taixuan Sword Ki was considered an unparalleled, ultimate technique created by Red Kite Immortal of Mount Taixuan in Shenzhou, universally recognized as the supreme martial art among thousands of techniques in Shenzhou.
In truth, it was a method from the Previous Era used to modify the human body. It could subtly refine the human body into a vessel and channel for Honkai Energy, which both increased an ordinary person's capacity to contain and utilize Honkai Energy while avoiding the corresponding risks.
What Red Kite Immortal feared most in her life was falling into psychosis, so the martial arts she created did not cultivate true qi (Honkai Energy).
The Taixuan Sword Ki trained the body into a channel for true qi. Once the Sword Heart and Sword Form reached mastery, one could draw true qi from the surroundings and let it flow smoothly through the meridians without stagnating. Thus, compared to all other martial arts, the Taixuan Sword Ki possessed greater might, yet the practitioner's dantian did not store any true qi.
The true secret of the Taixuan Sword Ki lay neither in the cultivation methods nor the techniques, but within the ancient sword Xuan-Yuan, closely related to the semantic resonance.
The five essences of Taixuan: Heart, Form, Meaning, Soul, and Spirit.
In the Taixuan Sword Ki, the Heart Essence was the introductory essence, and also the hardest essence aside from the Sword God, containing four realms: Still Water, Dustless, Clear Mirror, and Great Void.
One who forged a Sword Heart could view heaven and earth as their dantian and transform their physical body into meridians; the energy regarded as the origin of martial arts had no need to hide itself.
The Form Essence of the five essences of Taixuan contained four paths: Guard, Transform, Initiate, and Open, totaling twenty-one forms. These were the actual techniques used to confront enemies. The Initiate Sword Form had three styles: Waning Moon, Severed Ocean, and Cleaved Sky. The Transform Sword Form had six styles: Flying Falcon, Dark Hawk, Rain Swallow, Vine Sparrow, Cloud Eagle, and Moon Egret. The Guard Sword Form had six styles: Weeping Willow, Hidden Orchid, Sturdy Bamboo, Ink Chrysanthemum, Pure Lotus, and Green Pine. The Open Sword Form had six styles: Crag Fracture, Wild Thunder, Thunderbolt, Landslide, Transient Dust, and Quake.
The Meaning Essence of the five essences of Taixuan required the Xuan-Yuan Sword to master, but when one shared a mutual understanding with the Xuan-Yuan Sword, the sword intent would form naturally. In essence, it was unrelated to the other four essences and was not a type of martial art. The sword intent was actually a mechanism incorporated into the Taixuan Sword Ki system by Red Kite Immortal to make it easier for others to understand; it allowed the Xuan-Yuan Sword itself to concentrate energy and alter its shape after forming a resonance with its wielder.
The Soul Essence of the five essences of Taixuan was the very nature of swordsmanship. The Way of the Sword possessed ten thousand transformations, and the sword itself was nothing more than an object to rely upon. Upon comprehending the Soul Essence, using any weapon in the world would be just like using a sword, and one's strikes would no longer be bound by the Sword Form. Reaching such a realm could be called the mastery of swordsmanship.
Though named sword ki, if one truly wished to rely on the spirit to manifest a sword and have the sword ki originate from the heart, one absolutely had to comprehend the fifth essence, the "Spirit" Essence. The Spirit Essence was essentially the shaping and extending of Honkai Energy, and the prerequisite for its use was the ability to manipulate large quantities of Honkai Energy.
Over thousands of years, those who forged a Sword God body numbered no more than five. Aside from Red Kite Immortal herself, there was only the Herrscher of Sentience who inherited Chi Xuan's memories, Kiana Kaslana as the Herrscher of Finality, the fifth disciple of Taixuan who possessed a Natural Stigma, Cheng Lingshuang, and Chi Xuan's grand-disciple, Li Sushang, who had realized the Spirit Essence.
The spirit is the ultimate of change. There is no sword, yet a sword exists. Relying on the spirit to manifest a sword, the sword ki forms of its own accord, connecting to the Spirit Essence. The spirit is the ultimate of change, the subtle language of all creation, which cannot be questioned by form. Lacking a physical form and requiring no physical form, this sword fills space; this sword is space itself, and therefore it is omnipresent and universally successful.
What Xia Yu could inherit only reached the Soul Essence.
The Spirit Essence simply wouldn't go up no matter what, which was why she chose to cheat using the Herrscher of Sentience's Authority.
But looking at the increasingly misshapen Sword God in front of her, she sighed.
Sure enough, cheating wasn't that easy either.
While the opposing Kingu was trembling with fear, Xia Yu knew that her Sword God had failed.
In all fairness, she definitely wanted to master the Sword God. For no other reason than that this wasn't an ability exclusive to a specific body, but something that could be made stronger through cultivation.
Furthermore, the latter stages of the Taixuan Sword Ki cultivated the mind rather than the body. Meaning that as long as one's cultivation reached that point, it would work no matter which body they switched to.
Setting everything else aside, at least when she turned into someone without much combat capability like Furina or Bailu again, having one more method at her disposal would be a good thing.
One could never have too many hidden cards.
But this Sword God... was truly too difficult.
She let out a sigh.
Yet the people beside her couldn't see her melancholy; they only thought it looked incredibly majestic.
Fujimaru Ritsuka looked at the massive, hundred-meter-long flaming divine sword and swallowed her saliva.
Having traversed so many Singularities and seen much of the world, she could naturally tell that if this thing came down... no one present except Sister Kiana would come out of it well.
Thinking up to this point, she turned her head to glance at Kiana. Seeing the other party's melancholy face... she felt even worse.
"Mash," she gently pulled her junior's hand. "Be ready to deploy your Noble Phantasm at any time!"
"Yes, I understand, Senpai!" Although Mash didn't understand, she was highly obedient. She raised the Great Shield in her hand, her Noble Phantasm already in preparation.
Compared to them, the instinct of Kingu, who was locked on by the (flawed version of) Sword God opposite them, was screaming in wild alarm.
If this thing came down, he was dead meat!
He was currently squeezing every drop of Magical Energy from this divinely created weapon's body, preparing for a life-or-death gamble.
As for running?
Apologies, but the combat instincts inherited from this body told him that running would only make him die faster.
He didn't possess a convenient vehicle like Ishtar's Maanna, so wanting to escape was pure wishful thinking.
He certainly trusted this instinct; after all, Enkidu had fought his way through Mesopotamian mythology, so his level required no elaboration.
If he turned around and ran right now, it would only expose his back to the enemy. Would a sword striking down from someone be faster, or would his legs be faster?
Kingu only knew that if he risked everything in a clash of Noble Phantasms, he might still survive. But turning around to run would truly leave him with absolutely no chance of survival.
Right at this moment, a voice finally rang out.
"Sir Kiana, consider it giving This King some face," Gilgamesh walked out with a look of helplessness. "Spare his life, how about it?"
He couldn't just watch his old friend's body turn into ash right before his eyes, could he?
As for Xia Yu... she turned her head to look at Gilgamesh, her eyes filled entirely with banter.
My, my, look who it is, Gilgamesh! Listen to that, listen to that!
'Sir Kiana, give This King some face.' Aren't you quite the smooth talker~~~
However, Xia Yu hadn't intended to kill Kingu right now anyway.
This grand play still had to keep running; she wasn't ready yet.
Tiamat...
Upon seeing that lonely Mother Goddess, a thought had surfaced in Xia Yu's mind.
'I want to take her away.'
As for whether it would work... where there's a will, there's a way.
Even if it didn't work out in the end... at least she wouldn't let her stay completely alone forever.
That's right, she had simply gone soft-hearted.
Thus, Xia Yu aimed the Sword God in her hand straight toward the sky.
That massive energy instantly dyed half the sky a crimson red.
"You owe me one," she glanced at Gilgamesh. Well, gaining a favor wasn't bad either.
"This King will remember it," Gilgamesh muttered inwardly about his bad luck, then looked toward the 'Enkidu' in the distance.
Of all the people you could provoke, why did you have to provoke her?
It really was too much of a nuisance.
Feeling highly displeased, he drew a large axe from the void and hurled it straight at Kingu.
The latter also dissipated the Magical Energy he had prepared for his life-or-death struggle, only releasing a few chains to block the large axe.
"Hoh, I recall you saying just now that it was the most suitable fighting style?" He narrowed his eyes at the other party. "Could it be that This King remembered incorrectly?"
"When This King devised this new combat method, it was even criticized as an utter waste."
"That's not right!" Hearing this, Kingu swung his hand, saying with immense agitation, "That's because you..."
Before he could finish his words, he realized he had lost his composure. He tightly pursed his lips and fell completely silent.
Gilgamesh's gaze grew even more complex.
"King Gilgamesh!" Right then, Mash called out anxiously, "He's not Enkidu!"
But the moment that name was shouted, the opposing Kingu's body swayed. He first clutched his chest, and then covered his face.
"You... you are..." He raised his head, looking through the gaps of his fingers at the opposing King of Uruk. "Gilgamesh!"
At that instant, countless complex and unidentifiable emotions surged within Kingu's chest, leaving him hard-coded by these emotions to the point where he couldn't move for a time.
"Who else did you think it was," Gilgamesh's voice was low, "you fool!"
"As a calm and composed weapon, where did your efficient style go?" He extended his hand, and a stone tablet book appeared in his grasp.
"You've actually come to enjoy battle? This doesn't look like you at all, Enkidu."
Kingu's expression shifted drastically upon hearing this. He gritted his teeth and hurled a Magic Bullet straight at him.
Yet it was blocked in front of Gilgamesh by the flame Magecraft from the stone tablet book in his hand.
"How unsightly," seeing his loss of composure, which was a far cry from the cherished friend in his memories, Gilgamesh sighed. "Tsk, you put on quite a performance."
Hearing this, Kingu didn't know whether he should be joyful or dejected. He could only say through gritted teeth, "You... shut up!"
The Magical Energy in his hands gathered into blades, and his entire being lunged toward Gilgamesh like an arrow piercing the clouds.
"Hoh, you seem to have obtained quite excellent Magical Energy," Gilgamesh put away the stone tablet book, and the large axe appeared in his hand once more. "Did the Three Goddesses order you to come?"
"Shut up!"
Kingu erupted into pure rage, and the two clashed together with a resounding boom. The blades gathered of Magical Energy and Gilgamesh's large axe僵持在了原地 lock horns in a stalemate.
"The strongest creation on this Earth is me!" Kingu stared at that familiar face from his memory, shouting through gritted teeth.
It was unclear exactly what he was trying to emphasize.
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