True Solution of the Sword Dao

Lin Fei stood in the flames, his entire body enveloped by fire.

"What is this?" He hadn’t had many chances to clash with strong Dream Eaters, so he wasn’t very familiar with their methods.

"Let your companion lurking in the dark come out," Wu Haiyi said with a smile. "My fireworks can rapidly consume any energy covering my Dream Space. At the same time, it absorbs and converts it into my home field. If your companion doesn’t lift the space, they might be consumed alive by me."

Lin Fei’s expression remained unchanged as he took out a silver cell phone and lightly pressed a button.

The desolate surrounding landscape suddenly dissipated. Then, only Wu Haiyi’s burning orange flames were left. Although there wasn’t much change around him, a heavy sensation of bondage began to firmly ensnare Lin Fei. He could feel like his body had taken on many heavy burdens.

Streams of people continuously passed through their bodies, as if they were in another world. Everything seemed to be an illusion.

Lin Fei’s figure flashed, and he charged toward Wu Haiyi. His speed, which should have been impossible to catch with the naked eye, was now clearly visible within the flames, obviously greatly weakened.

"Such speed!"

Despite this, Wu Haiyi was still slightly surprised.

"Such speed is perhaps only possible for ability users. I didn’t expect that you, as a Dream Eater, would possess such swiftness. My fireworks can reduce the enemy’s speed by eighty percent."

"No wonder," Lin Fei realized. It looked like he finally encountered an opponent who completely countered speed types. For an average Dream Eater, an eighty percent reduction would make it difficult to even walk. But even after being weakened, Lin Fei’s speed was still not slow. This was obviously because his original speed was too fast.

Wu Haiyi raised his hand, and dozens of small balls of varying sizes, metallic in color, surfaced and floated next to him, reflecting orange under the blaze of the fireworks.

"Go!"

The dozens of small balls quickly dispersed, disappearing into the fireworks, as if they had never existed.

Halfway through Lin Fei’s sprint, a ball the size of a fist suddenly materialized in front of him.

Shhh!

A metallic spike shot out from the ball. Lin Fei hurriedly dodged; the spike grazed his shoulder, narrowly missing him.

The metal ball vanished instantly, followed by the appearance of two behind him.

With two ’shh’ sounds, two metal spikes shot out similarly. Lin Fei twisted his body, narrowly dodging the spikes. Long-term cultivation of the Sword Dao True Solution’s Qi Cultivation Chapter had made his senses far sharper than average people, his neural response times were incomparable to ordinary people. From the appearance of the ball to the extension of the spikes, it all seemed like slow motion to him. He had ample neural response time to dodge and even consider how best to do so.

Soon, the distance between Wu Haiyi and Lin Fei closed to less than three meters. The two were originally confronting each other, separated only by a street, and the whole street was no more than seven or eight meters wide, a small street. Although the angle of their confrontation was diagonal, making the distance somewhat farther, it was only about a dozen meters.

In that brief moment, from Wu Haiyi’s words to his action of releasing the metallic spheres, Lin Fei’s sprint, to the spheres launching their attack, only a blink of an eye had passed.

"It’s meaningless," Wu Haiyi said, raising his hand and looking at Lin Fei, now just an arm’s reach away. Countless small metal balls suddenly appeared around him.

With a flurry of ’shh’ sounds, innumerable spikes turned into a vast forest of needles, advancing towards Lin Fei.

"Star Flash." With a ’ding’, a bright white, semicircular glow suddenly appeared around Lin Fei, flashing and disappearing instantly, perfectly blocking the needle forest. All the spikes, due to their high velocity, struck the protective glow, and all sounds merged into one.

The Star Shattering Sword Art’s Comet Level holds various offensive and defensive Sword Techniques, with Star Flash being one of the fastest to deploy defenses. The moment Lin Fei acquired the complete Star Shattering Sword Art, his strength was the same as if Ye Yuhua had trained for many years. His understanding and familiarity with the Star Shattering Sword Art were identical to Ye Yuhua’s, since what he extracted was Ye Yuhua’s cultivation memory and body’s instinct concerning the Star Shattering Sword Art. Naturally, the level of cultivation reached was the same as well.

Wu Haiyi flicked his hand, sending an invisible surge that instantly coalesced and rushed towards Lin Fei.

This surge was incredibly heavy, and as it flew, it seemed to pull the entire surrounding space along with it.

For a moment, Lin Fei felt as if the space in front of him was collapsing, as if even the air had been stripped of its mass, everything converging and striking at him. A tremendous pressure faced him head-on.

The only choice was to stop the charge. Lin Fei tapped the tip of his sword on the ground for leverage, accelerating and flashing to an empty spot several meters away.

"It seems that relying only on this strength, I can’t defeat you," Lin Fei said softly. He had wanted to try out the mere power of the Star Shattering Sword Art, but now, without even getting close, it seemed he couldn’t resolve the fight with the Sword Art alone, aside from a few ultimate moves.

Wu Haiyi looked at him mockingly.

"You’re too proud to hide your real strength despite being this weak."

Lin Fei didn’t respond but raised his longsword high, then swung it down.

A ball of light the size of a human head instantly appeared in front of him.

"Starshine!"

Countless tiny silver True Force spikes exploded outwards, covering the sky as they flew towards Wu Haiyi.

The latter was also enveloped in numerous orange light bands, with ’clang clang’ sounds constantly ringing out, while numerous fine sparks burst from the surface of the yellow silk cocoon.

Lin Fei stood still, making no further move. However, he already had a rough understanding.

"Using my True Force Realm’s level to push the Star Shattering Sword Art’s First Layer Comet Level is equivalent to D-grade combat power, and if used well, it should be of medium D-grade strength. Referring to Ye Yuhua’s Planet Level swordplay propelled by the True Qi Realm, it should be around B-grade level. If I use the True Force Realm to activate the Planet Level sword, the power might only be around the peak of C-grade. It turns out that it’s not much different from the combat power produced by the Tracing Shadow Sword Art alone. If I hadn’t met an opponent who completely negates my speed, my power to condense the Star Shattering Sword Technique combined with the speed of the Tracing Shadow Sword Art should make me invincible at the peak of C-grade. But now, there’s nothing I can do."

Originally, Lin Fei possessed only speed, and his killing power during combat was severely lacking. He could only supplement it with momentum, relying entirely on the sharpness of his longsword for his swordsmanship. This was also why his strength was overly dependent on his longsword. However, with the Star Shattering Sword Art, he fully compensated for this shortcoming. Simply relying on swordsmanship in battle, he could achieve the same power without needing to use momentum. This was also one of Lin Fei’s initial goals.

A Sword Cultivator ultimately cannot depend on the impure external force of momentum.

Momentum and True Force are like two distinctly separate paths.

The momentum path allows for fast progress in the early stages but becomes extremely difficult later. Talent, time, ability, and opportunity are indispensable at every step.

Whereas the True Force path is steady and stable throughout the early, middle, and late stages. Even if one cannot break through for a time, one can force a breakthrough with sheer time. From True Force to True Qi, from True Qi to True Gang, the three grand realms of Qi Cultivation can all be breached with accumulated time. But the section on Qi Cultivation is merely an addendum laying the foundation for the Sword Dao True Solution. The truly arduous path lies beyond it.

Comparing the two, one side progresses quickly in the beginning and slows down later. However, the increase in strength is rapid in the early stages. In the later stages, progress relies on chance insights, which are as difficult as ascending to the heavens, without even a clear direction to follow.

The other side progresses slowly through the early, middle, and late stages. While there is no advantage in early-stage strength, the middle and later stages are extremely powerful, and there’s a clear direction for advancement.

In comparison, the latter’s prospects are much more promising. The True Force path is much more advanced than the path of momentum. This is akin to the height of a civilization.

Therefore, the Star Shattering Sword Art is precisely the symbol Lin Fei adopted to completely disassociate himself from fighting with momentum. He could reach the same combat power without the need for momentum.

"Test over," Lin Fei said softly, holding his longsword.

"What?" Wu Haiyi was momentarily stunned, about to burst into a hearty laugh.

Boom!!

A surge of azure blue flame exploded in an instant. All the orange flames on the street were completely submerged. The blue flames engulfed the sky, instantly drowning him.

With eyes glowing blue, Lin Fei advanced silently to where Wu Haiyi stood. He extended his hand, and a silver ring immediately flew into his palm.

Crack!!

All of a sudden, the silver ring shattered like ice, along with the diamond, turning completely into countless tiny fragments.

A voice immediately entered Lin Fei’s mind.

"Huh... I admit you’re strong," Wu Haiyi said, still frightened. "But too bad, this one is fake."

Pride seeped through Wu Haiyi’s voice.

"Did you know? That was just one of my avatars, bolstered by a Divine Artifact component to reach a level capable of contending with the Scarlet Hand. How could such a powerful artifact be casually revealed for theft? Only fools like you would truly believe that."

Lin Fei remained silent. 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

"Your flames are quite unique, capable of restraining my orange fire. Oh right, what did you say just now? Test over? Weren’t you very arrogant earlier? Do you want to kill me that much? Too bad, that was just one of my avatars, a mere avatar, do you understand the concept? It’s just a very small part of my strength. If you were in front of me, I would slowly crush you into mush like squashing an ant!"

Pop!

Lin Fei flicked his fingertips, scattering countless sparkling dust particles into the air.

With a whoosh, his figure instantly vanished from the spot.

***********************

Inside a luxurious mansion in the Wu Family’s main control district core.

A sullen-faced young man was laughing wildly. On his right hand was a silver ring, and on the ring, a diamond emitted a faint glow.

"Too bad you didn’t let me finish. Sword-wielding kid, I’ve memorized your aura," the young man said, as a trace of blue flame slowly brightened within the ring.

Boom! The man’s figure instantly dispersed, turning into countless strands of dark evil qi.

***********************

In the middle of the deserted streets, with no people or vehicles, only one man was walking slowly forward.

Lin Fei’s eyes shimmered with a faint blue light. His figure blurred momentarily, and when he reappeared, he was on another distant street.

Soon, after another blur, Lin Fei was in the lavishly decorated bedroom of a mansion.

The bedroom was empty.

The window was open, the curtains fluttering gently in the wind, and moonlight cast a pale white glow on the floor.

Lin Fei walked over, crouched down, and lightly brushed the floor with his finger. A layer of white, crystalline powder immediately stuck to his fingertip, identical to the powder from the shattered ring.

"The next time we meet, it will be your end," Lin Fei said softly.(To be continued. If you like this work, please come to Qidian (qidian.com) to vote for recommendation tickets and monthly tickets. Your support is my greatest motivation.)