"Sword Twenty really is powerful."
Shu Jun set Quinn Shepherd down from his back. Quinn stretched his body, instantly lively again, which left Shu Jun clicking his tongue in amazement.
Earlier, Quinn's injuries were severe. The Pioneer Emperor's Sword Twenty had dealt him a heavy blow, and at the time, his wounds were so grave that Shu Jun wondered if his soul was about to return to the Ancestor-Spirit Realm.
At that time, the sword wounds on Quinn were serious, but the worst damage wasn't to his flesh—it was to his Spirit Embryo Treasury and Heaven Palace, both injured by the Pioneer Emperor's fusion of Sword Twenty into his sword domain.
But strangely enough, despite such heavy injuries, Quinn recovered so quickly that Shu Jun even suspected the kid was just pretending to be badly hurt.
"The Pioneer Emperor truly deserves his reputation as the number one in sword-Dao. His insight into swordsmanship goes deeper than anyone else's, and the Sword Twenty he created is even more formidable than Sword Nineteen, the Raise-Calamity technique."
Quinn took out his Sword Pill, practicing its moves as he tried to recreate Sword Twenty.
Sword Twenty is quite different from the nineteen foundational sword forms that came before it.
When Quinn was comprehending Sword Eighteen, he already sensed that the further one went with the foundational sword forms, the more mana each move demanded. Eventually, the sword art would become almost unbearable to use—casting it just once might drain all your strength.
His Sword Eighteen had already begun to show signs of this.
His cultivation was profound, stronger than his peers—even the Pioneer Emperor, famed for his mighty power, was far outclassed by Quinn at the same realm. So when Quinn used Sword Eighteen, he didn't find it difficult at all.
But for anyone else, it would be more than just difficult—using Sword Eighteen as a full set of sword techniques would likely exhaust a cultivator's entire strength.
Sword Nineteen—the Raise-Calamity Sword—demands even more terrifying energy. It's not just about mana; it requires mastery of numerology, formations, even space itself, and demands a highly refined state of mind.
Sword Nineteen's demands for swordsmanship are extremely strict. To master this move means you can directly enter the Dao by way of the sword!
Very few people in the world have ever learned this move.
Even if you do master it, the energy it consumes is more than any ordinary cultivator can withstand.
In this all-out clash between Quinn and the Pioneer Emperor, Quinn realized that the requirements for Sword Twenty were even higher—almost to the point of madness.
"To use this sword, it seems you have to pour your soul into the blade, burn your blood and qi, and pair it with a Sword Domain to unleash it."
Quinn frowned deeply. There was no way he could hope to use Sword Twenty anytime soon—he still hadn't comprehended his own Sword Domain.
His Responding-to-Calamity Sword isn't a foundational sword move, but a technique for cutting through Divine Treasuries and Heaven Palaces—a sword-Dao created to break the old system, originally meant for self-cleaving.
Back then, when Quinn Shepherd had lost his soul and only his consciousness remained, he used the Responding-to-Calamity Sword to cleave himself—first destroying his own Heaven Palace, then letting the sword-light carry the momentum of its collapse to sever the Divine Bridge, shatter all the Divine Treasuries from Heaven-Man, Five Luminaries, Six Directions, Life-and-Death, leaving only the Spirit Embryo.
Later, he found this move worked just as well for cutting through the Heaven Palaces and Divine Treasuries of other gods and cultivators.
However, this move isn't a foundational sword technique.
In his duel with the Pioneer Emperor, both fought at the same realm, using only power from the God-Treasury Heaven-Palace system. Even with Quinn's domain forcefully suppressing the Pioneer Emperor, he was still wounded by Sword Twenty. This showed just how terrifying Sword Twenty is when paired with a Sword Domain—overcoming the strong with the weak is no problem at all.
But not being able to master such a formidable Sword Twenty left Quinn a little disappointed.
"I'm an Overlord Body. If I just work a bit harder..."
He quickly perked up again and set off with Shu Jun toward the Creators' territory.
Among the Creators, most of the adults had gone with Xiu Zhong and the Star-Master Elders to help the Netherworld Divine Son, Fenix Greenwood, open up the Beyond-Shore Netherworld. Only the old and young were left in the tribe.
It was the same for the other races. The Beyond-Shore Netherworld was especially important to the Creators, which was why God-Queen Langwo had ordered every Creator clan to help Fenix Greenwood build it.
Quinn tried to open the Gate of Bearing Heaven—and to his surprise, it actually opened.