Chen Beidou said nothing. He was not someone who was good with words. Furthermore, regardless of what Shen Lian said, a weakness was a weakness. It was not something that could be covered up with words.

　　Shen Lian said nothing else, as he let the Dao rhythm flow naturally. There appeared a portrait behind him.

　　It was a portrait of a young Daoist carrying a sword in the midst of a sea of blood. It was Qing Xuan’s Founding Master Yuanqing.

　　There was also a portrait of a fallen milky way in the Nine Heavens – it was the Milky Way Grandmaster.

　　A portrait of Avici which carried the pain of the passing spirits appeared too. The demonic voice was overflowing.

　　The portraits of the previous generations of immortal Zhenrens from Qing Xuan appeared one by one.

　　These portraits were like the divines and demons as they gathered behind Shen Lian and disappeared, ultimately becoming one with Shen Lian. His sleeves were bloated as he stood alone in heaven and earth. It seemed like they were keeping away countless items – there were the five colored divine lights, the variance between Creation and Destruction, and the explosion of wind and thunder. The void hummed.

　　All the odd images began to disappear as he swung his sword slowly. All the sounds or odd motions of heaven and earth were carried away by the sword. There were countless golden flowers blooming in the void, like the arrival of Buddha with the blooming of the cereus. It was like the divine ruins.

　　The path of this sword was what Shen Lian categorized as the first step of the eight steps of Dazizai Shapeless Sword Aura, ‘the sun that nourishes every being’ or it could be named as ‘The Birth of All Things’.

　　The most powerful wish of the masses was not the faith towards deities, or towards the heaven and earth and mountain and river, but the desire to live. The dead wanted to live, and the living wanted to be immortal. The wish was never diminished, and it had no end to it, coming through since ancient times.

　　The essence of the Dazizai Shapeless Sword Aura was released in this step, as the wish was something that was invisible and untouchable, yet was present everywhere.

　　With the sword, every formula was spoken without the words. The wild sword aura disappeared in the void. It was intangible and without a physical form, but it reached everywhere. The cliff where the Big Dipper formation was laid all in a sudden crashed. A huge surge of power flowed out of the cliff and caused it to collapse into mere dust.

　　The power was akin to the continuous growth of weed. It eventually toppled the rock on top of it. It seemed impossible, but the power of vitality was strong and miraculous.

　　While Chen Beidou commented that Shen Lian’s swordcraft was not complete, he could not ignore it when the sword technique appeared. In the face of that grand power, he could not sit and do nothing, else he would fall into passivity easily.

　　The Celestial Trapping Sword was drawn. It did not restrain its killing aura just because it once was a comrade of Shen Lian. It was ultimately a killing sword, whether it had any intelligence or not. Killing was its instinct, and the reason for it to exist.

　　Chen Beidou had full control of the murderous thoughts of the Celestial Trapping Sword. When the blood-red sword gleam appeared, everything withered, like the breeze in autumn that rid everything of life.

　　The blood-colored sword gleam which was not strong did not spread its murderous sword aura all over the void, but the moment it appeared, it had already snatched away all vitality on heaven and earth, and caused the starlights to lose their beams. The moonlight was no longer a soft yellow.

　　All of a sudden, part of the vitality of heaven and earth was sucked out and it lost its shine.

　　The power of the Celestial Trapping Sword and Chen Beidou combined into one. The indestructible power could stop everything, including Shen Lian’s attack which contained the wishes of the passing.

　　Chen Beidou’s expression remained unchanged. The blood-red sword gleam got closer, and the void was akin to a bubble on the verge of popping. Once the blood-red sword gleam pricked it, the huge reserve of power then exploded. The cliff no longer existed.

　　Shen Lian’s sword aura which was everywhere too exploded before it could demonstrate its power. This placed him in the turbulence of spiritual tides, worse than that of a tsunami or an earthquake.

　　He stood still as he gazed at the blood-red sword gleams which were attacking him in between the turbulences. His mind had fallen into the eye of the east sea, and it became extremely clear.

　　The Qi of heaven and earth, and the turbulences of spiritual tides were not a mess in his mind. They began to show order. Every explosion of the Qi of vitality began from the tiny flow of energy, which corresponded with the energy principles.

　　The Five Elements Magical Sword let out a sword soar, like an unworldly phoenix that traveled through the nine heavens. There was a faint pink on the skeleton right hand. He was one step away before the sword tip could reach the Celestial Trapping Sword.

　　It was an indestructible power which could cause everything to fall, and a power that not even deities or Buddha could resist. They could only watch as their supernatural power and mana were snatched away.

　　The Five Element Magical Sword also turned the sword hum into a cry under the influence of that power. Shen Lian’s right sleeve was turning grey, but he stood still. He and his sword were completely trapped in the turbulence of the spiritual tides in the void.

　　His Primordial Spirit suddenly let out an unimaginable mental power like countless feathers which invaded every node of turbulence of the Qi of vitality. Swirls began to form and they reacted with each other, like the acupoints in a human body.

　　All of a sudden the countless stars were lit in the night, and they began to follow an odd path. Shen Lian was in the midst of these bright stars and his body was moving alongside the swirl. He was moving freely, like fish in the water. He looked like he was enjoying it.

　　The Celestial Trapping Sword that followed closely was stopped by the swirls one by one. It could not get close to Shen Lian as the swirls kept regenerating. There was no beginning and no end.

　　It was Shen Lian’s second attack.

　　Chen Beidou naturally would not just do nothing, and to some extent, Shen Lian’s resistance was futile to him, but he admired the swordcraft Shen Lian created – how creative and flexible it was, and how natural the flow was. It inspired him.

　　To have a battle with such an opponent was an indescribable joy.

　　His counterattack got even stronger.

　　Chen Beidou had a pause in the void, and another attack went out.

　　“It will be the decline of heaven and earth by the time my sword is out.” Every living being around Mount Zhong heard the same voice, coming from the depths of their hearts.

　　This was the real sword technique of Chen Beidou. The previous attack was one of Celestial Trapping Sword.

　　When Chen Beidou’s sword was out, everything in the world fell into a decline.

　　Despite the sword aura having no beginning and no end, it could not really escape from the heaven and earth. Chen Beidou finally revealed his terrifying power which had caused despair to the living beings in the surroundings.

　　All the spiritual tides seemed to lose the footing in the void. They all dispersed without resisting.

　　An analogy to this was that while the water contained in a bottle could be stirred, once the bottle was broken, the water lost the vessel it could retain itself in.

　　Shen Lian could no longer relax in the spiritual tides as the sword gleams that followed closely seemed to block all the possible escape routes, as if there was no longer a place for him in the boundless universe.

　　He had no escape, as Chen Beidou’s sword had broken the power of the heaven and earth as if he was creating a whole new battleground in the void. He could not borrow any external help anymore.