Chapter 75: The Sword Intent of the White Emperor

A long, breathless exhalation escaped into the frozen air.

What the Flame Sovereign could perceive, the sixth-rank snow lotus into which the Snow Eagle King had transformed could perceive as well.

At first, because most of its attention was fixed on its struggle with Lu Wanshan, and because Lu Sheng’s every movement had been deliberately concealed by Lu Wanshan, the Snow Eagle King had failed to notice it.

But once Murong Yu’s body could no longer remain pure, once its origin could no longer merge into it, the Snow Eagle King understood at once that its plan to use Murong Yu’s body to take on human form ahead of schedule had failed.

The Yin-Yang Pill of Dragon and Phoenix.

A brilliant scheme. Truly, a brilliant scheme.

As one of the mightiest beasts beneath the Golden Flood King, the Snow Eagle King had lived for nearly two thousand years. Though it was not as versed in human affairs as the Fox King of the Heart, it had still heard of the Yin-Yang Pill of Dragon and Phoenix, a medicine refined from the blood essence of phoenix-like beasts.

For that reason, the moment it saw Lu Sheng’s actions, it instantly grasped Lu Wanshan’s design. Nothing more than forcing it to be reborn into the Great Jing Lu clan, so that it might serve the Great Jing court in the future.

Even so, though it now understood somewhat, the Snow Eagle King, because its own origin had already begun to merge with Murong Yu, and unwilling as it was to cast everything aside too readily, could only leave itself a retreat by permitting Lu Sheng and Murong Yu to continue their act.

To have one’s prey snatched away and yet be forced to endure it was a feeling that left the Snow Eagle King furious and humiliated beyond measure. At once, under its control, the power of ice and snow throughout the entire snowy mountain began to gather.

A storm rose from nothing over the mountain.

Many martial travelers who had received word and hastened here to seize an advantage suffered heavy losses beneath that storm.

A clash at the level of a grandmaster, even in mere aftershock, spelled mortal peril to ordinary people.

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“Lu Wanshan, do you mean to make me the descendant of Lu Chengjing?”

“You think you can have your way like this? Dream on.”

In nearly two thousand years of life, this was the first time the Snow Eagle King had been so enraged. Even when, in the days of the former Qin, one of its claws had been severed by the White Emperor’s sword, what it felt then had been more fear than rage.

But now, Lu Wanshan’s conduct had driven it to fury.

True, the Jing Emperor was one of the strongest beings in this world, and to become his descendant was no disgrace.

Yet after the White Emperor severed one of its claws, and after the sword intent left behind within it prevented that claw from ever growing back, the Snow Eagle King had suffered a long and bitter reckoning.

After that painful lesson, it spent nearly a thousand years in contemplation and finally comprehended the sword intent the White Emperor had left within it.

With that understanding, it had already touched the edge of becoming one of the world’s strongest beings. That was why it abandoned its original body and cultivated the Lotus Rebirth Method, hoping to use this art to take human form.

Once it became a sixth-rank snow lotus, it would only need a few hundred more years before it could nurture a lotus embryo within the flower and directly take human shape.

But after the Sovereign of the Vast Heavens entered the divine ruins and did not emerge, as the currents of fate began to churn beneath the heavens, the Snow Eagle King had a foreboding.

A great age, one comparable to the twilight years of the former Qin, was about to descend.

If it could not become one of the strongest beings in that great age, then even if it successfully took human form a few hundred years later, it would have no chance whatsoever of ever reaching that summit.

For that reason, with the help of the Fox King of the Heart, it had sought to use Murong Yu’s body to take human form early.

Who could have imagined that this very move would give Lu Wanshan, who had long been seeking assistance to uphold the Great Jing court, an opening?

By exploiting the old favor owed for the slaying of the Golden Wolf King, Lu Wanshan had summoned the Flame Sovereign and used the Illusory Vast Heavens Painting to trap the Fox King of the Heart, thereby getting infinitely close to his goal.

Now was the moment for him to shatter the Snow Eagle King’s resistance completely and bring it to heel.

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“Snow Eagle King,” Lu Wanshan said, while guarding Lu Sheng’s safety and continuing to bear down on the beast, “at this point, do you still intend to resist?”

“If you come to the Great Jing Lu clan, I will naturally not treat you poorly.”

Yet the Snow Eagle King, which had roamed the world for more than a thousand years, though its arrogance had mostly been cut away by the White Emperor’s sword, still retained in its heart the proud and unyielding spirit proper to an eagle.

At that moment, anger seized it, and its temper flared.

“Sword, come!”

With a thunderous crack, the glacier under the Snow Eagle King’s control split open from within. From the fracture emerged a bone sword, cold as winter and gleaming with a jade-like luster.

And as the ice and snow power it gathered grew ever more violent, the aura it radiated grew ever more formidable.

Under Lu Wanshan’s provocation, the sixth-rank snow lotus that was the Snow Eagle King finally revealed its full strength.

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“White Emperor sword intent!”

At the sight of the exposed bone sword, Lu Wanshan cried out in shock, for the first time truly taken aback.

Many knew that the Snow Eagle King had once had a claw severed by the White Emperor, and that because of the sword intent lingering within its body, the claw had never been able to regrow.

Indeed, after hearing tales of the Snow Eagle King becoming a snow lotus, some even speculated that it had simply been unable to bear the White Emperor’s sword intent any longer, that corrosive bane embedded in its flesh and bones, and so had cast off its original body.

No one had expected that, as a beast, the Snow Eagle King would actually comprehend the sword intent left behind by the White Emperor.

“I never thought you would subdue that trace of sword intent and temper it into your bones, forging it into a bone sword,” Lu Wanshan said. “Snow Eagle King, your ambitions are no small thing indeed—you even seek to break free of the limits of an alien body and become a supreme grandmaster.”

“In that case, I have even less reason to let you go.”

A supreme grandmaster was the pinnacle of force in this world, the highest pursuit of every grandmaster.

To become one did not merely mean that one’s martial arts had reached the summit of the world; it also meant gaining the power to shatter the void and cross into other worlds.

The existence of a supreme grandmaster, even if they never lifted a hand, would still cast a vast shadow of deterrence over the whole world.

At the end of the former Qin, even though the Qin clan of Yongzhou faced many enemies, one branch nonetheless survived, and the chief reason for that was the rumor that the White Emperor had likely come from there.

For that reason, once he sensed the Snow Eagle King’s potential, Lu Wanshan’s desire to have it reborn into the Great Jing Lu clan only grew more urgent.

For such a powerhouse to be reborn into the Lu clan would surely become a mighty support for the Great Jing Lu clan in the days to come.

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“Ice and snow—cleave!”

As for what Lu Wanshan was thinking, the Snow Eagle King no longer cared to know. After gathering the power of ice and snow, it instantly condensed a massive ice blade upon the bone sword and swept it toward Lu Wanshan.

Moreover, because they were upon a glacier, that ice blade grew larger and larger as it descended upon Lu Wanshan, so vast it seemed to span heaven and earth.

At the sight of this, Lu Wanshan did not hesitate another instant. He slapped the pouch at his waist and drew out a seal.

At first the seal, round above and square below, was not especially large. But under Lu Wanshan’s control, it radiated a strange power and met the Snow Eagle King’s ice blade head-on.

Under the influence of that strange force, the ice and snow power the Snow Eagle King had gathered quickly dispersed into nothingness. The ice blade formed upon the bone sword likewise vanished like mist and cloud, leaving no trace behind.