Beastmaster of the Ages

Chapter 2178 - Unistrike Singularity

Tianming pushed apart the mud, unearthing a small sword about half a meter in length. It was completely covered in mud and sand and looked like a normal rock upon casual inspection. But when it was cleaned up, Lin Xiaogui saw a silhouette with long, flowing hair. It was a familiar depiction that she was all too familiar with from the legends of the clan.

"It's her.... This ancestral guidance stele is in a dormant state, yet you found it?!" She was utterly floored. Ancestral guidance steles had an active and dormant state. Most of the time, they were dormant and buried deep underground, making them nigh impossible for disciples to find. Only active steles would enlarge to the size of islands, allowing disciples a chance to learn their sword arts. As the steles were dormant for the most part, few, if any, could be spotted at any given time within the Swordsoul Purgatory, despite the fact that there were many that had been left behind from the accomplished ancestors within the clan.

"I recall only a very few instances of dormant steles being discovered throughout history," Lin Xiaogui said, still watching with disbelief.

"So what? Does that mean I don't have to unlock, I mean, understand the sword moves to obtain them?" Tianming asked.

"No. Once you touch it, it'll turn active just like the stele for Delayed Capture. You still have to understand the move to obtain it."

"So there isn't really any difference then. You looked pretty shaken for something that's completely the same."

"Lin Feng.... You should awaken it before anyone else comes. That way, you'll have an entire month to comprehend it. Now, others in the Swordsoul Chamber have seen it and they'll notify more people to come and try their luck," Lin Xiaogui anxiously said.

"I don't need you to tell me that! But still, do you think I have a chance?"

"I don't know.... But I do know that there hasn't been anyone in the history of the clan that mastered both the Grandvoid Compendium and Xiaozhi Sword Art at the same time. If you succeed, you'll be the very first to do so and your name will be famous across Ebonia." Merely thinking about the possibility made her as excited as Tianming. There must have been a reason the Grandvoid Swordfiend led Tianming here!

"I bet I'd be basking in glory if that happens."

"Of course."

"Will they still call me a hundred-year-old trash?"

"If they do, they're basically admitting that they're blind to talent. Personally, I don't think you're weak. Your comprehension abilities have no equal. You definitely possess qualities fitting of a genius."

"Thanks, Xiaogui. Nobody has had such high hopes for me before. Looks like I’m valuable in my own right," he said, feigning being moved to tears. Lin Xiaogui shot him a weird look. It was as if he was intentionally babbling for those in the Swordsoul Chamber to hear.

As they spoke, Tianming didn't dally. He approached the stele quickly and stretched his black arm out to grip the stele. "Xiaogui, why’s she called the Unisword Goddess?"

"Because she usually only needs one sword strike to thoroughly defeat her enemies. At her strongest, nobody in the entire Infinitum Mundus apart from the Grandvoid Swordfiend, who had abdicated the position of rex mundi, was able to take more than one of her strikes."

"Impressive...." As he said that, the stele he had gripped brightly shone. A terrifying power sent him and Xiaogui flying. The short sword burst out of the mud and turned into an island-sized stele before Tianming's eyes.

"Get on!" He didn't hesitate and used the Godsin to wrap around the stele while he grabbed Lin Xiaogui's tail with his other hand.

"Why you...!" she cursed as she was dragged away.

The stele had only remained stationary for the slightest moment before zipping away. It burst through the dark swamp with a loud boom, ripping apart anything that stood in its way as it started its month-long voyage of picking up passengers. Like Delayed Capture, it would show up from time to time in the Swordsoul Purgatory, but few, if any, had managed to understand the move enough to obtain it. Should Tianming manage that feat, the stele wouldn’t return to the Swordsoul Purgatory unless he died in battle, of old age, or intentionally released the stele. That was what it meant to claim a legacy from an ancestral guidance stele. In essence, once somebody claimed a legacy, no one else could do the same.

Lin Xiaogui and Tianming managed to get on the stele proper. While it had emerged from a muddy swamp, the stele’s bright sacred light made it look like a holy island. Complicated and dense patterns were all over its surface, forming a silhouette of a woman dressed in white. Tianming jumped higher up to get a good look at it.

"How beautiful and refreshing... she looks completely unlike the Grandvoid Swordfiend. I wonder if an old cow like him had been feasting on fresh grass like her!" The woman dressed in a white robe seemed mysterious and aloof. The skirt of her robe gently fluttered and she gracefully wielded her longsword. Her eyes seemed to glow with a shine that pierced through the mortal coil, cementing her status as a goddess high up in the clouds. Her beauty was indeed impeccable in a fashion mortals couldn't aspire to! Given that she was someone two generations the Grandvoid Swordfiend's junior, the Grandvoid Swordfiend was already a rex mundi when she was born. Lin Xiaozhi was truly a distinguished figure of her generation.

"The Grandvoid Swordfiend and the Infinitum Swordgoddess.... Grandvoid for time, and Infinitum for space. I wonder if their sobriquets have anything to do with my Grandvoid Universum and Infinitum Spatium totems...." Tianming had no insight into the principles of spacetime, but he did have a pair of totems that seemed to correspond to them. Either way, he wasn't there to actually understand the sword art. "Xiaogui, my brother, come help your big brother with something."

"I'm a woman," she said.

Tianming looked at her smooth, flat plain and said, "It's fine, it's not important. It makes no difference."

"You... shameless!" That was some real emotional damage right there.

"What kind of sword art is this? Is it impressive? How does it compare to that delaying sword art?" The Xiaozhi Sword Art's initiation move seemed rather interesting.

"It's called Delayed Capture!"

"Same difference. It's just a flashy name. What's this one called?" His disrespectful attitude earned him quite a lot of rebuke from those in Swordsoul Chamber.

"It's called the Unistrike Singularity. Unlike the Delayed Capture, which hones your speed, this one’s made for pure destructive power. It's said that once it's unleashed, space itself can be compressed, forcing the enemy into a corner. Once the sword pierces the enemy, their flesh will be ground to mush and crushed into a singularity!" Lin Xiaogui said with a worshipful look.

"It sounds impressive. I'll be stealing it." He smiled.

"Steal?" She merely shot him a blank look.