The Sage Who Transcended Samsara

Translator: Transn Editor: Transn

The chilled air had eroded the pale golden radiances on Meng Qi's body, causing the coldness to intensify bit by bit. It brought back his childhood memories about winters when he had to put on clothes that made him look bloated and hard to move around agilely. He had the same feeling at the moment as all his movements were slowed down. However, in a battle between two gurus, winning or losing could happen in a split second. Before Meng Qi could find a way to get rid of the coldness and reduced agility, the punch attack from Wu Jizhen was already approaching. Meng Qi had therefore decided to retreat as it seemed to be the only choice.

Meng Qi stepped backward speedily before the attack came near. Without anyone noticing, Wu Jizhen had left his ship and stepped on the bluish-black frozen ocean, leaving behind the trails of footstep on the sea ice. The attack was drawing near without any delay. In an instant, the distance between them had become shorter.

While Meng Qi was retreating, he changed his Interior View to portray a huge sun. Flame was burning on the surface of his skin along with some pale golden radiances. The flame had defended him against the freezing cold surrounding as it dispelled the coldness that had been lingering in his body.

It was until then that Meng Qi got a chance to draw his blade.

However, just when Meng Qi touched the blade handle, Wu Jizhen lowered his fist slightly. A combined energy of the heaven, the earth, the human, and the blade, was formed immediately which exerted pressure on Meng Qi. As the cardinal point was occupied by the combined energy, Meng Qi felt that it might not be a good timing to draw his blade. He had a strong feeling that he would be hit badly if he drew the blade at the moment.

On the other hand, the Interior View of Wu Jizhen was formed. It was as though he had just created another world. His punch seemed to have absorbed power from the world, which made it extremely hard to be countered from the front.

Meng Qi tried to make use of all the acupuncture points on his body to integrate himself with the energy of the heaven and the earth. He wanted to draw his blade forcefully. Nevertheless, the punch of Wu Jizhen had suddenly become more unpredictable. The energy of the heaven and the earth was changed again. Invisible ice was formed around Meng Qi to disrupt his integration process with the heaven and the earth.

No matter what kind of strategies Meng Qi used, Wu Jizhen could still sense the Qi Ji and acted before him. Meng Qi's counter-strategies were always forced to be stopped halfway. After all, all he could do was to retreat.

Apparently, Wu Jizhen was aware of the trueness and the changes of all his moves! Meng Qi took a deep breath. Since he had decided to not try his luck and hide his true power, he formed a chaotic Interior View. In the chaos, there would be no differences between true and false or presence and absence.

In the beginning, Meng Qi planned to use merely the arts of blade to win the battle as he thought the battle would end very quickly after ten strikes. Furthermore, it was not a life and death situation that required him to use the Indestructible Statue of Yuan Shi. However, being in Wu Jizhen's Interior View of the Bright Moon, his secrets could not be hidden anymore. He could not even take one strike without entering the Premier Realm.

After the Interior View of Chaos occurred, Wu Jizhen's fist wobbled slightly as he seemed doubtful about Meng Qi's next action. Not letting go of this chance, Meng Qi drew the long blade from its sheath and made a Tai Chi symbol in the air which looked like an inverted S-shape. The blade hit Wu Jizhen's fist on the side to divert the attack to the other direction. In this way, Meng Qi was able to have the least contact with the frontal attack point. Apparently, he had successfully dodged the attack with minimal effort by using clever maneuvers.

With a flick of the wrist, Wu Jizhen formed numerous fists and they were scattering around. He then turned the fists to claw hands to grasp the back of Meng Qi's blade. The claw hands were as agile as a snake catcher. In the snow, the shadows of the claw hands were like a beautiful mirage.

Meng Qi swung the long blade upward to escape from the claw hands, but Wu Jizhen was able to counter it with the interchangeable moves between his palm, finger, punch, and claw hand. His moves were speedy enough to counter every blade attack from Meng Qi. The duel between the hand and the blade was as graceful as a dancing butterfly, which created a wonderfully vivid view. The massive thunder and the tremendous snowfall were intertwining with each other; and the sea ice and the lightning strikes looked same in the color.

Within dozens of miles, the ocean was frozen. Nobody knew how many feet the ice had spread. In the sky, the thunder was flashing frequently; the moon was shining brightly. It was as though they were competing with each other.

After a few moves from both sides, the blade and the hand still had not crashed together yet. Just then, another hand of Wu Jizhen that was behind his back all the while darted out.

In a split second, the snow was falling from the sky and instantly covered the ground with gray color. The ocean from afar had disappeared; the clouds in the sky had vanished; everything was gone. All they could see was a lonely and empty frosty world, which gave them a melancholic feeling that could be represented by the proverb, "Despite being in a world so big, I feel isolated as no one knows me well."

On the other hand, Wu Jizhen was standing proudly in the Interior View that he formed, as if he was the ruler of this world. The attacks from his fist and claw hand were just everywhere, so there was no way to dodge them. Since all the attacks had been hitting on Meng Qi, it seemed like there was nothing he could do at the moment except to endure them.

Shortly after that, Meng Qi breathed in deeply. His body became bloated all of a sudden as he had turned into his Celestial Body while holding the Heaven's Pain. The electric lights were gathered at the tip of the blade which created a pinhole that looked like a small whirlpool. The Heaven's Pain had been making loud cracking sounds, as if the God of Thunder, who was in charge of punishing the evil people, had just came to the earth. Meng Qi launched a fierce counter-attack toward Wu Jizhen.

Just before they crashed together, the blade beams were dispersed and turned into green and purple thunder that flashed all over the sky. The thunder had shrouded the long blade and also turned Wu Jizhen's attacks to a mess.

The ocean had been separated. From the ocean, the blade beam was just like a fish that leaped through the Dragon Gate. They had passed through the fists and claw hands and striking right at the face of Wu Jizhen in a speedy and thunderous manner.

Wu Jizhen turned his elbows inward to turn the chilled air into countless pieces of blue ice. The ice was dragging the long blade which forced Meng Qi to change his moves.

Subsequently, Wu Jizhen pulled his right hand back and spread his fingers just like a blooming plum blossom. With the back of his hand, he swept it gently toward Meng Qi. His gestures had been so elegant that gave people a glorious feeling.

The lifeless and dull snow had been a contrast with the bright-colored plum blossom that expressed the vigor of life.

The sweeping attack of Wu Jizhen had provided insights into one's passion toward life and also one's thoughts about the terrifying death. At the next moment, the insights had changed again which seemed to be quite unpredictable. As a result, Meng Qi felt that it was hard for him to be vigilant and on guard. Also, his blade attack was so flawed as compared to the sweeping attack of Wu Jizhen. The difference between their attacks was like catching a tiny fish using a net with bowl-sized holes, which was so easy for the fish to make its way out.

Once more, Meng Qi stepped backward at a rapid speed while he slashed forward using the long blade. One divided into two, two divided into four, and four divided into eight. The energy of the slash was equal in strength and thickness and it formed a dragnet. He was trying to counter the sweeping attack bit by bit using the dragnet.

Dang! The vigor of life had failed to defend itself against the lifeless snow. The sweeping attack of Wu Jizhen had weakened the blade beams and hit right at the back of the blaze.

A breeze of chilled air had returned. The purple and green thunder above the sky were condensed into ice. The pale golden radiances were shimmering on Meng Qi's fingers but they were not strong enough to defend him against the chilled air - his fingers were being frozen on the blade handle.

Meng Qi's countenance changed right away. With a flick of the right hand, the frozen palm was detached from him to stop the chilled air from clinging on his body. Before Wu Jizhen could react to it, Meng Qi held the Jade-Slashing Sword with the remaining left hand and moved around swiftly to slash in four directions: the left side, the right side, the front side, and the back side, respectively. These slashes were either fast, heavy, gentle, or strong. He had integrated all the learnings in his entire life into these four slashes. Along with the thunder, he felt like the slashes were able to separate the heaven from the earth. Although feeling heavy in the body, his heart had never felt so light before. Also, since a left-handed blade attack was more rare, it was also more unpredictable.

Right then, Wu Jizhen held his own hands together and made a hand gesture that looked like Mudra. Some icy cold lights were gushing out of his body which wiped out all the blade beams and whited out the surroundings.

In an instant, Meng Qi kept the long blade before the attack was completed, which was an unusual act that went against common sense. He then found out the cardinal point and slashed toward it.

Crack. The white-out was separated and the long blade slashed on Wu Jizhen's body.

The ice was broken, with a lot of chilled air scattering around. Wu Jizhen's body was broken like an ice sculpture.

At the back of Meng Qi, a cloud of mist appeared and Wu Jizhen emerged again. While sticking his right thumb on the index finger and middle finger, he heaved a deep sigh that was filled with sorrow. He then pointed at Meng Qi using that hand gesture.

Hearing the deep sigh of Wu Jizhen, Meng Qi resonated with his intense feeling of sadness as they both thought of something that they could never let go. Meng Qi's emotion had been fluctuating. He thought about the malicious Samsara; his destiny that was controlled by others; and Gu Xiaosang's words about the troubles that he would bring to his friends and relatives. He ended up feeling distressed and was in a painful struggle to get over it. Feeling as if he was shackled, he felt like pulling out his blade to cut off the shackles in order to be relieved, unrestrained, and carefree.

Oh no! Just then, a Giant Golden Buddha who was pointing to the sky and touching the ground appeared. Meng Qi was brought back to the current situation at once. Moments ago, Wu Jizhen's pointing attack had evoked a lot of emotions in him that were long-suppressed and thereby causing his weak point to be exposed.

Using the arts of the Best in the World, Meng Qi was about to draw his blade to block the pointing attack from Wu Jizhen. Just before he did that, he suddenly noticed Wu Jizhen's eyes that were filled with nostalgia but also enthusiasm and infatuation.

The saddest thing in the world was to part with someone.

At the moment, Meng Qi had a strange intuition. What Wu Jizhen saw on him was vastly different from what Meng Qi had previously thought of — he would not be able to block the pointing attack!

Usually, in a duel, the things that could be seen from an opponent were the Form, the body, the blood veins and meridians, the moves, the use of the energy of the heaven and the earth, and the control of the Law. However, Meng Qi believed that Wu Jizhen was not looking at these things; instead, he was looking at the other aspects. For example, in order to pinpoint the cardinal point of a vase of flower, Meng Qi would look at the petals, the stamen, the root, the soil, the vase, the veins of the leaves and the condition of sunlight. Nevertheless, Wu Jizhen would be looking at the totally different energies such as the vitality, the burning passion, as well as the withered parts and their dependence on each other.

Without having the same eyesight as Wu Jizhen, Meng Qi would not able to find out the targeted area of Wu Jizhen's pointing attack. Therefore, there was no way to defend against it.

Meng Qi had no time to think about anything else but to activate the Seal of Yin Yang using the Indestructible Statue of Yuan Shi. The Seal of Yin Yang was changing the Yin and the Yang to alter life and death. He was attempting to disrupt the pointing attack with the seal while he moved backward rapidly to create a distance. He planned to launch a ranged attack to separate himself from Wu Jizhen.

"Ahh…" Wu Jizhen put a halt to his attack. He was stepping on the frozen ocean with a miserable look.

"We don't have to fight anymore. There's a great possibility that you can block ten strikes from me. But…" Wu Jizhen shook his head with a dull and bored look. "But you don't have the spirit of martial arts. It's boring."

Wu Jizhen clasped his hands behind his back and walked toward his ship in a slow pace.

"The spirit of martial arts?" Meng Qi asked in shock as he did not expect an ending like this.

How could it be true that he did not have the spirit of martial arts?

Without turning his head around, Wu Jizhen said in a calm voice, "You do have a strong desire to become powerful and a drive in making it true. You're also motivated by obstacles and dangers. For most of the people, this may be the spirit of martial arts. However, deep down inside, you're neither enthusiastic about martial arts nor passionate in pursuing Dao. For you, martial arts is just a tool or a weapon, that's it."

Wu Jizhen then looked up at the sky and murmured to himself, "What is Dao? What is life?"

"How to understand life and death thoroughly; to break the eternal silence with a spark in just an instant; to know the magnificence of nature…"

"Although all the moves and the arts are looking different, they are essentially the same in telling us about how to pursue these things…"

A small frown creased Meng Qi's forehead. Shouldn't all these things be analyzed rationally?

"Without devoting passion to life, one will not be able to understand the beauty of Da Dao, the beauty of life and death, and the beauty of love and hatred. It's just like how an insect from the summer has no clue how cold ice is…" Wu Jizhen shook his head. "Just wait at the Three-Fairies Island. The Plain Girl Sect comes to me for help on a regular basis."