Outside the great hall, Gai Nie had already crossed blades with the combined forces of Flowing Sands and the Yin-Yang Clan elites who had rushed in after Aedric.
With his swordsmanship honed to perfection, Gai Nie could not easily defeat so many opponents at once—but escaping them? That was child's play.
However, upon sensing the fierce battle erupting within the hall, the righteous swordsman made a deliberate choice. Rather than joining the melee to gang up on one man, he stayed outside, keeping the other experts occupied.
After all, the Loulan High Priestess had already gone to summon the Loulan army to counter the Qin forces. As long as these top-tier fighters were held up here, the battle outside could be turned around.
The Qin army might be elite, but they were few. Once the Loulan legions arrived, the Qin soldiers would be crushed by sheer numbers.
In truth, in the original story, the only reason the Qin army survived was because the War God Mecha annihilated most of Loulan's troops. Without that, they'd have been wiped out long ago.
Unfortunately, this time things were different.
Without the Dragon Soul to power it, Gongshu Chou—though already inside the Mecha—had no way to awaken the colossal construct. All he could do was fumble about uselessly in the dark, pressing buttons he didn't understand.
Meanwhile, inside the hall, Aedric unleashed his full power.
Channeling Postnatal Inner Core Art to its ninth-layer peak, he swung his twin swords—two absolute opposites in nature—and unleashed both the Taiji Sword Style and Dugu Nine Swords simultaneously.
Ice and fire merged in a whirling storm of power. The air around him howled as he became a living tempest—balance and destruction in perfect harmony—surging straight toward Wei Zhuang.
Dugu Nine Swords struck to kill.
Taiji Sword Style defended without flaw.
Together, they created a seamless rhythm of attack and defense, overwhelming and unbreakable.
Even wielding the Chiyou Divine Sword, Wei Zhuang was forced onto the back foot. The ancient weapon had magnified his power—but at a cost.
For all its might, the sword had begun to control him.
The user had become the puppet.
Although it lent him strength and speed far beyond his own, that power was wild and untamed. His movements were strong but unbalanced—full of openings that Aedric's Dugu Nine Swords, the art of exploiting weakness, was born to destroy.
For hundreds of furious exchanges, the two blurred across the shattered hall. Sparks rained like falling stars. Finally, a Taiji deflection spun Wei Zhuang's sword from his hands—and a follow-up strike from Aedric's flaming Blackfyre Sword slammed into his chest, sending him flying across the hall.
Aedric didn't pursue.
Out of respect for Gai Nie, he couldn't kill Wei Zhuang.
Besides, the man would one day rise against Qin. Killing him now would mean losing a valuable future ally.
Outside, seeing Wei Zhuang's defeat, Chi Lian and Bai Feng abandoned their battle with Gai Nie and rushed in to retrieve him. Supporting his battered body, they withdrew swiftly into the night.
As for Da Siming and Shao Siming, they were wise enough not to court death. Against the Sword Saint Gai Nie, they fled without hesitation.
In a blink, every top Qin commander had vanished—leaving only poor Gongshu Chou trapped inside the unresponsive War God Mecha, still unaware that his entire team had ditched him.
A lonely, pathetic old man… what a sin.
Ignoring the retreating foes, Aedric turned toward the fallen Chiyou Sword.
But after witnessing how easily it had dominated Wei Zhuang's will, he didn't dare touch it carelessly.
Instead, he pulled out his Predator Wrist Computer—the all-purpose tool of the Yautja race—and began scanning the weapon.
When the sword started trembling, trying to break free, Aedric simply smirked.
"Oh no, you don't."
He pulled out a set of Valyrian steel chains and wrapped the blade tight. "Let's see you wiggle out of that."
Watching his strange, methodical actions, Gai Nie raised a brow but said nothing.
He gave the younger man a long, thoughtful glance—then turned away, heading out to assist Loulan's forces against the Qin army.
Aedric sighed. What's Gai Nie's deal with Qin anyway?
He'd once been Qin Shi Huang's personal instructor—close enough to teach the king swordsmanship himself—yet here he was, fighting against Qin's army.
Then again, Aedric thought wryly, if you spend years at the emperor's side and still end up just a glorified tutor, you'd be bitter too. The man's practically a saint for not defecting sooner. Couldn't Ying Zheng at least give the guy a title and some gold?
Other versions of Ying Zheng are way more generous… maybe this one's just stingy.
He grinned. Guess that's what happens when you're not Zhu Yuanzhang.
Shaking his head to clear the thought, Aedric refocused on his scan. Within a minute, the wrist computer displayed results: faint inscriptions carved into the blade's surface with ancient micro-engraving techniques.
Because the Yautja were creators of Earth's earliest civilizations, their database already contained every known human script.
And though this world's timeline differed, the written characters were somehow identical—perhaps a cosmic coincidence.
Thus, the device quickly translated the inscription's meaning:
It was an ancient sword manual, its name glowing across the holographic display—
"The Heaven-Crippled Divine Art (Tian Can Jiu Shi)."
Aedric nearly dropped the device.
"What the—Heaven-Crippled Divine Art?! Are you kidding me?! What's next—Huangdi practicing Buddha's Palm?!"
He rubbed his temples.
"So it was a sword technique all along? No wonder later generations turned it into a leg art—the weapon must've been lost, so they started kicking instead!"
Still muttering, he read through the text—and his astonishment grew.
This wasn't just a sword style. It was a transcendent path—its final form, 'Annihilation of the Three Realms,' directly pointed the way from Postnatal cultivation to the Innate Realm.
Mastering it would elevate one beyond mortality itself.
In all of history, only one man had ever achieved that—Chiyou, the Demon God of War.
Aedric could hardly contain his excitement.
He hadn't even had the chance to buy an Innate-level technique from the System yet, and now he'd found one for free!
Sure, it might differ in structure from what the System offered—perhaps less refined in foundation—but it was still a genuine gateway to transcendence.
Just a glimpse of its mysteries made this entire trip worth it.
All his earlier complaints about ending up in the wrong world vanished.
If he hadn't landed in The Legend of Qin, where else would he have stumbled upon a living divine weapon and a peerless cultivation art?
Grinning from ear to ear, Aedric turned his gaze toward the bound, thrashing Chiyou Sword.
This weapon was clearly essential to mastering the Heaven-Crippled Divine Art—it was its destined companion, a true divine artifact.
He couldn't leave it behind.
Drawing a deep breath, Aedric gathered every ounce of inner energy into his palms and seized the sword by its hilt.
The weapon screamed in protest, waves of malice crashing against his mind.
Teeth gritted, Aedric forced his will down upon it, subduing its demonic aura through sheer determination—and, finally, dragged it into his living-space inventory.
Not the item vault—the living one.
Because this sword, incredibly, was alive.
As the blade vanished into his dimensional space, Aedric exhaled slowly, his hands trembling from the exertion.
"No wonder it felt like a living thing," he murmured. "It really is. A sentient divine weapon… terrifying."
He looked at his trembling palm and smiled.
"Worth it."
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