Xu Wuyi thrust his spear.
The Illusion swung his sword.
The azure sword light and the dark gold spear glint collided in the center of the pure white space.
There was no sound.
There was no explosion.
Only two completely different "Daos" clashed fiercely in silence.
Xu Wuyi’s consciousness seemed to stretch out in this moment.
He "saw" the purity within the sword light—the only thing that remained after stripping away all distracting thoughts, all hesitation, all excess: to sever.
He also "saw" the contradiction in his own spear glint. Heavy and incinerating, sinking and burning, still and moving—two opposing Rules were being forcibly merged. It was not yet perfect, but it had already unleashed astonishing power.
Time seemed to stand still.
Then—
CRACK.
A faint cracking sound was heard.
A crack appeared on the spear in Xu Wuyi’s hand, starting from the tip.
The crack spread rapidly, covering the entire shaft in an instant.
The next moment, the spear shattered.
The dark gold spear glint was completely sundered by the azure sword light.
The sword light, its Momentum undiminished, slashed toward Xu Wuyi’s chest.
A flicker of determination flashed in Xu Wuyi’s eyes.
He dropped the spear and brought his hands together in a clasping motion before his chest.
The illusion of a vast, dark gold marsh unfurled behind him with a ROAR. A two-meter-wide Returning Ruins Seal instantly took form, blocking his path.
The sword light struck the Seal Platform.
THUD!
The incredibly deep and muffled impact made the entire pure white space tremble.
Countless cracks appeared on the surface of the Returning Ruins Seal, but in the end, it did not completely shatter.
The sword light dissipated.
Xu Wuyi staggered back, a trickle of blood seeping from the corner of his mouth.
He looked up at the Illusion.
The Illusion sheathed his sword and stood quietly.
An almost imperceptible ripple flickered through those calm eyes.
Then, his figure began to fade, eventually disappearing into the pure white space.
[Battle Concluded]
[Result: Defeat]
[Duration: Seventeen Seconds]
[Attacks Endured: Eleven Sword Strikes]
[Effective Counterattacks: One]
The cold voice of the system announcement sounded.
Xu Wuyi stood in place, panting, feeling the sharp pain in his chest.
Seventeen seconds.
Eleven sword strikes.
He had only managed one counterattack.
A complete and utter defeat.
But there was no dejection in his eyes. Instead, a scorching Flame ignited within them.
’So this is... a pure Sword Dao?’
’This is... the strength of someone invincible at their level?’
Xu Wuyi wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and stood up straight.
"Again."
He spoke softly to the empty, pure white space.
...
The whirring sound of the Virtual Cabin’s hatch opening was especially clear in the silent basement.
Xu Wuyi sat up inside the cabin, his bangs soaked with sweat and plastered to his skin.
He took a deep breath. A phantom pain lingered in his chest from being run through by the sword’s edge—a fatal blow he had failed to completely evade during his third attempt.
"How do you feel?"
Wu Dingbo’s voice came from the side. The Grandmaster General stood before the control console, his gaze fixed on the stream of data scrolling across the screen, his brow slightly furrowed.
Xu Wuyi took the towel an attendant handed him and wiped his face. "I lasted three more moves than the second time."
"Eighteen moves," Qiao Tongyu said, walking over from the other side with a freshly printed battle report in his hand.
"Your progress is obvious. Eleven moves the first time, fifteen the second, and eighteen the third... You’re adapting to his rhythm."
"But it’s not enough." Xu Wuyi stood up and stretched his slightly stiff neck.
The fatigue from the 99% Simulation Level was real. After three consecutive high-intensity battles, the mental toll was considerable, even with the Virtual Cabin’s Nutrient Liquid for sustenance.
He walked to the console and looked at the playback on the screen.
The image froze at the final moment of the third battle: the azure sword light had pierced through the not-yet-fully-formed Returning Ruins Seal and accurately stabbed into his heart.
The Illusion withdrew his sword, his eyes calm and tranquil.
"In a pure contest of Martial Arts, I’m no match for him at all," Xu Wuyi said calmly, staring at the screen.
"His every strike has been forged through countless trials. There are no wasted movements. His grasp of timing, control of distance, and application of force have all reached the apex for our level."
Wu Dingbo nodded. "We’ve analyzed it. This kind of supremely pure Sword Dao can only be honed through countless life-and-death battles against powerhouses of the same level."
"The Federation’s current training system would have a hard time producing such a Martial Artist. To be more precise... we don’t have enough powerhouses to spare for them to die."
Xu Wuyi nodded. These were Martial Arts built entirely on a mountain of corpses; the Federation’s Martial Artists couldn’t be expended like that internally.
As for external battles, the Alien Race wasn’t actually skilled in Martial Arts, relying more on their innate ferocity. And the Federation had not yet made direct contact with other human civilizations.
Perhaps this problem could only be solved after virtual simulation technology advanced further, achieving complete realism.
"So, competing head-on in Martial Arts is a dead end," Xu Wuyi said.
Qiao Tongyu looked at him. "You want to change your approach?"
"Yes." Xu Wuyi pulled up a data graph of the Gravity Field changes from the previous three battles.
Three curves snaked across the screen, each representing the intensity and range of his influence on the surrounding Gravity Field during the three attempts.
"His advantage is his speed, and that... movement technique that seems to compress space," Xu Wuyi said, pointing to a segment from the second battle.
"But no matter how fast he is, as long as he’s still in this space, he has to be bound by the laws of physics."
"Gravity." Wu Dingbo understood what he meant.
"Right." Xu Wuyi enlarged a key frame from the third battle.
In the image, just as the Illusion’s sword was about to pierce him, its trajectory deviated by an extremely small margin.
That was the result of Xu Wuyi instantaneously increasing the Gravity in the area before him fifteenfold.
Although the deviation was minuscule and lasted for less than a tenth of a second, it did affect where the blade landed, allowing him to barely avoid a vital point.
"In the first three attempts, I was always reacting passively, only adjusting the Gravity Field after he had already struck," Xu Wuyi said.
"But altering the Gravity Field takes time. Even a delay of a few tenths of a second is enough for him to land a killing blow at that speed."
Qiao Tongyu was pensive. "You want to set up the Gravity Field in advance?"
"Yes, preset it." Xu Wuyi closed his eyes, and the breathing rhythm of the dark gold marsh in his sea of consciousness slowly changed.
"My Heavy Water Heart Image has reached Great Success; its weight can fluctuate as I will it. If I can predict his movement trajectory and plant ’seeds’ of gravitational change at those ’points’ ahead of time..."
He opened his eyes, a dark gold light flowing within them.
"Then when he enters those areas, the Gravity Field will react automatically, without me needing to divert my attention to control it. Although the intensity won’t match active pressure, its advantages are that it’s instantaneous, continuous, and can cover a wider area."
Wu Dingbo and Qiao Tongyu exchanged a look.
"Theoretically, it’s feasible," Wu Dingbo said pensively. "But predicting his trajectory... that’s difficult. His movement involves the use of space. His path is extremely erratic."
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