Chapter 70: What to Engrave

Li Jianqiu stood rooted beneath the colossal stone, a statue himself save for the restless dance of his flame sword in the mountain wind.

Jiang Wang approached his side and discerned the inscription etched into the stone face.

"In the twelfth year of Yongtai, a hundred battles of blood and bone, undefeated with hands clasped behind the back, leaving these words for future generations to admire!"

The signature was a single character: Wu.

It seemed unfinished, a single vertical stroke trailing off, a nascent thought abruptly halted.

Yongtai, the era name of the current ruler of Zhuang, now stood in the fourteenth year of the Zhuang calendar, three thousand nine hundred and seventeen years into the calendar of the Dao.

Thus, this inscription on the stone was born two years prior, precisely during the first cleansing of this very Vertical Peak.

Li Jianqiu, having slain the monstrous beast, neither boasted of his feat, nor summarized the struggle, nor pressed onward. Instead, he paused before the stone inscription, laden with unspoken tales, and fell silent.

The air grew heavy with unspoken emotion, even silencing Huang Azhan, usually a fount of boundless energy.

After a prolonged silence, Li Jianqiu dispelled the twin flame swords he held and, for the first time before Jiang Wang and the others, slowly drew the sword from his waist.

This was the first time Jiang Wang had witnessed this blade unsheathed.

Radiant and brilliant. Such adjectives seldom graced the description of a sword, yet for this one, they felt undeniably apt.

Li Jianqiu held the sword with one hand and added a few strokes to the inscription.

Wu Mountain.

The name was unassuming, yet it undoubtedly belonged to the seemingly invincible senior.

Li Jianqiu moved the sword's edge and began another line upon the stone, carving: This junior comes to admire!

And then, a third line, etching his signature: Defeated hound Li Jianqiu.

Stone dust rained down, as if burying a torrent of emotions within its gritty cascade.

"Let's go," Li Jianqiu turned and said, "To the peak."

Bypassing the giant stone, the party trod upon a carpet of fallen branches and decaying leaves amidst the jagged mountain rocks.

Perhaps a path had once existed here, but two years had passed, and the wilderness had reclaimed its dominion.

There was no road in the mountains, yet the road lay before their feet.

"I saw your sword was broken just now. Should we complete this solo cleansing of Vertical Peak, I'll trade a magic weapon longsword for your services." Li Jianqiu spoke casually.

"How can this be?" Jiang Wang waved his hand, "The task is not mine alone to accomplish, and furthermore, Senior Brother, you are the primary force..."

As a cultivator accustomed to the sword, Jiang Wang's longing for a fine blade was undeniable. Had this journey been solely with Zhao Rucheng, he wouldn't have hesitated to accept. But with Li Jianqiu, and even Huang Azhan, their camaraderie hadn't yet reached such a level of familiarity.

Li Jianqiu patted the longsword at his waist: "I have a Peach Branch. Other swords hold no sway for me."

So this sword was called Peach Branch, a fitting name indeed, so radiant and brilliant. Jiang Wang mused.

Li Jianqiu continued: "A magic sword of this caliber should fetch around six hundred Dao Xun. You can compensate us with a hundred Dao Xun each."

In this manner, Jiang Wang would still profit. As for the others, it was no loss, for Dao Xun was hard currency, and the physical rewards of the task might not suit their needs.

"Alright." Jiang Wang no longer demurred.

The other two offered no objections.

Li Jianqiu then turned to Huang Azhan and remarked: "Judging by your Dao technique, you walk a similar path to Shen Nanqi. One is Metal element, the other Fire element."

Huang Azhan scratched his head and grinned: "I'm just figuring things out on my own, it's not a formal system."

"Fire element Dao technique is volatile. You must pay greater attention to the control of the technique itself. Take the flame bullets, for instance." Li Jianqiu casually formed a hand seal, conjuring a flame bullet.

"When it explodes, how it explodes, its scale, its speed. You must command it with absolute freedom." The flame bullet, under Li Jianqiu's control, danced back and forth, expanding and contracting, before suddenly accelerating and shattering a stone.

"I am enlightened." Huang Azhan bowed respectfully in gratitude.

Li Jianqiu waved a dismissive hand, then addressed Zhao Rucheng: "You are quite sharp-witted. I mentioned earlier that among you, Du Yehu possessed the highest combat talent. I did not anticipate overlooking you. Your combat talent is no less than his, but while he relies on innate combat intuition..."

He tapped his head: "You rely on this."

Zhao Rucheng chuckled: "Indeed, I wouldn't have known if you hadn't said so."

Huang Azhan pondered for a moment: "That's not right, Senior Brother Li. So, among the three of us, I'm the only one who needs guidance?"

Li Jianqiu smiled without a word.

In the recent fierce battle, he had been acutely aware of each person's combat details, a testament to his effortless dominance.

It was only, for reasons unknown, during the Three Cities Dao Discussion, he had not displayed the strength that matched his current prowess.

A wolf-hair brush, its holder straight and firm, the tip round and full, the edge sharp as a needle.

Inverting it, it mirrored the approximate shape of Vertical Peak.

Beyond the hillside, a climb upwards led to the position of the brush's tip. It was also the widest cross-section of the entire Vertical Peak.

Here lay the primary base of the ferocious beasts of Vertical Peak.

The roars of the beasts reached their ears from afar. As they drew closer, some of the creatures, unable to contain themselves, surged outwards.

This was like a signal, and then it erupted like a disturbed hornet's nest, and all manner of strange-shaped beasts swarmed forth.

Wind Centipedes, Rock Snakes, Tiger Jackals, Mountain Spiders...

Amidst this chaos, Li Jianqiu still had the leisure to tally: "Not bad, not a hundred, far from forming a proper scale."

He took a step forward, and Peach Branch was unsheathed!

The sword light was brilliant, and the sword qi was vast.

His entire being plunged into the beast tide in a wave of gorgeous crimson.

Like the arrival of spring, peach blossoms in full bloom.

These peach blossoms, however, were the color of blood, blooming not flowers, but life souls.

Li Jianqiu was a red tide, sweeping through the beast tide.

Jiang Wang and the others didn't even have a chance to strike, staring in stunned silence at the spectacle.

The red tide receded, and all the roars and howls fell silent.

Only Li Jianqiu's slender figure stood tall.

One person, one sword, a ground littered with the corpses of ferocious beasts.

Such a scene, what a masterpiece of freehand brushwork!

"Senior Brother Li, Li..." Huang Azhan was speechless with shock, even forgetting to offer praise, "You're so strong, why bother bringing us?"

Li Jianqiu held Peach Branch in his hand, gazed at the hillside, and amidst the scattered beast corpses, suddenly let out a long howl!

The sound echoed off the towering cliffs and reverberated through the distant mountains.

As if all the pent-up emotions of the day had been released, it was a sound of indescribable joy and liberation!

After his long howl subsided, he returned the sword to its sheath and said, "The one who left the inscription on the stone loved to show off and boast of his accomplishments. I brought you here simply to fulfill his wish, the wish of being admired by younger students."

Jiang Wang hesitated: "Senior Brother Wu, he... is he also a student of our Maple Forest City Dao Academy?"

"He should be of the same generation as Senior Brother Zhu, but his strength is far behind. His strength back then was far inferior to my own now." Li Jianqiu shook his head, his expression a blend of nostalgia and pain.

"I told you, didn't I? All my teammates are dead."

Li Jianqiu paused and continued: "They died under his leadership."

He turned to look in the direction of the Vertical Peak's summit, or perhaps simply to turn his back on Jiang Wang and the others.

His voice echoed in the mountains: "He was weak. But when the beast tide suddenly erupted and breached the defense line, he stood before the tide, declaring that the disciples of our Maple Forest City Dao Academy would not be looked down upon by the people of Three Mountains City."

"All of them stood before the beast tide, and I ran."

Jiang Wang and the others looked at his back, a back that seemed particularly solitary in the mountain wind. They immediately understood the inscription he had carved: Defeated hound Li Jianqiu.

These words had likely been etched into his heart for two years, over seven hundred days and nights.

And only after truly carving those words onto the stone wall and slaying all the ferocious beasts of Vertical Peak, could he finally begin to reconcile with himself.