Chapter 68: Dao Court, Dao Speech

  “I certainly didn’t uimate him; I just couldn’t imagine what trump card he might have. The Deputy Medie Envoy died by a hidden on inside a sword case—where in the world did he get it?”

  Instructor Li shook his head and said, “In any case, we shouldn’t have let him dawdle in the manor. Sending him to the main mountain earlier would have spared us a lot of trouble.”

  “However…” At this, he actually ughed. “If not for that, we wouldn’t have been able to gain su ued merit.”

  At that moment, even though they had lost track of An Jing’s name and whereabouts and had been threatened by the other side, her Xu Wenshi nor Instructor Li showed any worry.

  Although they did not know An Jing’s true strength, they were certain that no matter how high his martial power was or how many trump cards he possessed, he was still only one person.

  He could not move faster than a flying shuttle while running through the wilderness.

  Even if An Jing could hide his qi for three or four days and could avoid the probing of a Divine Ability, so what?

  They po let the brat run for a few days. As the Divi’s forces in the northwest gradually gathered, An Jing’s flight would only beore difficult.

  Of course, they were irely without s.

  The Divi’s operations would alert Great and the surroundis. If An Jing really mao reach a rge city and seek shelter with Great ’s authorities, their pn would fail.

  Still, the border city guarded by a Martial Veins Grandmaster of Great y four thousand li away, and the Divi had also gathered people around that area to cut him off.

  What was more, that Martial Veins Grandmaster…art of the Demonic Sect!

  Even if An Jing could travel a thousand li per day, it ractically impossible for him to truly escape.

  “Let’s pull back first.”

  Xu Wenshi carefully put away the 《Register of Mountains and Rivers》 in his hand, treasuring it greatly. “An Jing’s cealment teique for his qi is quite advanced, most likely tied to his Heaven-Ordained Fate. For the few days, we won’t be able to figure out where he is.”

  “Let’s head to a nearby vilge a while we wait. With this flying shuttle in our hands, he absolutely ’t slip through our fingers.”

  “Let’s go.” Instructor Li nodded slightly ahe group back.

  Another world.

  After briefly determining his dire, An Jing dashed with all his might toward a desote vilge in this world.

  He had no other choice by now.

  He had to gather more resources within the hree days to increase his power.

  Either he needed a “sniper rifle” that could take out a flying shuttle, or something to make him faster so he could break through the Demonic Sect’s encirclement and shake off their pursuing “vehicles” or other equipment.

  It was supposed to be an impossible task, yet An Jing only thought that one had to try before cluding it couldn’t be done.

  Still, half a day ter, upon reag the outskirts of the town, he found that he might have overestimated the difficulty.

  He discovered that the people here actually spoke the exact same nguage as the Huaixu Realm.

  If the east was where the sun rose, then the great mountain where An Jing first arrived y to the southwest, and the rge fn city—where the Immortal Path warship had desded—was in a northeastward dire.

  Betweewo stretched a vast wilderness.

  Dark?green forests dotted the pins, while a turbid river ran across, over desote gray earth.

  Several rundown human towns stood beside the river, ringed by a few metal towers oskirts, and filled with rge sheds, workshops, residential areas, and factory furnaces.

  A gigantic fur the town’s ter rose nearly two hundred meters tall, like a small mountain. Grayish?white smoke billowed from within, f a t n that shot straight into the ashen heavens.

  With that n of smoke and the furnace as ndmarks, An Jing barely o reorient himself. However, unlike mountainous forests, such open pins offered no cover, making it easy for watchful eyes to spot any unusual activity. For that reason, after drawing closer to the town, he deliberately slowed his pace.

  Night had already fallen, around the hour of xushi (7–9 PM). Theoretically, even in his previous life, this would have beeime for settling down to sleep.

  There might have been some night markets open, but a town in this desion would likely enforce a curfew.

  An Jing had inteo wait he town for half a day, have the Sword Spirit keep watch while he took a quick rest, and then in the m see if he could sneak in to learn the loguage.

  But who would have thought that right when he approached the town—before he even got a ce to catch his breath—he heard gunfire?

  Whoosh—almost at once, An Jing dropped to the ground by instinct.

  That reflex, born of his past life, saved him. Immediately afterward, an impossibly dense barrage of gunfire erupted—like bursting beans or firecrackers—resounding across the area.

  “Die, you scum from the Fme Cw Gang!”

  “Kill them! Turn these gutless bastards into sieves and drive them off our turf!”

  Peering from behind a rge boulder, An Jing watched two fas iown locked in a fierce firefight, each shouting out the name of its gang.

  They were speakily the same nguage as the Huaixu Realm.

  But for An Jing, there was no reason to be happy about it now.

  He inhaled sharply and murmured, “Such a hospitable bunch of people here in this world.”

  He saw bursts of spiritual light bullets fring in all dires, weaving into a de ireets. The gunfire’s fshes lit up the dim night sky.

  Many stray rounds whipped through the p Jing had stood moments ago. Without his quick dodge, he would have ended up with more than a few extra holes.

  The two groups fought as they ran, stantly shifting their battlefield, soon taking their fight out of the town and into the wilderness. They even got into an intense vehicle chase—oer another, variously modified vehicles spat sparks, glowed with spiritual patterns, and raised translut shields as they traded fire with opposing vehicles.

  Some modified vehicles could even fly, hurling bombs from overhead!

  Of course, the tallest nail gets hammered down. That vehicle romptly shot out of the sky by trated fire, exploding in midair like fireworks.

  Before long, the main force departed, leaving the town behind. The few who remained behind their barricades only shouted insults bad forth, not going so far as to csh again or destroy buildings.

  It looked like a bit of order amid the chaos.

  “They’re actually all sword cultivators!”

  The Sword Spirit spoke in astonishment. “And they’re using ‘Dao Speech’ as well!”

  “I don’t think they’re traditional sword cultivators,” An Jing said, shrinking back to avoid stray bullets. “And what exactly is Dao Speech?”

  “Dao Speech is the nguage passed down by the Dao Sect’s Dao Court,” the Sword Spirit expined. “In aimes, a True Immortal took Heaven ah as a vessel and the curtain of stars as a sail, bringing five cities and twelve towers along with 108,000 people to the vast, boundless wilderness. That was the start of the Huaixu human race.”

  “It’s said Huaixu was that True Immortal’s Dao title, and the iance He left behind came to be known as the ‘Dao Court’ or ‘Dao Sect’ among ter geions.”

  “All Huaixu people use the same nguage and writing, along with the measurement standards established by the Dao Court.”

  “Later, for reasons unknown to me, the Great Immortal departed the Huaixu Realm, and so the Dao Sect split, being today’s ‘Ten tis of Huaixu,’ named after five colors and five dires.”

  “But no matter the splits, all Huaixu people speak ‘Dao Speech.’”

  With that, the Sword Spirit grew thoughtful. “This other world tains fragments of me and also uses Dao Speech, so it must be strongly tied to the Huaixu Realm—or rather, to the Dao Court.”

  “Perhaps this world also ied the Dao lineage of the Great Immortal of Huaixu, or it could be a new domain opened by one of the Dao Court’s ter splits. One way or another, siheir writing and speech match Huaixu’s, we’re all one family.” The Sword Spirit sounded quite pleased. “I imagiheir Dao teiques sprang from the same source, which works very much to our advantage!”

  Although An Jing liked the Sword Spirit’s simple, upbeat attitude, he had a small . “The folks here are so ‘warm and hospitable’ that, even if we share a nguage, it won’t stop them from giving me a bullet or a bde on sight.

  “Our clothes and ats aren’t the same. How I possibly sneak into the town?”

  “Hmm…” This clearly wasn’t the Sword Spirit’s strong point, but He still had plenty of experience. He offered An Jing a workable suggestion: “Maybe try a ge of clothes?”

  “I saw how fiercely those people were fighting. Just strip an outfit from one of them and put it on.”

  Being a sword, He cked human cepts of morality, so taking clothes off the dead seemed perfectly natural to Him.

  “Good idea.” An Jing nodded slightly too, casting a keen gaze across the wilderness where the two sides had previously fought.

  (End of Chapter)