Chapter 348: Levels of Sword Intent

Beneath Martial Artist Xuan, a symbol formed.Not a normal taiji.

A black void spread across the ground, swallowing color and sound alike.

Upon it appeared a distorted yin yang pitch black as the base, yet riddled with multiple dots, far more than should exist.

They did not balance the darkness.

They invaded it.

A pseudo-domain unfolded.

The moment the darkness touched the land, a profound sense of desolation followed.

The ground seemed rejected by reality itself, as if this portion of the world had been cast aside, as though the Heavens had turned their backs on it.

"This—!" Wan Shou muttered sharply, watching from within the strange fortress.

His expression darkened.

This feeling...

It was familiar.

He had read about it in demonic education texts.

Descriptions of abandoned lands, rejected truths, paths that even Heaven refused to acknowledge.

Yet something was wrong.

The dread described in those records was absent.

Instead of despair, this domain carried a cold, resolute calm – a will that did not beg Heaven for approval.

’Is he related to them?!’ Wan Shou thought, instinctively raising his guard to its absolute limit.

He turned toward the small grey demon beside him.

"Zu Min," he asked quietly, "are you thinking the same thing?"

Zu Min stared at the battlefield, his expression unusually serious.

"I don’t think so," he replied slowly.

"The principles might be similar... but if he truly belonged to that, the Heaven Immortal Sect would never have allowed him to exist. Rather they would themselves kill him."

Even among demons, there were madmen, those willing to abandon everything, even themselves, in pursuit of forbidden power.

But this felt different.

Wan Shou clenched his jaw.

"Where is that bastard Sha Qi?!" he snapped, irritation bleeding into his voice.

On the battlefield, the symbol beneath Martial Artist Xuan began to rotate.

Chaotically.

The dots drifted, shifted, and then aligned.

Each point locked onto a demon within the domain’s range.

One by one.

"I shall take, all that the Heavens have prepared for me." Martial Artist Xuan said calmly, his voice echoing unnaturally across the domain.

His eyes changed.

The whites vanished.

The pupils disappeared.

Only endless black remained – depthless, consuming, absolute.

The demons recoiled.

A wave of instinctual terror crashed through them as their souls screamed danger.

And for once.

Their instincts were correct.

Invisible and Unseen.

Figures began to manifest.

Some wielded weapons, others bore nothing at all, striking with pure intent.

They were vague, half-formed, their shapes unstable.

They were entities born of principle.

Formlessness given shape.

Yet remained formless.

They moved without sound.

Attacked without warning.

And Demons fell.

Some collapsed as if struck by invisible fists.

Others were severed, their bodies splitting apart with no visible blade.

A few simply froze – then disintegrated, their existence erased mid-breath.

Panic erupted.

Formations broke.

Trump cards were wasted.

Hidden techniques activated too late.

Within the black domain, the number of demons began to thin rapidly.

And Martial Artist Xuan stood at the center of it all.

Unmoving.

Unyielding.

As if the battlefield itself had become his weapon.

***

Sword Supreme Xuan watched the massacre unfold.

The silent erasure, the terror spreading faster than any blade.

"What a great play," he commented lightly, praising himself without shame.

To ordinary eyes, the carnage looked chaotic, random, uncontrolled.

But to one who understood patterns within violence, it was anything but.

There was order hidden in the slaughter.

A rhythm.

"I can’t stay behind now, can I?" he muttered.

Several demons, already shaken, heard him speak to himself and felt a chill crawl up their spines.

"You crazy bastard talking to yourself?!" one of them shouted, half in fear, half in disbelief.

Sword Supreme Xuan did not answer immediately.

Instead, he stepped forward and cleaved a massive demonic beast, its body resembling a horned dinosaur, cleanly in half.

The corpse hadn’t even finished collapsing before he spoke again.

"Ah," he said casually, glancing sideways, "I forgot you were still there."

His gaze sharpened.

The air changed.

Sword Intent was not a single, vague concept, it had levels, refinements, thresholds that separated cultivators.

Sword Supreme Xuan understood them well.

Though they had various names, he himself had made a name for those levels.

Level One is Novice, the beginning of the journey, when intent first takes shape.

Level Two is Beginner, it is when the intent becomes firm and no longer wavers.

Level Three is Intermediate, harmony between cultivator and weapon.

Level Four is Advanced, the perfect resonance between Qi and intent.

And Level Five is Expert, the birth of a pseudo-domain, the hallmark of true sword elites.

The reason sword cultivators were feared, because of their great offensive power.

And Sword Supreme Xuan.

He stood firmly at Level Five.

Though they were more levels ahead, he was still far from them.

"Fake Domain," he murmured, lifting his sword slightly.

"Fake it till you make it."

The name was absurd.

The result was not.

A crushing pressure descended upon the battlefield. The space around him warped subtly.

A sword-wielding demon suddenly shrieked, clutching its head.

"A domain?! What the hell is this Level 6 Sword Intent?!"

"No!" another yelled in panic.

"This doesn’t have that overwhelming dominance—!"

Then his voice cracked.

"—WHY IS IT GAINING DOMINANCE?!"

Fear exploded through the demon ranks.

They felt it.

They were being watched.

By an apex predator that had already decided the outcome.

The so-called Fake Domain shuddered.

Expanded.

It was trying – violently, unnaturally to become real.

And that was the most terrifying part.

No ordinary Tier Three cultivator should even touch Level Five intent.

This alone was insanity.

Sword Supreme Xuan raised his sword high.

The domain responded.

Light gathered.

A sword light that carried certainty rather than force.

For the demons trapped within its range, death was no longer approaching.

It had arrived.

Nearby, a fat demon with shady eyes and expensive-looking ornaments broke into a full sprint, fleeing at a speed that made space ripple behind him.

In the process, he shamelessly shoved several of his fellow demons straight into the heart of the domain.

He was, after all, a subordinate of a black-hearted person.

And this time.

No matter what happened.

He was not missing this opportunity like the previous one with Martial Artist Xuan.