Chapter 150: Perils of the Secret Realm

An inch longer, an inch stronger.

Yagyu Hoshun wielded a three-foot azure blade, while Qinchuan was barehanded. With the former having already cultivated a bone-chilling, terrifying sword Qi, Qinchuan was at a natural disadvantage in the exchange.

Qinchuan could have chosen to rely on agile footwork to engage in close-quarters combat, but based on their previous three probing moves, it was clear that Yagyu Hoshun was also an "agility-type" fighter. His movement and footwork were rather uncanny, and his swordsmanship evidently leaned toward a swift, ethereal style.

Swish, swish, swish!

Yagyu Hoshun delivered three consecutive sword strikes. Just like before, ferocious and biting sword Qi crisscrossed and roared through the air. The thick walls were carved with several deep sword marks, and the entire aged house instantly became dilapidated and shaky.

"With such terrifying sword Qi attacks, I cannot continue fighting in here."

With this thought in mind, Qinchuan flashed and dodged toward the doorway.

The razor-sharp sword Qi unleashed by Yagyu Hoshun followed closely behind, piercing straight through the concrete wall of the courtyard.

"Did your master only teach you how to run away?" Yagyu Hoshun taunted.

Qinchuan steadied his footing, shrugged, and said with a completely nonchalant expression, "Your sword Qi certainly looks quite fierce, but you've thrown so many moves without even touching the hem of my clothes. What the hell is the use of such a fierce posture?"

The corners of Yagyu Hoshun's mouth twitched. In an instant, he felt that he didn't even want to speak to Qinchuan before executing him. He discovered that Qinchuan's tongue was sharp and vicious—was this the legendary undefeated king of verbal debate?

"Take my sword!"

"Saw it, and you really are quite a bitch!"

The hands gripping the sword hilt trembled slightly. Yagyu Hoshun made an instant decision: he would definitely cut out Qinchuan's tongue later and serve it as a side dish for his wine; otherwise, it would be difficult to quench the hatred in his heart.

Swish, swish, swish!

In the subsequent onslaught, Yagyu Hoshun did not persist in using sword Qi. After all, continuously unleashing sword Qi consumed an immense amount of internal vital energy within the body. Instead, he abruptly shifted his posture and unleashed a continuous flurry of slashing and hacking at Qinchuan.

Because the speed of his strikes was so fast, the sound of the blade tearing through the air rang out ceaselessly, forming clusters of sword shadows that completely enveloped Qinchuan.

"This guy actually chose to actively engage in close-quarters combat. Everyone else tries to maximize their strengths and avoid weaknesses, but he is actively abandoning his strengths to court his weaknesses?"

"As expected, people from the Sakura Country are either evil or have something wrong with their brains; otherwise, they wouldn't consider committing ritual disembowelment as an act of bravery to atone for their sins."

The corners of Qinchuan's mouth curved upward slightly as his figure continuously shuttled through the crisscrossing sword light, handling the situation with even greater ease and comfort.

Yagyu Hoshun's swordsmanship indeed belonged to the ethereal and nimble category, but when it came to agility and footwork, Qinchuan was still superior. This set of Astonishing Cloud-Stepping Footwork was being pushed to its absolute limits by him.

He truly resembled a drifting cloud, leaving Yagyu Hoshun with a myriad of forces yet nowhere to apply them, as if he were exerting all his might to throw a punch only to end up striking a ball of cotton.

"Damn it!"

Yagyu Hoshun had reached the verge of a berserk state. He gripped the three-foot azure blade with both hands and then raised it high above his head.

Hum!

At this moment, the long sword actually emitted a series of humming vibrations, as if forming an emotional resonance of fury with its master.

"Go to hell!"

With an explosive roar from Yagyu Hoshun, his entire aura merged completely with the sword Qi, instantly transforming into an overwhelmingly formidable murderous intent that hacked toward Qinchuan's body with the momentum of a thunderbolt.

Qinchuan only felt a flash of white before his eyes, and the next second, that overwhelming murderous intent was right in front of him. This was the first time since coming down the mountain that he had experienced a feeling of being caught off guard. Out of pure instinct, he dodged to the side; however, that murderous intent clung to him like a shadow, suddenly appearing in the exact next spot he had fled to.

Bang!

Qinchuan projected his vital energy, instantly forming a flesh-and-blood-imperceptible true Qi defense wall around his body. Almost at the exact same time, that murderous intent collided with the defense wall.

Qinchuan felt his body shake. The intense impact caused the blood and Qi in his chest to churn, and the suppression over the coverage of the Nine Yang Qi felt as though it were cracking, on the verge of erupting and collapsing at any moment.

Yet this intense sense of impact did not stop there. That unprecedented crisis emerged once again in his heart. Qinchuan knew that he might have unwittingly fallen into some kind of illusion, because he faintly sensed that his perception of danger had diminished significantly.

Under normal circumstances, this sort of situation would never occur—especially for someone like him who had spent years struggling on the razor's edge between life and death, it was even more impossible.

Moreover, impacts similar to the one just now occurred several times within three to five seconds. They felt like non-physical wounds, yet they were truly and realistically reflected back onto his body. This almost uncanny sensation further convinced Qinchuan that he had fallen into a trap.

"Perish within the illusory realm of the Yagyu family!"

An ethereal voice echoed from all directions, as if countless people were simultaneously speaking these words. Naturally, this also verified Qinchuan's earlier conjecture: Yagyu Hoshun had indeed employed some sort of secret technique to plunge him into a dreamlike state. It seemed that the shadow-like sword Qi attacks from earlier were generated by relying on this very realm.

"I didn't expect the Yagyu family to possess such uncanny offensive methods. It seems they utilized some special material to stimulate human nerves, causing the victim to fall into an illusion. And that shadow-like attack from earlier must be a form of spiritual and mental assault; acting upon the human body over a long period generates genuine physical reactions of being severely wounded." Such a judgment formed in Qinchuan's mind in an instant.

Even so, Qinchuan did not dare to slight the situation in the slightest. There were many medicinal herbs in Huaxia capable of plunging people into illusions, and he had even formulated many of them himself. Yet throughout his battle with Yagyu Hoshun, he had never sensed the presence of any medicinal herbs!

"Colorless and odorless?"

Qinchuan did not overthink it. He calmed his mind and focused his energy, intending to first locate Yagyu Hoshun's figure and then launch an attack to shatter the illusion.

"Are you looking for me?"

Right at that moment, Yagyu Hoshun's voice suddenly came from beside his ear. Instinctively, Qinchuan lashed out with a palm toward the direction of the voice, but the wind of his palm struck nothingness. What followed instead was a drastic transformation of the illusion before his eyes.

Everything that met his eyes turned into a shade of grayish-white. Qinchuan felt as though he had been placed in a world devoid of color. Concurrently, he lost his five senses; he could not even perceive his own heartbeat or breathing.

A wave of unprecedented panic washed over Qinchuan. Though it lasted for only a fraction of a second, it still shocked him deeply. How many years had it been since he experienced this feeling? He had never expected that a poor man's version of a sword saint from this tiny Sakura Country would actually pull it off.

"It seems that to sustain this realm, you have no spare energy to launch substantial physical attacks. You wish to break me down psychologically and mentally first, but you've clearly miscalculated. Let's see which of us outlasts the other!"

Qinchuan's words were filled with provocation, and instantly, his entire being entered a state of self-forgetfulness, as if he had merged into one with this grayish-white world in a split second.