Chapter 42: Thunderbolt World-Destroying Blade

As his consciousness was drawn in, Meng Chuan saw a majestic man with disheveled hair standing atop a mountain peak. Surrounding him were continuous mountain ranges, rivers rushing through canyons, and a high-hanging sun.

However, Meng Chuan felt that even the mountains, rivers, and sun seemed insignificant before the man.

The majestic man looked in Meng Chuan's direction from afar, then finally picked up a rough, black great saber beside him. Its blade was very long.

"Boom."

The majestic man looked at Meng Chuan with an icy gaze and directly swung out a strike.

A terrifying saber light rapidly magnified before Meng Chuan's 'eyes'. Facing this destructive and terrifying strike, Meng Chuan couldn't help but feel fear. Just as a mortal would fear a bolt of lightning striking down, Meng Chuan was equally afraid! This was a strike more terrifying than any lightning... yet Meng Chuan's consciousness couldn't dodge it; he could only endure it.

"Rumble!" The saber light struck Meng Chuan's consciousness.

"Ah!"

Meng Chuan suddenly detached from the black iron fragment. He clutched his head in pain, blood flowing from his nose, and with an instinctive groan of agony, he completely lost consciousness.

The night was quiet.

The people of Mirror Lake Meng Manor did not know that their proud 'Young Master Meng Chuan' had lost consciousness and fallen into a coma. Time slowly passed, and several hours later, Meng Chuan, curled up on his bed, finally stirred his eyelids, then slowly opened his eyes.

"It hurts so much," Meng Chuan murmured, feeling his head pounding. His memory was jumbled, and for a moment, he didn't know who he was or where he was.

It took a while after he woke up before Meng Chuan fully regained consciousness.

"Last night, I explored that black iron fragment, and my consciousness was drawn in, damaging my mind," Meng Chuan thought. His head throbbed intensely, and he lay in bed for a while before slowly getting up. Even sitting up made him feel dizzy. He looked out the window; the sky was dimly lit, and the moon was still visible.

"I feel so unwell," he groaned.

Meng Chuan tried to stand up, but his body swayed, and he fell back onto the bed.

He couldn't maintain basic balance, and his head throbbed in waves. Meng Chuan struggled to concentrate, and with great effort of will, he was finally able to stand and walk unsteadily.

"This black iron fragment has truly harmed me," Meng Chuan thought. He didn't even want to consider the legacy he had gained from the 'black iron fragment' at that moment, because even thinking about it caused a sharp pain in his head. Clearly, it was not the time to study the legacy.

"Gulp, gulp, gulp."

He drank two large bowls of last night's cold water directly, then splashed some cold water on his face, which helped him feel more awake.

He pushed open the door and stood in the corridor, calling out, "Someone!"

Soon, a maid rushed to the courtyard gate, entered, and respectfully said, "Young Master."

"Heat some water; I want to bathe," Meng Chuan said.

"Bathe at dawn?" The maid was slightly puzzled, but she dared not ask more, respectfully replying, "Yes, Young Master."

Soon after.

Several buckets of freshly heated water were poured into the bathtub. After dismissing the servants, Meng Chuan took off his clothes and sat in the large tub. Soaking in the water made his entire body feel much more comfortable.

Lying there was so comfortable, and with his head still aching, he drifted off to sleep for a while. When he woke up again, he felt much more refreshed.

"Much better," Meng Chuan thought. He then introspected his mind-space. The translucent figure standing within his mind-space appeared much dimmer. "It seems I was seriously injured this time," he mused.

Meng Chuan shivered slightly; the water in the tub had cooled somewhat. He immediately got up, dried himself, and put on his clothes.

Going out, he directly instructed his servants, "For the next three days, stop my cultivation. I need to meditate and rest well."

"The Young Master isn't cultivating?"

"The Young Master practices striking eight thousand crossbow arrows daily; he's actually stopping for three days?"

"Perhaps cultivating continuously, then occasionally resting, might yield better results. Besides, last night the Young Master killed two great bandits of the Blood Cloud Bandits."

"Yes, and Blood Hand Zhao Can was one of them. I believe that fight must have inspired the Young Master in his cultivation, which is why he needs to meditate," the servants and guards chatted among themselves.

Killing the two Blood Cloud bandits was easy for him, but he had instead suffered severe injuries from the 'black iron fragment.' However, Meng Chuan wasn't worried, as he noticed that his headache gradually subsided with time, and his control over his body was slowly returning.

For the next three days, he took it easy each day, lounging in a chair reading tales of gods and demons, and leisurely painting in his study.

With complete relaxation, his recovery was much faster! The translucent figure in his mind-space was noticeably regaining its original luster.

On the third day, Meng Chuan finally began to study the information he had obtained from the fragmented black iron piece.

"The legacy I received is the seventeenth stance of the 'Thunderous World-Shattering Saber,' 'Five Thunders Descending,' but it's not even a complete stance? I actually fainted without even being able to endure a complete single move?" Meng Chuan gave a self-deprecating smile. He now recalled that when his consciousness was drawn into the black iron fragment and struck by that saber, a large amount of information had surged into his mind.

However, his consciousness could only endure a portion of it before he fell into a coma—an instinctive self-preservation mechanism of the human body.

Nevertheless, Meng Chuan carefully studied the legacy information. It contained partial insights into the seventeenth stance of the 'Thunderous World-Shattering Saber,' a technique he had never heard of before.

Every character and every graphic description contained endless information, making Meng Chuan feel overwhelmed.

The 'Five Thunders Descending' move actually consisted of five consecutive saber strikes. The first strike was terrifying, and the second was even stronger. With five continuous strikes, the fifth would undergo a qualitative change, possessing incredible power—a power that was simply unimaginable.

"The legacy I received only includes the first two strikes of 'Five Thunders Descending,' yet it's already the most complex saber technique I've ever seen," Meng Chuan said, shaking his head. The requirements for one's physical body and true qi were simply too high.

Meng Chuan's injuries hadn't fully healed, but his normal cultivation practices, such as drawing the saber and body movement techniques, were no longer affected.

It took over two full months after receiving the black iron fragment's legacy for Meng Chuan to fully recover and be able to mobilize his soul power again.

He also made a firm decision.

"Unless the soul in my mind-space undergoes a qualitative change, I will absolutely not investigate that black iron fragment again." Only after Meng Chuan fully recovered did he begin cultivating the first two strikes of 'Five Thunders Descending.'

However, as soon as he began practicing, he realized that he couldn't execute them under normal circumstances. Even with his comprehension of saber potential, which was considered high among mortals in terms of controlling his physical body and true qi, he clearly hadn't reached the threshold for performing these two strikes. Only by mobilizing his soul power and integrating it into his physical body, thereby greatly enhancing his control over his physical body and true qi, could he barely manage to execute these two strikes.

When the first strike was unleashed, lightning would flicker within his body; this move was a perfect match for his Thunder God Body.

With the second strike, lightning surged within his body, and his true qi flowed like a tide.

Unfortunately, he lacked the insights for the third strike and could only unleash the accumulated lightning and tide-like true qi from within his body directly in a third, improvised move.

Time passed, winter turned to spring, and it was a new year.

Heavenly Demon Gate, Dongning Branch.

"Rumble!" The gate slowly lifted under the mechanism, and a white-browed man walked out with his hands behind his back.

"Brother."

The hunchbacked man and a burly man both smiled.

"During my half-year seclusion, have there been any major events in Dongning Prefecture?" the white-browed man asked.

"Brother, Dongning Prefecture is just as it was. If anything significant had happened, we would have woken you up long ago," the burly man replied with a chuckle.

"Hmm," the white-browed man nodded.

The burly man suddenly remembered something and quickly pulled out a scroll from his pocket, handing it to the white-browed man: "Oh, by the way, Brother, a few months ago, the Blood Cloud Bandits tried to sell us a fragmented black iron piece. Old Gao San didn't think much of it, but I felt... this black iron piece possesses such a powerful aura of gods and demons. Could it be a fragment of the legendary Black Iron Heavenly Tome?"

"The Black Iron Heavenly Tome—'black iron' refers to 'meteoric iron.' Did you check if it was meteoric iron?" the white-browed man pressed, asking rapidly.

"By the time I left seclusion, those two Blood Cloud bandits were already dead, so I had no chance to examine that black iron piece," the burly man explained.

The white-browed man nodded, took the scroll, and unrolled it. The scroll depicted the fragmented black iron piece, its damaged appearance rendered very clearly.

"I'll check," the white-browed man said, but immediately hurried toward his dwelling.

In one of the study rooms within the underground clan stronghold.

Many books filled the room. The white-browed man took out a stack of scrolls from among them, flipped through several, and finally pulled out one.

This particular scroll depicted twenty-six black iron fragments.

The white-browed man carefully compared them.

He compared the appearance of these twenty-six black iron fragments with the black iron piece shown in the other scroll.

"The broken edges and their markings are identical. This is indeed a fragment of the Black Iron Heavenly Tome, the 'Thunderous World-Shattering Saber'," the white-browed man nodded slightly. If it were a complete Black Iron Heavenly Tome, demon kings from the demon race would have long since vied for it. A mere small fragment held limited appeal for the demon kings, as the demon race possessed their own legacies, some even more powerful than those of humans.