pjbooks Chapter 67 Unlimited Blade Works
Chapter 67 Unlimited Blade Works
Astra's body traced a dark golden arc in the void, moving so fast that even his long, silvery-white hair was stretched into a straight line. He smashed through countless floating fragments of space, each fragment cutting a long, thin wound on his body. Dark golden liquid seeped from countless wounds, leaving a broken golden river in his flight path.
He flew three times the distance he had ever covered before.
But he stopped.
His hands plunged into the void, his ten fingers embedding themselves in space itself, carving ten deep, dark red furrows in the void. Dark golden flames burned at the edges of the furrows, the karmic fire that ignited when space itself was torn apart.
He hovered in mid-air, head bowed, his long, silvery-white hair disheveled and covering his face. The five bloody holes in his right heel—where Jiang Chen's five fingers had embedded themselves—were slowly healing, and dark golden liquid seeped from the wounds, dripping down his ankle.
His body was trembling.
"Heh...hehe..."
The laughter spilled from beneath the disheveled long hair, hoarse and low, carrying an almost morbid joy.
He slowly raised his head. Long, silvery-white hair slid down his face, revealing a face slashed with a dozen thin, elongated wounds. Dark golden liquid seeped from the wounds, flowing along the contours of his cheeks, gathering at his chin, and dripping down. His golden pupils—those eyes filled with dark red cracks—were burning.
"Too fast," he said, his voice trembling slightly. "Your speed is at least three orders of magnitude faster than mine. My spiritual sense can detect you, but my body can't keep up. I made three moves just now, you dodged two, parried one, and then counterattacked. Throughout the whole process, you didn't even take your right hand out of your pocket."
He raised his right hand and wiped the dark gold liquid from the corner of his mouth with his thumb. The movement was slow, as if he were enjoying some kind of ritual.
"In three hundred years, you are the first person who has made me feel slow."
His lips curled up into a near-manic smile.
"But do you know what? Speed isn't everything in a fight."
He spread his arms and tilted his head back. His long, silvery-white hair flew wildly behind him, and his black robe fluttered in the invisible air currents.
"These are my rules—" His voice echoed in the light, deep and resonant, carrying an ancient and solemn quality, "—Absolute Territory."
The light exploded.
Centered on Astra, a dark golden light shield spread outwards in all directions. The shield expanded at an incredible speed, covering a space of several thousand meters in the blink of an eye. Countless fine runes flowed across the surface of the shield, each rune flashing, pulsating, and breathing, like an independent living entity.
The moment Jiang Chen was enveloped by the light shield, he sensed something unusual.
His speed slowed down.
It wasn't that his speed had slowed down; it was that the "time" of this space itself had slowed down. Every inch of space inside the light shield was covered by Astra's laws—here, his will was the rule, his thoughts were the law. He could slow down the flow of time, increase the density of space, and amplify the resistance of each movement to hundreds or thousands of times the normal value.
"In my absolute territory, your speed advantage is completely negated."
Astra stood in the very center of the light barrier, arms outstretched, like a god who controlled the heavens and earth. Dark golden light flowed from his body in all directions, illuminating him like a burning star. The wounds on his face healed rapidly in the light, the dark golden liquid flowing back into the wounds, and his skin closed up again, leaving no scars.
"Now, let's start again."
He raised his right hand, fingers spread, palm facing Jiang Chen.
"The First Law—Space Folding."
The space around Jiang Chen began to distort. The space around him, from all six directions—front, back, left, right, up, and down—simultaneously pressed in, threatening to crush him into the folds and gaps.
Jiang Chen glanced at the space around him that was being folded up.
His right hand was finally pulled out of his school uniform pocket.
"Absolute Domain." He repeated the four words, his tone still calm. "Use your own laws to overwrite the original spatial laws, creating a domain that you control. Within this domain, you are a god."
He raised his right hand, fingers spread, palm facing up.
"What a coincidence. I can do that too."
His five fingers were gently clenched into a fist.
The moment he clenched his fist, a silver-white light exploded outwards, centered on him.
That light was entirely different from Astra's dark golden light—it didn't surge outwards, but rather permeated in all directions, like water seeping into sand, like light seeping into darkness, like something more essential and ancient awakening from its slumber. Wherever the light passed, Astra's absolute domain began to tremble violently. The flowing runes on the surface of the light shield flickered wildly under the erosion of the silvery-white light; some shattered directly, turning into dark golden specks of light that scattered; others tried to resist, but under the continuous penetration of the silvery-white light, they dissolved from the edges like metal corroded by acid.
Astra's pupils contracted for the third time.
"This is my domain," Jiang Chen's voice came from within the light, still calm as still water, "Sword Domain."
As soon as he finished speaking, the first sword appeared behind him.
The sword materialized from the void, its blade long and slender, entirely silver-white, with a chilling light emanating from its edge. It hovered behind Jiang Chen, its tip pointing upwards, slowly rotating.
Then came the second handle, the third handle, the tenth handle, and the hundredth handle.
Countless swords emerged from the void.
One hundred handles, one thousand handles, ten thousand handles, one hundred thousand handles.
A sea of swords unfolded behind Jiang Chen, reaching the top of the void above, the bottom of nothingness below, and stretching to the ends of his field of vision to the left and right.
Each sword gleamed with a cold, silvery light, and the tip of each sword was aimed directly at Astra. The gaps between the blades were extremely small; from a distance, they did not appear as individual swords, but rather as a colossal silver wall made of swords, stretching across the heavens and the earth.
Astra gazed at the sea of swords.
His absolute domain, under the light of the sword domain, was melting at a visible speed, like a block of ice thrown into a furnace. Most of the runes on the surface of the light shield had shattered, and the remaining ones were flickering wildly, on the verge of going out. He felt his control over this space being stripped away—not by a stronger force, but by a higher-level law.
His domain, compared to Jiang Chen's, was like a poor imitation.
"Sword Domain." He repeated the two words, the madness in his voice subsiding slightly, replaced by an unprecedented solemnity. "Your domain is not constructed with spiritual power. Like your fists, it's constructed with something else."
Jiang Chen did not answer.
He stood before the sea of swords, his right hand raised, index and middle fingers joined together, pointing at Astra. Behind him, ten thousand swords simultaneously emitted a clear ringing sound, the sound converging into a torrent that shook the entire void.
"You just said that speed isn't everything in a fight," Jiang Chen's voice remained clear amidst the clang of the sword. "You're right. That's why I'm not dodging anymore."
His fingertips gently moved forward.
"Let me see how many swords your immortality can withstand."