Yao Changying had not expected Lin Mu to be this dismissive about the attack.
"I've lost too many of them. So I kinda need to care." Lin Mu replied to the woman, making the audience stunned. "Though, now that I know, I may as well not wear them." He said before letting the tattered robes fall off.
Lin Mu's golden body was revealed and shone like a lamp. His muscles which had been tempered through years of effort and pain looked imposing.
"Enough!" Yao Changying seemed irritated and slashed out again.
~CLANG~ CLANG~
This time, Lin Mu defended against the slashes in a rather crude way. He directly used his bare hands to slap the Sword Slashes. Similar to before though, the slashes only broke partly, with the remnant still striking Lin Mu's body.
"He's still fine!?" The audience wasn't able to figure out why.
Once again, faint lines appeared where Lin Mu was struck by the two broken sword slashes. The people who saw this were fleet stunned, while some tried to make sense of it.
"He… HE'S A BODY CULTIVATOR!" The audience finally realized.
There were hundreds of body cultivators in the audience along with other experienced cultivators thus after seeing Lin Mu easily defend against the sword slashes they found it easy to come to a conclusion. Before this, Lin Mu had fooled them by using his Qi skills and sword skills for the most part.
Even in his battle against Tian Ning, while his body cultivation was revealed on some level, the people attributed it to some defensive skill.
"It makes sense… his Qi cultivation is just at the second tribulation stage of the Immortal realm, but his body cultivation is definitely higher!"
"No wonder he managed to come this far. He was simply hiding it all!"
The audience broke out in an uproar.
"It was so obvious. How did we miss it?" They couldn't help but question.
"His Sword skills are too good. I just thought he was a dedicated sword cultivator."
"Even his Dao skills are too good. I don't think anyone that focused on Dao skills that strong would also be able to focus on their body cultivation too." They tried to come to possible explanations.
"Ssh! Just look at the fight! I don't think that's all he was hiding from us." An old expert silenced the juniors around him.
~CLANG~CLANG~CLANG~
And sure enough, looking up they saw Lin Mu face off against Yao Changying directly using his body. The woman's sword slashes were problematical in that they couldn't be fully blocked, but they still didn't manage to deal that much damage to Lin Mu.
The unstoppable sword slashes even made Lin Mu wonder just how was Yao Changying was doing this.
'Her Sword Skills are certainly topnotch. Her comprehension also seems to be one that has been gained through many years of learning.' Lin Mu thought. 'But this doesn't match up with her actions from before. If it was all correct, she shouldn't have sword skills like this.' He wondered.
Yao Changying might not be able to inflict much damage on Lin Mu right now, but her attacks still contained enough impact to push Lin Mu back. She prevented Lin Mu from getting close to her and also seemed to be intensifying her attacks.
'I need to get close to her to use the bracelet, but her attacks keep on pushing me back.' Lin Mu tried to think of a method of overcoming this.
~CLANG~ CLANG~
Lin Mu slammed his palms against another Sword Slash, this time focusing on the dispersal of the Sword Intent contained within it.
"Mm… this won't work. I can't sense it fully." Lin Mu muttered to himself. "The Sword Intent itself is meant to dissipate somehow. It is also why it is able to keep its force even while being blocked."
Having realized this, Lin Mu figured out at least one aspect of the Sword Intent.
~CLANG~ CLANG~
He swung his palms around, trying to deflect the Sword slashes this time. But still managed to fail, as the Sword Intent simply broke a part of them where his palms struck. The rest of the Sword Intent still continued towards his body.
'The Sword intent's property seems to be dispersal… instead of letting the entire sword slash collapse, it sacrifices a part of it to continue onwards.' Lin Mu a.n.a.lyzed further.
By now, Yao Changying was also starting to realize that her attacks weren't doing much to Lin Mu. As such, she decided to change her method of attack.
~shua~
She held her sword horizontally in front of her as her aura changed into a new form.
"Dance of the Flourishing Flowers…" Yao Changying lightly muttered.
~HUMM~
As if her sword was singing, a melodious tone was heard and Yao Changying's aura transformed.
"Oh?" Lin Mu's immortal sense picked up on the transformation and also what Yao Changing was doing. 'Her sword intent is merging into her aura?'
~WHOOSH~
A couple of seconds later, a wave of energy spread from Yao Changying, carrying with it thousands of flower petals.
~SHING~
Yao Changying twisted her sword and twirled it in the air, creating illusory flower petals that flew out. The illusory flower petals were larger than the other flower petals that were surrounding and exuded a lot of power.
Feeling the pure Sword Intent contained within all the petals, Lin Mu couldn't help but feel his own Sword Intent getting excited.
"Very well… I'll figure it out as we go." Lin Mu said before withdrawing Afternoon Pine again. "You're using petals, I'll use trees!"
~SHING~
The double-edged sword hummed similarly as if taunting the opponent's sword.
"Golden Noon Pine," Lin Mu slashed out with the sword, as yellow pine trees composed of Metal Immortal Qi rose from it.
~DENG~DENG~DENG~
pine trees composed of Metal Immortal Qi rose from it.
~DENG~DENG~DENG~
The metal pine trees collided against the thousands of petals filled with Sword Intent, creating a noise that seemed to be composed of two opposing songs.
~BOOM~
The two melodies reached a crescendo before finally exploding apart!