In the battle between the Centennial Sword Ancestor and Master White Mountain, no one dared to interfere. They were fighting in the area between the Alliance and the tribes' army. This made it so that they couldn't fight directly for now.
And since they couldn't do that, they were simply watching the fight between the two immortal ascension realm experts. After all, this was something that could only be witnessed once in several lifetimes for them.
Most of them might not even live ten of their lifetime to see something like this. Thus, they decided to learn from it and hope that they too could improve from it.
Because of how focused they were on the fight, the soldiers of the northern tribes couldn't react when a rain of sharp winds slaughtered them.
"ARGH!"
"NOOO!"
"WHY!!!"
A cacophony of cries could be heard as blood was spilled, and limbs flew apart. Those that were unlucky were directly reduced to mincemeat and couldn't even let out a word before they were killed.
The alliance members were stunned too as the sound of painful death cries were hard to ignore.
"What?" The patriarch's of the alliance saw a part of the army getting slaughtered and also felt the aura of Lin Mu.
Their brows furrowed before their eyes went wide.
"SWORD INTENT!" They all said in unison.
Jing Luo, who was the first to witness Lin Mu condensing Sword Intent was surprised too.
"You developed sword intent?" Jing Luo couldn't help but want to confirm it first.
"Seems like it." Lin Mu replied as he looked at his short sword which was constantly emitting waves of energy.
This energy was different from spirit Qi. Lin Mu recognized this to be the 'sword intent'. It was strange as it needed no Qi to work and neither did it need vital essence or vital energy. It seemed to be running without a source.
"Weapon intents don't need Qi or other kinds of energy to work. While they can be enhanced and amplified with them, they don't absolutely need them and can work on their own.
What they are influenced by however, is… the will power and comprehension of the user. As long as your comprehension of the sword increases, your sword intent will grow and as long a your willpower is firm, the sword intent will never end." Xukong suddenly spoke.
He had been deep in cultivation for a while and knew that he was close to a breakthrough thus had been focusing on that. But the awakening of Lin Mu's sword intent had woken him out of his trance.
After all, he couldn't really focus on cultivating when the ethereal altar in the ring's space was letting off a sword aura.
Lin Mu who heard Xukong's word intrinsically, understood them and his understanding went even deeper.
"I see…" Lin Mu muttered and looked at the army of the tribes.
Splitting apart his five fingers, he pointed them to the skies.
"Rise!" Lin Mu called out as his short sword shot into the sky like an arrow.
But it wasn't just the short sword that did that. Every spirit sword that Lin Mu had in his storage all shot out simultaneously without him even needing to control them. Most of them weren't even branded with his spirit sense and were random ones that were simply there after he had collected them from the spatial storage treasures of others or other such places.
"Direct sword control… its not just sword intent, it's intermediate sword intent!" Patriarch Shandian spoke.
He too had weapon intent of his own, but his wasn't sword intent, but rather Axe intent. Still, he knew how the weapon intents were and that there were differences in their levels.
Weapon intents were separated into several grades, depending on how deep the comprehension of a person was. Most swordsmen who had a certain level of understanding of the sword will develop preliminary sword intent.
It couldn't really have any direct effects on the sword, and was merely something that enhanced their understanding of sword skills. This was something Lin Mu had developed long ago when he had met Wu Hei at his mansion in the Wu Lim city.
After this was the Novice Sword Intent. In this one could use sword intent to enhance the power of their swords. But they still needed to use their spirit sense to control them.
In the case of Lin Mu, he had never actually reached this stage and had halted before that.
Then came the Intermediate Sword intent, in which one didn't even need spirit sense to control a spirit sword. They would simply respond to the user's will as long as the user's sword intent could reach that far.
Lin Mu had progressed to this level directly after having comprehended sword intent for a bit and observing the Centennial Sword Ancestor display his own sword intent.
The Centennial Sword Ancestor though, was on a higher level. His sword intent was on the advanced level and at this level, one didn't even need spirit swords to display the same power.
Even normal swords would work the same as spirit swords and could be controlled. Along with this came the increase in power and intensity as well.
Seeing the hundreds of swords floating in the sky above Lin Mu, the alliance members were awed.
'Grandfather's intuition was right… No wonder he was willing to give him the short sword.' Jing Luo thought to himself.
~SHUA~
Lin Mu gestured towards the army and all the swords hovering in the sky shot forwards. The slaughter began once more, and the tribals couldn't do much other than running and defending.
"DAMN YOU!" The Dao Shell and Dao Treading realm elders of the northern tribes were furious and used their own skills to protect their men.
"ANCESTOR SAVE US!" The northern tribesmen couldn't help but call out in fear.
Master White Mountain had witnessed it all as well, but was occupied with the fight earlier.
"ENOUGH!" Now he couldn't hold back anymore.
