Chapter 211: Reversal
Xiong Shan slowly released the silver flying sword, which had already been completely stripped of its sword essence and spiritual nature at this point, and the sword came plummeting out of the sky before being torn to shreds by the sword qi surging throughout the sword tomb before it even had a chance to land on the ground.
Xiong Shan didn't even bother to take a glance at the destroyed flying sword, and he had already turned his attention to another curved longsword that resembled a snake.
He then extended a hand forward once again to repeat the same process.
Han Li only took a quick glance in that direction before turning his focus back to the sword array up above.
In the past, he had studied the myriad sword artwork in order to cultivate the Sword Observation Art, so he hadn't focused much of his efforts on studying the permutations of sword arrays through the artwork.
However, as he observed the sword array on this occasion, he found that he was filling in many of the gaps in his knowledge in this regard.
At its core, this sword array was constructed through the utilization of sword qi.
All arrays had a core and certain key points, and as long as one could find those key points, there would be a way to destroy or tamper with the array.
Time slowly passed by, and close to a day flew by in the blink of an eye.
Through his observation, Han Li had already found many important points on the array, but it was still impossible for him to disable the array without detection.
If he were to forcibly disable the array, that would be no different from taking his flying swords by force, so he had no choice but to continue to observe and bide his time.
During this time, Xiong Shan had already extracted the sword essence out of several hundred flying swords from several areas in the east and in the south.
At this moment, half of the sky above the grassland was riddled with flying swords that had been converted into a spiritual form.
Right at this moment, Xiong Shan flew toward an area in the western part of the grassland, then reached out and made a grabbing motion toward a giant sword with a wide blade.
At this point, his complexion was looking a little pale, indicating that this refinement process had been quite taxing on him, but his expression was glowing with elation, and there was a look of excitement in his eyes.
Meanwhile, Han Li's gaze was still fixed intently on the array up above as he carefully observed the countless sword visages in the sky.
All of a sudden, he noticed that something seemed to have changed in the sword array compared with its starting point, but he was unable to put his finger on exactly what had changed.
However, he had a feeling that this point of difference was quite possibly the only opportunity that he had to alter the array and recover his Azure Bamboo Cloudswarm Swords.
However, the more he tried to concentrate, the more elusive that point of difference proved to be, and he was starting to feel a little agitated.
It didn't take long before Xiong Shan wiped away the marks of the original owners of all of the flying swords in the area around him
Up to this point, the majority of the flying swords on the grassland had already been converted into pure sword essence.
After converting all of the flying swords in one area into sword essence, Xiong Shan didn't immediately move onto the next area. Instead, he flipped a hand over to prepare a pair of pills that he promptly devoured before turning in Han Li's direction.
He then shifted his gaze toward the area that Zhu Feng was in, and his gaze alternated between the two areas a couple of times, as if he were deliberating which area to move onto next.
At this point, Han Li was feeling so agitated that sweat was already beginning to bead up on his forehead, but he still hadn't found a way out of this predicament.
He took a deep breath as he came to a decision. Instead of continuing to observe the sword array, he closed his eyes and forcibly infiltrated it with his spiritual sense.
As soon as his spiritual sense entered the array, Han Li instantly felt a burst of sharp pain spearing through his soul, as if there were hundreds of swords piercing into his soul at once, producing a sensation of indescribable agony.
However, he refused to back down, and he gritted his teeth as he forcibly withstood the assault with his immense spiritual sense.
Meanwhile, Xiong Shan's attention was focused entirely on the task at hand, while the other elders didn't dare to release their spiritual sense to examine the sword array for fear of incurring spiritual harm, so no one noticed what Han Li was doing.
After taking a moment to digest the two pills, Xiong Shan's complexion recovered a little, and in the end, his gaze settled on the northwestern area before he set off in that direction.
He reached out with one hand to conjure up a golden palm projection in the air, which grabbed toward one of the Azure Bamboo Cloudswarm Swords.
The flying sword seemed to have detected the impending peril, and it began to tremble while screeching incessantly, producing a sound much like the sobs of a woman.
To Han Li, it sounded as if the sword were expressing its despair and displeasure at Han Li's inaction in its hour of need.
Right at this moment, Han Li's eyes abruptly sprang open, while a barely detectable smile appeared on his face.
In the next instant, the flying sword that was caught within the grasp of the golden palm projection abruptly ceased in its trembling and screeching, hovering in mid-air without any further movement.
The other 71 flying swords that were originally flying in all directions also fell still at once, as if they had received some type of instruction. All of them were highly focused soldiers preparing for battle, remaining completely still to conserve their energy.
Zhu Feng was initially quite glad to see that all of these unruly flying swords had suddenly settled down, but for some reason, a hint of foreboding then suddenly welled up in his heart.
Sure enough, his intuition proved to be correct.
Right as the golden palm projection was about to completely close itself around the Azure Bamboo Cloudswarm Sword, a loud thunderclap suddenly rang out as it released a massive halo of golden lightning that forced the golden palm projection open.
At the same time, the other 71 Azure Bamboo Cloudswarm Swords also began to flash with golden lightning as they struggled free from their restraints in unison before flying toward the remaining flying sword.
Bursts of rumbling thunderclaps rang out as the 71 flying sword tore the golden palm projection apart with formidable golden lightning to reunite with the trapped flying sword.
"What are you doing, you idiots? Restrain the other swords!" Xiong Shan roared in a furious voice.
He thought that this was yet another wave of instinctive resistance that the flying swords were putting up, and he began to reprimand Zhu Feng and the others for their incompetence. Unbeknownst to him, it wasn't that Zhu Feng was unwilling to restrain the flying swords. Instead, he was physically unable to.
Right as Xiong Shan's voice trailed off, dazzling arcs of golden lightning erupted out of the 71 Azure Bamboo Cloudswarm Swords in unison, and they transformed into 72 streaks of golden light that shot forth through the air, escaping Zhu Feng's control before flying toward the eastern region of the sword tomb.
Zhu Feng was greatly alarmed to see this, and he hurriedly tried to make amends, but the flying swords were extremely fast, reaching the eastern part of the grassland before he or Xiong Shan had a chance to react.
After reaching their destination, the 72 flying swords suddenly dispersed in different directions rather than breaking out of the array, and they flew through the air in a series of profound trajectories, forming a small sword array within the Thousand Edge Spirit Gathering Sword Array.
The newly formed sword array began to radiate dazzling light that illuminating the sword array up above, converting all of the golden lines of the sword array in the sky into sword qi that surged toward the Azure Bamboo Cloudswarm Swords.
Almost in the exact same instant, all of the sword qi in the entire sword tomb was stirred up into a frenzy, and the entire Thousand Edge Spirit Gathering Sword Array also underwent an astonishing change.
It was as if the entire array had suddenly undergone a reversal in this instant.
Xiong Shan immediately flew onto the scene, and he was just about to intervene when he suddenly threw up a mouthful of blood and began to plummet out of the sky. His aura was closely tied to the sword array, so he had suffered backlash from the array's reversal.
By the time he steadied himself, it was already too late.
The other elders were also quite alarmed by this turn of events, and everyone was at a loss for what to do. As for the Grand Ascension and Body Integration Stage disciples, they couldn't have done anything even if they wanted to.
Meanwhile, Mo Xie was observing the unfolding situation from outside the array, and he did notice some abnormalities in advance, but he had only brushed it off as natural changes to be expected within the sword array and didn't plan on doing anything.
Hence, the only person who knew what to expect was Han Li.
Earlier, he had forcibly withstood the resistance from the sword array to inspect the array's internal condition, and he had noticed that the circulation and distribution of sword qi within the array had changed.
He noticed that after Xiong Shan had converted most of the flying swords into sword essence, the concentration of sword qi in the areas that those flying swords were situated in had increased significantly, resultign in some degree of imbalance.
Hence, he had rapidly enhanced this imbalanced state using the sword array created by the Azure Bamboo Cloudswarm Swords, resulting in a complete reversal of the Thousand Edge Spirit Gathering Sword Array.
The process sounded simple enough, but it was actually extremely difficult to execute.
Firstly, it required an extremely high level of sensitivity toward changes in the existing sword array, thereby allowing one to sense minute changes in sword qi.
Secondly, precise timing was required to reverse the array. Otherwise, the reversal attempt would most likely end in failure.
Finally, the small sword array used to exacerbate the imbalance in sword qi came from the existing sword array, so the two were closely connected and could resonate with one another.
Not even the slightest mistake could be made in this entire process, and only then could the sword array be reversed. Otherwise, the sword array would merely be destroyed instead.
The hundreds of streaks of sword essence that were hanging in the air suddenly seemed to have been summoned by something, and they began to fly through the sky along a series of strange trajectories.
Looking on from afar, a thought suddenly occurred to Mo Xie, and he looked up at the sword array in the sky to find that the trajectories followed by the streaks of sword essence perfectly matched the lines of the array.
At this point, a giant funnel-shaped purple vortex had already taken shape at the sword array formed by the Azure Bamboo Cloudswarm Swords, and sword qi was surging incessantly within the vortex alongside flashes of golden lightning.
Hundreds of streaks of pure sword essence were converging toward the azure vortex, accompanied by countless streaks of peerlessly sharp swordlight, presenting a marvelous visual spectacle to behold.
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