"Sword."

Yi Chen’s words echoed, and the next instant, he grabbed onto the incoming sword, cleaving the bodies of the Glacial soldiers standing before him.

While at it, Gao Zhen’s reminder entered his ears.

"That’s the last sword...be careful!"

"I know."

He answered and kept up with the pace of his attacks.

Although this sword won’t last for long if he continues using it so roughly, his desire to end things as quickly as possible forced him to follow this route.

’The quicker I finish this, the quicker I’ll be able to figure out how to get out of this place quickly...’

With this thought in mind, he kept hacking down on the remaining number of Glacial soldiers.

By now, their numbers had reduced significantly, and just a little more than four hundred Glacial soldiers remained.

Sensing that the sword in his hand was on the verge of breaking down, he decided to do a final strike and take down at least a dozen of them in this attack.

Layering his sword with a dense layer of his innate Qi, he swung it towards the incoming soldiers with all his might.

BANG!

Like a mini explosion, his sword struck the bodies of the soldiers as his fiery Qi completely enveloped them.

With this done, Yi Chen saw the sword in his hand crumbling right under his eyes.

Throwing the hilt aside, he was about to engage with the remaining four hundred with just his bare fists, but just then, a sudden piercing pain in his forehead made him stop in his tracks.

"Ugh!"

He groaned from pain as the very next instant, the system voice echoed in his mind.

Ding!

Expert Swordsmanship Achieved!

Congratulations on entering the Stage of Becoming the Sword!

"...Stage of Becoming the Sword?" Yi Chen repeated when he heard the unfamiliar term, as that very instant, a myriad of information poured into his head.

’!!!’

He tightly clenched his jaws as years’ worth of knowledge flooded his mind at this exact moment, making his understanding related to swordsmanship reach new heights.

After a short three seconds, which literally felt like years to him, he finally opened his eyes as a confident glimmer shone from his black pupils.

Seeing the dozens of Glacial soldiers just a few feet away from him, no change occurred in his still eyes.

However, that couldn’t be said for Gao Zhen. An expression filled with fright and panic appeared on her face right at that instant as she screamed at the top of her lungs to wake him, Yi Chen, from his stupor.

"Yi Chen!" 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

His eyes turned sharp that very instant, an intense fiery Qi completely covered his right hand as a sharp red blade made completely of Qi extended from his hand.

"This!"

Gao Zhen’s eyes widened in shock when she witnessed this scene, but before she could think further, Yi Chen’s figure leapt towards the incoming Glacier soldiers and strongly slashed in their direction.

SHIIII!

Just the sound of air being ripped apart echoed in the air as, in the next instant, more than a dozen soldiers were slain by that strike. There was no sound of clash at all, as if a knife cutting through a block of butter, his Qi blade cut right through the soldiers’ bodies, turning them into fragments that very instant.

"H-He...reached it." Gao Zhen muttered while watching in amazement as Yi Chen kept dealing with the remaining Glacial soldiers at more than ten times his previous speed.

’I had only stated it as a possibility back then...to think he would really be able to do it...that too when he’s just at the Fifth Meridian Refinement Stage...’

Even she herself, despite years of practice, had remained stuck at the Stage of Sword Becoming a Part of Oneself and was still several decades away from reaching this stage.

With all these thoughts in her mind, her jaw slackened subconsciously while witnessing the impeccable display of swordsmanship right in front of her eyes.

Complementing Bursting Fire Steps with his strikes, Yi Chen was hacking down several dozen of these soldiers with a single strike, one after the other, while ensuring Gao Zhen’s safety.

One would expect him to have a thrilled expression on his face and fully enjoy the act of cutting down so many of these soldiers. However, that wasn’t the case.

Despite mowing down so many of these Glacial soldiers to the point that there were half of the previous four hundred left, his expression was still that of dissatisfaction.

’No...this isn’t the best way. There must be a way to make it even faster,’ Yi Chen thought while tightly knitting his brows.

’Can I make this Qi blade longer?’ he frowned and glanced at his hand.

With that thought, he poured even more Qi into his hand and the very next instant, the blade lengthened by several meters.

’This...’ An excited smile formed on his face seeing the results, and the very next instant, his Qi blade shot outward for several tens of meters, stabbing right through all the Glacial soldiers in front of it.

THAK!

THAK!

THAK!

THAK!

Not giving the Glacial soldiers even a second to resist, the heat emanating from the Qi blade shattered them into fragments in less than a second.

Seeing the long clearing devoid of soldiers until the very end, Yi Chen couldn’t help but let out a short whistle in surprise and amazement.

’The blade...it’s so long, yet I don’t feel the slightest weight on my arm,’ he thought to himself while glancing at the remaining Glacier soldiers that were still rushing towards him.

"Good. Let’s end this now." He grinned, and the next instant, using the Bursting Fire Steps, circled around Gao Zhen with his right hand extended out in the direction of the rushing soldiers.

SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING!

A sharp, tearing sound accompanied by explosive bursts echoed that very instant as Gao Zhen witnessed all the hundred or so Glacial soldiers around them being reduced to black fragments.

"This!"

A flabbergasted expression instantly formed on her face, witnessing this unbelievable sight.