“Gulp-”
Hattori Heiji swallowed deeply, sweat stained, and stared at Gongzi Yu across from him.
Yun Wuyue was already fighting with Lin Huai Gou, and the battle was raging, but Hattori Heiji was still indifferent and had difficulty with his sword.
Before seeing him, Hattori Heiji only thought that Gongzi Yu, the tenth on the human list, was a vegetable. After all, he had even defeated the ninth on the human list, how could he be afraid of the tenth on the personal list?
But after meeting him, before he even fought, Hattori Heiji felt that he could not hold on any longer.
That sense of psychological oppression was far more stressful than a real fight. Hattori Heiji felt his hands trembling, and his previously decisive swordsmanship was now a problem to even strike.
It was too terrifying, the kind of pressure that seemed invisible but made the whole body tense and tremble.
Lin Huai Gou was not the one being targeted not to have felt it, but Hattori Heiji was the one who knew that if he continued, he would be defeated.
‘After all, strike the sword.’ Hattori Heiji hissed in his heart.
His right hand steeply gripped the hilt of his sword, and the secret Shinyin Ryu Jyuho Chop was about to be sheathed ——
“Your blade, are you going to slash here?” Kiyoharu raised his hand and made a diagonal false cut across his chest.
“This ——”
Cold sweat was hard to stop, and Hattori Heiji’s sword, about to be sheathed, stopped.
‘He guessed —— no, saw through it.’ Hattori Heiji thought incredulously.
This was unbelievable.
The Juihe Zang is the Eastern Japanese sword-drawing technique, similar to this kind of sword-drawing martial arts, simple and clear, in addition to the three key words, fast, accurate and fierce, the most important point, or the sword and knife in the sheath, draw but not send, when sent is a thunderous strike.
If one were to see through the fall of the drawing technique, then even if one could not keep up with the speed of the drawing chop, one could defend against it instantly.
‘No, try again.’ Hattori Heiji took a deep breath and silently switched his aiming position.
He couldn’t believe that he, who by all accounts had stepped into the top tier of the Divine Origin realm, would fail so easily.
“Oh? Changed again? This time, it’s a cut towards here.” Again, Qingyu made a false stroke.
The hand that was clenched once more began to tremble again. For Hattori Heiji had been seen through again.
“This time, it’s here.” Before Hattori Heiji could think more, Kiyoharu drew another false stroke.
And this time, he had just finished slashing before Hattori Heiji was ready to throw his sword there.
“Forewarned is forearmed.” Hattori Heiji, whose culture had been handed down from the Middle Kingdom and who had been in the Middle Kingdom for a short time, uttered two idioms in a dry throat.
His opponent’s insight was outrageous.
Hattori Heiji came from a Shinobi family, and although he had trained in the art of the sword and become a samurai, the beliefs brought to him by his own family still made him inclined towards a one-strike killing move.
The Gyugazou may look simple, but Hattori Heiji has been practising it for many years and has reached the ultimate level.
The secret technique of astringent breath, which is pa*sed down in the family, makes Hattori Heiji’s Kurenai Chop a hidden aura. Although the sword is powerful and intimidating, when it is in its sheath, the sword’s aura is hidden and others cannot judge where the Kurenai Chop will land through aura sensing.
He was able to defeat the ninth ranked Sword Daoist, Kuang Yuan, with his sword.
But today, in the moment that had just pa*sed, the Gurui Chop had been declared a failure before the sword had even been struck. Everything Hattori Heiji had done was invisible in the eyes of Kiyoharu.
Kiyoharu was perfectly able to know where the Guriken was going to land before it came out, and either defended or dodged, making it difficult for Hattori Heiji’s Guriken to do anything anyway.
Kiyoharu could even resist it with his Ninth Level Golden Bell Shield, but then it would not be as heavy a blow to Hattori Heiji as what he was doing now.
“What kind of magic is this, or are you far superior to me in the Jyutsu?” Hattori Heiji enquired.
“Heh!” Kiyoharu shook his head in disbelief.
He wasn’t some fool who had to explain his moves to his opponent. Even if he was sure that Hattori Heiji and Lin Huai Gou would not be able to escape from heaven today, Qingyu was not prepared to make himself develop this bad habit.
In this world, no move, no martial art, no magic technique is necessarily unbreakable.
The martial arts themselves are things that break through common sense, and Qing Yu does not dare to say that there will never be a martial art in the world that will restrain his Tai Xu Eye and Tian Zi Wang Qi Technique.
All things in this world are mutually exclusive, and Qing Yu, who practises the Daoist mystic arts, firmly believes this.
“Is your struggle over? Then, be a good boy and submit.” Kiyoharu sauntered forward, taking one step towards Hattori Heiji who still maintained this stance of the Jyuhachou.
Kiyoharu was eager to hear from Hattori Heiji.
In the last battle in the divine capital, although the Eastern side had lost the battle, several Tantric powers had been killed, and Amaterasu, who was regarded as the supreme god by the Easterners, had not been present for some reason, Qing Yu knew that the Eastern side was still rooted in the Central Plains.
This island nation in the Far East had been planning for years, so how could it be defeated by a single defeat?
The Eastern Japanese that Xie Lang had let go in the first place were not necessarily cleared out. There was also Yanagi Sone who disappeared at the end of the Battle of Shinto, and the dark shadow that saved him, and it was not known if they had returned to the East.
That’s why Hattori Heiji is really important.
As soon as Kiyoharu learned of Hattori Heiji’s appearance from Feng Chaonan, he set his mind on capturing him.
With each step, he stepped on Hattori Heiji’s heart, making his already restless heart heavier and bringing greater fear.
The invisible and insubstantial power of his mind was also gradually staining Hattori Heiji’s mind early on, moistening and rusting the heart of this swordsmanship genius.
“No——” Hattori Heiji’s sweat was already soaking through his clothes, but his heart was suddenly firm and his trembling hands were steady, “You can’t break me, I still have Yanagi Shinin-ryu’s Tengu copy and Auyi no Taisho. I can still fight.”
Although Hattori Heiji was influenced by his family’s concept of killing with a single blow, Hattori Heiji did not leave behind the swordsmanship of the Yanagi Shinyin Ryu.
Why else would he be called a “genius of the sword”?
“Roar!”
Hattori Heiji roared madly, and as if his fear was gone, he suddenly unsheathed his sword ——
A clear sound of the sword leapt from the mouth of the sheath, followed by a flash of light.
However, the sound of the sword was very short, and just as soon as it sounded, it came to an abrupt end, and the snowy light of the sword, too, was a flash of light.
“——”
The fear that had just been dispelled in his heart surged up again, and it was far more intense and desperate than it had been just then.
Hattori Heiji’s just-sheathed sword was pushed back again by a white, slender palm.
