Chapter 70: What to Engrave

Li Jianqiu stood beneath the giant rock, unmoving. Only the fire of his flame sword flickered in the mountain wind.

Jiang Wang walked to his side and clearly saw the inscription on the rock.

"Yongtai, Year Twelve, Blood Battle of a Hundred Formations, Invincible with Hands Behind Back, Leaving This Inscription for Later Generations to Admire!"

The signature was Wu.

It seemed incomplete, as there was a vertical stroke beside it, clearly just the beginning of a character.

Yongtai was the reign title of the current ruler of the Zhuang Kingdom, now it was the fourteenth year of Yongtai in the Zhuang calendar, or 3917 in the Dao calendar.

In other words, this inscription was left two years ago. It was precisely the time when Vertical Brush Peak was first completely cleared.

After slaying the ferocious beasts, Li Jianqiu neither boasted of his achievements, nor summarized anything, nor continued forward, but stopped before this rock inscription, which clearly had a story, and remained silent.

This atmosphere caused even the usually talkative Huang Azhan to shut his mouth.

Li Jianqiu was silent for a while, then dispersed the flame swords in his hands. Finally, for the first time in front of Jiang Wang and the others, he slowly drew the sword at his waist.

This was the first time Jiang Wang had seen this sword unsheathed.

Bright, brilliant, the first words that came to mind were completely incompatible with swords, but on this sword, they were so fitting.

Li Jianqiu held the sword in one hand and added a few strokes to the rock inscription.

Wu Shan.

This name was ordinary, but it should be the name of that predecessor who seemed to have invincible talent.

Li Jianqiu moved the tip of his sword and started a new line on the inscription, carving: "Later generations come to admire!"

Then, he started another line and wrote his signature: "Defeated Dog Li Jianqiu."

Stone dust rustled down, as if burying some emotions in the dust.

"Let's go." Li Jianqiu turned around and said, "We're going to the summit."

Bypassing the giant rock, the group walked on fallen branches and decaying leaves, advancing through the rugged rocks.

There might have been a path here before, but after two years, it had returned to its original state.

There was no road in the mountains, but the road was under their feet.

"I saw your sword was damaged earlier. We can exchange for a magic weapon long sword for completing the Vertical Brush Peak sweep alone. I'll give it to you." Li Jianqiu said casually.

"How can that be?" Jiang Wang waved his hand and said, "The task wasn't my effort alone, and Senior Brother, you were the main force..."

As a cultivator accustomed to using swords, Jiang Wang's desire for a good sword was self-evident. If it were only him and Zhao Rucheng on this trip, he wouldn't be embarrassed. But after all, his friendship with Li Jianqiu, and even Huang Azhan, hadn't reached that level.

Li Jianqiu patted the long sword at his waist: "I have Peach Branch. I don't need any other swords."

So this sword was named Peach Branch, a truly fitting name, so bright and brilliant, Jiang Wang thought.

Li Jianqiu added: "This level of magic sword should be worth about six hundred Dao merits. You can just give us one hundred Dao merits each."

Calculated this way, Jiang Wang would still gain a lot. But for the others, it wasn't a loss, since Dao merits were hard currency, and the physical objects exchanged for the task might not be suitable for them.

"Okay." Jiang Wang no longer refused.

The remaining two also had no objections.

Li Jianqiu then turned to Huang Azhan and said, "Judging from your Dao techniques, you should be following the same path as Shen Nanqi. Only one is metal, and the other is fire."

Huang Azhan scratched his head and smiled, "Just messing around on my own, it's not systematic."

"Fire Dao techniques are violent, you need to pay more attention to controlling the Dao techniques themselves. For example, the Flame Bullet Dao technique." Li Jianqiu casually made a hand seal, forming a flame bullet.

"When it explodes, how it explodes, what scale, what speed. You have to be able to do it freely." The flame bullet was manipulated by Li Jianqiu, sometimes forward and sometimes backward, expanding and shrinking, and then suddenly accelerating, smashing a piece of mountain rock.

"Thank you for your teaching." Huang Azhan bowed respectfully to express his gratitude.

Li Jianqiu waved his hand and said to Zhao Rucheng, "You are very smart. I said earlier that Du Yefu had the highest combat talent among you, but I overlooked you. Your combat talent is not inferior to him, it's just that he relies on innate combat intuition."

He tapped his head: "You rely on this."

Zhao Rucheng laughed: "Really? I didn't even know that until you said it."

Huang Azhan smacked his lips for a while: "That's not right, Senior Brother Li. Does that mean that out of these three people, I'm the only one who needs guidance?"

Li Jianqiu smiled without saying a word.

In such an intense battle just now, he was surprisingly aware of every detail of everyone's combat, which was enough to show his ease.

It was just unknown why, at the Three Cities Dao Debate, he didn't have the performance to match his strength.

A wolf brush, with a straight and upright shaft, a round and full tip, and a sharp point like a thin cone.

Turning it upside down, it was the approximate shape of Vertical Brush Peak.

After passing the mountainside, going up another section, was the position of the brush tip. It was also the widest cross-section of the entire Vertical Brush Peak.

This was also the base camp of the ferocious beasts of Vertical Brush Peak.

The group was still far away, but they could already hear the roars of the beasts. As they got closer, some of the ferocious beasts couldn't help but rush out.

It was like a signal, and then, like a hornet's nest exploding, all kinds of strange and bizarre ferocious beasts swarmed in.

Wind centipedes, rock snakes, tiger jackals, mountain spiders...

In this situation, Li Jianqiu still had the leisure to roughly count: "Not bad, less than a hundred, far from forming a scale."

He took a step forward, Peach Branch unsheathed!

The sword light was bright, and the sword energy was mighty.

His whole person squeezed into the beast tide in a magnificent crimson.

It was as if spring had arrived and peach blossoms were blooming.

The peach blossoms were blood-colored, and what bloomed was the life soul.

Li Jianqiu's body was like a red tide, sweeping through the beast tide.

Jiang Wang and the others didn't even have a chance to make a move, and watched this scene dumbfounded.

The red tide receded, and all the roars and howls stopped.

Only Li Jianqiu's slender figure stood upright.

One person, one sword, a ground full of ferocious beast corpses.

What a picture, what a freehand sketch!

"Senior Brother Li." Huang Azhan was shocked, and even forgot to flatter: "You're so strong, why did you bring us along?"

Li Jianqiu held Peach Branch in his hand, looked at the mountainside, and in the midst of the ferocious beast corpses, suddenly let out a long howl!

The sound shook the high cliffs and echoed in the distant mountains.

It was as if all the pent-up feelings had been released in one go, unspeakably cheerful and heroic!

After he finished his long howl, he sheathed his sword and said, "The person who left the inscription on the rock loved to show off in front of others and liked to boast. I brought you here to fulfill his wish to be admired by later generations of students."

Jiang Wang hesitated and said, "That Senior Brother Wu Shan, he... is also a student of our Maple Forest City Dao Academy?"

"He should be in the same class as Senior Brother Zhu, but his strength is far behind. His strength back then was far inferior to my current strength." Li Jianqiu shook his head, the expression on his face was unclear whether it was more reminiscence or more sorrow.

"I told you, right? My teammates are all dead."

Li Jianqiu paused and continued: "They died under his leadership."

He turned to look in the direction of the Vertical Brush Peak summit, or perhaps it was just to turn his back to Jiang Wang and the others.

His voice echoed in the mountains: "He was extremely weak. But when the beast tide suddenly broke out and broke through the defense line. He stood in front of the beast tide. Saying that the people of our Maple Forest City Dao Academy cannot let the people of Three Mountains City look down on us."

"All of them stood in front of the beast tide, and I ran away."

Jiang Wang and the others looked at his back, a back that seemed particularly lonely in the wind of the mountain. They suddenly understood the signature he had carved, "Defeated Dog Li Jianqiu."

These words had probably been carved in his heart for two years, for over seven hundred days and nights.

And only after he truly carved these words on the stone wall and killed all the ferocious beasts on Vertical Brush Peak, could he finally reconcile with himself.