Chapter 252

Chapter 252: Breaking the Array

The old crone spoke, voice sharp. “Spare him.”

Elder Luo glared at her. “This is a Black-White Heaven disciple. Your Excellency doesn’t need to meddle.”

The old crone met his stare without blinking. “You should think about how to break the array instead. There are plenty of disciples. It doesn’t have to be him.”

Elder Luo’s jaw tightened. He glanced from the old crone to Wang Jie, then pointed at someone else.

Wang Jie exhaled slowly. If he could avoid it, he didn’t want to make enemies with Hundred-Star Realm elders.

“Thank you, Senior.”

He bowed toward the old crone and Xiao Luo Si.

The old crone studied him with mild curiosity. “Which family placed you here? You use Jia Eight Steps well.”

Wang Jie didn’t understand what she meant. “This junior doesn’t understand, Senior.”

The old crone nodded. “No matter. I’m just asking.”

She looked away again, worry shadowing her eyes as she studied the storm of sword qi.

Inside the Sword Dao Grand Array, Black-White Heaven disciples continued to die under the elders’ orders. The pile of bodies grew.

And still, the two elders were at a loss.

The old crone’s expression darkened. “This is Feng Men’s self-created Sword Dao Grand Array. To break it, you must find the array’s foundation.”

Xiao Luo Si blinked. “The foundation?”

“The foundation of this array isn’t Seal-Chen Stone,” the old crone said. “It’s sword methods.”

“Sword methods?” Xiao Luo Si repeated, stunned.

The old crone nodded. “You have to find every foundation sword method and break them. Otherwise, forcing the array open is too hard. At the very least, those two can’t do it.”

The two elders’ faces tightened. The old crone was blunt, but it was the truth.

How were they supposed to find foundation sword methods?

Finding one or two might be possible by chance. But how many were there? Ten? Twenty? More?

“Seventeen sets.”

The voice cut through the storm.

Everyone turned.

Wang Jie.

Xiao Luo Si stared. “What did you say?”

“Seventeen sword methods circulating,” Wang Jie said quietly. “But their positions keep shifting.”

This wasn’t sight.

Not Qi Sight.

It was Sword Rig.

He’d watched long enough. The familiar sensation came from Sword Rig—and from Yi Sword Art.

The connection was the sword methods themselves.

Someone outside the array was controlling swords, driving techniques through them. That was why there were swords everywhere, yet no one standing inside to anchor the formation, and no Seal-Chen Stone to serve as a core.

Those swords were the foundations.

Through Sword Rig, Wang Jie could sense seventeen swords executing sword moves.

And Yi Sword Art felt related because Yi Sword Art itself was a sword-path formation.

Back when Wang Jie saw Yi Sword Art in Suo Xing Jian, “one sword” was only the entry. After that came sword stacking upon sword, a structure he never fully understood. With his eyesight limited, he’d ignored it.

Trapped inside this Sword Dao Grand Array, the truth struck him at once.

Yi Sword Art was a sword array.

A sword array for one person.

And this Sword Dao Grand Array was also a sword array.

The array moved with momentum. The sword moved with form.

What felt “familiar” was the momentum.

The old crone’s eyes widened. “You can see how many foundations there are?”

Elder Luo and Elder Wu stared at Wang Jie, suspicion and disbelief mixing in their eyes.

Xiao Luo Si looked even more shaken. She couldn’t see anything. How could he?

Formations were deceptive by nature, layered with concealment and false paths. Otherwise two Hundred-Star Realm veterans wouldn’t be trapped like this.

And yet this man claimed he could see it?

Wang Jie didn’t want to stand out.

But if they couldn’t break the array, they would all die here—including him.

“Yes,” he said.

“Impossible,” Elder Luo snapped at once. “If we can’t do it, what makes you think you can?”

Elder Wu’s voice turned heavy. “Little brat, don’t play games. No one can prove whether you’re lying. But if we miss our chance because of you, we all die together.”

Wang Jie didn’t flinch. “It’s seventeen sword methods. Their positions aren’t fixed.”

The old crone’s breath caught. “That’s right. The foundations don’t stay in fixed positions.”

Her gaze sharpened. “You really can find them?”

Wang Jie hesitated. “I can sense the general direction, but I can’t always see them clearly.”

Then he looked at the elders. “This junior points. You two Seniors strike. We’ll see if it works.”

Elder Wu nodded once. “Fine. Immediately.”

Belief didn’t matter. They had no other solution.

Wang Jie pointed. “There.”

Elder Luo’s face twitched. Moments ago he’d been ordering this “little brat” to die. Now the situation had flipped.

He wanted to refuse.

“Senior, quickly,” Wang Jie urged. “Once it shifts, it’ll be even harder to catch.”

Elder Luo had no choice. He struck with a palm toward the direction Wang Jie indicated.

A cold glint flashed in the storm—flickered once—then vanished.

“It really is a foundation,” the old crone breathed, thrilled.

Elder Wu and the others stared at Wang Jie, stunned. They couldn’t understand how he’d found it.

It was unbelievable.

Xiao Luo Si looked at him like he was something unreal.

She’d only ever felt this kind of “anything is possible” presence from Brother Xiao Hui.

But Wang Jie was a lockforce cultivator. Qi Refining meant giving up the future. How could he make her feel that?

“Senior—there!” Wang Jie snapped.

From then on, Elder Luo and Elder Wu followed his direction again and again. They broke two foundations—

And then the Sword Dao Grand Array’s changes accelerated.

The Feng Men formation master outside had clearly sensed danger. The foundations began to move faster, slipping just out of reach. Even when Wang Jie called a direction, by the time the elders struck, the foundation sword was already gone.

Hard to catch.

Both elders’ expressions turned grim.

“Despicable Feng Men dogs,” Elder Luo snarled.

Elder Wu looked at Wang Jie. “Faster.”

Wang Jie shook his head. “Unless we predict their positions, we can’t catch them. The only faster way is…”

He hesitated, then said, “I break them myself.”

Elder Wu’s eyes sharpened. “Force-breaking a sword method takes close to four hundred thousand battle power. You don’t have that.”

“That’s forcing it,” Wang Jie said. “If I break it through the sword moves themselves, I don’t need that much.”

He reached into his storage ring and pulled out a pill.

“Dao-Enlightenment Pill?” Elder Wu blurted, shocked.

Even if Dao-Enlightenment Pills were made from enlightenment tea dregs and weren’t technically difficult, they weren’t cheap.

This man wasn’t simple.

Wang Jie swallowed the Dao-Enlightenment Pill in one gulp.

“Breaking sword moves takes time,” he said. “And time is what we lack most right now. I’ll do what I can.”

He walked, step by step, toward the edge of the sword qi.

The Sword Dao Grand Array was tightening. The sword qi grew thicker, sharper.

At least they’d broken two foundations earlier. Otherwise, their remaining space would already be strangled.

The pill took effect.

A cool clarity surged through Wang Jie’s mind. Everything he’d seen replayed at speed, as if his mind were analyzing from above.

He used Sword Rig and stared ahead.

There.

A sword drifting through the storm, executing a specific sword method at high speed. No one wielded it. It spun and moved by itself.

Wang Jie watched the method.

It wasn’t complicated—at least, not to him now.

The sword’s path was captured cleanly in his mind, broken down and rebuilt again and again.

He moved.

One sword thrust.

He stabbed through the edge of the sword qi and struck the foundation sword method three times in a single breath—tip, hilt, body—precise points, perfect timing.

The foundation shuddered.

Then dropped.

Broken.

Elder Wu and the others stared, eyes wide, wild with relief.

Even Elder Luo was stunned.

Even with Dao-Enlightenment Pill, breaking sword moves was one thing. Forcing a sword into that sword qi and holding it there demanded terrifying battle power—at least three hundred thousand.

Wang Jie was only Star-Breaking Realm.

Where did he get that kind of strength?

Dao-Enlightenment Pill. Seeing through the formation. Terrifying battle power.

This man was formidable.

Wang Jie exhaled and kept going.

He broke seven foundations in a row.

Including the two the elders had broken earlier, nine were gone.

That left eight.

Outside the Sword Dao Grand Array, among Feng Men’s seventeen Roaming-Star Realm experts, nine retreated.

Cheng Yi’s face tightened. “What’s going on? Nine foundations were broken.”

“I don’t know,” someone muttered. “We sped them up to the limit. They still got broken.”

“We underestimated Black-White Heaven’s Hundred-Star Realm,” another said grimly.

Cheng Feng stared at the array, grip tightening. “I hope the elders solve it soon…”

Inside the Sword Dao Grand Array, Wang Jie’s steps slowed. He looked at Elder Luo and Elder Wu. “I can’t do it anymore. The pill’s effect is over. Breaking more foundations will be very hard.”

The message was obvious.

He needed more Dao-Enlightenment Pills.

Elder Luo stared blankly. Why were you looking at me? I don’t have any.

Wang Jie looked at Elder Wu.

Elder Wu shook his head. “I don’t have any either.”

A bottle sailed through the air.

Xiao Luo Si.

“There are some in here,” she said tightly.

Wang Jie caught it, opened it—and his eyes lit up.

Three pills.

He shamelessly kept them all, swallowed one immediately, and continued.

Dao-Enlightenment Pill was truly good. He couldn’t help wondering what the legendary enlightenment tea itself would do.

He kept breaking foundations.

Not long after, when the last foundation sword method collapsed, the Sword Dao Grand Array twisted violently.

Elder Luo and Elder Wu struck together, tearing the array open by force and shooting into the sky.

“Feng Men scum!” Elder Luo roared. “You dare ambush us with a formation? Courting death!”

Outside, Cheng Yi and the others stared at the group emerging.

Wang Jie looked over too and felt his scalp tighten.

So many Roaming-Star Realm experts.

Yet they didn’t attack. They glared, unwilling, then withdrew slowly.

A Black-White Heaven cultivator let out a long breath. “The command hubs are pulling apart. This battle will end soon.”

Wang Jie watched the massive monster of an enemy hub drift away.

So that was it.

After that, the pace of slaughter slowed. Black-White Heaven withdrew from Feng Men’s hub; Feng Men withdrew from theirs. Only when both command hubs were fully separated did the battle finally end.

It had been vicious.

If the Sword Dao Grand Array hadn’t been broken in time, Elder Mo would have died.

Then Feng Men’s Hundred-Star Realm experts would have swept the Black-White Heaven command hub.

Wang Jie knew he’d earned merit—massive merit.

Breaking Feng Men’s Sword Dao Grand Array had been one of the mission objectives.

He was eager to redeem rewards.

But as he turned to return to the command hub, someone stepped into his path.

Xiao Luo Si.

“What’s your name?” she demanded.

“I’m Wang Jie.”

“A Black-White Heaven disciple?”

“Yes.”

“Then why do you know Jia Eight Steps?”

Wang Jie blinked at her. “What is Jia Eight Steps?”