Eastern Region.
Within the vast battlefield, killing intent filled the heavens and earth, explosions of spiritual energy continuously erupted across the plains, sword light and spell light tore through the clouds while the roars of cultivators and the shrieks of dying beasts intertwined into a chaotic symphony of slaughter, and amidst this terrifying battlefield, a single golden streak suddenly flashed across the sky.
It was so fast that most cultivators could barely perceive it.
SHING!
A sharp sword cry resounded.
The golden streak suddenly split into several rays, each one carrying an incomparably sharp sword intent as they descended upon a group of cultivators from the opposing side.
"Enemy!"
One of them barely managed to shout before the golden sword light pierced through his throat.
Another cultivator raised his defensive artefact, but the flying sword struck it directly, the tremendous force behind the blow causing the artefact to crack before the sword pierced through his chest.
A third cultivator attempted to flee.
The golden light curved through the air.
Puchi!
Blood sprayed across the battlefield.
The cultivator's body continued flying for several metres before falling from the sky.
The golden swords did not stop.
They moved through the battlefield like hunting dragons, changing direction repeatedly as they pursued their targets, sometimes piercing through defensive spells, sometimes colliding directly with other weapons and sending sparks flying across the battlefield, and sometimes twisting through impossible angles to strike cultivators who thought themselves safely protected behind their companions.
For a moment, several cultivators believed that a powerful soldier had entered the battlefield.
Then the swords suddenly changed direction.
They flew backwards.
One after another, the golden flying swords returned towards a single figure standing several hundred metres away.
The man wore robes that had already been torn in several places, his long black hair falling loosely over his shoulders, and although exhaustion was visible upon his face, his eyes were brighter than they had ever been before.
The flying swords circled around him before disappearing into a strange sword casket hanging behind his back.
Clack.
The lid of the casket closed.
Lou Feng lowered his hand and gently stroked its surface, a smile gradually appearing on his face.
He had finally refined it.
After separating from his master, his luck had been rather difficult to understand.
At first, Lou Feng had thought that leaving his master would allow him to quietly find a place to cultivate, improve his cultivation and gradually become familiar with the Immortal Continent.
Instead, he had barely reached a nearby cultivation market before being caught in a mandatory recruitment.
The moment he heard that cultivators were being recruited for the battlefield, his first instinct had been to hide.
Unfortunately, hiding from a major sect's recruitment was far easier said than done.
The market had already been thoroughly searched.
Formation fluctuations had covered the surrounding region, and anyone attempting to conceal their cultivation or escape the recruitment would inevitably leave traces.
Lou Feng remembered what Lin Sheng had taught him regarding formations, which was precisely why he understood how he had been discovered.
There was nowhere to hide once the formations had locked onto the surrounding area.
He had almost panicked when he realised that he had been discovered, but before he could even think of another method, he had already been drafted into the Purple Extremity Dan Sect's forces and sent towards the battlefield.
He had considered revealing his blacksmithing abilities.
In the end, he decided against it.
The weapon-forging knowledge he possessed was strange compared with the systems used on the Immortal Continent, and although he could forge weapons, he had not completely mastered the local methods of artefact refinement.
Revealing such an ability would only attract unnecessary attention.
His sword cultivation was different.
Sword cultivators were common enough that nobody would question his inheritance too deeply, especially when he demonstrated sufficient talent.
As a result, Lou Feng had been placed into a special combat battalion.
At first, he had been somewhat nervous.
The battlefield was nothing like ordinary cultivation battles.
Here, people died every day.
There was no guarantee that possessing a higher cultivation realm would save someone, because battles involving hundreds or thousands of cultivators could easily produce unexpected situations, a stray sword light, an explosive talisman, a hidden formation or an attack from an enemy expert could end a cultivator's life before they even realised what had happened.
Lou Feng had witnessed several people he had become familiar with die in such a manner.
Some had fought beside him only moments earlier.
Others had exchanged jokes with him before entering the battlefield.
Then, after the battle began, they never returned.
Those experiences had changed him.
He became quieter.
He cultivated harder.
He became more cautious.
He understood that relying entirely on luck was not enough.
If he wanted to survive, he needed strength.
If he wanted to continue following his master's path, he needed strength.
And if he wanted to eventually stand beside his master rather than remain someone who needed protection, he needed even greater strength.
Therefore, whenever the battlefield temporarily quietened, Lou Feng cultivated.
Whenever he returned from a battle, he cultivated.
Whenever he obtained contribution points, he exchanged them for cultivation resources.
His sword cultivation had consequently advanced rapidly through actual combat.
The sword casket had been his greatest gain.
He had found its fundamental diagram inside the spatial pouch of a dead enemy cultivator.
At first, Lou Feng had thought it was merely an ordinary sword artefact.
After carefully studying the diagram, however, he realised that the casket itself was an extremely sophisticated sword treasure.
Unfortunately, the inheritance was incomplete.
The original inheritance should have contained specialised sword techniques designed to cooperate with the casket, allowing the cultivator to control numerous flying swords simultaneously and combine them into increasingly powerful formations.
Those techniques were missing.
Only the fundamental structure of the sword casket remained.
For most cultivators, that would have rendered the inheritance almost useless.
For Lou Feng, however, it was different.
He already possessed the Geng Metal Sword Art.
The sword art had become the foundation of his sword cultivation, and after combining it with his understanding of sword techniques, he had gradually developed his own method of controlling the sword casket.
His current sword cultivation had reached the Flying Sword Realm.
Before this were Sword Qi and Sword Control, while beyond Flying Sword there were deeper stages such as Refined Sword Silk and other profound transformations.
Each advancement represented an increasingly profound understanding of the sword.
Lou Feng's current Flying Sword Realm allowed him to control multiple flying swords simultaneously, and when combined with the sword casket, his combat power had risen dramatically.
Instead of personally wielding a single sword, he could control several swords from a distance, attacking different opponents simultaneously while maintaining enough awareness to alter their trajectories.
That was precisely what he had demonstrated moments ago.
A single cultivator could perhaps block one sword.
Two swords were more troublesome.
Five swords were dangerous.
When the swords moved from different directions and changed their trajectories according to his thoughts, even cultivators with greater cultivation than him could be caught off guard.
Lou Feng looked towards the battlefield.
His eyes narrowed slightly.
There were still enemies.
He raised his hand.
The sword casket trembled.
Several sword lights immediately shot out.
"Go."
The flying swords transformed into golden streaks once more.
This time, Lou Feng did not simply send them towards ordinary cultivators.
His divine sense spread across the battlefield, locking onto a figure wielding a blood-coloured spear.
That person had already killed several Purple Extremity Dan Sect cultivators, and his aura was considerably stronger than the surrounding Foundation Establishment cultivators.
Lou Feng's eyes sharpened.
The five flying swords suddenly converged.
The swords formed a strange arc in the air before simultaneously stabbing towards the enemy from different directions.
The blood-robed cultivator immediately sensed danger.
"Courting death!"
He roared and thrust his spear forward.
BOOM!
A violent wave of spiritual energy exploded.
The blood-coloured spear collided with the first flying sword, knocking it backwards, but before the cultivator could celebrate, another sword pierced towards his ribs.
He twisted his body.
The sword grazed his waist, tearing open his robes and leaving a bloody wound.
The man roared and swept his spear sideways.
CLANG!
The spear struck another flying sword.
The tremendous impact caused sparks to scatter across the battlefield.
But the third sword had already arrived.
Puchi!
It pierced through his shoulder.
His expression changed drastically.
"Get out!"
His spiritual energy erupted as he attempted to force the sword away.
Lou Feng's fingers moved slightly.
The sword suddenly rotated.
The blade tore through flesh before retreating.
The blood-robed cultivator staggered backwards, his face pale.
Then he saw the remaining swords surrounding him.
His pupils contracted.
"No..."
The five swords descended simultaneously.
BOOM!
The resulting explosion of sword light swallowed his figure.
When the light faded, only a bloodied corpse remained.
Lou Feng breathed out slowly.
His face was slightly pale.
Controlling so many flying swords simultaneously consumed an enormous amount of divine sense and spiritual energy.
His cultivation was still too low.
If he encountered a genuine expert, he could not afford to fight endlessly.
That was one of the reasons he had been desperately cultivating.
He needed to reach the next realm.
Soon.
Very soon.
Lou Feng looked at the sword casket on his back and smiled.
At least his efforts had not been wasted.
He turned around and flew towards the Purple Extremity Dan Sect's temporary military base.
The journey back was considerably quieter.
The battlefield extended for hundreds of kilometres, and even after leaving the primary combat zone, Lou Feng could still occasionally see distant explosions illuminating the horizon.
When he arrived at the base, he landed and immediately noticed the medical area.
It was packed.
Cultivators covered in blood were being carried inside by their companions, some had broken limbs, others had suffered severe internal injuries, while a few lay completely unconscious as alchemists hurried around them, desperately attempting to stabilise their conditions.
Lou Feng's expression became solemn.
He did not linger.
He had already seen too much of this.
The longer he remained on the battlefield, the more he understood that cultivation was not a game.
One mistake could mean death.
He entered the barracks, greeted several cultivators he recognised along the way and eventually returned to his room.
Only after closing the door did Lou Feng finally relax.
He sat cross-legged on the floor and removed his spatial pouch.
After searching through it for a moment, he retrieved a small jade pill bottle.
His eyes brightened.
Inside was a single pill.
Even through the sealed bottle, he could sense an intense Metal spiritual energy.
This was the Geng Fetus Pill.
It contained an extremely concentrated Metal attribute spiritual energy, and for cultivators possessing Metal spiritual roots, it was an exceptionally useful cultivation resource.
Lou Feng had spent almost all of his remaining contribution points from the previous battle to obtain it.
It had hurt.
But he believed it was worth it.
He had been stuck at the early stage of Foundation Establishment for some time.
Now he finally had a chance to push his cultivation further.
Lou Feng opened the bottle.
A metallic fragrance immediately spread through the room.
He swallowed the pill.
BOOM!
The moment the Geng Fetus Pill entered his stomach, an enormous surge of Metal spiritual energy erupted inside his body.
Lou Feng's expression changed.
The spiritual energy was far more violent than he had expected.
He immediately circulated the Geng Metal Sword Art, guiding the raging energy through his meridians while carefully suppressing its destructive nature.
His meridians trembled.
His spiritual sea churned.
The concentrated Metal spiritual energy surged towards his Foundation Establishment platform like a raging tide.
Lou Feng gritted his teeth.
"Break."
His cultivation technique accelerated.
The spiritual energy within his body began circulating faster and faster, gradually forming a powerful vortex around his foundation.
The barrier separating early-stage Foundation Establishment from the mid stage appeared before him.
Lou Feng's expression became solemn.
He gathered all the spiritual energy he had accumulated.
Then he pushed.
BOOM!
The barrier trembled and crack appeared. Lou Feng's eyes brightened, he needed to capitalise on that.
He pushed again.
The crack expanded.
The spiritual energy within his body surged like a great river breaking through a dam, rushing towards the bottleneck with increasing momentum.
"Break!"
BOOM!
The entire room trembled and Lou Feng's aura suddenly erupted.
The bottleneck shattered. His spiritual energy surged into the next level.
Mid-stage Foundation Establishment!!!.
Lou Feng slowly opened his eyes.
A sharp sword-like radiance flashed through his pupils before disappearing.
He clenched his fist.
His spiritual energy was considerably stronger than before.
The corners of his mouth slowly rose.
Another step.
On this dangerous battlefield, another step towards survival had been taken.