The statue was enormous, around a thousand feet tall, and it depicted a man brandishing an axe and roaring at the heavens. The man’s angular face and determined expression were a complete match for the Martial Lord that Tang Jie had seen in the Martial Mirror.
Although it was just a statue, as Tang Jie gazed at it from a distance, he felt an immense pressure that made him want to drop to his knees and bow.
This pressure did not come from nowhere. Numerous lines had been carved into the statue, each one bursting with the supreme mysteries of the world: Great Dao Runes!
It took only a glance for Xu Miaoran to get dizzy. Realizing that this Dao was too unfathomable for someone of her level to glimpse, she closed her eyes. Tang Jie had a much easier time, for when he saw those Dao Runes, he could tell that those were the Dao Runes of the Weapon Dao.
The Weapon Dao was a minor Dao under the Metal Dao. Theoretically, as Tang Jie had already entered the Five Elements Dao, which covered the Weapon Dao, he should have been able to grasp these runes. But when Tang Jie saw these Weapon Dao Runes, he felt mystified and confused, like he had never comprehended them before. Still, this put him in a better state than Xu Miaoran. While he was shaken by their profundity, he could at least still interact with and comprehend them.
As he immersed himself in the Weapon Dao, he realized just how shallow his understanding of this Dao really was.
Only then did he realize that while he could boast about the breadth of his Daos, when it came to the depth of his Daos, he was like a child compared to the Martial Lord!
And when the Weapon Dao Runes entered his eyes, many questions that had puzzled Tang Jie for a long time were finally answered.
Ding!
Under the majestic pressure of the statue, the golden blade began to transform, shifting between countless weapons. A close look would reveal that those were none other than the weapons that Tang Jie had shattered to make this blade. They had never truly disappeared, only been in hiding, waiting for this day to come.
As it shifted between weapons, powerful waves of energy blasted through the heavens, for with each transformation, the Sovereign Blade resonated with the power of another weapon. Thus, all manner of phenomena appeared in the heavens—wind, rain, lightning, fire, ice, mountains, oceans!
“The simulation of all weapons!” Xu Miaoran and Yiyi cried out.
This was what Tang Jie had been pursuing all this time. Now, something that he had only ever been able to make limited progress in had been easily accomplished.
Tang Jie continued to focus on the Dao Runes, but he no longer used his eyes, using his mind to experience and understand them.
He closed his eyes, and the intense Dao Wills radiating from his body only grew stronger.
Xu Miaoran sensed that Tang Jie had begun to emit a powerful pressure.
This pressure was like an unsheathed weapon, sharp and vicious. Xu Miaoran sensed danger and immediately retreated with Yiyi, the Vermillion Bird following suit after sweeping up Xian Tao. The two both moved as quickly as they could, Xu Miaoran even using Limitless, but this still wasn’t even to avoid that sharp energy.
There was a gust of wind, and Xu Miaoran’s face was instantly covered in thin crimson lines. Although they were instantly healed, her face was still stricken with shock.
This was just an inadvertent gust created by Tang Jie’s pressure, and it was already breaking through her defenses. What if Tang Jie had been serious?
Tang Jie’s pressure was continuing to soar. Although his eyes were closed, he could clearly sense every point of Dao Will on that statue.
Tang Jie had never been in this kind of situation before, but at this moment, he already understood that this was the Weapon Dao, the real Weapon Dao!
It was impossible to describe it in words, but Tang Jie could truly feel the profound level the Martial Lord had reached in the Weapon Dao. It was definitely at the Dao-Controlling level, perhaps even further.
And Tang Jie hadn’t been able to truly use the Sovereign Blade before this not because of anything wrong on his part, but because the Martial Lord had transmitted the Weapon Dao in the form of a spell art.
The Weapon Mantra was the Martial Lord’s Dao Art, a powerful art that could shatter all weapons to forge the sovereign of all weapons, the tyrant of weapons. He had simply called it the Weapon Mantra and disguised it as a Weapon Dao Art to conceal the fact that it was the Dao itself, such was the Martial Lord’s boldness.
But in the end, an art was not a Dao, so in the end, the best that it could do was shatter weapons and forge the blade, not unleash the invincible might of the Sovereign Blade. This was why Tang Jie had never been able to make much progress despite all his efforts.
But now that he had seen the Martial Lord’s Dao, Tang Jie’s mind was opened, and all of his confusions had been resolved. The art had been upgraded to a Dao, and the Sovereign Blade that had been fettered for several centuries could finally reveal its fangs.
As Tang Jie’s mind spun, the Sovereign Blade in the air suddenly rose up and chopped at a distant mountain. The actual blade did not touch the mountain, only its sword energy, but the mountain slowly split apart. The sword energy had sliced through the mountain! In the past, when relying solely on its inherent sharpness, the Sovereign Blade would have never been capable of this.
The Sovereign Blade then transformed into thousands of swords that rained down, instantly cutting down all the trees atop that split mountain while not harming a sliver of the actual mountain itself. This was the Divine Connection of a weapon the Sovereign Blade had once shattered, but it was even stronger and easier to use now.
Finally, the Sovereign Blade radiated green light, upon which the hewed trees began to grow back.
This was another Divine Connection from a weapon the Sovereign Blade had shattered, this one focused on rebirth rather than killing. Tang Jie had never used non-offensive Divine Connections with the Sovereign Blade before, having believed this to be a restriction of the Sovereign Blade, but today, he realized that he was wrong.
“This is the real Weapon Mantra!”
Tang Jie finally opened his eyes, looking up at that golden blade in the sky.
No—to be more precise, it should be called the Weapon Dao!
The supreme Dao Art of the Martial Lord had finally been inherited in its entirety by Tang Jie. Moreover, by breaking the limit of a person being able to cultivate only one Dao Art per Great Dao, it inadvertently created a miracle.
At the same time, an image appeared in Tang Jie’s mind.
This was the scene he had seen once before in the Martial Mirror. In the endless void, a mighty giant battled with countless Immortals. With a single shout of “Weapon!” all weapons shattered, and then the Martial Lord swung his mighty axe at the heavenly palace.
But the scene did not stop here.
As the axe fell, the palace shattered, its shards shooting in all directions. The Immortals cried out in horror.
At this moment, a great rumbling like the pounding of drums could be heard, resounding through the universe!
And then a familiar object appeared on the horizon, exuding a boundless majesty.
“The Heavenly Dao Law Wheel!” Tang Jie cried out.
The Heavenly Dao Law Wheel had suddenly appeared on the scene!
At its appearance, all the Immortals prostrated, with only the Martial Lord brazenly laughing.
And then, that wild man swung his axe at the Heavenly Dao Law Wheel!