A Light Within Darkness.

When I saw the sword Antiochus brought out, I wanted to cry out in surprise. I wanted to make him suffer an accident and take the sword for myself. "Antiochus, where did your ancestor pick up this sword..." I asked with my right eye twitching as I took in the pristine blade in question.

"Sect Master, I must confess that I am unaware, as my father said he got it from his father and so on," Antiochus explained shrugging as he hefted up the large green and yellow-toned sword that only with his basic cultivation allowed the one-armed man to twirl the fucking sword that I was almost sure the human Primarch Vulcan forged.

'Is that one of his lost tools/artifacts that the Salamanders are going to want to collect?' I wondered before shaking my head wryly.

"Antiochus, be very careful to who sees that sword, especially outsiders. They will attempt to kill and steal the sword from you." I warned making the man bow in acknowledgment before I hummed in thought, taking in the large bastard-style sword.

"I use a saber and specialize in slashes, but a bastard sword is still good at chopping things," I muttered as I pulled the man outside the Sect to begin teaching him some heavy sword techniques that focused on powerful sweeping motions and once, he learnt how to generate sword intent he would be a terror on the battlefield with wide sweeping arcs of his energy being sent off the edge of his blade that will hit enemies in a wide area.

"What technique do you use Sect Lord?" Antiochus asked me curiously as I allowed him to rest his large sword on his sword after I was satisfied with how performed the basis of the martial technique.

"Oh, mine?" I asked grinning at the curious man's expression and then the man's mouth dropped open in surprise, as my chest glowed with the hilt of my saber made out of solidified sun's Yang essence and some of the leftover moon essence from Elesmere's body refinement technique made my sword into something of a Yin-Yang combined artifact.

"I prefer to similarly use wide sweeping motions to brush aside everything in my swords path," I said grandly as I to prove the point swung the saber in front of me sending a screaming fiery red/orange line of sword intent that carved its wall through the ground in front of us opening up a ravine a couple dozen meters deep inside the hardened chaos reinforced bedrock we were walking upon.

Seemingly in response to the crashing noise my sword intent made, I and Antiochus could hear roars coming as the chaos touched beasts that were cultivating the purified spiritual energy filling the sect came charging over to eat us.

"Well Antiochus, I gave an example to what you can do in a good five or so years of work, so hop to it, good man," I said patting the one-armed man as horse-sized armored armadillo-like creatures rolled across the mountain's side in our direction and seeing the literally herd or whatever you would call a group of a dozen plus monster armadillos capable of using their ultra-long tongues as grappling hooks would be.

"Sect Lord! I can only take on one or two on my own!" He said terrified and I looked to him with cold eyes as I folded my arms over my chest.

"Antiochus. You are a sword cultivator, their armor doesn't exist, your sword will kill them in a single blow for they are not your equal, they are mere beasts. Kill them or die here in the dirt and be forgotten." I spoke and Antiochus realized even if I allowed the man to flee for his life back to the Sect, he simply wasn't faster even with his minor success in cultivation than the monsters that had mutated to fit into living atop this Chaos-infested would be able to catch up. so he would simply die tired.

Not that I would actually allow him to die so easily as, his talent was actually quite decent, nowhere near Elesmere's or that fatty's who had some pysker potential, but as a sword cultivator. He like all of their ilk had a different path to walk than normal cultivation.

And running away from a fight at the start of his swordsman path would only weaken his grasp on Sword Intent. It was far better for the man to be beaten into an inch of his life while fighting to his last breath to bring out all his potential, rather than allow his swordsmen pride which was like a flame to sputter out.

"Antiochus get ready for they come. Oh, and their stomachs are the weak point." I pointed out using my heightened senses to catch brief glimpses of the armadillo's non-armor-plated stomachs as that they wouldn't be able to roll around if their stomach had inch-thick armor plates on them.

"This is a bit harsh, isn't it?" I heard Elesmere ask me softly as Antiochus held out his word with his one arm and roared as the first of the armadillos zoomed over him as the one-armed man ducked under the monster split its stomach open as I suggested with a powerful sweep of the demigod forged weapon.

Granted his form was great and having some cultivation helped, but it was clear that he was relying on the Primarch forged blade to cut into the armadillos and kill them.

"To be a cultivator and seek the peak of strength is to walk through an ocean of blood and create a mountain of corpses as a ramp to such strength... How many monsters did we kill in the monster-filled side Cistern from where we used to live Elesmere?" I asked as I kept an eye on Antiochus.

"Still, such a trial by fire may breed resentment if the disciples think you have no care for them." She warned me and I huffed as I watched as Antiochus struggled to kill another two more of the monsters before the crowd of the ten or so of the horse-sized armadillos began to hem him in and once, he took a harsh ram that sent the man skidding across the ground and visibly tear some of the flesh from his bare arm that was holding his word I nodded in satisfaction.

"Foul beasts I will be your opponent now," I said with my True realm cultivation falling upon the monsters making them stagger in place and whirl upon me with terror in their eyes.

"Disciple Antiochus, see what that technique's essence as I use it," I said as I began to use my large saber to perform the Flood Dragon Waves martial technique that I taught him, and an ethereal image of a massive green flood dragon formed along my blade and then with a roar I swung my larger saber with the flood dragon superimposed onto the blade towards the crowd of terrified chaos touched monsters.

Instead of the standard arc of sword intent, I focused on being highly energy efficient. This martial technique had a breath of Dao in it so the flood dragon I conjured and was sent along with the motion of my blade roared to life expanding in size dozens of times so its body was thicker than a trio of school buses stacked atop another and its body stretched the hundred plus meters that separated me from the crowd of monsters and with an ear-popping crunch the massive jaws of the evil looking dark green, flood dragons mouth crushed the crowd of terrified monsters and even took a chunk of the stone beneath them before the energy I was supplying to keep the technique manifestation alive faded along with flood dragon.

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