Chapter 512 – The Great Restraint and the Great Spiral; Invasion, Palace Upheaval - Part 1

Slash! Slash! Slash!

In the old courtyard, apricot blossoms fell gently to the ground. The small red apricots hanging on the branches were still far from ripe.

But every crisp command triggered a swell in the tree’s thick green canopy.

Each time the man in grey drew his blade, a swirling wind burst through the courtyard, lifting dust into the air, leaves rustling in protest.

And yet, the fiercer the wind, the deeper his frown.

He was troubled, clearly lost in thought.

Beneath the apricot tree was the remnant vein of a third rank meat field, saturated with blood energy, an ideal place to train.

Xie Yu watched her man wield his blade, utterly baffled.

From her perspective, his strikes were already impossibly fast. If he turned that blade on her, she wouldn’t even have time to react before being cut in two. And every swing summoned a whirl of wind before the edge had even fully extended. That meant the strength behind each blow was immense. So what on earth was he still agonizing over?

When Li Yuan finally stopped, Xie Yu asked, “Why do you still look so grim?”

Li Yuan replied, “My strength isn’t restrained.”

“Contained?” Xie Yu tilted her head. “I remember my patriarch’s swordsmanship; it was always loud and dazzling. Never heard of any

restraint

. The stronger, the better. One look and you knew it was a big shot making the move.”

Li Yuan said, “Everyone has their own path. Maybe that was just how your patriarch’s power was meant to be used. But me, I want to hold mine back. Only when power is fully contained—no leakage, no waste—can I touch the essence of a deeper force.”

He thought for a moment about showing Xie Yu the Tranquil Sea Blade, but then remembered that he could no longer knew how to use it.

Suddenly, Xie Yu said, “Can you teach me your blade? Our clan’s sword style, when mastered, is also incredibly fast.”

Li Yuan nodded. “The ways of weapons may differ, but they share a common root. If you want to learn, then watch. And ask. Everything I am is in my blade.”

Xie Yu’s eyes lit up at his earnestness. She stepped forward, sword in hand, and began drawing it in tandem with him.

Side by side, husband and wife. Even the most tedious training seemed to bloom with meaning.

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

One month later.

Li Yuan finally saw the change he’d been waiting for in his skill list.

Master Heavenbinding Ribbons - Rank 4 (8,000/8,000)

NEW! Basic Great Moon Blade - Rank 4 (1/500)

Great Moon Blade?

He looked at the bright arc left by his slash, like a perfect full moon.

Dazzling and round, just like the moon itself.

His blade gleamed like a solitary moonwheel hanging in the vast night sky, brilliant and dangerous.

Even though his strikes were already smooth and fluid, and the rotational power of his ancestral seal was now infused into his blade, the resulting vortex only grew stronger.

But since this skill had a name, it meant someone had mastered it before.

𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

Which made sense—after all, it was just a blade-drawing skill. Variations were bound to converge.

So, after a full month of grinding, it’s time for some payoff. Time to allocate my stat points!

Li Yuan poured 15,499 stat points into the skill, instantly maxing it out. His available points dropped from 77,494 to 61,995.

NEW! Master Great Moon Blade - Rank 4 (8,000/8,000)

An endless tide of insight surged through Li Yuan’s heart, reshaping not just his understanding but his very flesh and blood.

And then a memory, vivid and strange, flowed into his mind like a quiet stream.

He saw flickering lights in the dark of night, heard terrified voices crying out, “Demon Blade! It’s the Demon Blade!”

He saw shadowy figures descending from the skies.

He saw the blade in his own hand flash like a full moon.

And then came the blood, spraying, raining, and flooding.

Wherever the blade passed, shadows scrambled in panic, pleading for mercy, howling in fear.

Yet he felt no satisfaction. The blade seemed perfect. But it wasn’t.

He had made enemies in every direction, fought battle after battle, hoping each one would bring his blade closer to perfection.

And it worked. His skill grew more refined. More complete.

But with that progress came pain. Because no matter how many victories he achieved, he couldn’t find the breakthrough he craved. The one that would take him beyond.

Then one day, after defeating yet another powerful foe, he collapsed to his knees in agony. Moments later, he rose like a man possessed and hacked that enemy’s corpse into unrecognizable shreds, all while screaming—

“Why so weak?! Why?! Why?!”

He had won. And yet not a shred of joy remained in him.

His mind had pierced through. But his cultivation, his core, had not.

He was chasing the path of the third rank.

He had seen that path, but could not step across.

That day, after his victory, he stumbled into a wine alley and never came back out.

He drank, night and day.

His clarity unraveled. His thoughts grew wild, fragmented.

His blade path, once so sharp, began to regress. The perfect arc of his strikes turned jagged and misshapen. And as his discipline withered, his old enemies returned one by one.

He fled, hunted like a stray dog. And then one day, someone severed his right arm using a taboo skill—cut off not just the limb, but the possibility of growing it back.

He switched the blade to his left hand.

But he was right-handed. The edge never felt right again.

Still, he kept going, fighting, running, and swinging his blade with robotic repetition, again and again and again.

And somehow, in that endless chase, he survived.

He ended up slumped beneath a blooming apricot tree, looking up at the sky.

Above him was not a full moon, but a broken one. A waning crescent.

Then a breeze passed.

And in that fleeting moment, something clicked.

He laughed. Not bitterly. Freely.

His mind cleared once more.

People come together and part. The moon waxes and wanes.

A full moon, a broken moon...both were still the moon.

Joy and sorrow made a life. Wholeness and loss were simply part of being.

If this was life, why run from it?

If the moon must wane, why avert his gaze?

That day, he found enlightenment.

His power advanced again. Now, not only could his blade strike like a perfect full moon, his attacks became unpredictable, strange, bending at sharp angles even in extreme motion, vanishing without a sound.

Untraceable.

And yet, even that wasn’t enough.

He knew that beyond fullness and emptiness, there was still something greater.

So he kept searching.

Eventually, in the darkness of a deep canyon, he encountered a strange figure with a blurred face.

The figure told him, “The moon waxes and wanes, but whether full or broken, it is still the same moon. What changes is not the moon, but the one who gazes upon it. If you wish to ascend in the Dao of the Blade, then stop changing.”

He pondered those words.

He had been so focused on how to reach the third rank, on what that realm was supposed to be. Now he let that go. While other fourth rank powerhouses expanded their domains outward, trying to build massive realms of power, he did the opposite.

He compressed his domain, tighter and sharper.

And in that compressed space, his blade moved silently, without ripple or warning.

But it bent to his will.

Its power and speed could, in a single instant, capture the entire cycle of the moon, waxing and waning in a heartbeat.

And so the blade became him. And he became the blade.

Up until now, whether it was the sweeping strike of the full moon or the sharp, jagged turn of the crescent, those were just glimpses. Accidental traces of a greater power he had barely touched.

Countless memories flickered through his mind as Li Yuan slowly opened his eyes. His right hand had returned.

He looked down at the blade in his grip, then turned to the woman beneath the apricot tree and said, “Yu’er, I’m heading out for a bit.”

“So late? Where to?” Xie Yu’s voice held a note of irritation. “You’ve been obsessed with training these past few days. When are we going to make a baby, huh?”

Li Yuan chuckled. “I won’t be long.”

“I’m coming with you,” she insisted.

He smiled. “I’m going outside the county. Too many people around here, no good place to train.”

Knowing he could fly wherever he pleased, she relented. “Fine. But come back early!”

Then she ran up to him, whispering, “That aphrodisiac’s been sitting on the shelf forever...and it’s been half a month since you...you...I even bought something pretty to wear underneath.”

Li Yuan gave a soft nod and smiled. “I’ll definitely be back soon.”

He returned to their room, and in the next moment, reappeared deep within an uninhabited grove on Little Ink Mountain.

He gripped his blade. And drew. This was the perfected form of the Great Moon Blade.

Fourth rank domain energy surged forth, then instantly collapsed and condensed into the blade.

All sound vanished.

But the silence was deceptive. The earth, dead vines, trees, and flowers all lifted and spun wildly into the air, dragged by the collapsing domain force, sucked in toward his blade.

BOOM!

As the blade fell, it was as if a massive bite had been taken out of the mountain. Everything the collapsed force had dragged in—soil, branches, blossoms—was compressed into a single dense mass. This mass didn't disappear. It wrapped around the blade, forging something even larger.

A second blade, fused from the remnants of nature itself, loomed over the original like a ring of stars encircling a moon. It was several meters long, tightly compressed, and angled toward the ground like a divine instrument waiting to fall.

Li Yuan stared at this

new blade

.

“So this is the full form of the Great Moon Blade... Pure compression of domain force. The pinnacle of

gravitational attraction

.”

He exhaled in relief, thankful he hadn’t tried this at home. The whole estate might’ve caved in and become part of his blade.

“It’s quiet, sure, but only because the force compresses even the sound. The destruction, though...”

Li Yuan shook his head. He wasn’t satisfied. This wasn’t the kind of blade skill he truly longed for.

Cross-legged, he sat down to think. Right now, he commanded two skills.

The first was the Heavenbinding Ribbons, which compressed his Yang flames.

The second was the Great Moon Blade, which collapsed domain force.

The Heavenbinding Ribbons wasn’t about violence. It made flame flow like mist, elusive and mutable. Within its area-of-effect, everything moved in harmonious cycles, orbiting a central force. That was the essence of the

Great Spiral

, a perfect use of rotational energy.

The Great Moon Blade, by contrast, was the embodiment of Great Restraint. A pure compression of domain.

Suddenly, Li Yuan looked up. In his eyes, countless silhouettes flashed, each one a projection of himself, attacking, evolving, and refining.