novelraw Chapter 174, Abyssal Celestial Lord Blade (1)
Chapter 174, Abyssal Celestial Lord Blade (1)
Lin Yi left the cave entrance and activated Heaven Step.
The Abyssal Celestial Lord Blade was at his waist, and even sheathed, even passive, its presence was different from the Mythical grade’s. He had noticed it while walking out of the cave.
He then found the nearest cluster within Predatory Instinct’s range and descended.
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[Void Stalker ×16 | Level 152 — Elite Pack]
HP: 86,400 / 86,400 each
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He drew the blade.
The draw felt different from the Mythical grade in a way that was difficult to specify. Not heavier. Not lighter. More present, the way things feel when they carry the weight of what they are rather than just physical mass. He then released Celestial Sword Qi in the wide arc mode through the blade.
All sixteen dissolved before the arc completed its sweep.
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[Void Stalker ×16 Defeated]
[EXP Gained: +27,600 × 16 = +441,600]
[Amplification: ×10,000]
[New EXP Gained: +4,416,000,000]
[EXP Transferred to: Cang Yutian]
[Your level: 230 — No change]
---
He looked at the empty island.
The result was the same as it had been with the Mythical grade. The sixteen stalkers had dissolved at the same point in the arc’s sweep, the kill threshold reached without any additional contact required. The Abyssal weapon’s output was substantially higher than the Mythical, but the targets were substantially below the level where that difference expressed itself as a changed outcome. A kill was a kill. The margin by which it exceeded the kill threshold did not register as information when the threshold was crossed as completely as it was at this level against this target population.
He moved to the next island.
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[Celestial Dreadhorn ×11 | Level 158 — Rare Elite]
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One arc. All eleven.
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[Celestial Dreadhorn ×11 Defeated — Rare Elite Bonus ×11]
[EXP Gained: +54,800 × 11 = +602,800]
[Amplification: ×10,000]
[New EXP Gained: +6,028,000,000]
[EXP Transferred to: Cang Yutian]
[Your level: 230 — No change]
---
Same result.
He moved through two more islands in the cluster, clearing the populations the same way he had been clearing them for two weeks, and the Abyssal grade’s difference was not producing any observable change in the outcomes. The monsters died. The experience transferred. The notifications appeared and were filed and the traversal continued.
He stopped at the cluster’s fifth island and held the blade in front of him.
The weapon’s output was above six thousand nine hundred. He was testing it against populations whose combined defense values and HP totals were comfortably below what the Mythical grade had handled with celestial sword qi releases. Of course there was no observable difference. A tool tested below its operational range produced no information about what the operational range contained.
"These are too weak," he said. "My Mythical grade would one-strike them regardless. Comparing the two blades against level 145 to 165 monsters is not a good comparison. Rather it’s two different expressions of the same result."
He put the blade at his waist.
He needed something above level 200. Something whose defense and HP values existed in a range where the difference between 4,905 attack power and 6,900 attack power would express as a different number of exchanges rather than the same single exchange. Something where the margin mattered because the margin was what he was testing.
He thought about what he had encountered at that level in the expanse. The Void Eroding Soul King at level 195 had been the highest level he had personally engaged. Nothing above that had been encountered in his traversal work except Cang Yutian, who was not a monster and was not a test case for weapon attack power comparisons.
He then activated Heaven Step and began moving toward the upper atmospheric zones where the entity classifications were highest, not to engage anything immediately but to extend his scan range and identify what the upper layers contained at this point in the event.
He had been moving for approximately four minutes, crossing between upper mid-atmospheric island formations on the Heaven Step traversal pattern, when the voice came.
"Lin Yi."
He stopped.
Not because the voice was threatening. Because the voice was familiar in a way that took exactly one second to resolve into the specific identification. He turned.
Long Tianyu was approximately thirty meters away, moving toward him at the controlled pace of someone who had spotted something and was approaching with the care that people brought to unexpected encounters in unknown environments.
The golden dragon-scale armor was the same as it had been in every previous encounter. The translucent dragon-shaped aura circled him at the suppressed close configuration. The sharp golden eyes were moving across Lin Yi in the standard assessment pattern of someone updating their information against the last reference point they had.
"Senior Long," Lin Yi said.
Long Tianyu closed the remaining distance and stopped at comfortable conversation range. His eyes had settled on something during the approach and had not moved away from it since. The something was at Lin Yi’s waist.
"That weapon," he said.
His voice carried the specific quality of a hunter who has spent decades developing a sense for what objects are worth paying attention to, producing a response at the sight of the Abyssal Celestial Lord Blade that was not performed awe but genuine recognition of something that warranted it.
"Yes," Lin Yi said.
"May I?" Long Tianyu extended one hand, not reaching, just positioning, the request communicated through the gesture rather than just the words.
Lin Yi drew the blade and held it horizontally, presenting it for inspection rather than transferring it.
Long Tianyu looked at it without touching it first, the examination of someone who knew that high-grade weapons responded to proximity as well as contact. His golden eyes moved across the surface, the abyssal-grade patterns that had grown into the metal rather than been inscribed on it, the depth of the attack output that even the held presentation produced against his perception range.
Then he placed one hand beneath the flat of the blade. Not gripping. Supporting. Testing the weight and the energy response simultaneously.
He held it for several seconds.
Then he withdrew his hand and looked at Lin Yi with an expression that combined the appreciation of someone who had encountered something genuinely remarkable with the specific bewilderment of someone who could not construct a path from the available information to the result in front of them.
"Abyssal grade...."