When the strike was launched, the flaming mountain ape had barely managed to react and set up a defense!
The wind blew gently as the flaming mountain ape tried its best to defend against the sword attack, now, it was already surrounded by sword energy and had no path of retreat and could only try its best to block the attack.
In the very next moment, the sword shadow Xuan Hao had launched hit the flaming mountain apes defense.
The massive sword energy covered the skies as furious winds swept across the nearby forest, causing a few nearby trees to be pulled up from the ground and scattered in all nearby direction.
Soon a small vortex made of sword energy had formed with the flaming mountain ape stuck in the middle of the chaotic yet deadly sword energy vortex.
The flaming mountain ape did not want to just let itself die so easily, as it let out a heaven shaking roar and caused the flames that engulfed it to expand rapidly outwards. Following which the sword energy vortex by forcefully got pushed back by the rapidly expanding flame of the flaming mountain ape.
The sword energy vortex rapidly started expanding alongside the flame of the flaming mountain ape before finally bursting, as furious winds swept across the surroundings, destroying an even larger part of the mountain forest that they were currently fighting in and sending off a shockwave that could be felt from several dozen kilometers away.
Everyone in the surrounding area of several dozen kilometers witnessed the sudden shockwave washing over them and, in some cases, even sent them flying into a nearby tree or off the edge of a cliff if they were unlucky.
The people were mostly adventures seeking treasures in the Burning Mountain Range or members of the Explorer Union… Exploring the place. All of them had felt the shockwave and became flustered, completely unaware of what had just happened.
They were confused and only knew that both parties were immensely powerful compared to themselves.
"Hm… Seems like the strength of the Sword Shadow is enough for me to injure someone at the seventh stage of the Nascent Soul Realm…" Looking over at the exhausted flaming mountain ape, Xuan Hao went over the earlier attack he had used.
The Sword Shadow could be considered the first move recorded in the Untold Swords Mantra and according to the Untold Swords Mantra, only someone who had established a sword domain would be able to unleash its true power.
Even just barely using it once, Xuan Hao had felt the clear exhaustion that it had brought to him.
The reason for this was because the Sword Shadow attack, upon reaching the flaming mountain ape had formed a giant sword energy vortex and suppressed it. The amount of energy wasted just on making the sword energy vortex and stopping it from dispersing was unimaginable.
It could be said to have formed a pseudo sword domain of sorts to suppress the flaming mountain ape inside!
But because Xuan Hao had still not reached a realm strong enough for him to truly use the Sword Shadow attack, he had ended up using a lot more of his qi than required to execute the sword move.
In the end, although the attack was strong and had a great visual impact, it could not be compared to the originally intended use of the sword shadow… After all, it was named sword shadow because the attack would be silent, stealthy and deadly, like a shadow suddenly appearing quietly in front of the enemy and killing them instantly without a sound…
Xuan Hao had succeeded in the first part of it silently appearing in front of the flaming mountain ape before it managed to react, but the killing without a sound would take some work to archive…
Thinking about this, Xuan Hao smiled awkwardly at the giant crater that had formed with the flaming mountain ape at the center, uprooted trees and other foliage scattered all over the place as it looked like a bomb had just recently gone off at the place where the flaming mountain ape was standing.
The flaming mountain ape had even helped with making that impression as the ground had been scorched completely in the area a few dozen meters around the flaming mountain ape due to its protective flame's sudden expansion earlier.
"R-roar…!" Letting out a weak roar, the flaming mountain ape looked fearfully at Xuan Hao for a moment before turning around and running away in the opposite direction with all its might.
No way it was going to stay and fight with him after feeling how strong the sword wielding human was!
Fighting to the death? Who would be dumb enough to do something like that! At most it would lose its territory, it could still rebuild in another location! That was a small price to pay for keeping itself alive!
Xuan Hao watched this and was just about to give chase to the flaming mountain ape, but he suddenly felt several different auras at the Nascent Soul Realm approaching from all directions.
"Hah…" Letting out a sigh, Xuan Hao jumped on his sword and quickly left the area. Not chasing after the flaming mountain ape.
Soon after Xuan Hao had left the area, several roars could be heard as several demon beasts in all shapes and sizes appeared at the location of the battle and started a chaotic brawl, before dispersing again after a few minutes.
This was one of the main reasons why nobody really wanted to try and hunt down the Nascent Soul Realm demon beast in the Burning Mountain Range… When one first started fighting a demon beast at the Nascent Soul Realm, all the surrounding demon beasts at the Nascent Soul Realm would notice after a while and come flocking to the area, either to kill and devour the injured Nascent Soul realm demon beast or the human cultivator…
No matter how strong you were, faced with the dozens of demon beasts at the Nascent Soul Realm, even someone at the peak of the Nascent Soul Realm would have a hard time keeping his life!
If one wanted to hunt the demon beasts in the Burning Mountain Range, one should be able to kill them fast enough and run away before the reinforcements arrived!