The sword fights in this manga is just fantastic. It is the most amazingly detailed and realistic sword play I've ever seen in a manga. I'd be surprised if the author didn't have a background in martial arts or at least have done extensive research on it. The stances, the legwork, the sword moves are all either from real martial arts or based on real martial arts.
The only thing that comes close, would be the awesome sword fights in the Sword of the Stranger or Seirei no Moribito animes. This would be the manga (or Manhua) equivalent of those.
Some commentators have mentioned other sword fighting manga like Blade of the Immortal or Vagabond, but frankly this just knocks them out of the water easily. In those, the fights are mostly just the stereotypical "2 swordsmen passing by each other then one of the them falls over later" or "the hero fighting off enemies but somehow still standing even after getting slashed bloody hundreds of times" type scenes. In this, you see people actually use skills. Not bs magical skills, but real combat skills. They block, they parry, they deflect. They will use momentum to enhance their attacks, techniques to redirect the enemies' momentum. Legwork to dodge or surprise. They take into account things like the reach, weight and other unique characteristics of their enemies weapons and that of their own. And refreshingly even things like the calculating their chances of winning and the morale of the combatants. For sure these guys aren't the typical shounen heroes who brainlessly run headlong into everything. Another point of realism in this manga is that one solid hit with a sword you'd be severely injured, two solid hits and you'd most likely be dead. No unrealistic heroics here.
As for the story? Its great and multifaceted. There's no cliche good and evil here. The "bad guys" only crime is to follow the pure code of wuxia - to be the strongest martial artists ever. While they're merciless towards their enemies, they are also honourable to a fault. Meanwhile the people in the so called "good" faction would rather have peace over their somewhat forgotten wuxia roots. Even resorting to using underhanded tactics like poison or ganging up on people in a one on one fight. If a bad guy is willing to throw away their weapon to trade for an antidote to cure an unrelated poisoned civilian caught in the crossfire, are they still a bad guy? The interplay of ideologies and hypocrisy with a revenge driven quest is interesting to say the least.
Another thing I liked in this story is how the enemies aren't faceless minions whose job is show up and get easily defeated. The bad guys all have personalities. They're smart, capable and most of the time are actually more skilled than the protagonists! That's not something you see every day.
Lastly the author of this manga must be a genius because he came up with this revolutionary idea.... see the people in this manga don't shout out their techniques, they THINK it. Wow... what a concept. It always bugged me somewhat that people in other manga would shout out their techniques like idiots. But now you can convey to the reader what the characters are doing (without them looking stupid) by using think bubbles instead of speech bubbles! If there was a nobel prize for manga this man would deserve it.
Now some of you maybe wondering why I'm giving this manga an 8 instead a 9 or a 10 after all that praise. Reason? It's because its too damn short! I want MOAR! I read up to where its currently at in a matter of hours and I want to see what happens next. If it can keep up this level of quality later on, I'll definitely be upgrading the score and throwing some money at the author and translators. So until then, I guess oogling the smexy bishoujo is all I can do.