Early the next morning, the disciples of the entire Great Xia Sword Sect stood upon the square in high excitement!
All the sect disciples wore resplendent sect robes, gazing upward in quiet reverence.
In midair hovered a magnificent raised dais several hundred yards wide.
Behind Tianjian Peak lay a spatial pocket realm split open by a rift hundreds of yards across.
Inside the realm, mountain peaks rose in layered ridges, and across the endless undulating peaks stood newly erected pavilions and towers.
The buildings were splendid, and through the veiling mists, cranes occasionally let out low calls.
At the forefront stood Lu Kangnian atop the high platform with a solemn expression, flanked by Ling Daoyan and Li Guanqi!
Today, Li Guanqi wore a magnificent white robe embroidered with patterns of violet lightning.
A colored silk sash entwined with purple lightning looped around his arms, fluttering behind him. A sword hung at his waist, his right hand resting against his hip.
In his left hand, he held a vermilion wine gourd, smiling faintly as he looked down at the vibrant throng of disciples below.
At this time, almost all disciples of the Great Xia Sword Sect were at least at the Core Formation realm, and some had even broken through to the Nascent Soul realm.
Over the past two years, the Great Xia Sword Sect had recruited relatively few new disciples.
This generation of disciples was also the only one that had not left the sect to roam and temper themselves after reaching Core Formation.
Every disciple looked at Li Guanqi with fervent eyes—this elder martial brother who walked surrounded by an aura of legend.
Outside the Great Xia Sword Sect's defensive barrier.
In midair hovered hundreds of densely packed cloud boats!
Aboard every cloud boat were members of various clans and powers who had come to observe the ceremony.
Although the Great Xia Sword Sect had not invited anyone to observe, many clans and powers had learned of the matter nonetheless.
Once word spread, many of them had traveled here of their own accord to witness it.
Standing aboard a cloud boat, an old man looked upon the flourishing splendor of the current Great Xia Sword Sect and could not help marveling inwardly.
"The Great Xia Sword Sect of today... truly cannot be spoken of in the same breath as the past!"
Many people shared the old man's thought, reassessing their relationship with the Great Xia Sword Sect.
Lu Kangnian swept his sharp gaze in all directions.
Looking at the great clans and powers who dared only linger outside, he too felt deeply moved.
In the past, the Great Xia Sword Sect had needed to deploy disciples on constant patrol across its borders.
Now, even if they did not raise the defensive barrier, none would dare trespass on Great Xia Sword Sect territory!!
Looking up at the hundred-yard lightning sword suspended above, Lu Kangnian smiled faintly.
Taking a deep breath, his chest rising slightly, he raised a hand and conjured a curtain of light.
Within the light curtain was the hidden chamber where the Great Xia Sword Sect kept the life-bound jade slips and soul lamps of all its disciples.
In a deep voice, Lu Kangnian called out, "In the name of the thirty-eighth Sect Master, I, Lu Kangnian, summon back all who wander afar!
"The Six Domains are in turmoil, and Abyss Demons run rampant. May you all return to the sect, that together we may forge the Great Xia Sword Sect's peak prosperity!!"
His words were brief, lacking the fiery grandiosity one might have expected.
Yet they rang with utter sincerity.
In truth, any discerning observer could tell that the Great Xia Sword Sect of today did not actually need the return of those who had departed.
Lu Kangnian and Li Guanqi alone were enough to deter any power.
Yet they had still chosen to issue this recall, largely to give the disciples who had wandered out into the world someone to lean on!
After several breaths of silence, the densely packed jade slips in that secret chamber suddenly stirred!
One, two, a hundred, a thousand!!
Each glowing jade slip represented a person who agreed to return!
How many thousands of years had the Great Xia Sword Sect existed?
The accumulated jade slips were piled like mountains!
Yet the slips glowing now numbered only a sparse few thousand.
Even though the Great Xia Sword Sect had endured for over ten thousand years, the cultivators who could survive until now lived at most three thousand years.
Even so, it was enough to stun the observing cultivators to their cores.
Some jade slips remained completely intact yet did not light up; perhaps each person had their own choices to make.
Far more jade slips had shattered long ago, the bones of their owners turned to dust in places unknown.
Emotions surged within Lu Kangnian. Looking at the shattered jade slips, an indescribable ache gripped his heart.
The cultivation world... was just this cruel.
Some had been laughing and drinking together only two days prior, yet parting meant never meeting again.
Li Guanqi also felt his blood surge as he watched the continuously glowing jade slips.
"Is this the accumulated foundation of the Great Xia Sword Sect...?"
He could even sense that some jade slips had not flickered for at least a thousand years.
This grand recall ceremony of the Great Xia Sword Sect sent tremors rippling through the Six Domains!!
Taiqing Domain.
Within an ancient sect, the Third Elder, who had long secluded himself, broke through his seclusion.
Wearing hempen robes, the old man clasped his hands behind his back and gave a free and easy laugh. Turning toward the sect's main hall, he cupped his hands and shouted with a hearty chuckle:
"This old man has served as Third Elder in Taixu Temple for seven hundred years. Thank you for your hospitality.
"Now, this old man is returning to his sect, hahahahaha!"
With that, the old man tossed down a jade pendant and strode away smiling.
Addressing his jade slip, he laughed loudly, "I, Gong Ze, the twenty-ninth generation Disciplinary Law Enforcer, answer the summons and return to the sect!"
Xuanmen Domain.
Inside the pocket realm of a prominent clan.
A young man slapped a middle-aged man across the face, his voice chillingly cold: "You're nothing but a dog of our Zhang family! You do whatever I tell you to do!
"It's just killing two people, yet you dare defy me?"
The resolute-faced man endured it in silence, head lowered without a word.
His swollen cheek burned with stinging pain.
Yet at that moment, a flicker of astonishment crossed the man's eyes.
Ignoring the young man's furious insults, he took out a jade slip, channeled primal energy into it, and heard the voice within.
Then, he slowly straightened his posture. Frowning, the youth raised his hand to strike him again.
Boom!!!
An invisible wave of pressure erupted violently!!
The man flicked his wrist, and a streak of cold light flashed instantly!!!
The youth, sickly pale with a frail aura, let out an agonized shriek. His severed hand fell to the ground, his face deathly white.
He glared at the man as if wanting to devour him alive!!
"You bastard dog, how dare you strike back at me?!"
The man slapped him across the face, sending the youth crashing straight into the ground, his head smashing a deep pit into the earth!!
The pressure of the Void Refining Realm pinned him ruthlessly to the ground. With a cold expression, the man retrieved his jade slip and said with a faint smile:
"Great Xia Sword Sect, thirty-fourth generation Peak Master of Tianjin Peak, Huo Gang, answers the summons and returns to the sect!"
With that, the man tore through the void and vanished from the realm.
Similar scenes played out almost simultaneously across various clans and sects throughout the Six Domains.
In remote mountains, ancient forests, and secret realms, many others set out at the same time!
Even more frail, elderly cultivators on the verge of death tremblingly brought out their jade slips, murmuring through tears running down their aged faces.
Before long, cultivators who had shut themselves in death seclusion emerged one after another, and among them were several old men with overwhelmingly powerful auras.
And these individuals... had all once been sect masters of the Great Xia Sword Sect!!
A cold-faced old man in black whispered via divine transmission, "You few aren't dead yet?"
Soon, several eerie voices echoed from the void: "A miserable life is better than a good death."
"Are you going back?"
"Hmph! If you want to live... every one of you has to go back. As if you don't know what was left behind in the sect!"
Silence.
All sound faded from the void. Yet the old man knew that every single person who had yet to break through their bottlenecks would return!
Chapter 736