Before Xu Ying's words had even faded, the sea split apart beneath a surging sword intent. A towering wave of deathly aura rushed at him as a colossal, broken sword plummeted from the sky. With a piercing whistle, it planted itself upright upon the sea before him!
The broken blade severed the vast sky; its deathly intent engulfed the four horizons.
The sword stood erect between heaven and earth, soaring so high into the vault above that the sun and moon seemed insignificant, while its reflection cast far across the desolate waters below.
At this moment, all was dead silent. Even the wind and waves subsided, leaving only that surging deathly intent spreading through heaven and earth.
This was the Zhuxian Sword—a sword forged to execute immortals, slaughter every immortal under heaven, and sever all Great Daos!
Xu Ying sighed. The Zhuxian Sword shouldn’t have come. If it hadn't, he could have used Yaoluo's strength to take his cultivation one step further.
Yet Yaoluo just happened to be an old enemy of the Zhuxian Sword, and he practiced its very sword path. His sky-filling killing intent had stirred the broken blade into motion. On top of that, his Great Luo Futian Sword had been forged from fragments of the Zhuxian Sword—a double grudge.
Yaoluo Supreme’s expression shifted slightly as well. The sudden appearance of the Zhuxian broken sword was entirely unexpected. Its terrifying ferocity back then remained fresh in his memory even now.
In the distance, Mister Dongshi turned pale as ash at the sight of the broken sword and moved to turn and flee. But the moment he turned around, he found Ten Wastes Heavenly Monarch Liu Guanyi standing not far behind him.
"Dongshi, you're as timid as ever," Liu Guanyi said flatly. "Do you lack the nerve even to watch this battle? As the seventh among the Twelve Wondrous, an illustrious rebel leader, how did you become so excessively cautious?"
Seeing who it was, Mister Dongshi breathed a sigh of relief and chuckled. "If I hadn't been so careful, how could I have survived until now? Liu Guanyi, you are no match for me. Leave at once!"
Liu Guanyi said, "I killed Dao Lord Jiugong and sacrificed his head before Emperor Qingxuan's spiritual coffin."
Mister Dongshi’s expression froze.
Back then, after Qingxuan died, factions had vied for supremacy in their scramble to become the new Immortal Emperor, fighting tooth and nail until the realm stood on the brink of turmoil once more.
At that critical juncture, Holy Venerable Yuan Yu defeated Jun Wudao, suppressing and exiling the other four Supremes and nine Wondrous. Mister Dongshi himself had been suppressed by the Holy Venerable beneath the floor of the Immortal Realm's Dao Sea.
Only Jiugong, Taiyuan, and Saint Luo were spared. Those three had long since thrown their lot in with the Holy Venerable, becoming his wings, and thus had gained an extra six hundred thousand years to cultivate.
Back then, Jiugong, Taiyuan, and Saint Luo ranked dead last among the Twelve Wondrous, far inferior to him in strength. But after six hundred thousand years of cultivation, they were completely transformed.
Mister Dongshi knew full well that his cultivation and strength were nowhere near those of Jiugong and Taiyuan now. That was why, when he saw Xu Ying slay Dao Lord Luofu—ranked fourth among them—he hadn't dared to fight at all and had fled as fast as he could.
Now, hearing Liu Guanyi say he had slain Dao Lord Jiugong shattered what little nerve Mister Dongshi had left to fight him.
Liu Guanyi did not strike, merely watching Xu Ying and Yaoluo's confrontation in silence.
Even so, Mister Dongshi did not dare slip away.
Though the Six Supremes and Twelve Wondrous had all been leaders of the rebel army in those days, not all of them possessed unyielding courage and strength of will.
Suddenly, the Zhuxian broken sword shrank rapidly, turning into a great sword just over a zhang in length. Still lacking a hilt, with a fractured blade, it hovered before Xu Ying, nudging him to take it up.
"No," Xu Ying huffed.
The Zhuxian broken sword leaned closer against him. Xu Ying shook his head. "Brother Sword, I want to fight this one myself."
The Zhuxian broken sword rubbed against him again. Xu Ying said helplessly, "Fine, fine. Just this once, never again."
The Zhuxian broken sword trembled with excitement, letting out a crisp, clear chime.
Xu Ying mobilized his seven great cave abysses. Boundless and vast, his magic power surged like a roaring tide into the Zhuxian broken sword, raising it into motion.
The broken sword’s might skyrocketed. Just as Xu Ying prepared to wield it, the sword's immense, fathomless sword intent and killing aura crashed forward, flooding his sea of consciousness.
*Not again!*
Xu Ying simply relaxed and let it take over his body, thinking to himself, *It was like this in the past too. It claims to help me, but won't let me swing it—instead, it swings me around!*
He could have maintained control over his physical body, but doing so certainly wouldn't be as nimble or effective as letting the Zhuxian broken sword control it. After all, Xu Ying's sword path came from the Zhuxian broken sword in the first place; when it came to applying that sword path, he couldn't match the sword itself.
Right now he was merely the sword-bearer, while the one actually wielding the blade to clash with Yaoluo was the Zhuxian broken sword.
*I suppose I'm just here to provide the fuel,* Xu Ying mused.
The thought had barely crossed his mind when an ultimate sword intent erupted. As he swung the blade, the surrounding sky and sea vanished into nothingness in an instant. A terrifyingly devastating sword intent surged straight toward Yaoluo!
Even Xu Ying was startled by how terrifying this sword intent was.
Were it left to him, he could never have unleashed an apocalyptic sword path divine power of this scale!
What he had mastered was only what he had deduced from the broken sword, not the true divine power conceived by the sword's original master.
*Who on earth was the master of the Zhuxian Sword? And whose dwelling was Biyou Palace?*
Sudden curiosity welled up in Xu Ying's heart. For a supreme treasure suspended between heaven and earth like this, no one had ever dared covet it, simply letting it hang there in solitude.
Stranger still, neither the Last Lord of Ziwei nor Daoist Taiqing had ever mentioned the master of the Zhuxian Sword, as if that person had never existed at all.
His name was nowhere to be found in history books or legends.
Even with Emperor Qingxuan, deliberate attempts had been made to erase him, yet many records still remained.
Everything concerning the master of the Zhuxian Sword, by contrast, had been wiped completely clean.
*The master of the Zhuxian Sword must have been an incredible figure, someone whose cultivation and strength reached an unimaginable stage. But I might be able to deduce his strength from the full might of the Zhuxian Sword!* Xu Ying thought.
Across from him, Yaoluo Supreme felt an almost overwhelming sword path pressing down on him. He let out a furious roar, driving his Shaohao cave abyss to push his cultivation and strength to the absolute limit!
Under his command, the Great Luo Futian Sword shone even more brilliantly, blazing with light. His murderous aura grew increasingly rampant and terrifying, radiating a resolve to annihilate everything!
Yet he knew that in terms of the sword path, he had already lost.
His swordsmanship and sword path were supreme under heaven, unmatched by anyone—not even the earlier Xu Ying. When Xu Ying integrated his sword path into martial arts and used his fingers as a sword, the Zhuxian Finger was indeed domineering, but when clashing against his Futian Sword, it still fell short.
Clearly, Xu Ying was too deeply steeped in martial arts and lacked sufficient depth in the sword path, which had allowed Yaoluo to break his Zhuxian Finger.
Yet when Xu Ying raised the Zhuxian Sword to attack, Yaoluo felt the gap.
Six hundred thousand years! He had been suppressed by the Holy Venerable for six hundred thousand years. The Holy Venerable could suppress his cultivation, his Primordial Spirit, and his Dao scenery, but he could never suppress his will or imprison his relentless pursuit of the sword path.
During all those years of imprisonment in the desolate border desert of the Immortal Realm, his mind had never stopped turning, constantly practicing every manner of martial technique and sword art.
His will was so unyielding that, despite his confinement, six hundred thousand years of relentless mental tempering had brought his sword path to the pinnacle of perfection.
The wild sandstorms whipping across the desert had caused countless immortals to lose their way, and the towering sand tornadoes had claimed who knew how many lives.
All of those had been manifestations of his consciousness rehearsing his sword path.
Though unable to mobilize a shred of magic power, his sword path concepts alone had been enough to conjure phenomena across the desert, turning the Immortal Realm's border desert into a restricted zone whose mere name made people blanch.
He had cultivated with such agonizing diligence, yet he was still inferior to Xu Ying!
"Surpassed by a junior? Impossible!"
His hair bristled with rage as the Futian Sword in his hand unleashed power like never before, churning with murderous intent far greater than before!
*Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!*
The Futian Sword clashed with the Zhuxian Sword in a rapid flurry of crisp chimes. The Zhuxian Sword usually paid no heed to technique, cleaving through anything with brute force. It had done so against the Imperial Monarch's Purple Nether Saber, and against the Dao tree forest of the Taishang Cave Abyss.
This time, however, the broken sword seemed to have changed its temper. Instead of bludgeoning forward, it executed precise forms, matching Yaoluo Supreme blow for blow in a duel of sword paths and techniques!
To onlookers, it appeared as though Xu Ying was dancing with the sword, executing peerless sword path divine powers to crush and dismantle every single move Yaoluo made.
Even Yaoluo Supreme thought the same.
Only Xu Ying knew that he was merely a power source.
Fortunately, the Zhuxian broken sword did not push things too far. The various sword path divine powers it unfurled were vividly imprinted into his sea of consciousness, giving Xu Ying something to pass the time with.
Xu Ying focused his attention, watching the Zhuxian broken sword execute each move while cross-referencing them against the techniques in his mind. Comparing the two, he found the experience wonderfully enlightening.
*Brother Sword really does have character,* he thought.
A moment later, every single technique of the Futian Sword was cleanly shattered. Yaoluo vaulted backward, raising a hand to catch his flying blade. His body trembled from the impact. He instantly switched hands and raised the sword once more, driving the Futian Sword to manifest even more sword path divine powers!
His Futian Sword shifted from one into ten thousand, then snapped back from ten thousand into one. At times its momentum was like a vicious, primordial dragon lunging through the ages; at other times, it was like majestic mountain ranges crashing down from the heavens!
Yet no matter how it shifted, "Xu Ying" dismantled every move cleanly with the broken sword!
Roaring again and again, Yaoluo unleashed his ultimate, bottom-of-the-chest sword path divine power known as the Ten Destructions of Luotian: Destructive Army, Destructive Kill, Destructive Formation, Destructive Dao, Destructive Spirit, and so on—ten stances in total.
Yet as he unleashed each stance, it was broken in kind, and a sword thrust landed on his body.
Ten stances passed; ten stances were shattered, and ten bloody holes were pierced through Yaoluo from front to back!
In the distance, Daoist Yuji, Wei Xu, and the others watched in breathless awe. The sword path divine powers Xu Ying displayed were so dazzling that even they were left utterly mesmerized, lost in admiration.
Zhu Chanchan murmured, "Ah Ying's sword path... is it really this incredible...?"
Even Wei Xu felt deep admiration welling up within him. "Dao Ancestor Xu's accomplishments in the sword path have likely surpassed the Supreme realm and ascended to the legendary Indestructible realm, haven't they?"
A sword stroke sheared off Yaoluo Supreme's hair, leaving his scalp drenched in blood. He saw Xu Ying thrust again and again with the sword. He fought desperately to parry, but could not hold him off.
Xu Ying was using his Ten Destructions of Luotian—or more accurately, the subsequent divine powers that followed them, stances that Yaoluo himself had never managed to deduce.
Yaoluo had believed that evolving his sword path to the Ten Destructions of Luotian was the absolute limit, that no divine power could be more perfect or powerful.
Yet Xu Ying had not only broken his Ten Destructions of Luotian, but was now executing the continuation of those very stances right before his eyes!
One move, two moves, three moves, four moves...
Building upon the Ten Destructions of Luotian, Xu Ying executed fourteen follow-up stances, piercing fourteen more bloody holes through Yaoluo. Every single one of Xu Ying's strikes could have taken his life, yet none of them did.
Even so, those fourteen sword strikes shattered Yaoluo's will to pieces.
That once-unrivaled sword intent collapsed in an instant, drowned in a torrential flood of grief.
"My sword path... has been defeated..."
With a brittle crash, the Great Luo Futian Sword in Yaoluo Supreme's hand shattered. As if breaking alongside his Dao heart, this Supreme treasure disintegrated into specks of starlight and fell into the sea.
The Zhuxian broken sword grew wildly excited and suddenly raised another strike. Beneath this single stroke lay the terrifying momentum to annihilate the entire Earth Immortal Realm—a power capable of obliterating the realm, returning all things to primordial chaos, and restarting heaven and earth to reenact the ancient wilderness!
The moment the sword rose, the sky and sea evaporated, the starry sky crumbled, and boundless space and time seemed about to collapse and perish beneath its edge!
Not only was Yaoluo Supreme scared out of his wits, but even Daoist Yuji, Wei Xu, Dongshi, and Liu Guanyi in the distance were terrified out of their minds. Even Xu Ying, the vessel through which it was channeled, was frightened half to death.
Suddenly, the apocalyptic strike drew back its power, and the terrifying vision of doom vanished instantly.
The Heavenly Sea had floated tens of thousands of zhang into the air; now the waters crashed back down, and the starry sky, having been dragged far closer, remained in utter disarray.
Yaoluo Supreme’s eyes were vacant and hollow. Had Xu Ying unleashed that world-ending strike from the start, he would have been reduced to ashes long ago.
Having reeled in its sword momentum, the Zhuxian broken sword hovered smugly before Yaoluo Supreme and lightly tapped his bare scalp a few times, as if silently giving him a lesson.
Yaoluo Supreme buried his face in his hands and wept aloud. He turned and ran off, laughing wildly. "Defeated! I'm completely defeated! Thoroughly crushed!"
He laughed at the top of his lungs, his laughter sounding like wails of agonizing despair.
Liu Guanyi's eyes flickered, and he flew off in pursuit of Yaoluo Supreme.
Yaoluo Supreme had gone completely mad. Seeing Liu Guanyi pursuing him, he neither dodged nor hid, no longer even able to recognize him.
*A Supreme, driven mad with terror by Xu Ying?*
Liu Guanyi was horrified, murmuring under his breath, "Just how terrifying must it be to face Xu Ying's sword path divine powers head-on? I wonder if the Far Ancestor fragment I obtained can still be exchanged for his resurrection method?"
Having disciplined its "little brother," the Zhuxian broken sword prepared to fly away and return to the Ancestral Court wilderness. Xu Ying hastily called out, "Lord... Lord Sword, please wait!"
The Zhuxian broken sword paused. Xu Ying offered an obsequious smile and said carefully, "Lord Sword, in just over a month, it will be time for my duel against Mingzun at the Heavenly Abyss. Would Lord Sword happen to be free then?"
The Zhuxian broken sword circled him twice, as if pondering his intentions. Then it suddenly rested against Xu Ying's throat and slowly made a throat-slitting motion.
Xu Ying didn't dare move, smiling awkwardly. "I intend to kill him with my own hands; I won't need your help. I only wish to ask Lord Sword to hold the line for me, so that no one interferes in my duel with him."
The Zhuxian broken sword bobbed up and down as if nodding, then tore through the void and vanished.
Xu Ying breathed a sigh of relief, a ruthless glint entering his eyes. *Next time, if anyone dares meddle in my fight with Mingzun, my Brother Sword... Lord Sword will lop off their head!*
Chapter 661