The cultivators of the Palace of Grand Beginning gathered in a circle, gazing at the baby inside the array. Everyone had only ever heard of an innate sword body and had never seen one in person, so all were filled with curiosity.
In the center of the array, the tiny infant sat on the ground, tilting her head up at the blue sky and white clouds overhead as she began solemnly contemplating life. In her eyes, she was sitting upon a grassy mountain clearing, surrounded by forests, running streams, and towering peaks beneath ten thousand li of clear sky. The scenery was picturesque, yet for some reason she constantly sensed faint threads of malice around her, making her afraid to move even an inch.
"This is Xu Wenwu's daughter?"
"Well, the very first word out of her mouth after being born was calling him Daddy."
"You really can't judge a book by its cover. Who knew that punk had such wild tastes!"
"What's there not to see? Haven't you read the materials he wrote? Utterly shameless, absolutely scandalous!"
"Is an innate sword body really that powerful?"
"It's something passed down from ancient times, so it should be... quite formidable, right?"
Among them, Perfected Chuhe was the eldest, so he spoke up: "The congenital sword body is one of several Dao bodies passed down from antiquity. It can be called a natural immortal foundation, making sword cultivation yield twice the results with half the effort. This old Daoist observes something sealed within her sea of consciousness; likely as not, she was born carrying an inheritance."
The cultivators were astonished. A natural immortal foundation was staggering enough, but possessing an innate inheritance as well? How was anyone else supposed to make a living?
Sun Yu said, "Her constitution differs from ordinary mortals, and she grows more than a dozen times faster than normal. Perhaps we cannot guide her cultivation using common sense."
Yu Zhizhuo said, "What comes down from antiquity isn't necessarily superior to what we have today. Over the past few centuries, our Palace of Grand Beginning has continuously brought forth the new from the old, giving rise to over a hundred unprecedented Dao Foundations... well, the Great Bright Demon-Subduing Sword doesn't count...
"Among these new Dao Foundations, several immortal foundations would have run rampant even in ancient times. Junior Brother Zhang should speak on this; he has firsthand experience."
Zhang Sheng said, "I haven't encountered an innate sword body, but when I traveled down the mountain for trials back then, I did cross paths with an ancient Dao body. It truly lived up to its reputation; killing him took quite a bit of effort."
"Let's give her a name!" Feng Tingyu suggested.
"Xu Shiba!" Wei Yuan blurted out.
Everyone fell silent. Astonishingly, not a single person objected, and it was adopted just like that.
What was going on? Such an anomaly sent a chill down Wei Yuan's spine.
Sun Yu patted his shoulder and sighed. "An innate sword body, rapid growth, an innate inheritance... Lord Domain Lord, you had better cultivate diligently. When she grows up and learns you were the one who gave her that name, she'll probably turn on her master and wipe out her ancestors."
"Wait, I just said it off the top of my head! Let's think of another..."
Nobody paid Wei Yuan any heed, moving straight to the next topic.
"How are the two surviving boys doing?"
Sun Yu replied, "Their aptitudes are exceptionally good. In the future, they might attain immortal foundations as well."
Perfected Chuhe stroked his beard and said, "Though I know not what secret method was used, it clearly concentrated the vitality and karmic luck of a thousand infants onto the final three, and then determined the strongest among them. The other two were merely fuel for her ascension. Those youths already possessed one-in-ten-thousand talent, and now their offspring were chosen one in a thousand. Those two boys are geniuses found only once in ten million!"
After the commotion subsided, the cultivators dispersed to attend to their tasks.
In truth, one in ten million might yield an immortal foundation, but it could never produce a congenital Dao body—much less one congenital Dao body and two immortal foundations. On one hand, this was because the tens of thousands of Xu family youths all possessed the bloodline of an Immortal Monarch; on the other, Wei Yuan suspected it was somewhat related to Xu Wenwu as well. Otherwise, that little girl with the innate sword body wouldn't have called him Daddy with her very first word. When she looked at Wei Yuan, her face had been full of disdain.
Still, the girl was a bully who feared the strong; the moment Wei Yuan and Zhang Sheng brandished their immortal swords, she cowered instantly, meekly letting herself be held and patted.
***
The following evening, Xu Wenwu suddenly came looking for Wei Yuan. His first words upon meeting were: "I broke through!"
Wei Yuan examined him closely and found that Xu Wenwu's bones had undergone a complete transformation. They were now dark azure with the luster of jade, subtly altering his entire bearing. Though he remained a fat man, he was now an ethereal fat man.
Xu Wenwu had actually perfected Bone Tempering, opened his sea of consciousness, and stepped into Spirit Refinement.
Upon checking, even without Dao stones or testing tools on hand, Wei Yuan could see with the naked eye that Xu Wenwu's bone structure and aptitude had improved tremendously, practically amounting to a rebirth. It seemed this was largely thanks to the azure lotus plucked by the baby girl; who would have thought that lotus would possess such a remarkable effect?
Treasures capable of improving one's innate aptitude were the most precious in the world. No one could have foreseen that the azure lotus born alongside the infant was such an elusive, priceless treasure.
Wei Yuan said, "It seems you've benefited quite a bit from your daughter. Oh, right, since your aptitude has changed, it's the perfect opportunity to switch cultivation methods. From now on, cultivate this."
Wei Yuan handed over the Jade Toad Gazing at the Moon Chart. Xu Wenwu received it as though it were the supreme treasure of the world and departed overjoyed, having entirely forgotten to ask what his daughter had been named.
After seeing Xu Wenwu off, Wei Yuan reviewed the entire matter from beginning to end, carefully examining every detail.
From start to finish, the whole affair reeked of bizarreness. Such an immense underground undertaking, tens of thousands of surviving boys and girls... even if their souls had been bound so that they could not leave and had to be abandoned, thoroughly destroying that subterranean space would have been effortless for an Immortal Monarch, requiring nothing more than a single blow. Why leave it intact?
When the grotto-heaven fragment descended, its location had not been difficult to find—even Wei Yuan could locate it, so the Xu family, having occupied the Shattered Lands for so long, naturally could have found it as well.
Though Xu Shiqi and Xinyi were formidable, they were not invincible. So long as a powerful dharma idol entered the grotto-heaven holding a treasure imbued with a strike from an Immortal Monarch, they could have been wiped out.
Furthermore, when Wei Yuan first entered, Xu Shiqi had genuinely wanted to kill him. Had Wei Yuan not possessed Maiden Yin-Yang, he likely would have perished. Though Xu Shiqi later passed down his sword arts, Wei Yuan was certain that earlier on, Xu Shiqi had truly intended to take his life.
There had to be some contingency left behind on those Xu family youths; he just did not know what it was or when it would erupt.
The more Wei Yuan thought about it, the more uneasy he grew. He retrieved a tortoise shell and pierced it with the Crimson Night Immortal-Slaying Sword. With a crisp snap, the shell shattered into pieces. In a daze, Wei Yuan seemed to see fresh blood oozing from the fractured edges of the tortoise shell!
No manual recorded such an omen, but his intuition told him it boded ill.
Wei Yuan stepped out of the room and looked toward the sky. Dusk was falling, and a swath of red clouds burned like fire across the heavens; the setting sun was massive and crimson. On the opposite side, the full moon had already risen, the sun and moon competing for brilliance.
***
Beyond the heavens.
In an unknown place, all manner of bizarre and inexplicable phenomena played out ceaselessly.
Indescribable murmurs echoed through the void, muttering something incomprehensible, yet carrying a power capable of driving minds mad. Wherever the whispered murmurs lingered a little longer, the earth cracked open, mountain peaks collapsed, and vast lakes dried up without reason.
Within this void, countless worlds continually emerged and intersected, everything warped beyond recognition. A giant eagle with ten talons swooped down from the air, tearing a giant serpent on the ground into several pieces, only for a headless giant swinging a massive axe to immediately sever the eagle's wings.
A mountain peak suddenly materialized in midair, flattening everything beneath into a thin sheet. Then the rocks rolled backward, coalescing into a stone behemoth that lumbered into the sky.
Such grotesque spectacles abounded—immortals, fiends, and monsters locked in chaotic combat—while rifts in the void appeared constantly like fluttering black silk ribbons; whatever they brushed against vanished into nothingness.
Thousands upon thousands of worlds were born and destroyed, and countless beings fought to the death.
At opposite ends of this realm sat two towering figures, colossal beyond description; a mountain range ten thousand zhang tall was smaller than a single one of their fingers. They sat facing each other, and at every moment countless worlds were created, annihilating one another.
Everything tangible and intangible was distorted and shifting, ready to be obliterated at any moment. Some had existed for a long time, like the headless giant, while others survived for only an instant, like the torn serpent.
From within the void, all manner of inscrutable entities were born. Intangible and formless, yet perilous in the extreme, they had even forced the two immortals to shift positions several times.
This was a battle of immortals, a showdown between myriad races, a clash of countless worlds.
One immortal possessed an ancient countenance, enveloped in an unmistakable aura of decay and ruin. The worlds he conjured were mostly dead lands infested with plague or consumed by thunder and fire. The creatures birthed within these worlds were vicious, malicious, twisted, and grotesque.
The other immortal was enveloped in pure qi, radiant red suns rising continuously around him as countless ancient races, long extinct, charged out from nothingness to battle their foes.
Though the worlds under his domain lagged far behind in number, each brimmed with vitality, and the axe-wielding headless giant had hacked through who knew how many dead lands and realms.
The younger immortal spoke: "Brother Wangu, the outcome is decided. Why persist?"
His voice shook heaven and earth; dozens of dead realms shattered completely into nothingness at that single sentence.
The old man seemed half-asleep, only opening his murky eyes after a slight delay, and said sluggishly, "This body is already battered and broken; what meaning is there in clinging to life for a few more years? Why not trade it for something... say, the fall of Brother Pei!"
With that final sentence, his voice abruptly turned earth-shattering!
The old man's brow split open, and an indescribable sword light traversed an unknowable distance, stretching from one end of the starry firmament to the other, slashing straight toward the opposite immortal!
As the sword fell, most of the suns around the immortal were extinguished in an instant, and half his worlds turned to ash and dust.
He raised an eyebrow and sighed. "Why go this far? If we fight to the death, it will only benefit the foreign races."
Countless cracks appeared across the old man's immortal body, his expression twisting into ferocity. "After I am dead, what care I if the deluge drowns the world!"
Another sword light erupted across the void, instantly wiping out all the suns. The headless giant resisted desperately, but still dissolved amidst the torrent of sword light.
The younger immortal's figure grew somewhat fainter, and immediately several grotesque entities born of nothingness slithered toward him.
The old man's body shattered into pieces, turning into a pile of stones.
Yet all the stones abruptly ignited, turning into pillars of flame capable of incinerating the world. From the blazing inferno stepped a youth holding a greatsword, his eyes bright as stars, with a massive crystal embedded in his brow.
The youth laughed aloud: "Did you not expect this? Through subterfuge and deception, I have been reborn from the flames—my life extension is complete!"
Another sword light extinguished all remaining worlds, leaving the space between the two immortals completely empty. The younger immortal's form had mostly dispersed.
Shouldering his greatsword, the youth roared, his voice shaking the cosmos: "Pei Tinghai! You blocked my path to the Dao—you have courted death! Fall here today!"
As the greatsword reached its highest point, it suddenly halted. The sword intent gathered within it swelled boundlessly, drawing even those inscrutable, grotesque entities toward the blade, incorporating them into its intent!
In that instant, above, below, left, right—the boundless cosmos itself revolved around this sword as its pivot!
Immortal Monarch Tinghai remained fearless as countless suns rose around him once more. He said, "Even if I fall, someone from the Palace of Grand Beginning will step onto the immortal path; the lineage will carry on unbroken generation after generation! But you, casting aside the grand cause of humanity for selfish gain—are you even worthy of being called an immortal? Do you not fear the curses of ten thousand generations, bringing shame upon your descendants?"
The youth laughed heartily. "History is written by the living!"
"Heaven and earth bear witness!"
"That is a matter for later, but your immortal path ends today! Behold my sword: The Three Armies Have Grown Old!" The youth Xu Wangu's momentum peaked, and he slashed down with the sword!
Right as the greatsword was poised to strike, every memory, true meaning, and heritage of this sword stance began to vanish piece by piece, as though an invisible hand had wiped it clean from the young sword immortal's primordial spirit!
A crack suddenly appeared upon the crystal on his forehead, and rust crept over the greatsword in his hands. The gathered momentum backfired, grievously injuring him in an instant!
Xu Wangu was both shocked and enraged, but no matter how he tried, this sword stance had vanished into thin air, as if it had never existed at all. The half-volume of the Sword Scripture of Ten Thousand Generations and Autumns had originally contained four sword stances; now, only three remained.
Chapter 335