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Ziwei Palace. The Sword Path Ancient Hall. A faint glimmer suddenly stirred across the teleportation array, which had lain dormant for a century. Light flickered. Before long, a figure materialized out of thin air atop the array. Stumbling, he grabbed hold of a stone pillar along the edge of the platform to steady himself. His face pale, Qin Sang shook his head. As he took in the familiar scenery around him, a look of profound emotion washed over his features. The ancient hall. The altar. The spiritual array. After more than a century, he had finally returned. This time, having undergone the teleportation while fully conscious, he had felt the entire process far more vividly. Even with his present cultivation, a bout of dizziness had overwhelmed him, and for an instant he had felt as though his body were about to be torn apart. The spatial impact and compressive force he had endured during this passage were simply incomparable to what he had experienced with the ancient teleportation array back at the Shangyuan Pure Peace Palace. Silently channeling his cultivation technique, he gradually recovered. His breath steadied. Qin Sang looked down and realized that the pillar he was leaning against was the very one Senior Qingzhu had left his mark upon all those years ago. Seeing the two incomplete Killing Talismans carved into the stone, Qin Sang fell into a daze. Back then, Senior Qingzhu had still lived, yet through a twist of fate, the two had missed each other. When they finally met, parting forever followed all too soon. Qin Sang gently caressed the Qianjun Ring on his finger. Senior Qingzhu's remains now rested inside it. In Nether Valley, upon discovering that Senior Qingzhu had passed away beneath the peach tree, Qin Sang had followed his final wishes, condensing an ice coffin to bring the senior's body back so that he might lay him to rest in the place described in his death poem. Namely, Senior Qingzhu's homeland. That place was not situated within any cultivation sect. Like Shaohua Mountain, it lay on the edge of the Cloud Cang Great Marsh. After encoffining the remains, Qin Sang had carefully laid down protective restrictions within Nether Valley to safeguard the peach tree from the corrosion of Nether Qi. He wished only that the peach blossoms would never wither! There was also the death poem Senior Qingzhu had carved into the sheer cliff—a supreme sword scripture in its own right, embodying a lifetime of insights into both the sword dao and the killing dao. To someone like Qin Sang, who cultivated the very same technique, it was nothing short of an invaluable treasure. Filled with gratitude, Qin Sang had bowed respectfully to Qingzhu, committed the sword scripture to memory, rubbed it onto a jade slip, and retrieved the Killing Sword fragment, leaving the carvings on the cliff entirely undisturbed. That was the final trace Senior Qingzhu had left in this world. Yet he would take up the senior's unfulfilled wish and continue onward. At this thought, Qin Sang's mind stirred, and the Killing Sword fragment materialized in his palm. Because a complete character for "kill" was inscribed upon it, Qin Sang referred to it as the Killing Sword. Looking down at the character, his eyes narrowed slightly. Though the precious sword was broken, a strange, intangible aura still emanated from the word, shaking his composure and disturbing his very spirit. When whole, the Killing Sword must have been a supreme treasure beyond the imagination of any contemporary cultivator! The moment Qin Sang had picked up the fragment, the grey qi that was the sword spirit's manifestation had shot straight into it with a soft whoosh. Recalling what Senior Qingzhu had said, Qin Sang had not stopped it. Of course, he had not forgotten the senior's warning, either. Before the sword spirit awakened, it was impossible to tell whether it was benign or malevolent, so he needed to remain vigilant against it turning on its master. Yet to his dismay, as soon as the sword spirit entered the fragment, Qin Sang came to regret it. Back in the Core Formation stage, Senior Qingzhu had barely been able to wield the fragment, yet he had managed to severely wound Leng Yuntian even after being discovered by Leng Qian—a feat entirely credited to this treasure. Yet after the sword spirit merged with it, Qin Sang tried to activate the fragment only to find an unexpected sluggishness hindering its movement. It was definitely linked to the slumbering sword spirit. Whether the sword spirit was subconsciously resisting or drawing upon the sword's power to nourish itself remained unclear. Forcing the sword spirit back out would be difficult now. After weighing the pros and cons, Qin Sang chose to leave it be; after all, he was not lacking in trump cards at the moment. Merged into the fragment, the sword spirit would recover far faster than it would inside his body. The sooner it awakened, the sooner it could help him search for the remaining fragments and the rest of the cultivation method. For now, the Killing Sword fragment was stored in his qi sea to be nurtured. Qin Sang was deeply curious about the sword's origins. The Killing Sword had shattered, and the Origin Soul Sword Nurturing Chapter had likewise been torn apart, with fragments and incomplete scriptures hidden in the same places. Any cultivator who achieved success in the technique could wield the sword fragment, demonstrating how closely entwined they truly were. When he finally obtained the complete method and restored the divine might of the Killing Sword, what kind of spectacle would that be? "Ziwei Palace, the Hall of Seven Kills..." Both secret realms flashed across Qin Sang's mind. He suspected that if the Hall of Seven Kills had once been a peerless immortal sect of antiquity, the Origin Soul Sword Nurturing Chapter was very likely that sect's core legacy technique. The Heaven Tower, Yitian Peak, and the remnant sword intent he had encountered at the end were all clear proof of this. Ziwei Palace was also intricately linked to them. Both the first part of the cultivation method and the sword spirit had been discovered within Ziwei Palace. Furthermore, Qin Sang suspected that these two secret realms were not the whole story. Other fragments had likely fallen into different cultivation realms. If those worlds were surrounded by endless storm belts, tracking them down one by one would prove immensely difficult. The teleportation arrays of the two places were connected. Once he reached the Nascent Soul stage, he would certainly explore them thoroughly in search of clues. What drew Qin Sang's attention most was undoubtedly the silhouette of the immortal palace seen within the immortal restriction of the Hall of Seven Kills. Unlike the chaotic, lifeless ruins of the Hall of Seven Kills, that immortal palace had appeared remarkably intact, shrouded in ethereal immortal mist that stirred the soul. Senior Qingzhu had merely searched along the white jade corridor and discovered a Lesser Teleportation Talisman, a supreme divine talisman thought to be extinct in the present world. One could only imagine what treasures lay hidden inside those immortal palaces! He was the only living cultivator who knew how to enter the immortal restriction. However, the white jade corridor did not connect directly to the palace itself, so finding a way inside would still require considerable effort. After laying Qingzhu's remains in the coffin, Qin Sang had retraced his steps to the immortal restriction. Following the path Senior Qingzhu had concealed along the white jade corridor, he had used the talisman seal to open the way and locate the ancient teleportation array inside. He had originally intended to search for another route within the restriction, but after the successive battles in the Trial Realm and on Yitian Peak, time had run short. The immortal restriction had begun to fluctuate. Before long, both the Hall of Seven Kills and Ziwei Palace would close. Leaving Ziwei Palace did not require the Lesser Beichen Astral Array. When Ziwei Palace shut, the outer immortal array would momentarily stall, briefly calming the vortex—the sole opportunity for cultivators to depart. Before leaving, he still had a few matters to attend to. "How are you holding up?" Qin Sang sent a voice transmission to Bai. He adjusted his condition. Not knowing how the situation in the Xiaohan Realm had developed, he needed to proceed with utmost caution. If the ancient demon summoned by the Sin Abyss possessed strength as terrifying as the Demon Sovereign imprisoned beneath Yitian Peak, the Xiaohan Realm and the Celestial Alliance had likely already suffered devastating slaughter. In that case, his only option after obtaining the Nine Illusions Heavenly Orchid would be to go into hiding, cultivate, and flee back to the Canglang Ocean once Ziwei Palace opened next. Then again, with top experts of both the human and witch races falling one after another, the Canglang Ocean was unlikely to remain peaceful either. Qin Sang retrieved the token given to him by the successor of the Four Sages Palace, his thoughts drifting. Fairy Nangui had once mentioned that a Soul Formation stage cultivator was counted among the Four Sages. Since the Four Sages Palace possessed a Soul Formation lineage, forging ties with them was certainly no bad thing. Should the opportunity arise in the future, he would definitely pay them a visit. It would likely help resolve many of his questions.