"The Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals truly eats people alive without even spitting out the bones!" The thought of his hard-earned savings of over seventy thousand contribution points vanishing into thin air turned Kou Hong's eyes bloodshot, stabbing his heart with agonizing pain.
"How could we have been so bewitched back then as to choose to join the Alliance?" Dao Xuanzi, usually the calmer of the two, could no longer maintain his composure either.
"Let's go defect to the Five Elders Association! We'll make the Alliance pay for this, no matter what!"
Having reached a consensus, the two slipped out of the Alliance Heavenly City and quietly made their way toward the territory of the Five Elders Association.
Yet they had forgotten one crucial fact.
While the Alliance publicly claimed that it placed no restrictions on the personal freedom of its members—and that regretting one's decision to join, withdrawing, and subsequently going over to the Five Elders Association was not prohibited—everything acquired within the Alliance had to be returned.
Thus, the moment the two showed signs of defection, a Nascent Soul cultivator from the Protector Hall set out in pursuit.
Sensing the formidable aura closing in behind them, Kou Hong and Dao Xuanzi's expressions shifted slightly.
Even though they accelerated to their utmost, the chasm between cultivation realms was not something speed alone could bridge. Before long, their pursuer intercepted them.
"Whomever you intend to defect to, I do not care. But the two Golden Core cultivation methods you redeemed must be reclaimed.
"One is the Thousand Dragons Transformation, and the other is the Mind Repeating Sword Formula," the Nascent Soul protector stated impassively.
Hearing this, Kou Hong nearly spat blood. Trembling all over, he pointed a finger and cursed furiously, "What kind of bloody logic is that?! Our contribution points vanish for no reason, and nobody gives a damn! Even putting that aside, you now want to take back the methods we earned with our own blood and sweat?!"
The Nascent Soul protector sneered. "All Alliance methods belong to the Alliance. What you redeemed was merely the right to use them. Now that you openly intend to defect to the Five Elders Association, do you expect us to let you supply the enemy? Spreading mercy enough to spare your worthless lives is already the Alliance's benevolence!"
Kou Hong let out a roar of fury. Unable to vent the suffocating rancor pent up in his chest, he coughed up a mouthful of blood.
"Wrath of the Flame Dragon!"
A crimson horned dragon materialized in the sky in an instant, raging with blazing fire and unbearable heat as it coiled around the Nascent Soul protector!
Brothers united in purpose, the moment Kou Hong struck without hesitation, Dao Xuanzi reacted just as decisively.
With a single thought, over thirty transparent, decaying sword phantasms—seemingly drawn from different eras—abruptly manifested in the firmament.
The sword shadows shrieked through the air, their passage carrying an aura of aged decay and freezing stillness that gripped the surrounding space.
The Nascent Soul protector raised an eyebrow, somewhat surprised that the pair could muster such formidable might.
*A pity,* he thought to himself. *The Alliance's rules cannot be breached.*
Facing the combined assault of Kou Hong and Dao Xuanzi, the Nascent Soul protector merely let out a cold laugh.
In the sky above, the projection of a grotto-heaven resembling a black sun suddenly materialized.
The flames cloaking the horned fire dragon were instantly extinguished. The thirty-odd sword shadows could no longer maintain their stability. Rendered entirely uncontrollable, every last one was drawn upward, hurtling toward the black ring of the grotto-heaven.
They sank into the grotto-heaven without producing the slightest ripple.
The disparity between the Golden Core realm and the Nascent Soul realm was simply too vast. Though Kou Hong and his sworn brother possessed a measure of fortune, they were ultimately just ordinary members of the mortal multitude, lacking any miraculous encounters capable of bridging such a gulf.
"Since you refuse to see reason, do not blame Chu here for showing no mercy."
The black ring of the grotto-heaven bore down from above, poised to completely crush and suppress the two brothers.
Under the crushing weight of Nascent Soul might, both of them were locked in place, unable to move a muscle. They could only watch helplessly as death loomed before their eyes.
Right then, a glint of resolute finality flashed through Dao Xuanzi's eyes.
"Dao Xuan!"
A crisp, cold shout rang out. A rust-covered longsword hovered before Dao Xuanzi, its point aimed straight at the Alliance's Nascent Soul protector.
A look of surprise flickered across the protector's eyes.
In an instant, countless motes of light burst forth from Dao Xuanzi's body. Resembling stars scattered across the night sky, they flickered for a fleeting moment before surging together into the Dao Xuan Sword.
The sparkling starlight repaired the decaying blade.
At this moment, Dao Xuanzi and the Dao Xuan Sword merged into one!
The peerless divine weapon passed down from ancient times finally revealed its true form.
"Run!" Dao Xuanzi's voice echoed in Kou Hong's ears.
Immediately after, Kou Hong witnessed a dazzling blade of sword light that seemed to cleave the heavens and earth asunder.
Amidst an immense roar, the black ring of the grotto-heaven shimmered with a brilliant white light and shattered inch by inch.
Yet the Dao Xuan Sword did not lose its momentum.
Seizing the final moments of its existence, it continued streaking toward the Alliance Heavenly City.
"Dao Xuanzi!"
With the Nascent Soul grotto-heaven shattered, Kou Hong regained his ability to move. Tears streamed down his face, and his heart was gripped by agonizing grief. He knew Dao Xuanzi had sacrificed his own life to save him.
With the Nascent Soul protector dead, the Alliance would inevitably dispatch even more formidable pursuers.
Knowing this place was perilous, Kou Hong wiped away his tears and sped toward the territory of the Five Elders Association at top speed.
"The Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals..." Kou Hong ground his teeth in silent hatred.
*Just you wait!*
*I will become stronger! I will have my revenge!*
The flames of vengeance burned furiously in Kou Hong's eyes. As the border drew near...
A ray of light suddenly swept in from the horizon, piercing straight through Kou Hong's body.
"..."
Kou Hong opened his mouth to say something, but not a single sound could escape. His head flew into the air, blood erupting like a fountain.
Only then did the light reveal its true form: a longsword like flowing water.
Decapitated in a single stroke!
A young cultivator clad in the black robes of the Protector Hall slowly materialized.
"Failing to subdue a mere pair of Golden Cores—what useless trash. He deserved to die!" the young cultivator spat in disgust, not sparing another glance at Kou Hong's corpse.
"Strange. Where did that longsword go? And that unexplainable disappearance of contribution points... I suppose this truly is a plot by the Five Elders Association." Murmuring to himself, the young cultivator vanished.
A long time later, Kou Hong's severed head, which had rolled onto the ground with eyes wide in unreconciled death, scattered into the wind like grains of sand.
Only a dragon-shaped twig nestled between his brows remained intact.
Li Fan's figure quietly appeared.
With a beckoning wave of his hand, the dragon-shaped twig flew into his grasp.
Faintly, endless roars of bitter indignation could be heard echoing from within the branch.
Li Fan frowned slightly, waiting and observing Trueness's reaction.
After a moment, he let out a soft sigh. "It doesn't have that intense appetite to devour it.
"It seems I was oversimplifying things.
"Still, this crystal of lingering thought is not entirely useless."
With that thought, Li Fan forcibly fed it to Trueness.
The dragon-shaped twig in his hand gradually dissolved.
At the same time, vague scenes suddenly flashed through Li Fan's mind in rapid succession.
"This is..."
Li Fan's brow furrowed.
Without a doubt, these fleeting scenes were produced after Trueness devoured Kou Hong's lingering thought.
Though Kou Hong's lingering thought had not met the criteria to form an Eternal Lingering Thought, it was still barely qualified to serve as nourishment for Trueness.
Yet in the past, whenever Trueness devoured an Eternal Lingering Thought, a new function was born.
What did these flashing scenes that accompanied this feeding mean?
The flashbacks were as elusive as sudden flashes of inspiration, vanishing in an instant. Even for Li Fan, capturing them was no easy task.
Standing quietly in place and savoring them for a long while, Li Fan finally began to comprehend.
His expression turned peculiar. "They seem to be... events I experienced before this lifetime?
"What does this signify?"
Li Fan could not make sense of it, yet an instinctive sense of unease welled up within him.
However, no matter how much he pondered, he could not pinpoint the source of this uneasiness.
He had no choice but to commit it to memory for the time being.
As his mood settled, a dazzling longsword appeared in Li Fan's hand.
It was none other than the Dao Xuan Sword, forged from Dao Xuanzi's desperate, dying strike.
Li Fan naturally cared little for a blade that could merely slay a Nascent Soul cultivator. What truly piqued his interest was the sword's origin.
He sensed a faintly familiar aura emanating from the blade.
In a past life, Li Fan had absorbed the Rusty Sword Dao Xuan after it had transformed into a wonder of heaven and earth. However, having suffered the world's erosion and absorption, that Dao Xuan Sword had drifted far from its original state. Consequently, even when Li Fan encountered matters related to it later on, he had failed to recall its origin.
Yet in this lifetime, perhaps due to prolonged nurturing combined with Dao Xuanzi's innate affinity with the Dao Xuan Sword, Dao Xuanzi had managed to restore it to its pristine original state despite having attained only the Golden Core realm.
"So it is a relic of the Heavenly Sword Sect."
Li Fan's tone carried a hint of wistful sighing. With a casual flick of his finger, the Xuanhuang sword Dao laws transformed into shimmering threads of light, pouring into the Dao Xuan Sword, which had been on the verge of fracturing into pieces.
The blade gradually stabilized, and Li Fan further reinforced it using formation refining.
In the end, this ancient Dao Xuan Sword was granted new life. Its might remained unabated—indeed, it was even more formidable than before.
The Heavenly Sword Sect, once one of the Ten Great Immortal Sects, had long since cleaved the realm boundaries and departed.
All that remained was a pile of broken swords left behind in the ruins of the Sword Tomb.
"The Heavenly Sword Sect..."
Li Fan had once attempted to use the Manifestation formula to uncover whether the Heavenly Sword Sect had truly managed to escape back then by tracing the connections among those remnant swords.
Regrettably, under the shroud of the Manifestation formula, though every broken blade cast out threads of light, all of them pointed toward that single wooden sword, Wonder of Heaven, standing at the center of the Sword Tomb.
Now, this revived Dao Xuan Sword of the Heavenly Sword Sect gave Li Fan a fresh idea.
Silently, he inscribed the Manifestation character.
It enveloped the newly reborn Dao Xuan Sword.
In an instant, three rays of light flew out from the blade.
The thickest of them surged like a dragon leaping from water, soaring into the sky before scattering in all directions and dissolving into heaven and earth.
Another ray flew straight toward Li Fan.
The last ray, also the faintest, drifted off toward a certain corner of the Xuanhuang Realm.
"Hm?"
This immediately caught Li Fan's attention.
*Could it be that descendants of the Heavenly Sword Sect still exist within the Xuanhuang Realm?*
Intrigued, Li Fan floated upward and swiftly followed the line drawn by the Manifestation formula.
The Manifestation formula revealed the connections connecting all things, and only the caster—or someone intimately familiar with the True Immortal seal character for "Manifest"—could perceive these lines of connection.
Thus, he had no fear of this anomaly drawing unwanted attention.
Following that thread of light, Li Fan arrived at a place he had never anticipated.
The Alliance Nether Prison!
Having once infiltrated the place in disguise, the Nether Prison's restrictions were effectively nonexistent to Li Fan.
Seeing the light plummet rapidly toward the lowest depths, Li Fan entered the Nether Prison alongside it.
His expression turned somewhat subtle.
For he saw that the thread of connection landed squarely upon the cultivator imprisoned at the absolute deepest level of the Nether Prison!
"Strange..."
Li Fan had known for some time that such a figure was imprisoned beneath the Alliance Nether Prison.
Moreover, upon seeing him back then, Li Fan had felt a faint sense of familiarity.
Now, linking it with the Dao Xuan Sword's reaction under the Manifestation formula, Li Fan finally confirmed his earlier suspicion.
"A descendant of the Heavenly Sword Sect?"
The brow and eyes of this imprisoned cultivator bore an uncanny resemblance to Situ Yao, the former Eldest Senior Brother of the Heavenly Sword Sect.
However, this prisoner was already reduced to little more than a living skeleton, allowing only a rough likeness to be discerned.
Coupled with the fact that people who looked alike were by no means rare in this world, Li Fan had been unable to be certain before.
Now, his judgment was fully corroborated.
"It seems one truly ought to trust one's intuition.
"A descendant of Situ Yao? How interesting. If I recall correctly, that Eldest Senior Brother of the Heavenly Sword Sect had no descendants prior to the sect's departure.
"Could it be...?"
A tremor ran through Li Fan's mind.
He moved to rescue the man so he could question him thoroughly.
Yet upon closer inspection, Li Fan discovered that the method used to suppress this Heavenly Sword Sect descendant seemed to have been executed personally by the Heavenly Physician.
Had Li Fan not secretly learned from the illusory array in this lifetime, he wouldn't even have recognized it!
*Without the specific unsealing technique, breaking it by force would definitely alert the Heavenly Physician.*
*The sublimation of Xuanhuang has reached its final critical juncture in this lifetime...*
In the past, Li Fan would certainly have waited until the next lifetime, returning only after his strength had skyrocketed.
Yet precisely because he had glimpsed the Heavenly Physician's secrets within the illusory array, he did not simply abandon the attempt.
Instead, he set about trying to unravel it.
It proved easier than he had anticipated.
The Heavenly Physician did not seem to attach excessive importance to this individual, and the seal applied was not overly intricate.
For the most part, it simply drained the spiritual energy from his body and kept him suppressed.
After expending some effort, Li Fan finally undid the seal.
To avoid causing a commotion within the Alliance, he also left behind an illusion to project the false appearance that the prisoner was still suppressed.
Taking the gaunt, withered descendant of the Heavenly Sword Sect with him, Li Fan quietly slipped out of the Alliance Nether Prison.
Arriving at an uninhabited, open expanse, Li Fan was just about to speak and interrogate him.
Suddenly, a golden flash erupted from his hand, and the man unexpectedly broke free of Li Fan's restraint in a single instant.
Transforming into a streak of golden light, he fled toward the distant horizon.
In the blink of an eye, he had vanished from sight.
This maneuver caught Li Fan completely by surprise, yet rather than alarmed, he felt a flash of delight.
Swift though the Heavenly Sword Sect descendant was, how could he possibly outpace Li Fan?
The phantasm of the wooden sword unsheathed, and in the next heartbeat, Li Fan had already closed the distance.
With a single swat of his palm, Li Fan trapped him once more.
This time, no matter how the golden light shifted and darted, escape was impossible.
Li Fan had already laid down an immortal array in the surrounding space.
"Hm?!"
The golden light ceased its futile attempts and revealed its form.
In this brief span, he had already recovered a fraction of his vitality from his previously skeletal appearance.
At the very least, he retained a human shape, even if he still looked rather frail.
"Thank you, Senior, for saving my life," the man said, clasping his hands in a cautious salute.
"Why did you run?" Li Fan asked coldly.
"I was imprisoned for far too long... The moment an opportunity arose, I couldn't help but flee," the man offered a wry explanation.
Hearing this, Li Fan could not be bothered to waste further words.
Reaching out with his left hand, he pressed down on the man, intending to execute soul searching directly.
The man trembled as if struck by lightning, his already emaciated frame shaking like a sieve.
Countless images surged into Li Fan's mind.
Yet Li Fan's brow furrowed deeply.
The soul searching proceeded smoothly, and yet...
He found not a single shred of information regarding the Heavenly Sword Sect within the man's memories.
Chapter 1380