Across the desolate, withered earth, numerous small mounds bulged like tumors.
Even from afar, one could smell their foul, rotting stench.
A few meddlesome individuals had dug open some of the mounds, but found nothing inside except thick, black, putrid sludge.
It was said that the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals had once dispatched official investigators here. After the inquiry yielded no results, they excavated and razed the entire expanse, treating it like an abscess on the land.
Yet after less than half a year of peace, the continuous small mounds sprouted once more.
The Alliance sent personnel to deal with it again.
This happened three times, yet the pustules stubbornly persisted.
In the end, the matter was quietly dropped, categorized as something akin to an "anomaly."
Li Fan knew, however, that the true cause behind this area's bizarre state was no anomaly at all.
Rather, it was the residual wills clinging to countless swords, warped and corrupted across thousands of years.
"One can hardly blame the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals for doing a perfunctory job.
"Even if an ordinary Dao Integration expert came in person, unless they were thoroughly versed in the Dao of the Sword, they wouldn't notice anything amiss here either."
With that in mind, Li Fan circulated the Reverse Five Elements Creation and Annihilation Sword.
In his field of vision, the scene ahead changed abruptly.
Countless black shadows drifted out from the swollen pustules.
Like specters, their eyes glowed with crimson light, glaring fixatedly at Li Fan.
From all around came an incessant murmur of unintelligible whispers—part scream, part bitter curse.
The whispers seemed intent on piercing the eardrums to bore straight into Li Fan's mind.
Even shutting off his hearing and severing his divine sense did nothing to block them.
Li Fan frowned slightly. Knowing this was an essential step for entering the Heavenly Sword Sect's Sword Tomb, he had no choice but to maintain his core conviction and endure the onslaught of the eerie, piercing racket.
Seeing that Li Fan remained unfazed, the red-eyed shadows flew into a rage.
Transforming into streaks of black lines, they lunged violently toward him.
Up close, their appearances grew distinct.
Some resembled recently deceased corpses in the midst of decay, their flesh festering and crawling with foul-smelling maggots.
Others looked horrifyingly melted, as if being roasted alive over a fire.
Still others were shapeless masses of bloody meat cleaved into thousands of fragments.
...
What they all had in common was that every single corpse bore Li Fan's face!
The moment he laid eyes on them, ten thousand ways he could die flooded his mind!
It was no mere illusion; it felt more like the hyper-realistic visions induced by swallowing a Will Horse.
His own physical body could even feel the corresponding pangs of agony.
"Petty tricks.
"Not only am I protected by the Immortal Heart Incantation, warding off myriad arts, but even if I were caught off guard, with the new method's ability to endlessly regenerate the physical body from the Nascent Soul realm upward...
"A decent move, but unfortunately outdated."
Thinking thus, Li Fan let the black shadows engulf him.
Then the Five Elements Grotto-Heavens rumbled faintly, and in the blink of an eye, another body remanifested.
More black shadows emerged from the mounds, shrieking as they flew toward Li Fan.
In this manner, Li Fan continuously rebuilt his body, eventually letting the shadows from nearly ten thousand burial mounds taint him one by one.
With each shadow that corroded him, Li Fan felt his body "sink" slightly.
It was not sinking into the subterranean earth, but sinking toward another space.
These black shadows acted like drowned ghosts, dragging Li Fan down into the world where they dwelled.
When he had submerged completely, the scenery before him shifted, and Li Fan finally entered the true Sword Tomb.
Just as Shuo Feng had described, tens of thousands of broken swords were driven at an angle into the ground.
All of them curved slightly toward the center, like subjects bowing to their emperor.
The arrival of an outsider like Li Fan did not provoke the slightest reaction from them.
Examining these seemingly rotten swords more closely, Li Fan realized that rather than decaying,
it was more accurate to say...
under the baptism of the wonder of Heaven, Sword, at the center, they were growing increasingly pure.
They no longer required physical constraints; like Sword, they were tending toward concepts and pure energy.
"Those black shadows up above are the killing intent and obsessions clinging to these thousands of swords, as well as the desires of those slaughtered by them.
"In this pure world of swords, they found no purchase and were gradually expelled."
Li Fan circulated the Reverse Five Elements Creation and Annihilation Sword, disguising himself as a sword. Motionless, he surveyed his surroundings.
"If left undisturbed by the outside world, under the subtle influence of Sword, the myriad swords in this Sword Tomb might truly shed their physical forms and become conceptual entities."
A look of wonder appeared in Li Fan's eyes.
"What would you call this—when one person attains the Dao, even his chickens and dogs ascend to heaven?
"Truly worthy of an existence enlightened by Mr. Bai."
Thinking this, Li Fan finally took his first step forward.
A moment later, his expression changed slightly.
For at that exact instant, over a thousand swords around him unleashed their sword intent in unison.
They seemed displeased by his "queue-cutting."
In Li Fan's perception, these seemingly decayed swords finally revealed their dazzling true countenances.
Some possessed fiery red blades, burning like crimson flames; some exuded dense, misty sword qi, pure as azure sky; some had pitch-black blades, unable to conceal a thick reek of blood; some shone with golden radiance, wrapped in thunder like majestic heavenly wrath...
Though they were merely swords on the outermost rim of the Sword Tomb, after thousands of years of tempering by the true intent of Sword, they were no longer ordinary objects.
Every single one of them could be considered a superior wonder of Man!
Li Fan snorted coldly, his Reverse Five Elements Creation and Annihilation sword intent erupting violently.
With countless sword intents bearing down upon him, he took another step forward.
This time, he offended even more swords.
Innumerable sword cuts instantly tore across Li Fan's body, drenching him in blood.
Even his divine soul felt as though slashed by sword qi, aching with dull and sharp pain.
"I cannot strike back; I can only endure it silently.
"Otherwise, every sword in the Sword Tomb will view me as an enemy and attack en masse.
"Even that wooden sword at the center would strike."
Sensing this, Li Fan temporarily deactivated his Soul Burning state.
Circulating the Limitless Waxing and Waning Method with all his might, he strode forward in great steps.
For a time, he truly tasted what it meant to have ten thousand swords pierce one's body.
His physical form was already riddled with holes; even continuously regenerating under the power of the Five Elements Grotto-Heavens, he could barely maintain human shape.
And while his divine soul healed quickly after severe injury, the excruciating agony was impossible to avoid.
"Shuo Feng truly had it easy," Li Fan lamented amid the pain, recalling Shuo Feng's description. "He didn't have to care at all about the onslaught of ten thousand swords. Relying solely on the golden armor bestowed by his mother, he strolled leisurely to the very center of the Sword Tomb as if taking a walk in a garden."
Though he could not help complaining, the combined force of the myriad swords in the Sword Tomb did not slow Li Fan down in the least.
In merely less than half a day, Li Fan stepped steadily into the very center of the Sword Tomb.
Chapter 888