Tower Master Guan sank into thought upon seeing this spectacle.
How could they possibly investigate the backgrounds of every single sword cultivator? The Sword Tower lacked an intelligence agency like the Dao Seeking Sect's Mission Hall, and they couldn't have investigated everyone even if they tried.
Besides, they had never encountered a situation like this during previous Grand Sword Inquiry Ceremonies.
Strange indeed.
"Tower Master, I fear this is no good omen. Should we make some preparations?" A Sword Tower elder, sensing that this Grand Sword Inquiry Ceremony was out of the ordinary, quietly sent a voice transmission to the Tower Master.
Tower Master Guan nodded in agreement with the elder's assessment. The circumstances surrounding this ceremony had already exceeded the Sword Tower's capacity. "It truly is no good omen. Notify the yamen first and tell them to send more personnel, lest they don't have enough hands to arrest everyone."
Their Sword Tower was not one of the Five Great Immortal Sects; they possessed no law enforcement authority.
...
Aside from the massive number of irreconcilable feuds between certain individual sword cultivators, there was nothing else noteworthy about the first group's matches.
The iron spinning top contest between Xuanxuan and Wu'er drew the eyes of many sword cultivators. The two members of the Sea Race clashed to the extreme. First, Wu'er activated his hidden bloodline, summoning an ancestral phantom above his head that granted him fresh strength and gave him the upper hand. Then Xuanxuan also activated his hidden bloodline, manifesting an ancestral phantom of his own to turn the tables and seize the advantage.
In the end, Xuanxuan seized the initiative by striking back later, proving superior and claiming victory.
With that, the matches of the first group drew successfully to a close.
Since they were all fighting through sword intent avatars, even if one was beaten to death, at most their sword intent would collapse, with no danger to their life.
Of course, if someone sought personal revenge after the tournament, nothing could be done about that.
Compared to the first group, the second group's matches were far more exciting to watch. It featured Mingtai and Lu Yang, two rising stars of the Sword Dao who commanded the spotlight among the younger generation. People had only heard legends about them; this was the first time seeing them in action.
Yet the most eye-catching was still Yue Chuan, who brought his sword spirit, A'lan, directly onto the stage with him.
A sword spirit was considered part of the sword, so it did not violate any rules.
Lu Yang did not let his sword spirit, the Immortal Fairy, take the stage. If the Fairy were allowed out, never mind the sword cultivators in this Grand Sword Inquiry Ceremony—even if you rounded up and tied together all the participants from every past ceremony, they still wouldn't be enough for the Immortal Fairy to take on alone.
Lu Yang prided himself on doing things fair and square, without relying on such hollow, flashy outside forces.
Lu Yang's opponent was a cultivator dressed rather peculiarly. Pale-faced and frail-looking, he carried an ice sword etched with snow and frost patterns across its surface.
Lu Yang recalled Mingtai introducing this person earlier: a cultivator from the Far North named Xue Shilou, who enjoyed some modest fame in that region.
To merit an introduction from Mingtai, he naturally had something exceptional about him, though compared to Lu Yang, he fell far short.
"A pity for this fellow named Xue Shilou, running into Lu Yang in the very first match."
"Nothing he can do. Luck is luck, and his is just too terrible."
"I wonder how much strength he can force Lu Yang to reveal."
"I hope the fight lasts a bit longer. The more trump cards he forces out of Lu Yang, the better it is for us."
Hearing the quiet chatter of the sword cultivators beneath the stage, Xue Shilou's gaze remained extraordinarily resolute. So what if Lu Yang's talent in the Sword Dao was supreme? He could bridge the gap through sheer hard work. Thinking back on his more than ten years of practicing the sword, tears, sweat, scars... they were beyond counting.
Along the road to where he stood, how many formidable foes had he encountered? How many people had claimed he couldn't win? Yet reality had slapped every single one of them in the face.
On the arena platform, dozens of exchanges flashed by in the blink of an eye. Xue Shilou truly lived up to his reputation as a sword prodigy from the Far North; honed there year-round, his sword intent carried a touch of biting cold and decisive resolve.
This was Lu Yang's first time battling via a sword intent avatar, and he found the experience quite novel.
Having tested what it felt like to fight with an avatar, it was time to get a bit serious.
As Lu Yang's sword technique shifted, Xue Shilou felt the pressure multiply instantly. It was as though Lu Yang held not a sword, but a heaven-and-earth-shaking sledgehammer; every clash numbed Xue Shilou's wrists.
Could this be Lu Yang's true strength? Had everything before just been a warm-up?
Cold sweat beaded on Xue Shilou's forehead. Both were using sword intent avatars, which had nothing to do with cultivation bases. In other words, Lu Yang's sword intent far surpassed his own.
Lu Yang's sword strikes were both heavy and fast. It was as if he saw through all of Xue Shilou's techniques, every slash homing in on his weaknesses, reducing Xue Shilou to passive defense with no chance to counterattack.
The spectating sword cultivators could also tell that Xue Shilou was merely putting up a desperate, cornered resistance; defeat was only a matter of time.
None of them doubted that had they faced Lu Yang in his place, they would likely suffer the exact same fate.
"How about you just concede?" Lu Yang suggested earnestly. He wanted to wrap things up early so he could watch how the others fought before their matches ended.
"No!" Xue Shilou replied with solemn resolve. Though thoroughly disadvantaged, his eyes remained steadfast, unwavering despite the enormous gap in their strength.
Lu Yang was taken aback, realizing his attitude had been improper. As a sword cultivator, one naturally had to fight until the very last moment; how could one simply surrender? His words just now had been no different from slapping Xue Shilou in the face.
Lu Yang said seriously, "My apologies. In return, I will use my full strength to defeat you!"
Feeling Lu Yang's attacks grow heavier and faster, Xue Shilou broke into a full-body sweat, his blood nearly boiling.
*Is the gap between me and a true sword genius really this vast? Am I truly going to stop here?*
Xue Shilou's mind blurred for a moment, and his memories were pulled back to his childhood.
...
Amid swirling, heavy snowfall, Xue Shilou held a battered iron sword while standing atop a wooden post. The north wind howled past, and snowflakes pelted his face with stinging pain.
"Master, I can barely hold on."
Xue Shilou spoke through gritted teeth, not daring to raise his voice for fear of snow flying into his mouth.
His master, stooped and leaning on a crutch, seemed entirely blind to Xue Shilou's tottering frame.
"Keep holding on. You must adapt to this environment and block the raging blizzard. In the future, you will understand the meaning of today's cultivation."
...
"Master, did you foresee today long ago?" Xue Shilou murmured to himself. Lu Yang's onslaught felt remarkably like the fierce blizzard of the Far North.
Slowly, he pulled back his sword techniques, narrowed his defensive perimeter, and adjusted his posture, assuming a somewhat strange stance—the pillar stance.
He gradually recalled his master's teachings and every detail of his sword practice. Several moves that originally had no connection to one another linked together at this moment, forming a new technique.
"Pillar Stance Sword Form!"
This was a sword form capable of blocking a wild blizzard—a sword form that not even his master had managed to complete!
"Slash."
Lu Yang softly uttered a single word. His sword qi morphed into a full moon and pierced clean through the Pillar Stance Sword Form, blasting Xue Shilou to the edge of the platform and knocking him unconscious.
"Junior Brother Xue has fainted! This is bad!" exclaimed a sword cultivator beneath the platform, looking anxious upon seeing Xue Shilou fall unconscious.
"Fellow Daoist, will something happen when Xue Shilou falls unconscious?" someone nearby asked.
The man sighed and explained, "Xue Shilou is my junior brother. He was originally an orphan our master took in. From a young age, he displayed astonishing talent in the Sword Dao, and Master treated him as his true successor.
"Just when Master thought he had taken in a wonderful disciple, an accident occurred. Junior Brother Xue passed out, and once unconscious, another will took control of his body. In that state, Junior Brother Xue became cruel and overwhelmingly powerful. Master's leg was broken by him during that very incident.
"When Junior Brother Xue later woke up, he remembered nothing, and neither Master nor I ever spoke of it.
"Master suspected that before being taken in, Junior Brother Xue suffered some severe trauma that caused his personality to split in two."
Sure enough, after falling unconscious, Xue Shilou actually stood up once more, his aura undergoing an earth-shattering transformation.
"How did this useless trash pass out again? In the end, it still comes down to me." The "Xue Shilou" looked at Lu Yang, a cruel smirk curling at the corner of his lips.
"Slash."
Lu Yang softly uttered the word "slash" as usual, knocking this other personality of Xue Shilou unconscious as well.
Inside Xue Shilou's spiritual world, two Xue Shilous stood—one light, one dark.
"So Master's leg was broken by me?" The light Xue Shilou clutched his head and wept bitterly. "No, it was you! You're the one who injured Master!"
The dark Xue Shilou scoffed in disdain. "So what if I injured him? Was it not because the power of the bloodline inside you was too great to control that I was split off in the first place?
"If not for this persona of mine, you would have frozen to death long before Master ever found you."
Seeing the light Xue Shilou still weeping, the dark Xue Shilou looked at him with exasperated frustration.
"Cry! What's the point of crying? Can crying beat your opponent?!"
"Then what do you propose we do?!" the light Xue Shilou demanded loudly through tears.
The dark Xue Shilou smiled wryly. "Just now, you comprehended the Pillar Stance Sword Form, raising your realm to the next level. Right now, all you lack to adapt to your bloodline power is one tiny push."
"A tiny push?" The light Xue Shilou froze.
The dark Xue Shilou offered no explanation. Instead, he stepped forward to embrace the light Xue Shilou, his form slowly dissipating.
"All that's missing is the fusion between you and me. I hope that after I'm gone, you won't be that crybaby who weeps at every hardship."
"Xiao An!" the light Xue Shilou cried out, desperately grabbing for his other self, but in the end, he caught nothing but specks of light.
In reality, the fallen Xue Shilou slowly rose to his feet once more, his gaze sorrowful yet resolute. He raised his sword toward Lu Yang and spoke, sounding like one person yet also like both of his selves speaking in unison:
"Lu Yang, I will defeat you!"
"This aura... it's the legendary Snow Sovereign bloodline!" a sword cultivator from the Far North shouted from below.
"Are you ever going to finish?! Slash!" Lu Yang snapped in exasperation, slashing his sword with all his might.
Xue Shilou tumbled off the platform.
Chapter 985