When Lu Yang woke again and saw the familiar canopy of leaves overhead, he knew Eldest Senior Sister had brought him back to Tianmen Peak.
Whenever he grew tired from cultivation, he would often lie beneath this shade to enjoy a few moments of peace.
Tianmen Peak was truly the most reassuring place.
He had no idea how long he had been unconscious.
Speaking of which, he seemed to have had a strange dream—one where Eldest Senior Sister bowed to him as her master, and he taught her the Sword Dao.
Fortunately, it was only a dream.
At the thought, Lu Yang breathed a sigh of relief. Turning his head, he saw Eldest Senior Sister sitting beside him, quietly peeling an apple. Expressionless, she blended so seamlessly into the surroundings that she looked like a painting.
A jolt ran through Lu Yang, and he bolted upright.
"Eldest Senior Sister!"
Yun Zhi lifted her eyelids and casually handed the peeled apple to him. "Awake?"
"At the Sword Tower ruins, you suffered a severe mental shock and fell unconscious. I suggest you take a few days of proper rest."
"Yes, yes!"
Lu Yang gingerly took the apple, holding it as if it were not fruit, but a magical treasure liable to detonate at any moment.
"The Sword Tower ruins?" Lu Yang caught onto the odd phrasing.
Yun Zhi gave her junior brother an odd look, as though wondering whether his brain had stopped working upon waking. "After two massive battles back-to-back, the Sword Tower was reduced to rubble. Did you think that place could still be called the Sword Tower?"
"More than half the spirit swords in the sword armory were ruined in the fighting as well. Repairing them all will take at least a century, I'm afraid."
Lu Yang ducked his head, feeling somewhat guilty toward the Sword Tower.
He had paid a single visit to the Sword Tower, and now the tower had collapsed and the spirit swords in the armory were gone.
"The good news, however, is that the Sword Tower Supreme's remnant soul survived using the method you taught her. Everyone in the Sword Tower is deeply grateful to you."
To the Sword Tower, so long as the Sword Tower Supreme lived, a collapsed building and ruined spirit swords were minor matters.
"You earned the Chengying Sword at the Sword Inquiry Ceremony. When I left, the Sword Tower entrusted it to me to pass on to you."
With a flick of Yun Zhi's wrist, the paring knife in her hand was enveloped in a slender, pitch-black sword shadow. The blade lengthened, gradually merging with the shadow until it turned into a sword as dark as a silhouette—the Chengying Sword.
After Immortal Ying Tian obtained the Chengying Sword, he had deemed it short of the immortal artifact level and refrained from using it against Gray Doudou. During the battle, he had tossed it far aside, which was why it had survived unscathed.
With Liu Ningxuan dead, Lu Yang had finally become the rightful master of the Chengying Sword and the Seven Stars Sword Set in name and fact.
Holding the Chengying Sword, Lu Yang finally remembered that his original purpose in attending the Sword Inquiry Ceremony had simply been to buy a suitable sword from the Sword Tower.
Everything that followed had been entirely accidental.
Lu Yang put the Chengying Sword away. In his current condition, it was not yet wise to bind the sword to himself.
"Now then, which of you is going to explain what happened with this corpse?"
From behind her, Yun Zhi lifted up a charred corpse, burned beyond recognition.
Gray Doudou had been utterly ruthless. Immortal Ying Tian's corpse held no value for artifact crafting; attempting to forge even an ordinary magical treasure from it would be a stretch, which left Yun Zhi rather regretful.
"According to the people from the Sword Tower, this corpse belongs to Immortal Ying Tian?"
"Mm. According to the Fairy's analysis, the true Immortal Ying Tian failed in executing either the Corpse-Severing Method or the Corpse-Liberation Transcendence Method, which ended up separating out a corpse possessing an independent will of its own."
"As expected."
"Both methods can make one stronger. Immortal Ying Tian must have braved the danger of using them in order to deal with Gray Dou... Senior Gray Fairy."
Yun Zhi nodded. This matched her own deduction. It certainly could not have been the real Immortal Ying Tian.
Had it been the genuine Immortal Ying Tian, he should have been able to hold out until her arrival rather than dying so quickly. This Immortal Ying Tian had sorely lacked experience in battling peers of his own level, relying entirely on crushing opponents with superior cultivation.
"Judging by how the Ying Tian corpse forged so many immortal artifacts, they were likely meant for dealing with the real Immortal Ying Tian."
Yun Zhi felt a touch of regret. During the battle, all those immortal artifacts had been melted down by Gray Doudou into a blended lump of immortal gold. Unless the metals could be separated, it was nothing more than a chunk of scrap.
Among the people she knew, none possessed the ability to separate blended immortal gold.
Yun Zhi saw the deeper issue behind the matter: no one had acted as a protector for Immortal Ying Tian.
Both methods carried an enormous risk of failure. Logically, Immortal Ying Tian should have sought someone to guard his attempt; that way, even if he failed, the Ying Tian corpse could never have wandered off.
Why hadn't Immortal Jiuchong and Immortal Kirin intervened?
Still, there was no need to speak of such things, lest her junior brother become overly entangled.
At the thought, Yun Zhi felt a pang of helplessness. Although she had tried her best to prevent her junior brother from getting involved in affairs concerning ancient immortals, he always managed to draw closer to them whenever she wasn't looking.
The last time she had felt such helplessness was back when she was teaching him spells.
"Speaking of which, coming back safe and sound this time was truly thanks to the Green Blade Sword you gave me, Eldest Senior Sister," Lu Yang chuckled. The pocket dimension inside the Green Blade Sword had saved his life.
"Eldest Senior Sister, I have a theory. Do you think it's possible that Immortal Ying Tian and the others, in order to evade Gray Doudou's senses, did just what I did and hid inside some small world?"
"It is possible. However, there are far too many small worlds, so finding them will hardly be easy—to say nothing of the countless hidden small worlds that have yet to be discovered."
Mobile small worlds like the dragon pearl and the Green Blade Sword were exceptionally rare, but small worlds anchored in fixed space were beyond count.
Small worlds were a category of secret realm, all opened up by cultivators. From antiquity to the present day, who knew how many secret realm small worlds had been established?
If nothing else, the cosmos overhead held vast numbers of undiscovered small worlds. The cultivators who had forged them and left behind inheritances deliberately concealed their locations, leaving them for future generations to find at their own pace.
In their words, it was a matter of predestined affinity.
"Oh, Lu Yang, you're awake?" A brisk, cheerful voice came from behind Yun Zhi. Yun Mengmeng stepped around her, holding a freshly woven floral wreath as she looked at Lu Yang in delight.
"To think you're the junior brother Xiao Zhi always talks about! What a coincidence between us. If I'd known you were from the Dao Seeking Sect, I would've asked you the way here back when we were having hot pot."
*I didn't know the stubborn best friend you talked about was Eldest Senior Sister either,* Lu Yang thought. *If I'd known you were acquainted with Eldest Senior Sister, I would have eaten hot pot somewhere else.*
Yun Mengmeng gently placed the woven floral wreath upon Lu Yang's head. "This is a blessing from my homeland, wishing you safety and peace."
Lu Yang was somewhat touched. Even though Yun Mengmeng had gotten him into trouble, it had been unintentional. At heart, the girl was genuinely good-natured.
Then Yun Mengmeng remarked with a sigh, "You really can sleep. No wonder you're Xiao Zhi's junior brother—you're just like her when you sleep; once you're out, nothing can wake you."
"I even suggested that Xiao Zhi take you as her master, but she was all coy and reluctant. As the saying goes, whoever excels is the master. Xiao Zhi might be a bit older than you, but her swordplay really can't compare to yours. Xiao Zhi just cares too much about saving face. If you ask me, what's the big deal? When we played house as kids, Xiao Zhi used to call me Mom all the—"
Cold sweat broke out across Lu Yang's forehead; he dared not listen any further.
Yun Zhi rose silently, placed a hand on Yun Mengmeng's shoulder, and looked at her with a gentle smile.
"Mengmeng, it's been so long since we last saw each other. Who would have thought you'd already broken through to the Tribulation Transcendence stage? Come, let's find a place to spar."
Chapter 999