Unsheathed

There was one good aspect for cultivators who had truly attained the Great Dao. It was as if death and parting didn’t genuinely exist, and as long as the necessary fated opportunity arrived, they could still reunite with their companions.

What did it matter that ten thousand years had passed? He was able to see Chen Qingdu again, and Chen Qingdu was also able to see him again.

The only difference was that he was standing on one bank along the river of time, while Chen Qingdu was standing on the opposite bank.

The little boy didn’t spare so much as a single glance at the young man whose name he didn’t know; instead, he looked up at the city wall, training his gaze on the old man standing with his hands clasped behind his back. He was Chen Qingdu, more commonly known as the old great sword immortal.

His master and senior brother had never hidden anything from him ever since he gained sentience, so not only was Chen Qingdu an old friend of his master, but he was also an old friend of his.

Back then, the three most experienced, skillful, and destructive prisoner sword cultivators had banded together to travel afar, seizing the opportunity when the Great Dao of the Savage World was yet to stabilize, the rotation of the sun and moon was yet to settle, and the cycle of the four seasons was still uncertain.

No matter what, his master had already been recognized as the owner by the Great Dao of the Savage World back then. Even so, Chen Qingdu, Guan Zhao, and Long Jun, the three leaders of the prisoners, had still risked having their sword skills suppressed by the Savage World to charge to Holding Moon Mountain. This was essentially an act of challenging the entire Savage World to a duel.

The Savage World didn’t keep any records of that battle, with only a tiny handful of people knowing what had transpired. Listening to the recount from a senior brother from Holding Moon Mountain, the little boy had heard that this was genuinely an earth-shattering battle that had affected an area with a radius of tens of thousands of kilometers.

The height of Holding Moon Mountain had been shaved in half, thanks to the final sword strike of that man wearing ragged clothes before his death. As for the initial formation of the majestic Elite Cavalry River, it was said that the little boy had been responsible for this in his previous life.

However, the little boy had suffered the worst fate, with his soul breaking apart and dispersing everywhere. Throughout the generations, the guardians of Holding Moon Mountain had always been responsible for a secret task, that being to find and gather the pieces of the little boy’s soul.

Until today, however, they had only managed to piece together one immortal soul and one mortal form of the original three immortal souls and seven mortal forms. As for his physical body, this had already been destroyed a very long time ago, rendering it impossible to gather and piece back together.

In this sense, the little boy wasn’t as fortunate as Long Jun, seeing that the latter at least had a head remaining. However, it was a shame that the skeletal demon who had named himself Bai Ying liked to keep the head under his foot all year round, and when he felt the urge, he would pour some wine and use some unorthodox spell technique to transform the head into a puppet that possessed the combat power of a great sword immortal.

It was a shame that the little boy was unable to learn this spell technique. Otherwise, just how much fun could he have after they destroyed the Sword Qi Great Wall?

For some unknown reason, however, Long Jun — who had only lost one immortal soul and two immortal forms, allowing him to keep the majority of his sentience — not only didn’t appear in public with his true appearance, but he didn’t even attempt to take his head back from Bai Ying, allowing the great demon that was roughly the same strength as him to continue trampling all over it.

He had once been a like-minded friend of Chen Qingdu, following him into battle around the world as one of the earliest sword immortals of the human race. Now, however, he mysteriously harbored an intense feeling of resentment toward Chen Qingdu.

The little boy raised a hand and yawned, quietly waiting for his opponent to throw a punch. The outcome of this battle was a foregone conclusion, so this was truly very boring.

He shifted his gaze from Chen Qingdu to the young woman standing on the edge of the city wall.

Ning Yao.

She was a young sword cultivator who was extremely renowned in the Savage World, and this had little to do with her cultivation base. Rather, it was her future potential that decided her lofty standing in the hearts of many great demons in the Savage World.

What was a prodigy?

These were people who could reach that ”future” as long as they were given a few days or a few years. This ”future” would arrive in the blink of an eye without any mishap.

The little boy could be considered one such prodigy, and the bastard young man who was carrying a Mohist sword case could be regarded as half a prodigy. That young man had a strange name, and he was simply called Bei Qie.[1]

Bei Qie’s master was truly very impressive.

Even the little boy’s master had remarked that it was a shame that Bei Qie’s master wasn’t domineering enough, preventing his sword skills from reaching the pinnacle. Otherwise, he was the most suitable candidate for suppressing the Sword Qi Great Wall.

It was said that there was also a young man who practiced fist techniques in the Majestic World’s Middle Earth Divine Continent, someone by the name of Cao Ci. He was also similarly prodigious as the little boy.

The little boy stood with a foot on the head of the Ascension Tier great demon, one that was technically his senior brother from Holding Moon Mountain. However, he had most likely suffered too many wounds and had his cultivation base ground down too much in the prison under the Sword Qi Great Wall, allowing Chen Qingdu to so casually and easily rip off his head.

Of course, despite the great demon’s Ascension Tier cultivation base becoming unstable, his physique was still that of a great demon, after all. As such, the little boy wouldn’t be able to damage this great demon’s body even if he hacked it with a celestial tool for several years. Sure enough, Chen Qingdu was still very powerful.

This trip with his master to the Sword Qi Great Wall had allowed him to see so many people on the verge of death, as well as all of the so-called Upper Five Tier sword immortals on the city wall. This was a very worthwhile trip.

The little boy was already twelve, yet he still looked like a small child. He was thinking about many things right now, but in actual fact, only a few blinks of the eye had passed on the battlefield.

He smacked his lips and said, ”I’m going to purposely leave you alive and only beat you half dead. Will Ning Yao come down to help you finish the rest of the fight? If she does, then you’ll truly be very fortunate, and the two or even four worlds in the future will all remember your name. You would be my first opponent following my entrance to this world, yet you would actually manage to walk away alive.”

The old man standing on a flying sword and carrying a staff on his shoulder had once used a hibernation technique to devour a dozen or so towering mountains in the Savage World, and after waking from his slumber of several thousand years, he chuckled softly and asked the woman in dragon robes beside him, ”Is this child acting on a whim, or is he acting on instructions from the old ancestor?”

The woman shook her head and replied, ”The old ancestor is only concerned about Chen Qingdu and the Sword Qi Great Wall. He’s not interested in the other small and trivial matters.”

As the owner of Elite Cavalry River and thirty-six other rivers that spanned longer than five thousand kilometers each, the woman in dragon robes hadn’t fallen into a slumber. More accurately, the blood-red snake with which she had initially battled over the Great Dao hadn’t allowed her to cultivate in peace.

The two of them had fought violently for three thousand years already, killing and wounding thousands of their disciples and grand-disciples. However, their cultivation bases remained unaffected, even improving slowly and steadily. Indeed, their deceased underlings provided the best nutrition and were much better for their reputation than occasionally devouring a great demon in secret.

They would simply agree to a battle once every eight hundred to one thousand years, creating an isolated small world and assuming their true forms to cause a huge ruckus. They would fight freely, not forgetting to obliterate one or two pseudo-celestial tools each, as well as a pile of useless immortal treasures they had received as tributes. Only when they had enough fun would they shatter the small world and purposely make themselves appear wounded and bloody.

After all, both sides were keenly aware of their relatively similar combat power, so if they truly fought to the death, the other great demons sitting on the thrones in the ancient well would be more than happy to work together and dispose of them. This was especially the case regarding the skeletal great demon, who loved nothing more than to scheme in secret.

Digging deep enough, one would find that many great demons in history had silently passed away while secretly nurturing their wounds. In reality, these great demons had already been refined into puppets. Thus, even though Great Demon Bai Ying didn’t possess lofty combat power on the surface, his concealed potential was actually immense.

The old man on the flying sword lightly patted his staff and commented, ”Then things are quite interesting. I like this child, and I’ll insist on giving him a greeting gift once we arrive in the Majestic World.”

The woman in dragon robes and the old man on the flying sword could somewhat be viewed as semi-Dao partners, and the former said in amusement, ”Are you worthy of joining the line to give a present to the old ancestor’s closing disciple?”

The old man chuckled and replied, ”It’s up to the child whether he accepts my present or not, and it’s up to me whether I offer him a present or not. If he doesn’t accept the present, then his soul can shatter and disperse again with a single staff strike. In any case, the Majestic World is famous for its natural treasures, so it shouldn’t be difficult to put together a body and a soul. Perhaps this child will become even more talented at that time, and the old ancestor might even thank me for helping. It’s ultimately not the best for a master to kill his own disciple, after all.”

The little boy called Guan Zhao suddenly cracked a grin. After some thought, it would be better for his first legitimate opponent after leaving the mountains to be Ning Yao.

Sure enough, the other great demons received his secret message.

The handsome great demon, with a Sword Nurturing Gourd at his hip, took another glance at Ning Yao, feeling that they would receive more benefits if Ning Yao were to participate in the battle. With this in mind, the handsome great demon patted his Sword Nurturing Gourd, summoning a streak of sword light that shot toward the troublesome young man who was delaying things for them.

Only if Ning Yao died on the battlefield beyond the city wall would he have the opportunity to peel off her face. Along with the faces of the Azure Divine Mountain’s goddess and Martial Goddess Pei Bei, Ning Yao’s face was also a supreme treasure that he was hellbent on obtaining.

The sword light shot forward in a straight line after leaving the Sword Nurturing Gourd, and even though sword lights were often referred to as a thread, this one was actually as thick as a tree trunk, so abundant that it annihilated countless wisps of unstable sword intent that were initially flowing between heaven and earth. Moreover, the sword light was so quick that a wide ravine of over ten meters deep only appeared on the ground after it was almost about to strike the young man in azure.

Did this adhere to the rules of the battlefield? Did he care about his status as a paramount great demon?

The Savage World genuinely didn’t care about these things.

They had lost the wager of the thirteen battles back then, but had Zhong Guang and the other great demons taken this seriously and kept their promises?

Of course not. Only the sword immortals and the Majestic World had taken the wager seriously.

After the Savage World broke the solemn contract, the two great demons who had made the vow died instantly.

Was this a big loss for the Savage World?

They were able to kill several sword immortals from the Sword Qi Great Wall, so what did it matter if a few more great demons were killed? The Savage World could tolerate their deaths. What gave the Savage World a headache was the Majestic World relying on the Sword Qi Great Wall and the top-notch sword immortals to repel them, as each sword immortal who managed to survive a battle would become most powerful and troublesome in the subsequent battles!

Both the Savage World and the Majestic World viewed a drop in cultivation base as the biggest tribulation in cultivation, but the so-called drop in cultivation bases at the Sword Qi Great Wall was almost never regarded as such!

After unleashing a sword strike from his Sword Nurturing Gourd, the handsome great demon waited for the outcome. Victory was certain, and the only uncertainty was how overwhelming his victory would be.

The old ancestor’s disciple could continue to fight after the death of the young man in azure. After all, there was still Ning Yao, wasn’t there? Those at the Sword Qi Great Wall cared greatly about face, so much so that they would be willing to die for the sake of saving face.

How could he provoke Chen Qingdu and have the old man attack him? At that time, the old ancestor definitely wouldn’t hold back, and the two sides would descend into a chaotic battle without any additional schemes and plots. What did it matter if this led to another large-scale battle?

Over at the city wall, Chen Qingdu was neither happy nor unhappy, and before the great demon had even reached down to pat his Sword Nurturing Gourd, he had already smiled and said, ”Zuo You, as his senior brother, it shouldn’t be difficult for you to create a nice new battlefield for your junior brother, right? You can leave the city wall if the great demon takes things too far, and I’ll personally watch over the battle and ensure your safety.”

Zuo You nodded in response.

And thus, tens of thousands of wisps of soaring sword qi materialized in front of the ferocious sword light shooting toward Chen Ping’an, instantly pulverizing it.

”You’re already getting involved? Isn’t your opponent me?”

The great demon that owned hundreds upon thousands of jade buildings didn’t put away the ancient immortal residences that he had painstakingly collected, instead having them slowly circle around him like stars after he descended to the ground.

He raised a hand, causing an ancient hall that was jade-white and the size of a palm to fly above the two people on the battlefield. It suddenly grew in size, blotting out the sky as it plummeted toward the little boy and the young man in azure, targeting both friend and foe.

Zuo You drew his sword, yet his sword intent didn’t appear overwhelming at all; instead, it felt silent and unmoving. He casually slashed down.

The white jade hall that was as large as a mountain was sliced into two, and not only that, but the remnant sword qi blasted the hall apart, causing huge rocks and shattered jade to rain down.

The great demon that looked like an immortal didn’t feel any sense of pity about this, clapping and laughing loudly as he praised, ”Impressive sword skills. There’s enough heft and power.”

The great demon then turned to the big-bearded man carrying a sword by his hip and a sword on his back and asked, ”What do you think? I’ll let you deal with this sword cultivator who has the right to stand beside Chen Qingdu?”

”I’ll let Zuo You kill you before I exact revenge for you,” the big-bearded man replied in an apathetic voice. ”You can shut up if you want to thank me, or else it will be the Sword Qi Great Wall thanking me in a moment.”

The great demon sighed in grief and lamented, ”No matter how I look at it, it won’t be a good deal for me even if I manage to kill Zuo You. After all, the archways at the Southern Whirl Continent’s Pure Confucian Chen Clan are relatively new structures no matter how good they might look.

”On the other hand, these ancient structures in my cherished collection are all unique ones that I’m especially fond of. They’ll be gone once I use them, and there’s nothing I can replace them with. Sure enough, sword cultivators like you are more direct and unrestrained, never needing to consider these gains and losses when you battle.”

Over at the city wall, Pang Yuanji appeared slightly angry as he said in a solemn voice, ”These great demons are purposely stepping forward to help that little brat create a particular atmosphere, and they intend to use this to suppress Chen Ping’an’s mental state!”

There was a serious expression on Chen Sanqiu’s face.

This was the battlefield of the Sword Qi Great Wall. Those who charged forward and fought based on emotions alone would often suffer tragic fates. Indeed, the demon tribes of the Savage World loved nothing more than sword cultivators who acted on emotion.

When war broke out, one would find it incredibly difficult to feel satisfied if they felt like they could overcome all enemies with nothing but themself and their sword, even if they were an Upper Five Tier sword immortal. This would only help the demon tribe succeed, gifting them one or even a string of victories in battle.

Many great demons would purposely scheme and hold severely wounded sword cultivators in their hands, slowly tearing off their limbs one by one and loudly crunching down on them. Alternatively, they might slowly skin the sword cultivators and pluck out their tendons.

There were a myriad of torturous methods that the great demons would employ, so bloody and painful that the captured sword cultivators would suffer a pain worse than death. After being caught and having their souls suppressed, however, even trying to commit suicide would become nothing more than a fanciful dream.

The great demons engaged in this cruel practice for the sake of luring more sword cultivators from the Sword Qi Great Wall, where they would take the risk to venture deep into the Savage World to exact revenge. The great demons would naturally lie in waiting and instantly surround the sword immortals, overwhelming them and killing them. Afterward, they would divide the military merit evenly among themselves. These bloody and tragic lessons had been taught many times over the course of history.

When young and prodigious sword cultivators were captured, their clan elders or Dao mentors would charge over in a bid to rescue them. When the latter were killed, sword immortals would venture to the Savage World to exact revenge. When these sword immortals were killed, their close friends would also charge into the Savage World in anger. Yet, they would also face death.

In the end, the young sword cultivators would end up dying last. One time, the young sword cultivators hadn’t been killed by the great demons in the end, and the limbless youths with shattered flying swords had been unceremoniously tossed to the ground. The great demons had ordered their underlings to walk around them when retreating, leaving these broken prodigies to the Sword Qi Great Wall.

With the bonded flying swords pulverized and their bridge of immortality comprehensively shattered, those who could muster some strength would choose to kill themselves on the battlefield. Otherwise, they would commit suicide a bit later after being carried away from the battlefield and back to the city.

The Savage World only cared about victory and defeat, life and death. They never cared about the means or the process.

”Then they’re going to regret this,” Ning Yao replied.

Zuo You raised his sword and pointed its tip at the great demon that had unleashed the white jade hall.

Several huge vortexes appeared in front of the old man in gray and the fourteen paramount great demons, with sword tips ripping through the void and slowly thrusting forward.

It was as if fifteen small worlds had suddenly materialized between the Savage World and the Sword Qi Great Wall.

Sword Immortal Zuo You of the Majestic World was essentially challenging all fifteen great demons at once.

No matter one’s cultivation base, everyone from both the Savage World and the Sword Qi Great Wall was keenly aware of one fact. With regard to today’s battle, the more powerful and eye-catching a sword cultivator was, the more likely they were to die on the battlefield. Those who initially didn’t need to die were seeking death, while those who could have died later were seeking a quicker death.

First, it was Chen Ping’an.

And then it was Zuo You.

Sure enough, those belonging to the Scholarly lineage never acted in a reasonable manner.

1. Bei Qie literally means backpack. ☜