Spirit Ruin, Sword Coffin, Blind Swordsman

Li Guanqi felt no attachment when he left Nanze City. He liked it that way. Nothing bound him, and he was simply a wanderer exploring the world, free to do as he pleased.

But his encounter with the Zheng family had taught him many things.

Cultivators often followed their hearts’ whims, whether toward kindness or revenge. Some put their own lives above all else, and when they met an opponent too powerful to face, they fled. He realized there was no shame in that.

The sight of Zheng Yuanzhong detonating his own nascent soul without a moment’s hesitation also showed him just how ruthless cultivators could be.

Feeling the changes in his body, he smiled and took a step forward. In an instant, he reappeared a hundred zhang away.

Teleportation. Faster than flight, it left afterimages behind once a cultivator reached a certain speed. He could cross a hundred zhang in less than one breath. It was completely different from flying.

And there were many other tricks he could pull through spatial manipulation.

He savored the transformation within him. Against a Golden Core Realm cultivator, he wouldn’t even need to draw his sword—his spatial ability alone would be enough. With the gap in their cultivation levels, his opponent wouldn’t even break free from his spatial barriers. Only someone with tremendous physical strength could shatter them, the way he once had.

As he travelled on, he breathed in the Spirit Qi of Heaven and Earth. Sunlight warmed his body, and he was in a great mood.

Then he heard Sword Spirit’s voice. “Do you remember that you still have things to do? Have you mastered the new techniques I taught you? Have you comprehended the life-saving warp technique?”Li Guanqi scratched his head sheepishly. The techniques were far too intricate. After two days of effort, he hadn’t even gotten the basics down. Sword Spirit was like a walking library, and she never bothered with anything short of Heaven-tier methods.

So far, every sword technique and sprint technique she’d taught him was top-tier Heaven-grade. If word got out, powerful cultivators from all over Daxia Territory would be after him.

The thought alone made him uneasy. He went to great lengths to hide such things from others.

Sensing the urgency in her tone, he asked, “Why the rush? What’s wrong?”

Two days earlier, they had spoken heart-to-heart, and he’d clearly felt her anxiety. She may not have noticed it herself, but she was driving him hard to grow stronger.

After a long silence, she finally said, “There are things you don’t need to know yet. When you become stronger, I’ll tell you. I’m in such a hurry because I’m afraid… afraid the enemies will come for you one day.”

Li Guanqi narrowed his eyes. “Enemies? Who the hell are your enemies?”

Sword Spirit smiled without a word, then pointed at the sky above.

He understood. Her enemies were those who had already ascended to the Immortal World.

He wondered just how powerful they were. For her to be so uneasy, they had to be formidable.

She looked him straight in the eye. “You and I have merged as one. The moment you reach the Illusory Refinement Realm, the people of the Upper World will probably sense my presence. When that happens… they’ll send someone down for me, whatever it costs.”

A chill shot through Li Guanqi, raising the hairs on his neck. Li Guanqi swallowed hard, his voice rising to a crescendo. “The people of the Upper World… will come down here?!”

Every cultivator’s ultimate goal was ascending to the Immortal World, but he had never heard of immortals descending. At most, he had glimpsed shadows of them, like when cultivators invoked an immortal’s name to borrow their strength. Nothing more.

He frowned. “People who’ve ascended can come back down?”

Sword Spirit’s smile turned bitter. “They can, but at a heavy price. Profound Immortals fall back to the Combined Body Realm, and even Heavenly Immortals can only keep their power at the Mahayana stage. People at the True Immortal Realm and above cannot descend—if they did, the entire Spirit World would collapse.”

Li Guanqi had never even heard of those realms, but he understood enough that they were powerful enough to destroy the world.

“They’ll come down the moment they sense your aura?”

Sword Spirit nodded with absolute certainty. “Even with just the slightest chance it could be me, they’d stop at nothing to descend.”

Li Guanqi burned with curiosity. What had she done? Why did she use “they” instead of naming a single enemy?

“What the hell did you do? Why do so many people want you dead? And aren’t you just a Sword Spirit?”

She looked at him with disdain. “When you ascend and hear my name in the Immortal World, we’ll see if you’re still so confident.”

Li Guanqi pouted. “I asked for your name, but you wouldn’t tell me.”

Still, he felt the weight pressing down on him. If he didn’t get stronger fast, he’d be dead the moment an immortal showed up.

He swallowed hard and cursed to himself. Fuck! This feels even more stressful than when she took my lifespan.

Sword Spirit withdrew into the sword box, watching him with her clear, beautiful eyes as he studied the techniques while traveling. Guilt flickered through her. She hadn’t wanted to burden him, but if she hadn’t spoken, he would have suffered even more later. Besides, a little fear could be good for him—it would drive him to push harder

Strolling leisurely with such danger looming over them was unacceptable.

Along the way, Li Guanqi stabilized his cultivation realm and studied the warp technique she had given him. It was a life-saving escape method in perilous situations.

“Lightning Warp,” he muttered. It was the equivalent of pushing spatial manipulation to its absolute limit.

Teleportation had its limitations. For instance, the space needed to be flat and undisturbed, and the distance was constrained by one’s physical strength because it relied on folding space.

The Lightning Warp technique allowed him to match teleportation speeds, but he could sustain it for a full fifteen minutes