Spirit Ruin, Sword Coffin, Blind Swordsman

Li Guanqi sat cross-legged atop a mountain peak, where crackling lightning had turned the area within a thousand zhang into a forbidden zone that no one dared approach.

He narrowed his eyes at the Go board before him, a sharp light flickering in his gaze. He extended his middle finger and pressed it hard against the white stone suspended in midair.

Bang!

The stone slammed onto the board. Li Guanqi had entered the game himself.

A cold smile touched his lips as he slowly raised his head. Countless arcs of lightning coalesced into a phantom figure before him, over a zhang tall, exuding an oppressive weight. This phantom was the imagined opponent Li Guanqi had conjured from the current situation.

But when he looked down at the board again, cold sweat broke across his skin.

He had developed the habit long ago. Whenever something happened, he would envision it as a game of Go and store it in his sea of consciousness. As the board expanded, phantom traces of every game he had played surfaced across it. Stones appeared in dense clusters until they covered the entire board.

Li Guanqi clenched his teeth until they grated together. His sea of consciousness howled. The board doubled in size again, but the pieces filled it just as quickly.

Li Guanqi swallowed hard. A second phantom opponent had appeared before him. The style of play on one of the boards matched nothing else he had ever encountered.

His eyes trembled as blood vessels spread across the whites of his eyes. “Two… Only two?”Boom!

The earth shook. Boulders tumbled down the mountain as lightning surged upward, threatening to pierce the sky.

Peng Luo appeared and punched Li Guanqi in the face. “Stop this! If you keep going, you’ll lose your mind!”

The Go board had spread a hundred zhang in every direction without Li Guanqi noticing, tens of thousands of stones littering its surface. These games no longer represented only the events he had experienced. Even the hypothetical scenarios he had simulated in his mind had manifested on the board.

If Peng Luo had left him alone, Li Guanqi would have burned through every last shred of his divine consciousness trying to play out a meaningless game—one that had never existed and would never end, imprisoning his mind forever. Peng Luo was beginning to regret giving him that hint.

Pfft!

Three full breaths passed before Li Guanqi coughed up a mouthful of blood. Pale as paper, he lay motionless atop the summit as the lightning pooled around him dispersed. All that remained was a scorched mountain wreathed in smoke.

Gu Li moved to approach, but Meng Wanshu stepped between him and Li Guanqi, her back to him and one hand raised to hold him off.

Gu Li frowned. “Why are you stopping me?”

Meng Wanshu turned, took Gu Li by the arm, and began walking him back toward the great hall. “Right now, he just wants to be alone.”

Gu Li reluctantly followed. Meng Wanshu cast a final gaze at the summit, a thought quietly crossing her mind. You wouldn’t want anyone to see you like this, would you...?

Blood trickled from all seven of Li Guanqi’s orifices as he lay on the mountaintop, gazing at the star-filled sky. The darkness seemed to press closer, threatening to swallow him whole. He had never felt so powerless.

He couldn’t pinpoint when it started, but his life no longer felt like his own. It was as if countless invisible hands were manipulating his destiny.

Li Guanqi let out a low laugh. His thoughts drifted back to a warm, breezy afternoon. After slicing his wrist to pour blood onto the sword coffin, he had lain beside it. Sword Spirit had stood atop the coffin, gazing down at him with a proud and untouchable air.

Perhaps that had been the beginning, the moment he set foot upon a path unlike any other.

Li Guanqi ripped open his robes, exposing the blood-red markings underneath. Only two of the Mount Meru Immortal Runes remained. He had a hunch that once the markings vanished entirely, he would finally discover something.

He straightened his robes and drew a deep breath before conjuring the Go board again. He grabbed Peng Luo and tossed him aside. This time, the board had one hundred ninety lines on each side, ten times those of a normal board.

Now, the stones represented only the current situation. None of the games from his past intruded.

Li Guanqi licked the blood from the corner of his mouth, its metallic tang filling his senses. He ran through every possible scenario in his mind, then made his move.

Suddenly, an invisible hand set down a black stone.

Li Guanqi remained calm, as though he had expected it. He answered without the slightest pause.

Clack!

Another black stone fell, and Li Guanqi responded.

Clack! Clack clack clack!

The crisp sound of stones striking the wooden board rang without end. Li Guanqi and the phantom moved so quickly that their hands blurred.

Clack!

Li Guanqi’s hand froze above the board. He hesitated for only an instant before sweeping the entire game away. Spiritual light shimmered, and the previous position immediately reformed.

Clack clack clack clack!

Beneath the night sky, Li Guanqi sat across from the phantom, playing Go through the night.

Peng Luo watched from the side. By morning, his eyes had widened in shock. He had never imagined Li Guanqi’s insight could be so extraordinary. In a single night, Li Guanqi had gone from losing ground at every turn to mounting a counterattack.

Six stones had remained unplayed in his left hand. Any of those six could swing the position in his favor the moment it touched the board.

Xiang Huaizhi, Nangong Xuandu, and You Ming, appearing to have received instructions, departed from the Gu clan early the next morning. Gu Changsheng saw them off, and Ye Xuan left shortly thereafter. Only Meng Jiangchu remained.

Three days passed, yet the Sha organization remained silent. No one had contacted Li Guanqi.

He spent those three days and nights playing against his imagined opponent. In the final game, the board’s one hundred ninety lines in each direction were packed with black and white stones. Those lines meant there were 3,610 potential spots for a stone.

Before Peng Luo could get a clear look, Li Guanqi swept the board away. His confidence had returned, and the anxiety from before was gone. For the first time in a long while, he felt a sense of calm settle over him once more.

Inside the sword coffin, Sword Spirit drew a strand of red thread from between her brows. She hesitated for a moment before severing it. After one last look at the Red Lotus Sword, she fused the severed thread into its blade.

Red Lotus hummed as though confused…

A new chill settled over Sword Spirit’s features. Once again, she bore a striking resemblance to the woman Li Guanqi had first met, one whose eyes held nothing but contempt for all creation.

She closed her eyes.

To Red Lotus, Sword Spirit now seemed like a stranger, yet it also felt as if this was how she had always been.

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