The glow of the last ember of spirit fire gradually faded. At the center of the enormous vortex formed by countless remnants, the figure of the suspended man dimmed with it, as though he were about to be swallowed whole by boundless darkness.
This was the ninth battle against the Demon Emperor. He thought that it should also be the final battle between him and this old foe.
Only at this moment did the body filled with bitter hatred finally feel a faint lightness, as if liberation were near.
When he was six, Hanmeng Village was destroyed as collateral damage when evil demons passed through.
When he was ten, he endured a trial that pierced the heart and chilled the bones, becoming the youngest disciple of Sanxing Guayue Mountain.
At twelve, he successfully refined his first heart-sword aspect—Qixue—and shocked the sect with its immortal sword grade.
At seventeen, he refined a heart-sword aspect of divine weapon grade—Dahen. On that same day, he abandoned his original name, Han Sanwang, and called himself Hanhen.
…That had already been more than a hundred years ago, yet in his daze, it still felt as if it had been yesterday.
He could never forget how his master had once sighed to him and said that hatred was a double-edged blade, harming others and harming oneself. If he was so lost in obsession that he could not extricate himself, then he might as well pursue it to the extreme and see whether he could use it to prove his Dao, break through the heavens, and ascend as an immortal.
At this very moment, he had slain the Demon Emperor nine times. The corpses of countless evil demons were scattered throughout this void he had cleaved open, and under the pull of the lingering spiritual force, they circled around him like extinguished stars, slowly revolving.
Dahen was still gripped in his hand, its pitch-black edge continuously drawing the heart’s blood from within him. Yet for some reason, he did not disperse it back into his soul and put it away.
He faintly felt that something was about to happen.
If it was something bad, then eight or nine times out of ten, the Demon Emperor still had some hidden move. If it was something good… The corner of his mouth lifted slightly as he thought with a trace of self-mockery: all his life, he had been dragged about by the nose by hatred, toiling and rushing from place to place, vowing to slaughter every evil demon beneath the heavens. If he was not exorcising demons, he was on the road to exorcise demons. When had he ever encountered anything good?
As for proving the Dao and ascending as an immortal… ever since he had first cleaved the firmament with his sword while pursuing evil demons, only to see nothing but empty void beyond it, he had stopped thinking too much about it.
Beyond the heavens, there were still heavens—not immortals.
Very soon, the Demon Emperor’s final wisp of aura scattered completely. That last starfire-like remnant glow of spiritual power could no longer illuminate this endless illusory void.
He gave a soft sigh and prepared to disperse Dahen, then leave through the rift he had cleaved open earlier.
But at the very instant the light of spirit fire was extinguished, from the place at the outer edge of the wreckage where the Demon Emperor had fallen, a dazzling burst of seven-colored starlight suddenly erupted!
His brow furrowed slightly. He tightened his grip on Dahen, holding the pitch-black blade across his chest. The little spiritual power remaining in him surged up, stirring ring after ring of terrifying ripples in the void.
He could not sense the aura of evil demons. But if it was a hostile spiritual cultivator, why had they not come to take advantage of him earlier, when he and the Demon Emperor had been locked in a life-and-death struggle?
He released his divine sense, doing all he could to perceive any possible movement within that brilliant radiance.
Unexpectedly, not only did he sense an extremely unfamiliar, surging energy, he also detected streams of information being exchanged behind that energy.
It was a language he should not have understood, yet the corresponding meaning, along with the restored tone and voice, naturally surfaced in his mind.
The first transmission was a brisk, clear female voice, her tone rather uncertain. “Brother Jie, isn’t seed number Lingyi-Xiangeng-841231 going too fast?”
The response was a steady, gentle male voice, his tone relaxed. “For such a fine sapling, even if we don’t want him to grow into an anchor too quickly, we still ought to let him see the true outside a little earlier, shouldn’t we? In their words… what was it called again? Ascending to immortality, right?”
“No, no, that’s not right. Absolutely not. Although his sensing and deployment of energy-constructons are already close to dimension-breaking level, and he’s a rare genius across multiple nodes, you should have received the data I entangled to you with information-constructons just now. His life experience is far too pure. Not only is his temperament already approaching the extreme of extremity, his interpersonal dealings are like a blank sheet of paper. For such a simple big child, even if he has the highest-grade spacetime affinity physique, using him as an anchor point to construct a spacetime bubble barrier is still a very, very, very dangerous decision.”
The male voice asked gently, with a smile, “Then what do you propose?”
“I think he still needs further cultivation.”
“At his current level, he may already be able to intercept our information-constructon flow. Since he has surpassed the overall level of this spacetime bubble cluster by a large margin, how is he supposed to go any further? In my opinion, why not just bring him over like this?”
The female voice was rather stubborn. “If he has only power but no state of mind, then even if he comes over, he’ll just be a troublemaker who pokes holes everywhere and makes us clean up after him. If it were up to me… Eh? Wait, did you just say he might already be able to eavesdrop on our chat?”
“Yes. Maybe he’s listening with great interest right now.”
“Cough, cough, cough. Mm… Then—then we won’t chat anymore. In any case, I’ll be responsible for this seed. Until there’s a result, I’ll be watching over the entire spacetime bubble cluster. Don’t interfere. Go home and wait for me.”
He slowly lowered his hand. The wariness in his heart gradually faded, but doubts rose one after another. The information he had detected from those two clearly was not made of obscure, convoluted words, yet he listened to it in utter confusion, unable to understand even half of it. Even the woman’s final, almost coquettish “go home and wait for me” was a scenery he had never encountered in his life before; he could not grasp its true meaning.
With a slight movement of his will, the dazzling seven-colored starlight before him gradually shrank and gathered, spinning as it condensed into a gigantic ring formed of soft halos. Within the ring, it seemed as though billions of stars were flickering, like a strangely shaped gate.
This time, the woman’s clear voice truly came from within the gate.
The voice was not especially loud, yet it passed through countless dissipating remnants of evil demons and entered his ears without the slightest loss.
Only, compared with the relaxed leisure of the previous exchange of information, the woman’s tone now was solemn, her enunciation slow. Coupled with the reverberations trembling amid the lingering soft light, it truly had an astonishing immortal air.
“Art thou Hanhen?”
He gave a slight nod in answer.
He knew that the other party could certainly see him.
“The Gate of All Wonders, the path of ascension to immortality, now lies before thine eyes. Hast thou words to speak?”
A wave of awkwardness passed through his heart. He could not help feeling that she had been more approachable when her words had been difficult to understand earlier. Yet he faintly sensed that the other end of this passage was indeed another world greatly beneficial to him. Even if this “ascension” was perhaps not the kind he knew of, it was still tempting enough.
He sighed softly, cupped his hands, and said, “I have slaughtered demons to prove my Dao and am utterly exhausted. May the exalted immortal please receive and guide me swiftly. Do not delay any longer.”
“Are you teaching me how to do things?”
“Uh?” He was stunned, not expecting the immortal maiden of the upper realm to change her tone at will, and did not know how to respond.
“I have not come to receive you. With your present state of mind, you are not at all suited to ascending as an immortal. Immortals come from the mortal world. You have slaughtered demons all your life, yet have scarcely involved yourself in the world of men. You do not understand the human realm. How could you ascend?”
He frowned slightly, the weariness in his heart deepening. He thought to himself that the Demon Emperor had been executed, while countless evil demons still hid in the human world. Why waste time here?
He released his hand and dispersed Dahen, enduring as he offered the last trace of respect. “Since that is so, I will not trouble the exalted immortal. Farewell.”
“Wait.” The female voice turned somewhat cold, as if tinged with anger at his failure to live up to expectations. “Since the founding of Sanxing Guayue Mountain, you are the only peerless genius to have refined nine heart-sword aspects, three of immortal grade and one of divine grade. Then have you ever wondered why, with your strength that has swept through the world without rival, you still have not been able to kill off the evil demons that come one wave after another after more than a hundred years?”
He narrowed his eyes and said indifferently, “I have not. Many things go undone simply because no one is willing to do them—and that is because they think too much.”
“You…” The woman seemed to hold her breath for a moment, and the passage filled with splendid light dimmed for an instant as well. “Fine. So be it. With that stubborn, rotten temper of yours, you truly are lacking a trial in the mortal world. My wonderful immortal realm has no desire to gain another cold, rotten stone.”
Hearing this, he knew ascension was no longer possible. Fortunately, he did not feel especially disappointed; instead, he felt a somewhat complicated sense of relief.
What suited him, in the end, was still the battlefield where evil demons ran rampant.
He turned and flew toward the nearest weak point in the void.
Just as he was about to summon the heart-sword Wumang, he suddenly felt a chill behind him. In an instant, every hair on his body stood on end. His intuition screamed a warning, making even his scalp go numb.
He hurriedly spun around, gathering what little spiritual power remained at his fingertips. In the blink of an eye, he drew a highly protective spiritual formation in midair.
But he was still a step too slow.
A sheet of dazzling radiance, carrying the vast, incomprehensible power he had sensed before, tightly bound him.
“This world is not your answer,” the woman’s immortal voice slowly sounded by his ear. “I cannot watch with open eyes as you go farther and farther down the wrong path. Whether in the immortal realm or the human world, what is needed is not a weapon that knows only slaughter. In the future, whether you thank me or hate me, I do not care. Go!”
The instant he heard that final word, the radiance binding him suddenly erupted. Currents of power he could neither describe nor understand flowed through his entire body in an instant.
Then, he began to disintegrate.
He raised his hand and watched helplessly as his own body—that extraordinary body filled with spiritual power—suddenly transformed into countless shining specks of dust, dispersing through the void.
He wanted to speak, but it was already too late. In the snap of a finger, all that remained of him in this void was spiritual power, his soul, and the heart-sword aspects contained within his soul.
Was this death? Yet other than his physical shell, he had lost nothing. It was just that his soul, which preserved his consciousness, was still firmly clamped down by that power.
That light began to move, bringing all that remained of him as it rushed at tremendous speed toward another weak point in the void.
The next second, a fair, tender hand reached out from within the passage. Its slender index finger stretched forth and made a distant stroke.
The void was easily torn open like paper pasted over a window. The light wrapped around him and vanished into the rift in an instant.
“With your control over spiritual power, as long as you rein in your temper and calm your mind, reshaping your body will not be difficult. The difference between the two worlds you’re transferring between is too great. Bringing your physical body along as well is something I can’t do right now. So just suffer a little and start over slowly.”
Those words, carrying a subtly teasing smile and a measure of earnest expectation, were the last voice he heard before the long dizziness overtook him.
When he awoke, he discovered that he had become a tiny ball of light about a foot in size. Extending his divine sense outward, he found towering mountains and deep forests all around him; it was indeed a good place to seek out a cave dwelling for secluded cultivation.
The only problem was that the spiritual energy here was extremely thin, and the patterns through which it flowed were quite peculiar. If he relied on spiritual power here to reshape his body, he feared that a hundred years would yield only the progress of a single year. To recover to the peak condition of a twenty-year-old, he would actually have to hide away for two thousand years!
Even though, apart from when he was slaughtering demons, he was mostly courteous and refined, at this moment he still could not help cursing that temperamental immortal maiden of the upper realm thoroughly in his heart.
But matters had already reached this point. After venting his anger, he could only calm himself, guide the ball of light with spiritual power, and carefully inspect the surroundings in all directions.
Within a radius of more than ten li, there was only a small village hidden in the eastern mountain hollow. It was called Hanmeng Hamlet—only one character different from the hometown to which he could never return.
Perhaps it was this faint thread of affinity that stirred a thought in him. Before leaving, he quietly left a spiritual formation at the site of the Meng family ancestral hall in the center of the village. If ordinary evil demons quietly passed through, then so be it; but if they dared attempt an attack, they would surely be reduced to ash and smoke.
Only after he found a deep cave where spiritual veins intersected did he feel slightly more at ease. He released his divine sense far outward and roughly sensed the distribution of spiritual energy in this world, so as to make plans for the future.
Unexpectedly, with this probe, he discovered an extremely strange situation.
Across this vast world, spiritual energy was thin everywhere. Only nine places scattered across the broad planet gathered energy of extraordinary density. He focused his senses on the one closest to him, and the shape that formed in his visualization was actually an enormous cauldron, as vast as a mountain.
If there were nine such cauldrons, perhaps they could form a grand formation capable of influencing the entire world.
At this thought, he gave up the idea of refining his body beside the cauldron. Prudence above all. After sealing the cave entrance with a spiritual art, he slowly settled down before the deepest cave wall, drawing the surrounding strands of flowing spiritual energy into his soul, attempting to transform them into flesh.
An incomparably long cultivation thus began…