“Fellow Daoist, strike.”
“Kill, or persuade?”
“Kill. The great calamity draws near. Better to stock more elixirs. If these disciples die, we’ll simply recruit new ones.”
Clang.
Clang.
Clang.
The bell of Wendao Palace tolled.
Its sound was distant, desolate, as though crossing the gulf of eternity.
The cultivator at his chessboard lifted his gaze and rose to his feet. The one in seclusion, striving for Dao-realm, sighed and opened his eyes. Beneath a flowering tree, a cultivator stretched lazily and vanished into a stream of light.
One by one, figures of immense spiritual weight swept towards the palaces.
In the bamboo forest, battle raged. Suddenly, a shadow descended from above.
He raised a hand and pressed down. Instantly, the weaker disciples were crushed into blood and mud.
“An elder’s personal disciple! He’s struck!”
The besieged guards wept with joy. They turned the tide, cutting down scores in an instant. Only one young disciple still resisted.
The shadow gave a soft grunt of surprise, then said lightly: “Lay down your blade, and I will spare you.”
But the youth’s sword was already broken. Around him, his comrades lay shattered. Barely one in ten survived.
And yet, if one asked whether he regretted the path he had chosen, the answer was surely no.
Wiping blood from his cheek, his face still tender with youth, he raised his sword and demanded: “You crush me with power, with Dao-realm. Yet what crime is mine?!”
Fearless, unflinching, he charged. The shadow frowned faintly and lifted his hand.
The boy’s figure scattered like willow-fluff on the wind, into a drift of red sand.
At another palace gate, Zhu Xuewei felt her heart stir. She looked up. A wide-robed figure hung in the air, eyes lowered upon a fallen hall and shattered furnace.
He raised his sword… only for a white ribbon to coil suddenly round his wrist. Startled, he jerked free.
“Who?”
Out of the haze came a solitary woman, aloof as an orchid in a mountain valley.
Their eyes met, and each instantly knew the other was no easy foe. Both drew to full alert.
They clashed in mid-air. Below, blood-soaked disciples fought on, desperate to aid the shijie in white, but the gulf of cultivation could not be bridged by mere numbers.
Though Zhu Xuewei was no match for the elder’s disciple, what cultivator lives so long without a hidden art? Her gaze hardened. She swallowed a pill, and her cultivation flared.
For years she had failed to cross the threshold. She had thought herself slow, too bound by obsession. But now she knew. It was this palace itself that stifled her.
Her shixiong had once roamed tirelessly to win her a place to hear the Dao. She never believed his sudden retreat. But she had not found him. And now, perhaps, she never would.
Zhu Xuewei smiled faintly towards the drifting clouds, then advanced on the grey-robed figure. Her Daoist power was like a prison, her presence terrible and radiant. “While I stand here, vermin and cowards shall not run rampant.”
The figure flinched back a step.
A breeze stirred the fallen white petals across the ground.
Everywhere the battle raged, such silhouettes appeared wielding profound cultivation and mighty treasures, cutting down lives in an instant.
And still, the rebels did not yield.
However many disciples died, the survivors neither feared nor fled. Even if only one remained, they would not kneel, would not beg.
Lang Cui watched. He could not understand. He looked again… and still could not.
He waited, and at last, his quarry appeared.
Zhuo Qingyuan hovered in the sky, a treasure in hand. At the sight of Lang Cui, his eyes went red, though his voice was stiff. “Xiao Cui. You came, as I knew you would.”
Lang Cui cradled a small furnace. “Yes. I have been waiting… to send you on your way.”
“You aided Xue Cuo, only to force me out?”
“Yes.”
Zhuo Qingyuan’s teeth rattled with rage. His breath shook with fury. “For a disciple you’ve known but a month? For a stranger… you would kill me?”
Lang Cui was silent at first. Then, seeing Zhuo Qingyuan’s grief and anger, she laughed softly. “Yes. Is your life more precious than another’s?”
His voice dropped. “In my eyes, all are alike… just flesh and blood. Only he……”
He cut himself short, his tone turning cold. “Enough. Be silent.”
…
The battlefield roared.
Disciples gathered like clouds.
At its heart, Fang Longxi stood upon the stone dragon. He lifted a wine gourd to his lips, then slowly lowered it, pouring its contents onto the ground.
Good wine. A toast… to my fellow Daoists.
Xue Cuo lay on the clouds above, his face tight with worry as he watched the carnage in Wendao Palace.
“Xiao Yun, we can’t keep fighting.”
Kong Yun bristled, brandishing the Golden Feather Sword, killing intent spilling forth. “Retreat now, and live? Better one clean death than to be cut to pieces! We’ve come this far. If we fall back, we betray those who followed us!”
Xue Cuo thumped him with a small fist. “Of course I know! But the enemy is far too strong. If we fight on, our disciples will be slaughtered. We didn’t rise up today to throw away our lives! We must find another way.”
Fang Longxi overheard and laughed aloud. “With this shishu still here, what need have two little radishes to worry?”
He scooped them up, one in each hand, and rubbed their heads.
Kong Yun flared. “Let go, human!”
“Ah, this one’s not cute at all. Xiao Cuo, at least, is obedient.”
Fang Longxi hoisted Xue Cuo high. Xue Cuo, fierce as ever, flailed his short legs and glared. “Shishu! This is hardly the time! Put me down!”
Fang Longxi grinned. “Add your ages together, you’re still children. Leave it to shishu.”
The stubbled man nipped Xue Cuo’s cheek. Xue Cuo clutched his face in disgust. Fang Longxi chuckled, set him down, and said: “If we could retreat, that would be fine. But the times won’t allow it, boy.”
The Letter to Fellow Disciples had stirred a storm. Ningxiang Palace’s room of human skins ignited fury. Not only ordinary disciples, but cultivators long in seclusion had emerged to fight side by side with them. Palace gates fell one after another, disciples died in droves, and the battle only escalated.
Wendao Palace would never forgive rebellion. But the disciples had lost kin and comrades. Their hatred could not be soothed.
Fang Longxi narrowed his eyes. Minggong Yao stood high on the clouds. She was a formidable cultivator now, able to hold a sect’s weight, and she was once his acquaintance.
But beauty fades. As she looked upon her old friend, still full of wild vitality, her heart seethed with hatred, resentment, fear.
Behind her lay the greatest pill hall of Wendao Palace. She had no way out.
“If you stop now,” she said coldly, “for old times’ sake, I will grant you a path of escape.”
Fang Longxi laughed, then sighed softly. “Xiao Shimei.”
Minggong Yao trembled. Silent.
She remembered. Beneath the peach blossom hut, the youth had once been so gentle. They had loved dearly. Though gifted beyond measure, he had been willing to brew her tea, cook her meals, wash her clothes.
She remembered those idle days, playing chess as the candlelight softened his brows, as gentle as spring water. Such beauty, she had never forgotten.
But there’s no point in people who follow different ways to take counsel together.
Time betrayed them. Now, after centuries, what remained was only hatred. And this was the first time in hundreds of years she had heard him call her shimei.
Minggong Yao felt a faint melancholy, mingled with wariness. “What… do you want to say?”
Fang Longxi gave a faint smile, running his fingers along the long sword. “Minggong, when you cast me aside, it was here as well. It seems you’ve forgotten.”
He fell silent a moment, took a draught of wine, then said slowly, “But perhaps that is just as well.”
Minggong Yao’s brow furrowed. “What are you planning?”
Fang Longxi smiled. “Guess.”
All at once he drew his blade. Sword-light like a fall of pure snow flashed across Minggong Yao’s withered eyes.
Her eyes widened in fury. “Fang Longxi, you’re mad! How dare you! Put away that sword at once!”
Boom—
The thunder calamity gathered in an instant. Fang Longxi showed no fear; his smile was bright, his demeanour unburdened, as though the weary husk of failure had fallen away, leaving him once more spirited as in youth.
“Two hundred years, and still my sword is untainted by rust! Haha, one sword to the East!”
Minggong Yao’s pupils constricted in horror. She turned to flee… only to be met by a sword-light of terrible beauty, sharp beyond measure.
It carried the wielder’s Dao, his resonance, unstoppable.
Why, she wondered, after all these years of stabilised Dao, did she feel so utterly powerless now?
Jealousy seethed in her heart. Resentment too.
Why?
Was he truly one destined by Heaven, a genius fated to ascend?
She could not bear it. That was why she deceived him, betrayed him, and cast him aside. Watching him stagnate forever at the Original Spirit realm had brought her perverse joy, joy mixed with spiteful satisfaction and the faintest regret. So great a talent, wasted. She had thought that title of “Heaven’s favoured” would never fit him again.
The wind whistled past her ears.
In that dazzling sword-shadow she saw her spiritual platform, her spiritual domain, her very flesh shatter, each fragment bursting into the semblance of unopened blossoms.
Behind her, the palace gates collapsed with a crash, crushing the pill chamber doors to rubble.
Pain, yet not pain.
Hatred, yet not hatred.
“Fang Longxi, you’ll die with me!”
He had broken a Great Dao oath. Heaven’s law would claim him. Since he was doomed, what reason had she to fear? Minggong Yao’s broken body gave a wild laugh.
Fang Longxi lifted his head. In moments, thunder clouds roared into being, Heaven’s lightning fell in wrath.
“Fang-shishu!”
Xue Cuo’s eyes widened; he tried to rush forward. Fang Longxi leaned upon his sword, turned, and gave the youth a rakish smile. “Boy, the Dao is lonely. Grieve not. I go my own way.”
The thunder calamity engulfed him. Xue Cuo strained against Kong Yun’s arms, tears spilling hotly. “No!”
The bolt descended.
Fang Longxi gazed up with calm acceptance. Kong Yun covered Xue Cuo’s eyes.
Out of nowhere, a plain bamboo sword appeared in the sky.
The heavenly lightning struck, but the bamboo blade stood unmoved.
Minggong Yao’s laughter froze. Her body unravelled, unwilling, desperate. She hurled herself towards Fang Longxi, shrieking, “You cannot, you cannot leave me to die alone, Fang Longxi! Fang Long…”
Her voice broke off.
Her form dissolved entirely in sword-light.
Fang Longxi stared, stunned, looking upward.
There, descending through the storm, was a solitary figure. His aura was faint, unassuming, yet beneath the tribulation clouds not a strand of hair stirred. Robes white as snow, long brows, features like a painting, hands clasped behind his back, he walked down through the air as if on level ground.
Buzz—
The bamboo sword quivered, Heaven’s Dao resounding with it.
Jun Wuwei’s face showed neither joy nor anger. His expression was placid, remote, as he gazed upon the blood-soaked palace gates without so much as a frown. In truth, he did not care.
The clamour ceased at once. From the instant Sword Immortal appeared, all fighting stopped. He spoke not a word, yet no one dared breathe too loudly.
Behind him, Gu Ruhui in black followed with equal serenity, stretching out a hand towards Xue Cuo. “Shixiong, come here quickly.”
Xue Cuo could not. He was enmeshed in troubles. To go with Gu Ruhui now would crush the disciples’ fragile morale.
All eyes were upon him. Kong Yun’s silence could not hide his thoughts. Xue Cuo held Xiao Yun’s hand, sighed, glanced first at Jun Wuwei, then at Kong Yun, and shook his head. “Xiao Gu-gege, I… cannot.”
Gu Ruhui frowned, words dying on his lips.
Jun Wuwei never spared Xue Cuo a glance. Suddenly, a cloud drifted near, bearing an old man in purple robes. With a flick of his whisk, he smiled faintly. “Sword Immortal, behold. The chaos your son has wrought in my Wendao Palace.
“The great tribulation has not yet begun, and already three-tenths of the disciples are lost. Tell me, how shall I replace them?”
Jun Wuwei regarded him with mild puzzlement. “And what has that to do with me?”
Qingcang Zhenren choked. He had waited to lodge complaints, to gain advantage, but was blocked flat. Swallowing his ire, he glanced at Xue Cuo and said slowly, “In the heavenly court, Lord Gongming Tiansi has already reported him to the Immortal Emperor for forging an edict and issuing a false warrant. I am commanded to hand him over.”
Jun Wuwei stood with hands clasped behind his back, face smooth as a mirror. His eyes drifted to the peak of Oxhorn Mountain. “That is his karma. I came only to claim the Wendao Bell.”
Qingcang Zhenren flushed. “Sword Immortal, do you truly not care?”
Jun Wuwei gave him a cold look. “Back then, I warned you that the karma of Wendao Pills would taint the whole palace. You plugged your ears, too proud to heed. That fool’s pill was filth, an evil cause in itself. You fools followed blindly, lusting after false ascension. Now the backlash is here. What Xue Cuo and the others have done accords with Heaven’s law, it is divine punishment. You planted the cause yourselves. Why should I intervene?”
Scolded thus, Qingcang Zhenren’s face burned crimson. He sputtered, “But he is your own son. Will you truly do nothing?”
Jun Wuwei’s gaze stayed upon the mountain peak. He did not understand why Xue Cuo had touched Wendao pill karma, but he would not interfere. “He chose to taint himself with evil cause. That was his decision. I said: I came only to borrow the Wendao Bell.”
Qingcang Zhenren’s mouth twitched. Helpless, he muttered, “Very well. Take it, then.”
Jun Wuwei lowered his eyes, stretched out a hand. The Wendao Bell quaked the mountain to its roots, though formation wards restrained it.
“One last question, what use do you make of it?”
Jun Wuwei cast him a cool glance.
Qingcang Zhenren winced. “This Daoist has asked too much.”
Sword Immortal secured the Wendao Bell. As he turned to depart, the bamboo sword bristled, lashing skyward to split apart the lingering clouds of tribulation. Its light cleaved the heavens, startling the god who oversaw the divine weapon. Pale-faced, the deity dared not push away the clouds to peer below, muttering about wages and stipends. “If he cannot be slain, then it is Heaven’s will,” he said, and withdrew the clouds to strike elsewhere.
Fang Longxi gaped, nearly collapsing to his knees. He looked from the sky to the bamboo sword. That was a Great Dao tribulation. Meant to kill without mercy!
And yet… survived?
The bamboo sword drifted down into Gu Ruhui’s hands. Jun Wuwei said lightly, “Let’s leave.”
Gu Ruhui tightened his grip. Normally he obeyed without question. Yet now, he stood straight, unmoving. “Shifu… I wish to remain.”
Jun Wuwei raised a brow, faintly surprised. “Where the sword goes, the heart follows. If you have your own path, then do not ask me next time. The sword Dao is yours alone.”
He had never forced anyone, not even his favoured disciple.
He gave Gu Ruhui a brief nod, then vanished with a sweep of his sleeve.
The moment he was gone, Qingcang Zhenren turned coldly upon the disciples. “Fang Longxi, Xue Cuo! You spread rumours, stirred rebellion. Why do you not kneel?”
Xue Cuo bristled, hands on his hips. “Because you say it’s rumour, it must be rumour? What a grand label you’ve put on us!”
Kong Yun, hot-tempered, was ready to explode. But Xue Cuo yanked him back by the belt, hissing in his ear, “That’s a true elder! Retreat, retreat!”
Fang Longxi bared his teeth in a grin as he drew his sword. “Zhenren, I’ve still one blade for the West, one for the South, and one for the North.”
Qingcang Zhenren swept his gaze across Wendao Palace, lightning flashing in his eyes. His cultivation far surpassed Fang Longxi and the rest, life and death were his to grant. Yet if he struck directly, karmic filth would cling, hindering his ascension. A poor bargain. The other old monsters surely thought the same, each unwilling to stick out a head. After much weighing, he readied himself to seize Xue Cuo, when a lone figure dropped before the boy.
A youth. Thin, cold-eyed, his handsome face set in indifference, his upright frame utterly fearless, like a sword given form.
His gaze lingered on Xue Cuo for but a breath, then fixed upon Qingcang Zhenren.
The elder’s eyes fell on the bamboo sword, and his heart faltered. Jun Wuwei, cold and aloof as ice, had nonetheless chosen to shoulder cause and effect by taking Gu Ruhui as disciple. If Qingcang harmed him…
His cheek twitched. He cursed Jun Wuwei silently. At that moment, the heavens split.
Crimson clouds spilled across the sky, immortal music trailing. From the blaze descended a god, ribbons streaming from his form, radiance cloaking his frame. His voice boomed like a great bell, wrathful and overbearing. Gongming Tiansi, the very god tricked three times before. He glared at the culprit, eyes blazing. “Xue Cuo! Return with me to Heaven at once to face judgement!”
Before a god, a cultivator’s body was dust.
The sudden descent struck terror in every heart. Mortals might contest a cultivator, even a high elder, but who could pit themselves against a god?
Fang Longxi’s expression hardened. His sword flashed free, ragged robes whipping in the wind. “Boy Xue Cuo, slip away when the chaos breaks!”
Kong Yun paled. He knew this god, it was Xue Cuo’s enemy! He shoved the boy back, voice sharp with panic. “That cursed god! Go! Do you still remember the Supreme Freedom technique I taught you?”
Qingcang Zhenren gave a cold chuckle. “Run? Where do you think you’ll go?”
Gongming Tiansi descended on clouds, voice like rolling thunder: “Stand aside, idlers! Obstruct me and you’ll suffer fire and smoke, body and soul annihilated!”
Fang Longxi struck. His blade met the god’s wind-like palm. Yet the recoil spat blood from his lips. His face went white as paper. One blow, and he was near broken.
This was no gap of mere cultivation realm. Mortals and gods were worlds apart.
“Fang-shishu!” Xue Cuo lunged to catch him.
But Kong Yun seized the moment. His peacock form burst forth, wings beating as he darted skyward, trying to draw the god’s gaze. With a casual flick of his sleeve, Gongming Tiansi hurled him from the clouds. Blood sprayed. “Fool! Run!” Kong Yun roared as he fell.
“Xiao Yun!” Xue Cuo cried out.
And from every side came voices.
“Shixiong!”
“Xue-shixiong!”
Disciples, flying from all directions. But how could they contend with Wendao Palace? Their arrival meant only more lives thrown away.
Fang Longxi wiped blood from his mouth and lifted his blade once more. “This life was stolen long ago. Today, I spend it well!”
Kong Yun dragged himself upright, despair thick in his eyes. Gods were untouchable; to meet one was to die without hope. Yet though he was demon-born, Kong Yun would never betray a good friend. “Xue Cuo!”
“Shixiong, go.”
The voice was calm, distant.
Xue Cuo lifted his gaze. Gu Ruhui stood before him, eyes steady as ice. A dead end, that much was clear. Tears trembled in Xue Cuo’s eyes, but his lips curved in a broken smile.
He was still so young. When Jun Wuwei had appeared, for an instant he had hoped, perhaps his father would help him.
But he was born to solitude. His parents owed him no karmic debt. If anything, he was the one forever bringing trouble, never learning obedience.
“Gege… it’s too late to run.”
“But I don’t want you to die. Not one of you.”
He scrubbed his face with a small hand, drew out a storage ring, and pressed it into Gu Ruhui’s palm. “Please give this to my father and mother. Xiao Gu-gege, Kong Yun, Fang-shishu…”
Fang-shishu was right. Sometimes retreat only dooms the ones left behind.
Gongming Tiansi only wanted Xue Cuo and no one else. He raised a hand. At once, a celestial soldier unfurled a chain from his sleeve, sweeping to bind the boy.
Clang—!
Steel met steel.
The heavenly soldier blinked in shock. A black-robed youth, thin as a crane, stood there, his bamboo sword trembling, yet it had stopped the chain.
Impossible! A mere disciple?!
Again the chain whipped forth.
Clang—!
Snow-bright sword-light split the air, blocking it once more.
Even Gongming Tiansi himself stilled, his gaze narrowing. That sword seems so familiar… “This boy—”
Qingcang Zhenren’s heart jolted. Jun Wuwei’s disciple… already so terrifying? He whispered towards the god, “He is Jun Wuwei’s personal heir.”
“Jun Wuwei! No wonder!”
Cold dread crawled across Gongming Tiansi’s spine. Memories surged of the year sword-light had crushed him with fear. He barked at his soldiers: “Stop!”
Jun Wuwei had severed his own realm, refused ascension, to settle karmic debts in the mortal world. If he wished to rise, the immortal path lay open. He need not fight for place. An enemy of his would be an enemy for eternity.
Gongming Tiansi cursed inwardly. He had left in haste, neglecting to check the karmic registers. Damn those useless clerks of the Cause Bureau!
Gu Ruhui’s hand bled from the hilt, yet he stood unmoving before Xue Cuo, straight-backed like a mountain. Small, perhaps, but immovable. Look closely, and one could see the faint tremor in his spine.
“Xiao Gu-gege…”
Xue Cuo’s head hung. Wounded friends all around. Xiao Yun, Fang-shishu, Xiao Gu-gege, Wen Renyi barred outside. He could not flee.
Gu Ruhui shook his head, voice taut. “I’m fine.”
“Xiao Gu-gege.”
Xue Cuo suddenly flung his arms round him. A child’s weight, feather-light. Gu Ruhui froze, bewildered. Then his face shifted, yet he could not move. His body was bound. He could only watch as Xue Cuo stepped away.
“The immobilisation talisman lasts but three quarters of an hour. Xiao Gu-gege, I’m sorry.”
Xue Cuo walked past the crowd, arms spread wide. He stood before Fang Longxi and Gu Ruhui, looking calmly up at the god. “I am here. Take me.”
Gongming Tiansi’s gaze swept him up and down. He barked a laugh. “Ignorant child! Today I’ll give you a small punishment, a great warning. To set the record straight!”
His sleeve flicked. Twelve layers of Xue Cuo’s spirit platform were severed in an instant. The boy screamed, wracked with agony, his body shuddering on the cloud.
“Xue Cuo!” Kong Yun howled, eyes bloodshot.
Gongming Tiansi sneered. “Now, do you submit?”
Tears streamed as Xue Cuo writhed, yet he clenched his teeth, shaking his head. Gongming Tiansi chuckled. The Golden Pool and Platform slipped into his hand, and joy lit his face.
“For Sword Immortal’s sake, I’ll spare your life. Stripped of cultivation, cast into the mortal dust, bound to endless reincarnation, never to escape.”
With a wave of his sleeve, the child shrank to a speck, flung into the mist of the human world.
The god clapped, laughing. “Far more amusing than a heavenly prison. Well. My task is done.”
The sky cleared. Clouds and fog dispersed.
The disciples gazed upward, faces hollow with despair. Heaven… would not help them either? Xue-shixiong. What had he done wrong? For standing for them, he was cast down.
“Xue-shixiong!” Wen Renyi’s cry broke into sobs.
On the clouds, Fang Longxi watched the boy’s spirit crushed, hurled into the mortal world. His face twisted in grief and bitter mirth. “Immortal sects… what fine tricks. Ha. Ha ha ha!”
His laughter rose, louder and harsher. The disciples broke the seals at last, stumbling into a broken circle. They lifted Fang Longxi, swords raised, eyes fixed on death.
He swept his gaze over the palace, shut his eyes, and gave a cold smile. “This Wendao Palace is rotten. Rotten to the core.”
Gu Ruhui strained against the binding talisman, bamboo sword creaking in his grip. “Shixiong.”
Kong Yun collapsed into human form, drained beyond measure. His face was numb, yet his eyes fixed upon the vanishing trace of Gongming Tiansi in the sky.
Suddenly, he snapped his own golden-feathered sword in two. His voice was still, yet seething: “From this day, this sword shall never again ask the Dao. From this day, this body shall never again believe in Heaven.”
“Xue Cuo, life after life, world after world. I will find you.”
The author has something to say:
A childhood dream. The adult arc is on the way.
