The Thirty-Third War Sword

A divine city shattered, and a stone mountain flew out, with three War Swords thrust into it, gleaming with divine light and radiating sword-qi!

"Seal!" Xiao Chen spoke but a single word, and the incomplete divine diagram in the sky descended in an instant, suppressing everything beneath it.

At the same time, two Heavenly Marks materialized, blocking the path ahead.

The stone mountain trembled, trying to break through left and right, but it could not breach the blockade; it was fixed in place, the three War Swords upon it ringing out sharply.

Xiao Chen frowned. Although the stone mountain was extremely hard, worthy of being called a divine mountain, there was nothing strange inside, and it was easily suppressed—completely different from what he had imagined.

"Shatter!" Xiao Chen said in a low voice. The formation diagram rotated slowly, grinding down upon it, and that stone mountain shattered on the spot. Though it was a consecrated sacred mountain, before the divine diagram it broke like porcelain.

The three War Swords vibrated incessantly, emitting a series of clanging sounds, as if sensing the hazy formation diagram in the sky, wanting to join it.

Xiao Chen was stunned for a moment. What was Renmo Ge Qian thinking? How could he seal three War Swords in that broken, dilapidated Primordial Demon City? Wasn't this simply handing them over to him?

Did Ge Qian truly believe he would not dare to shatter this city and would instead help repair it completely? That was far too presumptuous. Even so, there was no need to store the War Swords in the ancient city, for it was not a risk worth taking.

In that instant, many thoughts flashed through Xiao Chen's mind, but his gaze only grew sharper. He dared not be careless. He fixed the shattered divine city and the broken stone mountain in place, then drew the three War Swords close to examine them carefully.

The three War Swords clanged loudly, but there were no spiritual imprints upon them, no special marks at all; they could truly be called ownerless items.

"Go!" Xiao Chen was not polite. He hurled the three War Swords into the divine diagram, using the hazy formation diagram to refine them. A mysterious aura like thin chaos mist swirled out. The three War Swords slowly became attuned, eventually seeming to gain life, shooting out towering divine light that tore through the thick silver clouds over the Death Continent.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

A burst of vibrant sword cries echoed through the heavens, shaking the outer regions of the Death Continent. The three War Swords, like the previous thirty, were activated, and a hazy mist shrouded them.

The three War Swords floated motionless in the sky, their blades pointing straight up. An ancient pattern gradually formed between them, and then they shook violently.

"Boom!" A world-shaking sound erupted, a vast, majestic force shaking the hearts of all, surging across a hundred thousand li in an instant. But then, in the next moment, all the divine power converged and vanished.

A small corner of a broken formation diagram condensed and appeared in the sky, hazy and mysterious!

In that instant, Xiao Chen was suddenly jolted awake. Could it be that Renmo Ge Qian was using him to summon the formation diagram? What talk of repairing the broken, dilapidated Primordial Demon City, what promise of petrifying another arm—all false. Perhaps this was what he truly wanted.

Xiao Chen moved swiftly. The great divine diagram condensed from thirty War Swords pressed down, covering that small corner of the broken formation diagram beneath it in an instant.

"Rumble…" A violent collision ensued. The formation diagram slowly fused, mist billowing, growing ever more mysterious and unfathomable. Gradually, a small corner appeared, larger than before. As it moved toward completion, its mysterious divine power naturally grew stronger.

A seamless fusion!

No accident occurred throughout this process. At the same time, the thirty-three War Swords in the sky vibrated as one, their radiance shooting to the heavens. Thirty-three divine rainbows made the gray sky brilliantly splendid.

"Boom!" Xiao Chen shot into the sky, using his body to complete the diagram. Patterns emerged all over his body and merged with the divine diagram in the sky.

Chaos mist stirred as this region of the sky was completely sealed off.

Time flowed on, the formation diagram hazy and indistinct, Xiao Chen merged into a single entity with it.

In that moment, he seemed to unite with the Dao, his body transforming into eternity.

The divine diagram spun endlessly, space and time growing chaotic there, eventually condensing into a single point of eternity.

A mysterious power seemed to freeze heaven and earth. This continued until more than ten days later, when a great boom echoed from the sky.

"Boom!" Man and divine diagram separated. Xiao Chen stood quietly in meditation for three full days before slowly opening his eyes. His understanding of the divine diagram had deepened by another level!

"Renmo Ge Qian… what does he truly intend? Is he really using me to summon the divine diagram and gather the War Swords, only to seize them himself? That would be incredibly arrogant." Xiao Chen had displayed the divine diagram more than once, and the Otherworld Ancestral Gods had long known of it. Aside from using him to condense the formation diagram, he could hardly imagine what else Ge Qian might be planning.

But still, he was uneasy. This was far too presumptuous. For now, it was as if he was first handing him victory. Was Ge Qian so confident that he could take his formation diagram?

Carefully recalling everything that had happened recently, Xiao Chen noticed that at first, Ge Qian had wanted him to defect to the Otherworld, and only at the very end had he spoken of repairing the divine city.

Defect… Thinking of this, Xiao Chen shuddered. In the distant past, the Nine Provinces had a prodigy who defected to the Otherworld. Could that man be Ge Qian himself?

As for Ge Qian's claim that Xiao Chen would later meet that man, this did not conflict with the speculation. It was possible that only when his true identity was revealed would they truly meet.

This was a bold and absurd conjecture, and Xiao Chen himself found it hard to believe. Could Ge Qian truly be that prodigy from the past, enduring humiliation to bear a heavy burden, and now secretly helping him?

That would be utterly astonishing!

Renmo Ge Qian had killed his own nine elder brothers. Could that be something the Upper Ancestral Gods of the Nine Provinces would do? It was the ultimate in heartlessness and the destruction of all natural affection!

If he was truly bearing a heavy burden in humiliation, then his sacrifice was far too great. To kill his own nine elder brothers to prove his loyalty—was that not a brutal act of self-destruction and spiritual torment, a weight too heavy to bear?

If it were true, such an ordeal was beyond ordinary imagination. What immense boldness it would take to make such a choice! It was the will of a man beyond the ordinary—a man like a demon!

Xiao Chen sighed and shook his head.

He did not know Ge Qian's true origins and therefore could not make a definite judgment. This bold conjecture was merely a fleeting speculation, not a final conclusion.

And when he thought of how Ge Qian had cold-bloodedly slaughtered the living beings of the Nine Provinces, causing a million corpses to fall in an instant and rivers of blood to flood the land, Xiao Chen felt his conjecture was far too absurd.

Whether he sought to seize his divine diagram or had other hidden motives, Ge Qian was ultimately a mystery. This man was far from simple.

Xiao Chen shook his head and set the matter aside. From now on, he would need to be even more cautious. The peerless experts of the Otherworld were too terrifying; one could imagine that other supreme figures would emerge.

He sealed the handful of sand-like fragments of the shattered divine city between thirty-some War Swords, imprisoning them within his own acupoint spaces. There might truly be a need to repair this city.

Yan Huang and the old Ancestral Dragon had gone deep into the Death Continent. Xiao Chen felt he should also explore deeper. He decided to seek out a desolate dead city to refine.

And so, Xiao Chen set out alone. With his current cultivation, he could advance at divine speed, and even the cities of sovereign kings could not stop him.

However, he did not rush recklessly. Instead, he walked on foot, even sealing his own divine power, experiencing anew the hardships of a mortal crossing mountains and rivers. With a mindset of returning to the starting point, he tempered his will, seeking to elevate his spiritual perception.

Along the way, Xiao Chen fought against the harsh environment and against the skeletal creatures that frequently appeared. He relearned his past techniques, cultivating his body anew, re-experiencing and re-enlightening himself through sensations he had never known.

This journey took seventeen full years. Xiao Chen gradually transformed from a mortal who could only fight ordinary fire-seed creatures into a cultivator capable of battling advanced colored-diamond fire-seed beings.

After a completely new experience, a myriad of trials had hardened his will immensely, and his spiritual perception had clearly condensed and strengthened.

In the seventeenth year, Xiao Chen killed three five-colored skeletons, finally provoking a sovereign king to attack. In the end, he was forced to unseal his power and slay the king.

Seventeen years of tempering—from fighting skeletal creatures to battling sovereign kings—had honed his spiritual power from beginning to end. His spiritual perception finally broke through from the Seventh Heaven to the Eighth Heaven.

It was at this moment that he entered the depths of the Death World.

Stepping into this entirely new domain, where one could no longer see cities of sovereign kings, even Xiao Chen, powerful as he was, had to be cautious.

"Shiiing!"

A beam of Killing Light pierced heaven and earth, spanning a hundred li in an instant, brushing past Xiao Chen.

This was the depth of the Death Continent. Danger lurked everywhere. Even Ancestral God-level powerhouses could not be careless, lest they be severely wounded at any moment.

"At last, I am nearing the mysterious sacred ground of the Death World," Xiao Chen murmured to himself, standing upon this land brimming with demonic power.

It was not the deepest part of the Death World, but it was already a true, mysterious sacred ground.

After traveling just over a thousand li deeper, Xiao Chen saw many incredible sights.

He saw an enormous skeleton, ten thousand meters tall, standing silently before a mountain of bones, its body hard and indestructible, yet radiating no divine power. He saw a celestial garden, lush and thriving, filled with abundant spiritual energy, but surrounded by endless white bones, murderous aura coiling around it. He saw a stretch of primeval ruins, desolate and terrifying, from which mournful screams issued every half hour, but no matter how he searched, he could not find the source of the sound within the ruins. He saw a patch of white mist, from which sacred hymns emerged, but he could not approach it; the hazy white mist, like a specter, drifted through space and time, vanishing before his eyes in an instant.

In this truly sacred ground of the Death World, Xiao Chen had only traveled a thousand li deeper, yet he already felt a profound strangeness. He felt that all of this was highly abnormal.

Several days later, Xiao Chen finally discovered the first Primordial Demon City in the depths of the Death World. The ancient city stood silently upon the land, seeming exceptionally still.

Xiao Chen strode forward, wanting to test whether the existence within this city had already withered into complete stillness. But at that moment, he suddenly stopped, for a figure abruptly appeared before the city gate, condensing from nothingness into solid form.

"You have come," came a calm voice.

That person was not a skeletal creature, nor a Stone Man. He was a tall Daoist in an ancient Daoist robe, four immortal-slayer swords on his back, his back turned to Xiao Chen.