Xie Yan definitely had an agenda.
After what happened in Cliff City, Yu Ci and Xie Yan had developed a rather decent relationship. Yu Ci was confident that if he asked this Immortal for guidance in swordsmanship, he wouldn’t be turned down. Still, to teach him a heart formula in this kind of setting and make him practice it on the spot—especially with the subtle but unmistakably unfriendly tension between him and He Qing—sothing was clearly going on beneath the surface.
Naturally, Yu Ci was curious. His eyes swept across the faces of the Immortals, trying to gauge the situation.
Just then, Xie Liang looked up and t his gaze.
“Senior Brother Xie’s teachings are truly concise and precise, but you mustn't forcefully pursue them. Focus on distinguishing between the rainbow-like flow and the mist-like diffusion of sword intent.”
Xie Liang too?
Yu Ci was even more puzzled. But as soon as his eyes t Xie Liang’s, a chill ran down his spine. He quickly responded with a respectful “Yes,” then summoned his Pure Yang Talisman Sword.
With the sword in hand, Yu Ci paused to make slight adjustnts, then stepped forward ten paces.
Thanks to the powerful thods of the Immortals present, all the innate Qi and already-ford Yin Demons in the vicinity had been completely wiped out. Ten steps, fifty steps, even a hundred—it didn’t matter; there was no danger left. But these ten steps were critical.
Yu Ci took the opportunity to bring his breathing, mindset, and spiritual awareness into their optimal state.
He no longer concerned himself with the thoughts of Xie Yan and the others, nor what consequences those thoughts might bring. He pushed all that to the deepest depths of his heart, letting only the spark of sword thought rise to the surface.
It had been a long ti since he had focused on the sword like this.
To say Yu Ci didn’t understand swordsmanship would be a great injustice to him. He had a clear concept deep in his heart:
To wield a sword in combat is to dance on the edge of life and death.
This was the most deeply ingrained sword principle Yu Ci had developed over the years.
When he entered this state, nothing existed but the sword in his hand and the enemy before him. His sword beca the balance beam, raising both him and his enemy onto the sa level. A single tilt would decide life or death!
In the past, he’d defeated countless formidable enemies using this exact approach. On that razor-thin edge of choice between survival and demise, he believed—no matter who stood before him—that victory would always be his. That wasn’t arrogance; it was the essential ntality needed to survive on the brink.
But after entering the cultivation world, Yu Ci began to realize more and more that while life and death might be equal for enemies and allies in theory, truly powerful cultivators rarely gave him the chance to weigh them on his sword.
Take enemies like Jin Huan and Immortal Chi Yin, for instance—both had completed Core Refinent, commanding powerful true Qi. Their bodies, souls, and divine consciousness were all imnsely fortified. Compared to them, Yu Ci was currently only at mid-stage Divine Connectivity. His full-force sword strike barely reached a hundred feet, and its effective killing range was even shorter—by seventy percent. In a direct clash with foes like Jin Huan or Chi Yin, they could easily end his life from a distance. Even if he managed to close the gap, their defensive true Qi rendered his sword almost aningless.
Sure, those two terrifying enemies were dead now—along with “Tu Du,” and even further back, Nan Songzi. All had been killed, so by others, so by his own hand, thanks to clever planning and a bit of luck. It was a satisfying outco, and to onlookers, a shocking miracle.
Yu Ci wasn’t the type to act humble for no reason. He knew results were what truly mattered. Watching formidable foes and bitter enemies fall one by one under his sches—dying with resentnt and unwillingness—didn’t weigh on his conscience at all. On the contrary, the thrill and sense of accomplishnt just kept growing.
Yet, after a few such incidents, he couldn’t deny that one thought—a burning desire—had taken root and was beating against his chest:
Wouldn’t it be more satisfying… to do it with the sword?
He understood how to use circumstances to his advantage. He excelled at talismanic arts. But what he loved the most was the sword.
To drag a powerful enemy to the brink of life and death, to gamble everything on a sword stroke, and then win—to erase the enemy’s vitality, to taste the blood on his blade, to watch the despair in their eyes—that experience made him tremble with excitent. It was the pinnacle of thrill, the highest form of pleasure.
How long had it been since he last felt that?
His body heated up as he took another step forward.
Up ahead, a breach suddenly opened in the outer circle carved out by the Immortals. Gray mist surged inward, carrying with it a fully ford Yin Demon that let out a sharp screech as it lunged toward him.
Clearly, this was a test set up by Xie Yan and the others.
A high-pitched hiss, a sword aura splitting the air—the strike was fierce but only sliced through empty space. That sword aura might’ve shattered stone, but to the Yin Demon, it ant nothing.
Even though his first strike missed, Yu Ci’s face remained unchanged. The stares from the Immortals behind him brought no pressure. That strike was just a warm-up.
His eyes stayed level, but what truly guided him was his spiritual sense. The Yin Demon, though fully ford, had no physical body. It was condensed from violent innate Qi, shifting between form and formlessness at will, making it nearly impossible to catch with the naked eye. But after all his experience, his spiritual sense could still make accurate judgnts.
And through that sense, he felt the pressure of the innate Qi closing in.
All it would take was a single slip in his energy flow, and it could slip through the cracks, ignite his heart-fire, and attack his soul. No amount of protective breath or true Qi could withstand that.
As the short incantation echoed in his mind, his ridians and Qi channels trembled with power.
The mnemonic passed down by Xie Yan was indeed simple, but this kind of technique had been refined through hundreds of years and countless generations of cultivators. It was concise yet profound, filled with essential truths, and never indulged in aningless mysticism. Just a few sentences were enough to reveal the true thod. This technique, which used sword qi to break through deceit and evil, was essentially about using one’s finely tempered sword intent—focused with willpower and supplented by the killing intent nurtured within the heart—to strike down yin-type malevolent forces.
The difficulty lay only in whether one's sword intent had been properly cultivated.
The Half-Mountain Mirage Sword Intent that Yu Ci possessed was imbued into the mist by Ye Bin, who had reached the pinnacle of sword mastery. Through a connection of qi, it had been etched onto Yu Ci’s spirit. By a twist of fate and coincidence, he had managed to gain control of it earlier than expected. Though he had not honed it himself and lacked a thorough understanding of its principles, it was perfectly aligned with his temperant, mindset, and sword techniques. It had already beco part of him. Thus, the hardest hurdle had already been overco.
The Pure Yang Talisman Sword in his hand trembled slightly. Though he hadn’t yet made a move, a trace of sword qi rose up. At the sa ti, a layer of light seed to blossom from Yu Ci’s body, rging into the sword qi and rippling outward like a wave. Wherever the sword qi reached, the innate Qi of inner demons dissipated instantly. Even the fully ford Yin Demon writhed a few tis in the center, but could not resist in the end and faded into nothingness.
Only now did Yu Ci finally understand why, back at Southern Frost Lake, ng Wei had handled the formless, shapeless inner demon’s innate Qi so effortlessly. It turned out she had this very thod at her side. No wonder that, despite Murong Qingyan’s cultivation being higher, she was still less composed than ng Wei. Perhaps only orthodox sects like the Rifting Earth Sect could possess such deep foundations.
Just as this thought crossed his mind, another wave of demonic qi and gloom surged forward.
Yu Ci chuckled, and a clear sword hum echoed from his body.
He managed to fend off several waves of demonic assaults. Especially when dozens of fully ford Yin Demons closed in and the innate Qi spread thickly, he was even able to deploy the Half-Mountain Mirage Sword Intent to form a circle about a zhang wide around him. Sword qi flowed smoothly through the circle—flawlessly coordinated in attack and defense. No matter how the Yin Demons howled and pounced, the operation of his sword intent never faltered.
More than that, because a fire burned in Yu Ci’s heart—filled with bloodlust and the will to fight—each sweep of his sword qi only grew fiercer. Not only did the montum not weaken, but the slaughter of Yin Demons actually allowed him to accumulate more innate Qi, further amplifying the power of his strikes.
“Good!”
That was Old Daoist Yu Zhou cheering.
As his voice rang out, Yu Ci’s offensive surged forward, and he instantly slew a few more Yin Demons. Exhaling deeply, he turned and walked back. Though the rounds of anti-evil sword qi seed effortless, they were not truly easy to execute. A light sweat had already ford on his body, though ntally he felt even more invigorated.
From a distance, he could see the various expressions on the faces of the immortals watching him. Though Yu Ci had already withdrawn from the fully focused sword state, he didn’t imdiately start pondering anything else. The blaze in his heart seed to have mostly dispersed, but he knew that from the embers, a force was still pulsing—constantly striking at his chest:
Could his sword beco even sharper?
The question ca suddenly, but it stirred sothing far deeper than any of the problems before.
*****
Spring had co to the wilderness, though the mountain chill hadn’t yet faded.
Yu Ci walked slowly through the maple forest on the mountainside. The branches had yet to sprout buds, but they faintly glowed with a hint of green. From a distance, a hazy green seed to hover at the tips of the branches.
After strolling for a bit, he turned his gaze to the sky above the Heart Prohibition Temple. There, a slender shadow about forty feet long was slithering and twisting in the air. The owner of that shadow was inside the temple, likely discussing matters concerning him.
It was already the second day since his return to the Heart Prohibition Temple. Yu Ci was standing at a major turning point in his life.
He now understood the purpose of Immortal He Qing’s visit. The stern-looking female cultivator was a representative sent by the Rifting Earth Sect to investigate the events in Cliff City. The fall of the Sun Light Sect, the annihilation of the Jin bloodline, the chaos and losses in Cliff City, and the shifting of power were all within the scope of her inquiry. Of course, matters like Tu Du’s use of the “Void Heart Demon Spider Shadow Curse,” their encounter with Immortal Chi Yin on the way back, and the appearance of a True Immortal Yang Spirit were all included as well.
It was an incredibly complex case, yet in a certain sense, also very straightforward.
If the goal was to uncover every truth down to the last detail, then even a sect like the Rifting Earth Sect might find it difficult to achieve that in a short period of ti. But if it was simply to determine the stance and responsibility of those involved and to act accordingly, then that was much easier.
Most likely, a conclusion was about to be reached.
Yu Ci absentmindedly toyed with the Dragon Fish floating near him. His mood was relatively calm.
Leaving one’s fate in the hands of others was never a pleasant experience. But he had done what he needed to do. Back in Cliff City, he used Tu Du to divert Sunset Valley’s attention and offloaded so of the bla. On the way back, the ambush by the moon demon puppet and the True Immortal Yang Spirit had further complicated the situation, making it hard not to suspect deeper plots. This helped to dilute the impact of the Sun Light Sect’s downfall even more.
Not to ntion that Xie Yan, Xie Liang, and Old Daoist Yu Zhou had openly taken his side. Especially Xie and Yu—who were directly responsible for affairs in Cliff City—their support would heavily influence the sect’s final decision.
Footsteps echoed hurriedly—Bao Guang ca running.
Yu Ci turned and saw the little daoist’s face flushed red from running, but his mouth was split wide in a grin as he shouted:
“Senior Brother Yu, you’re gonna get punished!”
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