Chapter 1380: A Secret Hidden in the Deepest Prison
"The Ten Thousand Immortals Alliance is utterly ruthless! They devour you whole and don't even spit out the bones!" The thought of the seventy thousand contribution points he had painstakingly accumulated vanishing into thin air sent a wave of excruciating pain through Kou Hong, his eyes burning crimson.
"How could we have been so blind as to join the Ten Thousand Immortals Alliance in the first place?" Even Dao Xuanzi, always the calmer of the two, could no longer pacify the fury in his heart.
"We'll defect to the Five Elders Council! We will make the Ten Thousand Immortals Alliance pay for this!"
Having reached a consensus, the two departed from the Alliance's Sky City and covertly made their way toward the territory of the Five Elders Council.
However, they had forgotten one crucial fact.
Although the Ten Thousand Immortals Alliance openly stated it did not restrict the personal freedom of its members—even allowing them to renounce their membership and join the Five Elders Council—this freedom came at a price.
Anything and everything gained within the Alliance had to be returned.
Thus, the moment the two showed signs of defection, a Nascent Soul cultivator from the Law Enforcement Hall was dispatched in pursuit.
Sensing the formidable aura closing in from behind, the expressions on Kou Hong and Dao Xuanzi's faces tightened.
"I don't care that you're defecting to the Five Elders Council. But the two Golden Core techniques you exchanged for must be returned."
"Let's see, one is the *Thousand Dragon Transformation*, and the other is the *Echoing Mind Sword Art*," the Nascent Soul cultivator declared, his expression impassive.
Kou Hong nearly choked on his own blood. His body trembled as he pointed a shaking finger at the cultivator and roared, "What kind of twisted logic is that?! Our contribution points vanished for no reason, and no one cared! Fine! But now you want to take back the techniques we earned with our own hard work?"
The Nascent Soul cultivator sneered. "All techniques of the Alliance belong to the Alliance. You merely exchanged for the right to use them. Now that you're so clearly planning to join the Five Elders Council, did you really think we'd let you arm our enemies? Leaving you with your miserable lives is already an act of mercy from the Alliance!"
At these words, Kou Hong let out a great cry. The stifling rage in his chest could no longer be contained, and he violently spat out a mouthful of blood.
"Flame Dragon's Fury!"
In an instant, a crimson dragon materialized in the sky, coiling around the Nascent Soul cultivator in a blazing inferno of unbearable heat.
Brothers united in purpose, Kou Hong had attacked without hesitation, and Dao Xuanzi followed suit without a moment's delay.
With a single thought, more than thirty transparent sword shadows flickered into existence, each appearing to be from a different era, all bearing the patina of decay.
The sword shadows howled through the air, their very presence imbuing the surrounding space with an aura of ancient decay, as if freezing time itself.
The Nascent Soul cultivator arched an eyebrow, a flicker of surprise in his eyes at the power the two could unleash.
"What a pity," he thought to himself. "But the rules of the Alliance cannot be broken."
Facing the combined assault of Kou Hong and Dao Xuanzi, the Nascent Soul cultivator merely let out another cold sneer.
Suddenly, the shadow of a Grotto-Heaven materialized in the sky, a void that looked like a black sun.
The crimson flames engulfing the dragon were instantly extinguished. The thirty-odd sword shadows lost their balance, unable to even remain stable. They were all irresistibly drawn toward the black, circular Grotto-Heaven in the sky.
They vanished into its depths, leaving not so much as a ripple behind.
The difference between the Golden Core and Nascent Soul realms was simply too vast. While Kou Hong and his brother had a stroke of luck, they were ultimately just two among the countless masses of the world, possessing no miraculous opportunity that could overcome such a disparity.
"Since you insist on being stubborn, don't blame me—Chu—for being merciless."
The black Grotto-Heaven descended, ready to utterly suppress the two brothers.
Under the weight of the Nascent Soul's power, their bodies were locked in place, unable to move. They could only watch, helpless, as their doom approached.
Just then, a resolute glint flashed in Dao Xuanzi's eyes.
"Dao Xuan!"
A crisp, cold cry echoed suddenly. A rust-covered longsword materialized before Dao Xuanzi, its tip pointed directly at the Nascent Soul cultivator.
A hint of astonishment crossed the cultivator's face.
In that same instant, countless points of light erupted from Dao Xuanzi's body. Like a sky full of stars, they twinkled for a brief moment before streaming into the Dao Xuan Sword.
Starlight danced across the blade, mending the decaying longsword.
In that moment, Dao Xuanzi and the Dao Xuan Sword became one!
The peerless divine weapon from antiquity finally revealed its true form.
"Run!" Dao Xuanzi's voice rang in Kou Hong's ears.
Then, Kou Hong witnessed a brilliant beam of sword light that seemed to cleave heaven and earth apart. RaN0OB#ЕS
With a tremendous roar, the black Grotto-Heaven shimmered with a pale white light and crumbled inch by inch.
Yet the Dao Xuan Sword, its momentum unbroken, continued on.
Seizing the last vestiges of its life's brilliance, it streaked toward the Alliance's Sky City.
"Dao Xuanzi!"
With the Nascent Soul's Grotto-Heaven shattered, Kou Hong regained control of his body. Tears flooded his vision, his heart wracked with unbearable grief. He knew Dao Xuanzi had sacrificed himself to save him.
With the death of this Nascent Soul cultivator, the Ten Thousand Immortals Alliance would undoubtedly send even stronger pursuers.
Kou Hong knew he couldn't linger. He wiped away his tears and sped toward the territory of the Five Elders Council.
"Ten Thousand Immortals Alliance..." Kou Hong ground his teeth in silent fury.
"Just you wait!"
"I will grow stronger! I will have my revenge!"
The flames of vengeance burned fiercely in Kou Hong's eyes. He was just about to cross the border when...
A streak of light shot from the horizon, piercing through his body.
"..."
Kou Hong opened his mouth, trying to say something, but no words came out. His head flew from his shoulders as blood gushed like a fountain.
Only then did the streak of light reveal its true form: a longsword that flowed like water.
A single strike had claimed his head.
A young cultivator, dressed in the black uniform of the Law Enforcement Hall, slowly materialized.
"Can't even handle two Golden Core cultivators. Useless trash. He deserved to die!" the young cultivator spat, then turned his gaze away from Kou Hong's corpse.
"Strange, where did that longsword go? And the contribution points disappearing... I fear this really is a plot by the Five Elders Council," he muttered, before vanishing without a trace.
A long time passed. Kou Hong's severed head, which had rolled to a stop on the ground with its eyes wide open in eternal defiance, began to change.
It crumbled like sand and scattered on the wind.
Only a single, dragon-shaped branch from between his brows remained.
Li Fan's figure quietly appeared.
With a wave of his hand, the dragon-shaped branch flew into his grasp.
He could faintly hear an endless, unwilling roar echoing from within it.
Li Fan frowned slightly, waiting and observing the reaction of [Truth].
After a moment, he sighed softly. "It doesn't have that intense hunger for it."
"It seems I was thinking too simply."
"But this crystallized remnant of will is not entirely useless."
With that thought, Li Fan forcibly fed it to [Truth].
The dragon-shaped branch in his hand slowly faded away.
At the same time, a series of blurry images flashed rapidly through Li Fan's mind.
"This is..."
Li Fan's brow furrowed.
Without a doubt, these flashing scenes were a result of [Truth] devouring Kou Hong's remnant will.
Although Kou Hong's will hadn't met the conditions to form an "Eternal Remnant," it was just barely sufficient to become food for [Truth].
But in the past, whenever [Truth] devoured an Eternal Remnant, a new function would be born.
What was the meaning of these fleeting images from this feeding?
The flashbacks were as ephemeral as inspiration. Even for Li Fan, capturing them was no easy task.
He stood motionless, savoring the aftertaste for a long while before it started to make sense.
His expression turned peculiar. "It seems... these are things I experienced earlier in this life?"
"What does this mean?"
Li Fan was perplexed, yet an instinctive sense of unease welled up within him.
But no matter how he pondered it, he couldn't pinpoint the source of his anxiety.
He could only commit it to memory for now.
Seemingly regaining his composure, Li Fan summoned a dazzling longsword into his hand.
It was the Dao Xuan Sword, transformed by Dao Xuanzi's final, desperate strike.
A power that could barely slay a Nascent Soul cultivator was naturally of little concern to Li Fan. What truly interested him was the origin of this sword.
He sensed a faint familiarity from the blade.
Once, Li Fan had absorbed the Heavenly Wonder known as the "Rusty Sword Dao Xuan." However, due to the world's absorption and erosion, the sword was a far cry from its original self. Thus, even when he later encountered related matters, he never recalled its history.
But in this life, perhaps due to long-term nurturing and Dao Xuanzi's innate, perfect compatibility with the sword, he had managed to restore it to its primordial, perfect state despite only being at the Golden Core realm.
"So it's a relic of the Heavenly Sword Sect."
Li Fan's tone was tinged with nostalgia. With a casual point of his finger, the Dao laws of the Xuanhuang Sword Path transformed into glowing threads, pouring into the highly unstable Dao Xuan Sword, which threatened to shatter at any moment.
The sword's body gradually stabilized, and Li Fan further reinforced it with array refining techniques.
Finally, the ancient Dao Xuan Sword was reborn, its power not only undiminished but even greater than before.
The Heavenly Sword Sect, once one of the Ten Great Immortal Sects, had long since departed the realm.
All that remained was a pile of broken swords in the ruins of their sword tomb.
"The Heavenly Sword Sect..."
Li Fan had once tried using the Manifest Character technique on those broken blades, hoping to see if the sect had successfully escaped all those years ago.
Unfortunately, under the influence of the character, all the broken swords merely cast lines of light that pointed toward the Wooden Sword, the Heavenly Wonder at the center of the tomb.
But now, this revived Dao Xuan Sword gave Li Fan a new idea.
He silently drew the Manifest Character in the air.
It enveloped the newborn Dao Xuan Sword.
Instantly, three rays of light shot out from the sword.
The thickest ray shot into the sky like a dragon emerging from water, then scattered in all directions, dissipating into the world.
Another ray shot toward Li Fan himself.
The final ray, the faintest of them all, drifted toward a specific location within the Xuanhuang Realm.
"Hmm?"
This immediately caught Li Fan's attention.
"Could it be that there are still descendants of the Heavenly Sword Sect in the Xuanhuang Realm?"
His interest piqued, Li Fan's figure floated up and swiftly followed the line of light.
The Manifest Character technique reveals the connections between all things, visible only to the caster or someone deeply familiar with the "Manifest" True Immortal Script.
Therefore, he had no fear of this strange phenomenon attracting unwanted attention.
Following the wisp of light, Li Fan arrived at a place he had never expected.
The Alliance's Deepest Prison!
Having once infiltrated it in disguise, the prison's restrictions were practically non-existent to him.
Seeing the light descend rapidly toward the lowest level, Li Fan followed it into the prison.
His expression grew somewhat strange.
He saw that the line of connection landed squarely on the cultivator imprisoned in the very depths of the prison!
"Curious..."
Li Fan had long known that someone was being held in the depths of the Alliance's prison.
And when he had seen him before, he had felt a vague sense of familiarity.
Now, connecting this to the behavior of the Dao Xuan Sword under the Manifest Character, Li Fan finally confirmed his earlier suspicions.
"A descendant of the Heavenly Sword Sect?"
The imprisoned cultivator's features bore a striking resemblance to Situ Yao, the former Eldest Senior Brother of the Heavenly Sword Sect.
However, the prisoner was now little more than a living skeleton, making it difficult to see more than a rough outline.
Coupled with the fact that similar-looking people were not uncommon, Li Fan hadn't been certain.
But now, his judgment was confirmed.
"It seems I should trust my intuition more."
"A descendant of Situ Yao? Interesting. As I recall, that Eldest Senior Brother of the Heavenly Sword Sect had no heirs before the sect departed."
"Could it be..."
A tremor of shock went through Li Fan's heart.
He was about to rescue the man and question him thoroughly.
However, upon closer inspection, Li Fan realized that the method used to suppress this Heavenly Sword Sect descendant appeared to be the handiwork of the Heavenly Doctor himself.
If he hadn't stolen a glimpse of the technique in the illusionary array this life, he would never have recognized it!
"Without a specific method of unsealing, breaking it by force would definitely alert the Heavenly Doctor."
"The ascension of the Xuanhuang Realm in this life is at its final, critical stage..."
Before, Li Fan would surely have waited for the next life, when his strength had soared, before returning.
But precisely because he had peeked at the Heavenly Doctor's secrets in the illusionary array, he didn't give up immediately.
Instead, he began attempting to break the seal.
It was easier than he had imagined.
It seemed the Heavenly Doctor had not placed much importance on this person, as the seal he had applied was not overly complex.
It was designed more to drain and suppress the spiritual energy within his body.
After some effort, Li Fan finally undid the seal.
To avoid causing a commotion within the Ten Thousand Immortals Alliance, he even left behind a wisp of illusion, creating the false image of the prisoner still being suppressed.
Li Fan brought the emaciated descendant of the Heavenly Sword Sect with him, quietly departing from the Alliance's Deepest Prison.
Upon reaching a deserted area, Li Fan was about to speak and ask his questions.
But a golden light flashed from his hand, and in an instant, the man broke free from his grasp.
He transformed into a streak of golden light and fled toward the horizon.
In the blink of an eye, he had vanished from sight.
This development was a great surprise to Li Fan, but it brought him joy rather than alarm.
The descendant of the Heavenly Sword Sect was fast, but how could he possibly outrun Li Fan?
The shadow of the Wooden Sword unsheathed, and in the next moment, Li Fan was right behind him.
He swatted down with his palm, trapping him once more.
This time, no matter how the golden light twisted and turned, there was no escape.
Li Fan had already laid down an immortal array in the vicinity.
"Huh?!"
The golden light ceased its futile attempts and revealed its form.
In that short time, he had already recovered some vitality from his skeletal state.
He at least looked human again, though incredibly frail.
"Thank you for saving my life, Senior."
The man cupped his hands cautiously and spoke.
"Why did you run?" Li Fan asked coldly.
"I've been imprisoned for too long... The moment I had a chance, I couldn't help but flee," the man explained with a bitter smile.
Li Fan heard this but couldn't be bothered to ask any more questions.
He placed his left hand on the man, preparing to use a soul-searching technique directly.
The man was struck as if by lightning. His already thin and weak body began to tremble like a leaf in a storm.
Countless images flooded into Li Fan's mind.
Yet, Li Fan's brow furrowed deeply.
The soul search had gone smoothly, but...
He found no information whatsoever regarding the Heavenly Sword Sect within the man's memories.
(End of Chapter)
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