First Immortal of the Sword - Chapter 2859 - A Lifetime of Spite Led to This
Chapter 2859 – A Lifetime of Spite Led to This
The Malevolent Sword Venerate was burning up.
Yun Wuxiang rushed over to stop him.
He was from the Far Shore of Destiny, and long ago, he’d been at odds with the Big Boss of Sword Sovereign City. He was naturally no ordinary person.
Given his abilities, so long as he seized even a wisp of the Malevolent Sword Venerate’s aura, he could ensure his survival, whether the Malevolent Sword Venerate liked it or not!
But much to Yun Wuxiang’s displeasure, the Malevolent Sword Venerate’s burning body turned out to be a piece of rotten peach wood!
In the blink of an eye, it crumbled into ash and vanished.
The “Trading a Peach for a Pear” Talisman!
Yun Wuxiang’s gaze frosted over, now terrifyingly cold. His heart was full of frustration.
These talismans could condense bodies identical to those of the cultivators that used them, down to their auras. They were like living puppets imbued with true spirits.
All cultivators had to do was insert a wisp of their soul into the puppet, and they could make it act like a real person.
Never mind ordinary people; even experts of the Far Shore of Destiny struggled to realize the deception.
It was much like the Golden Cicada Substitution Talisman, but it was even rarer. They were rare and precious even by the standards of the Far Shore of Destiny.
More importantly, the “Trading a Peach for a Pear” Talismans were the exclusive secret treasures of the Greater Purity Sect. No one else carried them.
And Yun Wuxiang was himself a member of the Greater Purity Sect!
“Who gave him that talisman?” Yun Wuxiang gnashed his teeth and glared hatefully at Hei Ya’s dog head.
Hei Ya stammered, “Master, on our way to the Literati Continent, you told me to do everything I could to support the Malevolent Sword Venerate’s operation. He said he’d be fighting Su Yi and that he needed additional defensive measures, so…”
Yun Wuxiang was so furious that steam billowed from the seven apertures of his face. “So you gave the ‘Trading a Peach for a Pear’ Talisman I gave you… to the Malevolent Sword Venerate?”
Hei Ya scrunched up his dog face. “Master, don’t tell me you didn’t sense him activating it either?”
Yun Wuxiang had nothing to say to that. He just kicked Hei Ya’s head so hard that it embedded itself in the nearest wall.
The “Trading a Peach for a Pear” Talismans were unique; their founder personally carved them all. They were among the most ancient and mystical talismans around.
They’d become the Greater Purity Sect’s unique secret legacy precisely because they were all but impossible to detect!
Even in the Greater Purity Sect, few could tell when someone was using a talisman
“If not for the natural order of the River of Destiny, I would have intervened personally and cut Su Yi to ribbons a long time ago. What need would I have had to send a waste like you in my stead?” Yun Wuxiang put his hands behind his back, walked over to the doorway, and gazed into the distant dome of heaven.
His heart was full of bitterness, but he had no one to blame but himself for underestimating the Malevolent Sword Venerate.
He’d never even considered the possibility that a measly little heart devil would be so bold as to plot against him.
But Yun Wuxiang had no choice but to admit that the Malevolent Sword Venerate was a tough one.
Even before the fighting broke out in the Literati Continent, the Malevolent Sword Venerate had prepared a backup plan in case their operation failed. He was even ready to die!
Who could have imagined that a heart devil would be so unafraid of death?
The most unbelievable part was that all of the Malevolent Sword Venerate’s countermeasures were in preparation for facing his death!
Who could have anticipated such a thing?
A long time passed before Yun Wuxiang calmed his fury. “Come with me to the Lower Court of Three Purities Temple.”
“Master, are we really going to just let this go?” Hei Ya’s dog head struggled free of the wall with great difficulty.
“If you’re so capable, why not help me kill Li Sansheng?” Yun Wuxiang said coldly.
Hei Ya instantly clamped his muzzle shut.
“Li Sansheng is on the River of Destiny. Given that that’s the case, I suspect that Zhou Sanjia, Gongye Futu, and the other survivors of Sword Sovereign City are around, too.”
Yun Wuxiang’s gaze was heavy and inscrutable. “If we don’t find their hiding spot and wipe them out first, we can forget about killing Su Yi later!”
Yun Wuxiang had watched the death trap in the Literati Continent. Even he had to admit that the Malevolent Sword Venerate had prepared thoroughly.
The Nine Luminaries Forbidden Zone was full of interwoven traps. Had Su Yi been even the slightest bit negligent, he might well have been doomed.
Several Heavenly Sovereigns had been waiting for Su Yi beneath the skies of the Literati Continent, and Hei Ya was overseeing things from the shadows.
That trap was targeting Lu Hongpao, while the seemingly inescapable net outside the Literati Continent targeted Su Yi.
It was three layers of traps, each meticulously placed. The Malevolent Sword Venerate had poured his heart’s blood into it.
The way Yun Wuxiang saw it, not even a Heavenly Sovereign could have escaped such a death trap.
But worldly affairs were unpredictable. Su Yi had nonetheless somehow managed to survive.
And Lu Hongpao wasn’t dead either!
All of this was because of variables no one could have anticipated.
And the greatest of these variables was Li Sansheng!
In the face of an absolute difference in strength, no amount of tricks and schemes amounted to anything. They were as fragile as paper tigers.
Li Sansheng’s intervention was vivid proof of this. He’d shown up alone, sword in hand, suppressing Hei Ya, defeating the four Heavenly Sovereigns, and saving Lu Hongpao from disaster. He was so domineering that it was downright ridiculous.
Their plans had been all but guaranteed to succeed, only to collapse, just like that.
All of this told Yun Wuxiang that if he didn’t deal with Li Sansheng and the other survivors of Sword Sovereign City, numerous variables would interfere with any future attempts to defeat Su Yi, too.
His reasoning was simple. All of the variables arising around Su Yi were simply the handiwork of the survivors of Sword Sovereign City.
In that case, all he had to do was gather them all in one place and wipe them out!
Who’d be left to save Su Yi then?
Of course, Yun Wuxiang knew that he couldn’t possibly deal with the survivors of Sword Sovereign City on his own.
Thus, he planned to take a trip to the Lower Court of Three Purities Temple.
The lower court was located in the River of Destiny, but it had always been hidden away from the rest of the world. Its experts never revealed themselves in the Eternal Heavens Domain.
Only Heavenly Sovereigns knew that it existed, and moreover, that it was backed by Three Purities Temple, a faction of the Far Shore of Destiny!
Three Purities Temple was composed of the world’s three most ancient Daoist orthodoxies.
And the Greater Purity Sect was one of the three!
“There’s no longer any need for the ancestral grounds of the Heart-Tempering Sword House to exist.” When Yun Wuxiang left with Hei Ya, he suddenly stomped the ground.
The Heart-Tempering Sword House had stood since the earliest days of the New Beginning, but by the time Yun Wuxiang left, it had been reduced to scorched earth.
A while after they left, an indistinct figure appeared over the wreckage of the Heart-Tempering Sword House. This was none other than the Malevolent Sword Venerate.
He scanned the area, taking in the scorched, lifeless ground. Everything was desolate and bleak.
“Jiang Wuchen, I lost.” The Malevolent Sword Venerate said with a long sigh. “But unlike before, this time… I’m convinced of my defeat. Fortunately, although Su Yi is our reincarnation, he isn’t like you. He isn’t the type to deceive himself and others with acts of so-called kindness. I might have lost, but I’m satisfied.”
As he murmured, the Malevolent Sword Venerate silently crouched in the ruins, seemingly in a daze.
He was alone amidst the devastation, cutting an extraordinarily forlorn figure.
“He once said that I never gave him an opportunity to think better of me, but since when did I need his approval?” The Malevolent Sword Venerate’s eyes shone with reminiscence.
Had anyone ever considered what would have become of the Heart-Tempering Sword House after Jiang Wuchen reincarnated if not for the Malevolent Sword Venerate? Could it possibly have stood this long?
Had anyone ever considered what would have happened to Jiang Wuchen’s belongings and legacies? Wouldn’t they have been seized and divvied up a long time ago?
Throughout the ages, the cultivators of the Eternal Heavens Domain knew the Malevolent Sword Venerate for his brutality and frenzied killing, but although few knew it, those he killed were all ungrateful, undutiful wretches who’d once turned their backs on Jiang Wuchen.
From the Malevolent Sword Venerate’s perspective, he’d done nothing wrong.
He’d never regretted anything, not even his attempts to take Su Yi down!
On the path of cultivation, the winner was a king and the loser was a bandit.
There was no distinction between right and wrong or good and evil. A sword cultivator’s Grand Dao had never been constrained by such things!
If you lost, you had to admit it. Even if you died, what was there to fear?
“But the Big Boss’s heart devil sure knows how to talk shit. He’s brought shame on us heart devils…” When the Malevolent Sword Venerate thought back to his encounter with the heart devil in the rusted sheath, he couldn’t help but feel a bit exasperated.
After a while, he got up.
The light of the setting sun illuminated the withered grass of the barren plains.
The Malevolent Sword Venerate walked alone through the devastated ancestral grounds, his figure gradually fading away.
He had never needed others’ approval, nor had he ever needed to explain himself to anyone! No one in this world understood him, so he carried out his Dao alone!
A lifetime of spite had led to this day. There was no one left for him to watch the sunset with.
……
When word spread of the destruction of the Heart-Tempering Sword House’s ancestral grounds, the whole Eternal Heavens Domain shook.
The Heart-Tempering Sword House was the greatest Heavenly Monarch faction of the Dao of the Sword, as well as the greatest Heavenly Monarch in the Five Great Continents. It was a holy ground in the hearts of countless sword cultivators.
Yet now, someone had flattened it, reducing it to scorched earth.
This development was enough to change the balance of power among the world’s Heavenly Monarch factions!
The atmosphere in Divine Reverence Pavilion was stifled and tense.
The gathered experts exchanged glances.
The curtain had fallen on the battle in the Literati Continent. No one knew whether Su Yi was alive or dead, and the Heart-Tempering Sword House had been destroyed. This entire sequence of events shook them to the core, throwing the entire Eternal Heavens Domain’s balance of power into upheaval.
“The patriarch is right. Su Yi absolutely isn’t someone our Divine Reverence Pavilion can afford to make idle comments about,” someone said gravely, breaking the stifled silence.
This time, no one argued.
Su Yi was perhaps only an Unfettered Realm sword cultivator, but he was far too unusual!
He was the reincarnation of Jiang Wuchen, but more than that, he was the one who’d single-handedly triggered a battle of sovereigns.
How could Divine Reverence Pavilion possibly appraise someone like that?
“Patriarch, do you perhaps know Su Yi’s whereabouts?” someone asked suddenly.
