Supreme Emperor of Swords

On Mount Immortal Tao, the mysterious aurora of lights and ethereal fog were subsiding. The six shadowy figures leaped as one, racing towards the granite columns like spurts of comets. Each time one of them got close to another, they would launch attacks at each other, culminating in an aerial onslaught with no clear victor emerging as yet.

The figures zipped as fast as they could amid the low light conditions.

All six of them were powerful champions in their own right, but they knew better than to be foolhardy. One wrong move into the receding fog and even with their great powers, there was no telling if even they might perish.

More people lingered about in the outer peripherals of the foggy area.

Ding Tong was dressed in black, and a beam of light shot out from his single eye. The beam penetrated through the thin mist allowing him to see the things inside.

Seven stars revolved inside the eye that emitting the beam; the ability and the beam of light both the manifestation of the law of Heaven Path, just like the movement of the celestial bodies which were also demonstrations of the said law. With this ability Ding Tong could see through all illusions.

A confident smile formed at the corners of Ding Tong’s lips, which opened and closed although he did not make a sound. He was talking to someone through a magical voice transmission!

But the next moment, his expression froze as he looked utterly stunned.

He looked as if he had seen something most incredible or impossible.

So shocked he was, that his Seven Star-shaped Eyes of Fate had had been rotating in his right eye stopped. The strange beam of light vanished and there he was, motionless and petrified as if he had seen a ghost.

“How is this possible? How could this be?”

Ding Tong was so shocked that he could barely speak.

Astonished and angry exclamations came from the air just above the mysterious, churning mist almost immediately, followed by a horribly enraged roar. Someone shouted, “Where’s the Immortal Artifact? Where’s the Immortal Artifact? Who took it away?”

……

“How could this be? It’s an illusion? Is this a contrivance left here by somebody?!”

“That’s impossible! How could this be a fake?”

The usually stoic and placid champions all erupted into disbelieving outbursts.

The rest who had been trying to get closer from the mist’s outer peripherals all stopped when they heard the exclamations, looking just as surprised. Something must have happened inside the heavily foggy area. Was this only a decoy? That the real Immortal Artifact was hidden somewhere else?

As if in response, the mysterious mist which had been receding began to thicken once more, spreading amongst the towering stone columns again.

The champions have no choice but to sound a retreat.

Congregating together were six of the most powerful champions in the world. They stood on the summit of Mount Immortal Tao, overlooking the growing fog that slowly devoured the territories it once lost like a beast protective of its lair. Shrouded in soft glows emanating from the immense powers they wielded, no one could see their faces, although the mercurial glow they emanated clearly mirrored their mental state and one did not have to be a wise sage to know that the champions were nowhere near being calm and serene at all.

More and more people had climbed to the top of Mount Immortal Tao.

Qu Feng, the old guide with disheveled hair, could count among their number. Clearly, he had realized something amiss, or he would not be staying out of sight, hiding sneakily in the outermost area as if he was ready to bolt.

“Who could it be? How did this person manage to hoodwink even us?” asked one of the six.

“The signs are right. There has been a manifestation of the law of Heaven Path. Unless… the signs are false and we’re mistaken about today’s phenomenon?” said another.

“Impossible,” said a third, “No one has ever witnessed such a phenomenon before. The Immortal Artifact is destined to appear here, today. There is no mistake.”

“But the fact remains that the Immortal Artifact isn’t here,” insisted a forth this time.

“Unless… someone has made to it before we did…” speculated the fifth champion coldly.

The sixth champion remained reticently silent

Such were their high prestige that all six of them were rarely seen in action. It was ages ago since they were still active and now that they have rode out into public in full force, they expected results, instead of an infuriating humiliation such as this.

One could argue that the six of them would not be as enraged as they were now if it was one of the six who had won the Artifact.

“Someone must have tampered with Fate against the natural order and distorted the fabric of Time and Space before magicking the Artifact away!” snarled the fifth all of a sudden, his voice filled with anger.

A wave of shocked exclamation erupted all around.

The Immortal Artifact was created by the very power that saw the creation of Heaven and Earth. Who on earth wielded such ungodly powers that he could whisk away the Immortal Artifact from under the noses of six of the world’s greatest champions?

“Goddamned racket,” snorted one of the six with mild annoyance.

Boom!

A burst of terrifying force surged forth like a tidal wave.

It engulfed everyone on the west side of Mount Immortal Tao. Before most of them could react, they were reduced into slimy muck of blood and viscera with the wilderness as their final resting place. Even their divine souls were destroyed in the process.

“Argghh!”

Multitudes screamed in horror and anguish as they saw with their own eyes how their fellow Cultivators were all killed before they succumbed to the same fate themselves.

Qu Feng was just by the edge of the blast zone, his body swathed in blood. A champion several times more powerful than he was just standing beside him when the blast came, killing him instantly that he became nothing but specks of dirt before he could mount any resistance. Qu Feng shivered with fright, rendered immobile by fear and panic. If he had stood just a little bit closer to the right, he would have been dead by now.

Such was the wrath of a supreme champion!

Just a bit of noise. That was all it took for the supreme champions to slaughter and massacre tens of dozens of people. There was no negotiating and no reasoning with them, for no one could stand up to their invincible might. One could chalk it all up to their bad luck for having provoked the supreme champions.

In just an instant, the horde of lesser champions began to move, retreating quickly over a thousand meters away, deeply afraid that one of the supreme champions might vent his anger on them.

Each of these champions were all leaders or chieftains in their respective territories. But right here and right now, they looked just as powerless and weak as ants. No one would even bat an eye at their demise. No one would even speak against such brutal injustice.

“I can think of only one person who is capable of something like this,” said the third champion, clearly referring to someone his colleagues all knew.

“Makes sense,” agreed the fifth.

“We were careless,” remarked the first before he vanished into a stream of flowing light.

The rest of the six left almost simultaneously as well.

They needed to find that man if they really want to retrieve the Artifact.

And that would not be accomplished by dawdling there any longer.

Ding Tong had been standing with the crowd. His single eye flashed brilliantly as he kept his eyes peeled on one of the six. Many times he had to suppress the urge to throw himself at his quarry, although sense and rational kept him back. What mattered most right now was the whereabouts of the Immortal Artifact. Any other form of deviation would only be a distraction which could see him being taken advantage of by his enemies.

“Ding Shengtan, I’ll let you live for a while.” Ding Tong remarked coldly. With a flash, he turned into a flash of light and shot away.

Many people now realized that the strong gravity on Mount Immortal Tao had mostly faded away. It would no longer suppress the flying ability of champions above the peak of the Saint level.

Many smiled bitterly.

They had risked their lives to come here seeking bounty or opportunities. Yet instead, all they got was just a close brush with death in return. The Immortal Artifact was nowhere to be seen and even the supreme champions, much less the rest of them, felt cheated and humiliated.

“Let’s go!”

Someone shook his head before he vanished and left in a jet of light.

“Who on earth could it be? Someone powerful enough to alter the destiny of the Immortal Artifact and hide it from the supreme champions…” No one could believe what was happening.

Right at this moment—

Rumble! Rumble!

Mount Immortal Tao suddenly began to shake violently.

Cracks appeared on the rocks under people’s feet, and the entire Mount Immortal Tao was about to collapse. The horrible chaotic mist on the top of the peak slowly rose, and the Primordial Sky Pillars also floated up. Before everyone could react, the pillars turned into flashes of lightning and shot straight into the night sky…

“What’s going on?”

“Mount Immortal Tao is about to collapse…” Someone shouted while soaring into the sky.

Then, the dense crowd flew to the sky. The terrible suppressive power had completely disappeared. Everyone had regained their flying ability and was floating in the void. They stared blankly at the huge Mount Immortal Tao that was collapsing like a sand sculpture in the wind. There was a huge crack on the ground, and the entire Mount Immortal Tao was falling into this huge crack.

At first glance, it looked as if the ground had opened a huge mouth that had swallowed the immortal peak.

The aura of Immortal Tao around Mount Immortal Tao turned into clouds of mist and gathered in the sky. Finally, together with the Primordial Sky Pillars and the chaotic mist, it disappeared at the highest point of the sky.

That was the place where the strange immortal light, which had caused strange changes to occur in the Stone Mouth city, first appeared.

The huge rift in the sky also underwent a strange change—

The wisps of black light that had originally shone out from the rift slowly shrank back like tentacles. The black inscription patterns all over the night sky also slowly faded away. The strange suppressive power that controlled this place also slowly receded like a tide. Many people felt that their suppressed Qi finally gradually returned to its previous level.

Was the strange change between heaven and earth caused by the Immortal Artifact coming to a stop?

Could this mean that the Immortal Artifact already had an owner? So everything should come to an end?

“No, look over there…” Someone pointed in the direction of the huge rift in the sky and exclaimed. Everyone looked up and saw that the closing rift suddenly stopped shrinking when it was a few thousand meters wide. Grim and dark at first, the rift gradually became faint silver in color with incessant sparkles dancing violently around before everything became stable and clear.

By then, the rift turned into a huge oval disc, which looked like a gate leading to an unknown world.

At the edge of the huge gate, the faint white sparkles which were flashing wildly now glowed intermittently with strange energies.

If one looked more carefully, he would find that the white sparkles were the Primordial Sky Pillars that had soared into the sky. Like nails, they fixed the light gate in the void and resisted the shrinking force of the rules between heaven and earth. In this way, the light gate was fixed in the void and would never disappear.

In the eastern sky in the distance, daylight began to appear.

A new day was coming.

“The light gate is filled with space elements…It’s so stable and so peaceful. This…Can this be a space gate for transmission?” Someone couldn’t help but exclaim in a low voice.

No one responded to him.

The people who showed up were all martial artists at the overlord level. They were much more knowledgeable and experienced than ordinary people, so who hadn’t seen a space gate? Almost everyone could see at a glance that it was definitely an inconceivable huge space gate. Its area was absolutely far larger than that of any space gate constructed by a super force on the continent. Obviously, it was not built by people.

It looked as if it were made by God.

But this was not the main problem.

The biggest question that surfaced in everyone’s heart was—

“Where did this huge space gate lead to?”