First Immortal of the Sword

Gu Yunchan’s soul shot off explosively. Su Yi could clearly see a black talisman silently igniting within the divine son’s soul body.

His keen senses alerted him to an impending lethal threat.

The Book of Karma was even more direct. A line of text appeared on its blank page: “That’s the power of a god’s avatar of will! Hurry up and ask for Third Brother Sword’s help! Quickly!”

The text was tinged with frantic urgency.

Su Yi’s eyes narrowed.

“Die!” Gu Yunchan hissed as his soul seemed to ignite, and he appeared near Su Yi as if by teleportation.

Before Su Yi could respond, a swath of chaos power descended from the heavens.

Kaboom!!

It was just one attack, but it firmly pinned Gu Yunchan’s soul in place. Within his soul, the blazing black talisman was gradually suppressed, and its flames went out, bit by bit. In the end, it split into pieces.

In other words, Gu Yunchan had planned to drag Su Yi down with this attack, only for it to be snuffed out at a critical juncture.

This intervention cout of nowhere, but Su Yi wasn’t particularly surprised. He gazed into the dof heaven. A roughly ten-foot boat was floating there, emanating dense chaos mist. It was the source of the chaos power suppressing Gu Yunchan!

“Third Brother Boat! It’s you!”

The Book of Karma’s pages fluttered, and a line of text appeared on its pages. It seemed thoroughly agitated.

Su Yi was stunned too. Third Brother Boat? Does that mean that the Fuyou Boat is one of the Nine Mysteries of Chaos too!?   

After all, the Fuyou Boat had once belonged to Li Fuyou. It even shared part of his name. Who’d have thought it was one of the Nine Mysteries of Chaos?

“Why didn’t you request my aid earlier? I’m sure you knew that the moment you said the word, I’d’ve killed those two for you.”

The chaos mists hovering over the Fuyou Boat churned, and an indistinct figure appeared at the head of the boat. Su Yi could just barely discern that it was a male silhouette.

The man stood amidst the chaos mist, tall and thin, like a bundle of smoke or wisp of soul. His voice was icy and dry, and when he spoke, the Magnetic Origin Light disappeared from the surrounding area, as if intimidated by the Fuyou Boat’s chaos power.Nôv(el)B\\jnn

All Su Yi had to say to that was, “I didn’t need your help.”

“If I hadn’t intervened in time, you’d be dead already,” the man shrouded in chaos mist said icily. “I see. You knew I wouldn’t just watch you die, so you stubbornly refused to ask for help. You're just putting on airs.”

His voice was tinged with displeasure.

Su Yi laughed. “What’s this? It seems I’ve provoked your ire by not asking for help.”

He then turned to look at the suppressed Gu Yunchan and said lightly, “Also, you’re wrong. Even if you hadn’t appeared, I wouldn’t have died.”

He had hidden cards too. He just wouldn’t reveal them until he’d been forced into the corner.

“Hmph!” The man on board the Fuyou Boat snorted. “Do you really think I’d believe that? Of course he’d have killed you! Look at your injuries. You’re hanging on by a thread already.”

Su Yi’s brow furrowed, and he looked at the man once more. “Why do you seem so displeased and so hostile toward me?”

The man fell silent.

Su Yi continued calmly, “Listen up. I don’t care who you are or how you’re connected to the Fuyou Boat. Any more disrespect, and I won’t let you off.”

“Are you threatening me?” The man seemed to find this hard to believe. Su Yi was clearly on the brink of death. He couldn’t imagine where he got the courage to talk like that.

“You’re welcto try me,” said Su Yi.

He was covered in countless wounds, his skin split like cracked porcelain and his vital energy in disarray. Blood gushed out of him.

But his back was perfectly straight, and his gaze was unsettlingly calm.

The man on board the Fuyou Boat fell silent once more.

Meanwhile, Gu Yunchan’s soul gradually crumbled. He raised his head with great difficulty, gazed up at the Fuyou Boat, and said hoarsely, “You’ve been there this entire time?”

“That’s right,” said the man on board the Fuyou Boat. He didn’t waste a single word.

Gu Yunchan’s eyes went dull, as if he’d given into despair. He looked at Su Yi. “Before the battle even began, you knew that someone was waiting for you to call for help?”

“That’s right,” said Su Yi. There was no need to hide it. The moment he entered the Magnetic Origin Ice Sea, he somehow sensed the hidden Fuyou Boat, as well as the man on board!

When the fighting began, the man shrouded in chaos mist actually transmitted a message to him. He said that if Su Yi requested his aid, he’d help him kill his enemies.

But Su Yi refused his offer. For one thing, he didn’t need the help. For another, he couldn’t get a read on the man.

More importantly, he’d always disdained asking others for help, especially complete strangers. Su Yi was even a bit on guard against the man on board the Fuyou Boat; there was a chance he might attack.

Fortunately, nothing of the sort had happened.

“Qing Wu and I set a trap here. I thought that we were all but certain to succeed. Who’d have thought that Qing Wu and I were the ones who’d really fallen into a trap right from the start…?” said Gu Yunchan, his gaze bleak as he gave in to despair.

He understood. With the man on board the Fuyou Boat here, it didn’t matter that he and Qing Wu had an absolute advantage against Su Yi. They’d been doomed to lose from the beginning!

Wisps of red karmic power wrapped around Gu Yunchan’s crumbling soul. It rapidly weakened, becoming more and more indistinct. Before long, it would crumble completely.

“Su Yi!” Suddenly, Gu Yunchan looked up and gazed at the distant, blood-smeared Su Yi. “Might you letdie by your hand?”

Su Yi was stunned. “What? Why?”

Gu Yunchan grinned. “You might not believeif I told you, but I’ve never admired anyone before, not even my master; I merely respect him. Not even deities impress me, as I’ve always been convinced that sooner or later, I’d surpass them all, one by one!

He breathed in ragged gasps, his voice starting and stopping. “But you’re… different! You obviously could have asked for help, but you didn’t! Even amidst grave peril, you fought bravely in the face of death, never retreating, never looking back, never showing the slightest sign of fear.”

A complicated look appeared on Gu Yunchan’s face. “I don’t understand you, but I know that if I were in your shoes, I couldn’t have done that!”

He knew that, had Su Yi asked for help right from the start, their bloody battle would never have taken place. He and Qing Wu would inevitably have lost. He also knew that Su Yi had been fully capable of breaking the Thousand Currents Heaven-Sealing Restriction right from the start. Had he wished to flee, he could have.

Earlier, he found this confusing. Why didn’t Su Yi just escape? He neither asked for help nor fled. Instead, he fought with everything he had, risking death. Why?

But now, Gu Yunchan understood. Su Yi had bone-deep pride. He’d long since set aside all fear of death and defeat!

He finally understood that Su Yi hadn’t been boasting earlier: Su Yi really wouldn’t entrust his life and death to another. His pride was like his Dao of the Sword: firm and unyielding!

Gu Yunchan had lost, but no matter how much he hated Su Yi, losing to a sword cultivator of his caliber had left him convinced of his defeat. He couldn’t help but admire his opponent.

He really couldn’t have done the sin Su Yi’s shoes. Thus, he was convinced of his defeat.

Su Yi roughly understood what Gu Yunchan was getting at, and indescribable emotion filled his heart.

He walked over to Gu Yunchan and said, “You’ve injuredmore badly than anyone else I’ve fought since becoming an immortal, but you’re still not worthy of my admiration.”

“Why?” asked Gu Yunchan, but as soon as the words left his mouth, he seemed to realize the answer. “It’s true. Even with the advantage of my superior cultivation base, compared to you, I’m far inferior…”

Su Yi wasted no more ton talk. He snapped his fingers, and Gu Yunchan’s soul collapsed and dispersed.

Whoosh!

The golden fishing rod he’d dropped took to the air, blurred into a beam of light, and fled, just as the Crescent Moon Blade had.

Su Yi didn’t chase it. He couldn’t control a treasure like that with his current strength anyway.

The man on board the Fuyou Boat said, “Epoch Treasures only recognize their masters. Only another god can force them into submission. Try, and you’ll only break them. If it’s as I suspect, the gods backing those two will send their forces into the Immortal Realm to retrieve their lost treasures. No one else can even think of laying a finger on them.”

He paused, then added, “I couldn’t have helped you suppress those treasures either.”

“Oh,” said Su Yi. He could tell that the man on the boat was trying to explain himself, but that seemed strange. The man’s attitude wasn’t good at all, and he wasn’t involved in the golden fishing rod’s escape, so why bother explaining himself?

The man on board the Fuyou Boat continued, “That guy might have admired you, but don’t forget how badly he hurt you or that he tried to drag you down with him!”

Su Yi took out a bottle of medicine and swallowed every last pill before responding. “The only thing about him worthy of my admiration was his self-awareness in the face of death. Still, that was enough to warrantseeing him off personally.” 

He then turned to leave the Magnetic Origin Ice Sea. “Con, let’s find a place to chat.”

His robes were battered and stained with blood as he gradually faded into the distance. His tall, upright figure was obviously as battered as could be, yet he somehow seemed unmovable and unshakeable.

The man on board the Fuyou Boat watched Su Yi intently for a moment before directing the boat to follow him.

The curtains fell on a grand battle, just like that. Divine Daughter Qing Wu and Divine Son Gu Yunchan were both dead. When news got out, it would undoubtedly send an enormous wave of uproar sweeping across the Immortal Realm.

And when word reached the God Domain, it would cause massive waves there, too!

The reason for this was simple. In the God Domain, anyone called a “divine son” or “divine daughter” was sure to have a god behind them.

Qing Wu and Gu Yunchan had extraordinary statuses. They were both just one step away from achieving divinity in their own right, and they’d cto the Immortal Realm with missions from their respective deities. Both of them had Epoch Treasures and talismans granted to them by their gods. They were naturally far beyond ordinary cultivators of the God Domain.

It would have been no exaggeration to say that, when word of their deaths reached the God Domain, it would shake even the gods!

However, at least for now, Su Yi wasn’t at all worried that word would leak.

After all, this was the Magnetic Origin Ice Sea. There was no one here but him and the mysterious man on the Fuyou Boat.