Chapter 1 The Collapsing Array

Zhou Jiusheng was willing to sacrifice his dignity, but Ye Chuxiao didn't fight battles he wasn't sure of winning.

In the art of fu arrays, Ye Chuxiao, who could already be called a 'master,' had tampered with the great array outside the Broken Swallow Pagoda in advance, changing the outward sweep to an inward collapse.

In essence, it was still a plunder of the energy of heaven and earth, even more effective in the short term.

However, its side effects had become the biggest obstacle to Zhou Jiusheng's escape.

The frantically contracting energy of heaven and earth made Zhou Jiusheng's already faltering steps clumsy. By the time Ye Chuxiao chased him out, he had barely flown a few dozen meters, far from achieving the effect of leaping thousands of miles away in an instant.

As for those various so-called contingency plans, it wasn't that Zhou Jiusheng didn't have them, but that they were useless.

When Ye Chuxiao's saber slashed over again from a dozen meters away, Zhou Jiusheng had no choice but to raise his sword to meet it. Otherwise, he would be disemboweled by Ye Chuxiao in an instant.

The dominance of the domain was extremely cruel to those below the domain.

Without mastering it, there was a world of difference.

Saber and sword clashed fiercely amidst the interweaving of thunder and wind.

Zhou Jiusheng was like a tiger with its teeth pulled out. Although his roar could still shake the mountains and forests, his sword was no longer sharp. Every sword he sent out had a greatly reduced threat.

At the same time, Zhou Jiusheng was consuming his remaining life force in this battle.

He had the capital to fight to the death, but it was gradually exhausted by Ye Chuxiao's deliberate indulgence and slackness.

By the time he wanted to stake everything in one last attack, dragging Ye Chuxiao down with him, he no longer had the ability.

A flash of saber light, mixed with the light of the sky and the shadows of the clouds, seemed to reflect and cut the entire sky, transforming into a second heaven.

The two heavens contrasted each other, gradually blurring the upper and lower boundaries in the swift rotation of battle.

Zhou Jiusheng stepped into the clouds, but what exploded under his feet was unparalleled sharpness.

With a cry of pain, half of his body was shattered by the fierce saber light.

Zhou Jiusheng howled in grief, his spiritual sword, which had accompanied him for many years, detached itself and burned the spirituality it had cultivated over the years, transforming into a sword strike with the flavor of his peak.

The sword light attacked, and Ye Chuxiao held the saber with both hands, unmoving as a mountain.

In a trance, a mountain peak emerged from the clouds, proud and towering, unyielding to wind and thunder, unchanging through all things.

The collision of saber and sword no longer produced just a simple impact sound.

It was also the wail of a superb spiritual sword in its final moment of bloom.

After the violent collision, Ye Chuxiao had lost sight of Zhou Jiusheng.

Despite this, Ye Chuxiao showed no disappointment. Instead, he leisurely turned back into the Broken Swallow Pagoda and switched his perspective.

Through his special connection with Duanmu Lin, Ye Chuxiao could borrow her perspective to see another scene.

Having lost his spiritual sword, which he had been with day and night, and half of his body, Zhou Jiusheng, with only his upper body remaining, was at the end of his rope.

He fell into a Spirit Cave, a place rich in spiritual energy, dug out all the spiritual herbs cultivated there, squeezed them into a spiritual paste, and stuffed it all into his mouth.

Powerful medicinal power reverberated in his half body.

His incomplete lower body seemed to be growing back under the support of this medicinal power.

However, Ye Chuxiao's saber strike was no longer a Hui realm strike, but a real strike that had entered the Intent realm. The powerful force of personal will constantly grew from the remaining saber energy, like a parasitic life, repeatedly eroding Zhou Jiusheng's vitality.

Even spiritual herbs with abundant energy and magical healing power could not heal the damage caused by the Intent realm.

To put it simply, the rules were different.

Any healing spiritual herb in the world… wouldn't work for Ye Chuxiao!

Since he couldn't recover from his injuries, Zhou Jiusheng could only spread the medicinal power among his five viscera, letting them help maintain his already collapsed qi and blood and vitality.

He needed to hang on to his last breath to make final arrangements.

Flying out of this specially prepared Spirit Cave, the surrounding world was filled with dry, dead sandy winds.

A dozen years ago, this place was once beautiful with mountains and rivers, inhabited by countless exotic flowers, rare herbs, wild animals, and reclusive cultivators, as well as fishermen and woodcutters.

But after the Broken Swallow Pagoda was erected, it gradually dried up.

All that remained in the world was endless frenzy and violence.

Looking at this withered, dry, and ugly yellow earth, Zhou Jiusheng felt no regret, only unwillingness.

He had sat withered for ten years to win that glimmer of opportunity, but now he had failed again.

His sword, which had once been sharp in an era, had also failed to break the shackles of death.

If the transition from Hui realm to Intent realm was a transformation in will, more thorough, more self-willed, more unrestrained, from the inside out,

Then the transition from Intent realm to Wuding realm was a leap across an intangible boundary.

Perhaps after leaping out, one could soar in the sky, or perhaps fall directly off a cliff and be smashed to pieces.

If it weren't for such difficulty, the demoness Ying Shu wouldn't have painstakingly planted the Heart Pill, seeking to plunder others' nourishment for her own use.

Jin Buyi wouldn't have conspired with the demoness, wanting to snatch food from the tiger's mouth and reverse the master-servant relationship.

They all took great risks to increase their confidence before taking that leap.

In a trance, Zhou Jiusheng seemed to see, in the flying yellow sand, a woman with silver hair and wearing a blue-and-cyan robe, walking gracefully on lotus flowers.

Even without seeing her face at first glance, he instinctively felt that she must be a woman of unparalleled beauty.

As she passed, the parched ground seemed to be covered with a shallow layer of green.

The death aura lingering on the earth was absorbed by her, and the tenacious seeds seemed to finally be able to break out of the soil and sprout.

For no reason, Zhou Jiusheng felt a surge of hope.

He hid himself under the yellow sand, then spied on the woman approaching like a venomous snake.

Once he saw through her weaknesses, he would kill her from the sand and then use evil techniques to plunder all the vitality from this woman.

The old Zhou Jiusheng disdained using any evil techniques that would pollute his own will.

But now, under the coercion of death, he had abandoned his bottom line.

Finally, the woman approached.

She was indeed more beautiful than Zhou Jiusheng had imagined.

This beauty wasn't just about the stunning appearance.

For Zhou Jiusheng, any external forms of facial features and figure were no longer surprising.

What he had seen and tasted had already turned into meaningless smoke.

"Sweet, complete, with the purest spiritual energy, the cleanest yin softness, and such vast yang within her aura, who deliberately crafted this furnace? An supreme treasure for breaking through cultivation?" Zhou Jiusheng stared at the woman, quietly changing his mind.

He no longer thought about 'eating' her in one bite, but about raising her, savoring her little by little, until she completely lost her nutrients, just like the barren earth.

The woman stood ten meters away from where Zhou Jiusheng was hiding, looking at the spot where he was lurking, and Zhou Jiusheng suddenly felt a sense of shame, as if his soul had been pierced through.

"She discovered me?" Zhou Jiusheng didn't feel annoyed, but instantly changed his stance. Half of his body flew out of the sand, and then he shot sword qi at the woman, his mouth spitting out sharpness.

Since he had been discovered, he would strike directly.

Zhou Jiusheng was confident in this sword strike.

Even though he was on the verge of running out of fuel, he was still the Sword God, the Intent realm cultivator who had intimidated cultivators from all over the world for many years.

Ice lotuses bloomed, driving a dreamy aurora.

In the aurora, the Sword Saint Wuxin (Heartless), who had once shone in a certain era hundreds of years ago, swung a sword at Zhou Jiusheng across time and space.

Sword God against Sword Saint, two equally sharp but completely different sword Dao wills collided in the desert.

Then they dissipated at the same time.

The former was at the end of its strength, and the latter was water without a source, so they were evenly matched.

However, the woman's move did startle Zhou Jiusheng.

He had also been to that aurora land and had studied the sword Dao techniques of this Sword Saint Wuxin.

Therefore, he could clearly feel the 'truth' of that sword, and it was by no means a small trick like illusion.

"Who exactly are you?" Zhou Jiusheng asked the woman.

The woman replied, "I am Duanmu, and also the Underworld King!"

"Underworld King?"

"There is no underworld in the world, so where does the Underworld King come from?" Zhou Jiusheng asked with a sneer.

Among the myriad worlds, there may be a great cycle of reincarnation in the dark.

And within some specific worlds, due to special rules, there are underworlds and ghost domains, but these have nothing to do with the Desolate Battle Realm.

The Desolate Battle Realm doesn't even allow living people to live forever, let alone the dead?

The dead merge into the aurora, more like being branded into a painting.

No matter how realistic the painting is, it is still fake.

The six souls have no master, existing as if dead.

"I came to this realm, so I am the Underworld King!" the woman said.

Of course, she was Duanmu Lin.

At this time, every word she said had been rehearsed with Ye Chuxiao in advance.

Revealing her true nature might seem more sincere.

But she wasn't here to make friends with Zhou Jiusheng.

Zhou Jiusheng continued to sneer, then gathered his strength, his eyes like torches searching for Duanmu Lin's weaknesses.

"If you are the Underworld King, what is your proof?" Zhou Jiusheng asked.

"No proof is needed, you will know after you die," Duanmu Lin replied.

Zhou Jiusheng laughed: "I understand! So you're a vulture squatting around a rotting corpse. Puppet, trickster, evil, filth, which path of magic do you cultivate? Why don't you tell me, and let the old man give you some pointers. The old man has killed no less than eight hundred evil cultivators back in the day, so I have some experience in giving pointers."

Duanmu Lin casually glanced around.

In reality, the damage that Zhou Jiusheng, this one Sword God, had caused to the world was greater than that of three thousand evil cultivators.

To talk about good and evil again was laughable.

Cultivating in a world with incomplete Heavenly Dao, all cultivators were gamblers who had stepped onto the gambling table.

Once started, there should be no regrets.

The more one cultivates, the more one understands this point.

Duanmu Lin took out an hourglass from her bosom.

The hourglass was placed on the ground, and silvery-white sand quickly slid from one bulb to the other.

"You want to kill the old man within a quarter of an hour?" Zhou Jiusheng continued to ask.

He hadn't accumulated enough powerful strength, so it wouldn't hurt to waste some time talking to Duanmu Lin.

Duanmu Lin said, "No! It's that you only have this quarter of an hour left to live. In a little while… about a third of the way, your five energies will be in chaos, and your inner organs will be like they're being chopped with knives and axes."

Zhou Jiusheng laughed again: "Good! What an arrogant mouth, then I'll wait for you for a third of a quarter of an hour and see if what you say is true."

An excuse to delay time had been offered, so how could Zhou Jiusheng refuse?

He hadn't completely processed and digested the massive spiritual medicinal liquid yet.

At this time, it was best to process it first and extract more usable power.

Zhou Jiusheng hadn't extinguished his desire for Duanmu Lin.

This was the basis for his maneuvering with Duanmu Lin.

The fine sand flowed, and soon a third of it had passed.

Zhou Jiusheng was about to open his mouth to mock her.

The next moment, the spiritual liquid covering his internal organs actually began to churn.

He had still overlooked the essential deficiency of his body; he had long reached the point where he could no longer benefit from tonics.

Those powerful medicinal powers would only have been considered slight supplements when he was strong.

But now, in his body that was already at the end of its rope, they had become life-threatening poison.

Just as Duanmu Lin had said, Zhou Jiusheng's aura became completely chaotic in an instant, and his internal organs were as painful as if they were being chopped and stirred with knives and axes.

Zhou Jiusheng gritted his teeth, making a creaking sound.

At the same time, weak sweat constantly emerged from the top of his head and back, gradually even tinged with a trace of blood.

"In another third of a quarter of an hour, you will feel your five viscera burning like fire, and your qi and blood dissipating like smoke, irreversibly," Duanmu Lin continued to pronounce her judgment.

Of course, she couldn't tell the fortunes of all living beings.

But Zhou Jiusheng was already a dying man. Standing in front of Duanmu Lin, she could see at a glance, without more external interference, how Zhou Jiusheng would enter death.

Zhou Jiusheng had lost his composure.

He clasped his hands, wanting to admit his mistake and beg Duanmu Lin for help, but the intense pain even overwhelmed his reason, provoking his emotions.

He didn't shout.

Then, the time reached two-thirds of the way through the hourglass.

As Duanmu Lin had said, his five viscera began to burn like fire, and his qi and blood, which had already been depleted, began to dissipate further.

At this time, Zhou Jiusheng's spirit, on the contrary, became clear.

This was the final flash of insight before death, the body instinctively supplying all its functions and last vitality to the brain, allowing the brain to make the final judgment.

"Please, Underworld King, save me!"

"I don't want to die!" Zhou Jiusheng lay on the ground, begging Duanmu Lin loudly.

He still wasn't sure about Duanmu Lin's origins.

But as things stood, he had to try.

Even if it was just a false thread, he was unwilling to give up.

"In this realm, the living do not live long, but the dead exist forever. If you are willing to follow me, then enter my underworld and serve me as your master," Duanmu Lin said.

Zhou Jiusheng, who had already reached the end of the road, immediately agreed: "As long as the Underworld King can save me, I am willing to serve the Underworld King for eternity. If I betray you, may I be struck by lightning!"

A generation of Sword Gods shouldn't be so spineless.

But in order to achieve this goal, Ye Chuxiao had forced Zhou Jiusheng to struggle in desperation several times, like chasing a stray dog.

This had repeatedly lowered his psychological standards and also stimulated his infinite desire to live.

"Good! Come!" Duanmu Lin walked behind Zhou Jiusheng and struck his forehead with her palm.

In an instant, Zhou Jiusheng's complete and unharmed soul, before being led away by the aurora of this world, was first attracted by Duanmu Lin's aurora and flew into the aurora underworld that Duanmu Lin had built with herself as the shell.