Firmament Sword

Xu Luo brought his hands together and likewise pulled a stream of energy from the void, forming it into a long spear. He thrust it directly at the greatsword Du Qingteng was slashing down.

RUMBLE!

An earth-shattering bang echoed out. A vast expanse of the void was instantly shredded by an immense power, twisting and warping as if to reveal another world!

Jin Ming, who had already landed in Qingchuan Ancient City, couldn’t help but glance up. He squinted, unable to suppress the horror he felt. However, the more he saw, the stronger his desire to kill Xu Luo became.

He muttered under his breath, ”Luo Tian… this time, you must die!”

Xu Luo and Du Qingteng were both sent flying back several hundred yards, and they stared at each other across the distance.

Du Qingteng took a deep breath, then said, ”Kid… you’re pretty good!”

”Young man, you’re not bad either!” Xu Luo said.

Du Qingteng grimaced. ’This guy is infuriating!’ he thought. He gritted his teeth and said, ”Don’t you know some damn humility? I’m an Inheritor from one of the three great Holy Lands!”

”I didn’t lose to you, so why should I be humble?” Xu Luo shot Du Qingteng a sidelong glance.

”Son of a bitch, I’ve never met someone as unreasonable as you!” Du Qingteng felt he was at a loss for words.

”And I’ve never met someone so shameless!” Xu Luo sneered.

”Let’s go drinking!” Du Qingteng sneered. ”Anyone who uses their energy to resist the alcohol is a wimp!”

”Whoever passes out first is the wimp!” Xu Luo said.

…

…

”Yingying… do you know, I really… really… like you!”

With hazy, drunken eyes, Du Qingteng looked toward the girl in Yu Tianying’s arms and spoke with deep affection.

After he finished speaking, he slid off his chair with a CLATTER and disappeared under the table.

Xu Luo squinted, struggling to stay conscious. He watched Du Qingteng slide under the table, then grinned. He wrapped an arm around the soft, slender waist of the Yingying beside him and said, ”Wimp!”

After saying that, he stood up and, with his arm still around Yingying, staggered unsteadily out of the room.

The face of the young servant standing behind Du Qingteng turned livid.

Everyone else at the table was still sober; they had just been watching the two of them have a drinking competition.

Seeing Du Qingteng drink himself under the table while their Eldest Brother could still stand up and leave with the devastatingly beautiful Yingying, they were all in absolute awe.

Yu Tianjie sighed in admiration. ”That’s our boss for you. I’m truly impressed. Is there anything… he can’t do?”

Everyone roared with laughter. They then watched as Du Qingteng’s young servant dragged him out from under the table, hoisted him onto his back, shot their group a vicious glare, and turned to leave.

”What’s a mere servant acting so arrogant for?”

”Exactly! His master drank himself under the table!”

”How pathetic. He’s supposed to be a young expert, but he’s stuck being someone’s slave!”

”Tsk, he’s a slave from the Holy Land. Watch out, or he’ll take on all of you at once!”

This group of peerless prodigies from Celestial Brilliance were all incredibly arrogant. Having been looked down upon by a mere servant earlier, they were all holding back their anger. It wouldn’t be in their nature to pass up a chance for a few sarcastic jabs.

The young servant heard every word. His heart burned with resentment, but he didn’t say anything back.

Because as nasty as their words were, they were the truth!

There was no way to refute it.

The young servant gritted his teeth and swore an oath in his heart: ’One day, I will make all you so-called prodigies kneel before me and apologize!’

Just because Du Qingteng and Xu Luo had come to appreciate each other through their fight didn’t mean his servant didn’t have his own opinions on the matter.

After all… he had been arrogant and domineering, only to be completely ignored in the end, not even getting a seat at the main table.

Meanwhile, those Great Sect Disciples he’d looked down on were sitting right there, laughing and chatting with Du Qingteng.

The feeling made him incredibly resentful.

By now, he had helped Du Qingteng to their room and laid him on the bed. As he gazed at his dead-drunk master, a sinister glint flashed in the young servant’s eyes.

He thought, ’When I first entered Weiyu Mountain, it wasn’t to become a servant! But my talent was just a little bit weaker than his, so I became his attendant… If he were to die, couldn’t I… replace him?’

The thought startled even him. His heart pounded with anxiety. He cautiously glanced at the snoring Du Qingteng, and his racing heart… slowly began to settle.

He thought, ’But I can’t kill him. There’s still the Guardian. If I killed him, the Guardian would never let me go.’

Just then, Du Qingteng, who had been snoring on the bed, mumbled in his sleep, ”Drink… keep drinking! Luo Tian… whoever stops drinking… is a fucking wimp!”

’Still drinking... Why don’t you just drink yourself to death!’ the young servant thought, but somehow, the words slipped right out of his mouth.

”Hm?” Du Qingteng, who had seemed dead drunk, suddenly snapped his eyes open. An intense light shot from them, locking onto the young servant.

A cold light shone from Du Qingteng’s eyes. Though his eyes were somewhat bloodshot, at this moment… there wasn’t the slightest hint of drunkenness about him.

He stared coldly at the young servant without a word.

With a THUD, the young servant dropped to his knees. His voice trembled as he spoke, ”Master, I was wrong! I beg you, Master, for the sake of my loyal service, please spare this lowly one just this once!”

”Heh heh… spare you this once?” Du Qingteng sneered.

”Master… I truly didn’t mean it. I admit, I was upset that those people looked down on me, but I swear I didn’t mean to say what I did,” the young servant pleaded, kowtowing.

Du Qingteng slowly sat up on the bed and crossed his legs. He looked down at the kowtowing servant and said faintly, ”Do you know… what makes you inferior to them?”

”I… I don’t know,” the servant stammered. Seeing that his master didn’t seem to intend to kill him, he could finally breathe a sigh of relief.

Du Qingteng said, ”They… are all a wild and untamable bunch. Don’t be fooled by the people around Luo Tian; they might not look all that powerful, but I guarantee that in a real fight, any single one of them could wipe the floor with you!”

”And another thing… they have backbone! They have spines of steel!”

”If this happened to them… even if it meant death… they would never kneel and beg me for mercy!”

”Don’t think for a second that I *want* to treat you like a slave. It’s you… you’re the one who acts like one!”

Du Qingteng’s voice gradually grew louder. He said coldly, ”Do you still remember, back when you first started following me, you must have been seven or eight years old?”

”At that time I… was only nine!”

”I was only a little bit older than you. What did I tell you back then?”

Kneeling on the floor with tears streaming down his face, the young servant choked out, ”Master told me then: ’You and I are brothers from now on. When I get stronger, you’ll get stronger. We’ll take on the world together and become great heroes!’”

Du Qingteng said coldly, ”And you… what did you say back then?”

The young servant finally broke down completely, sobbing as he replied, ”This lowly one said: ’You are the master, I am the slave. I am willing to serve you faithfully, Master!’”

”Were you resentful back then?” Du Qingteng asked.

”I was,” the young servant cried. ”I was incredibly resentful. I thought, our talents were barely different, so why should you be the master and I the servant!”

”So… you said those words back then out of resentment, right?” Du Qingteng asked coldly.

”Yes!” the young servant replied, crying.

”I never once treated you like a slave! When it was time to eat, I’d call you over, but you wouldn’t join the table. You said a slave can’t eat with his master.”

”When we cultivated, I gave you a share of the best resources, but you refused. You said, ’How can a slave compete with his master for resources?’”

”When Second Senior Brother bullied you, I fought him for you and got beaten black and blue. And what did you do afterward? You knelt and begged me to never stand up for you again, saying it wasn’t worth it for a ’mere slave’…”

The more Du Qingteng spoke, the angrier he became. He leaped off the bed, kicked the young servant to the ground, and began to curse, ”You’re resentful, yet you play the part of the dutiful slave perfectly. Tell me yourself, you son of a bitch, aren’t you just spineless?!”

”If you’re resentful, then let it out! You could have told me to my face, told everyone on Weiyu Mountain, that you don’t want to be a slave!”

”That you want to become a Holy Land Inheritor!”

”You could have worked your ass off! Fought for it! You could have surpassed me and become a real man, one who stands tall!”

”But what did you do? You tell me, you son of a bitch, aren’t you just a spineless coward?”

”If you had the guts to stick a knife in me today, this Master Du would actually look at you in a new light!”

”But you don’t have the guts! You’re always hesitating, scared of this, scared of that! You’re afraid the Guardian will kill you!”

”You’re nothing but a stupid pig!”

”If I could be killed by the likes of you, the Guardian wouldn’t shed a single tear for me!”

”He’d just call me a useless piece of trash! Killed by his own servant! Then he’d immediately become *your* Guardian!”

Du Qingteng roared, kicking the young servant viciously a couple more times. Then he looked at him coldly. ”Leave.”

The young servant was stunned speechless by the scolding, utterly terrified. He crawled forward on his knees, grabbing Du Qingteng’s leg and crying, ”Master… you can’t abandon me! You said… you said you saw me as a brother, that you would help me become a great man!”

”That was in the past.” Du Qingteng suddenly calmed down. He sighed, looking at the servant hugging his leg, and said softly, ”When you learn how to stand up straight… that’s when you can come back and find me.”

The young servant was dumbfounded. He had never seen this kind of expression on Du Qingteng’s face, and had certainly never seen him so serious.

”I’m serious,” Du Qingteng said.

The young servant stood up in a daze. After a long moment, a glimmer of light returned to his eyes. He gave Du Qingteng a deep bow, then turned and, without another word, trudged away.

BANG!

Du Qingteng smashed a large table in the room with a single punch. His cold eyes were now glistening with unshed tears as he murmured, ”Brother, I’m doing this for your own good. If you stay by my side, you really will… spend the rest of your life as nothing but a servant.”