Spirit Ruin, Sword Coffin, Blind Swordsman

Ye Feng glanced back toward the distance, then silently followed behind the others.

Li Congxin, better known as Coward Li, was flying through the endless void on his sword. Then, without warning, a beam of golden sword qi struck him and pierced straight into his dantian.

Ye Feng’s voice reached Coward Li’s ears. “This is… for your own protection. Don’t blame me. And don’t blame Third Brother or Sister-in-law either.”

At the same time, a streak of blazing fist aura entered Li Congxin’s sea of consciousness and settled upon his Dao Platform.

Cao Yan’s voice followed. “Don’t blame Second Brother and the others… if you want to hold a grudge, come find me when the time comes.”

They were not the only ones. Meng Wanshu also left an ice flower inside Li Congxin. It was an extraordinary treasure capable of blocking a full-strength attack from an early Combined Body Realm cultivator.

Meng Wanshu said nothing. She merely exchanged a glance with Ye Feng and Cao Yan. Though they had never discussed it, all three had done the same thing.

Li Congxin smiled to himself, a tangle of emotions rising as he felt the powers now nestled within him. The storage ring Gu Li had left him held one hundred thousand talismans. And Li Guanqi had gone further still, leaving him all of his sword sutras along with a generous stock of spirit stones.

Li Congxin’s gaze drifted into the distance. His throat bobbed, and his eyes reddened faintly. For the first time, he felt like a child surrounded by people who cherished and protected him.

After everything that had happened… did he resent them?

He couldn’t bring himself to resent them. He had always known that his wish to go on living was little more than an impossible dream. He was merely an illusory spirit, a fragment destined to be reabsorbed by the main body. How could he have dared hope for anything else?

Even when Li Guanqi promised to let him live, before breaking through to the Combined Body Realm, he never truly believed he would awaken again. He had assumed Li Guanqi was merely trying to comfort him.

He did not understand. He could not understand why Li Guanqi was so determined to keep him alive, even at the cost of leaving his own soul incomplete and exposing himself to unimaginable danger.

Of course, he knew that during the Heavenly Tribulation, Li Guanqi had severed every last connection between them. From that moment forward, he was himself, and Li Guanqi was Li Guanqi. They were two separate people, no longer bound to each other in any way, yet as inseparable as biological brothers.

He’d been gifted more than most people could ever imagine, and from the outset, he stood immeasurably ahead of everyone else.

In their position, he would probably have made the same choice without a second thought. A brother, a lover… versus a mere hollow spirit.

Li Congxin drew a deep breath and slowly let it out. Then he raised both hands and swept his white hair behind his head.

He stepped forward, and heavenly thunder rolled. He had entered the Nascent Soul Realm.

The moment his nascent soul formed, Li Congxin gripped the Yanluo Sword. “Soul Dissolution, Yanluo!”

A surging, indescribable sword intent took shape. Clad in red, Li Congxin soared toward the lightning above.

His sword shattered the lightning, but the impact tore his robes to shreds. He reached out, seized the stray arcs of lightning, and swallowed them. His white hair whipped wildly through the air, adding a touch of untamed arrogance to his melancholic air.

His golden core shattered, giving birth to a nascent soul. The storm clouds scattered, and a rosy radiance flooded the sky.

Covered in blood, his wounds charred black, Coward Li spread his arms wide. His free and unfettered sword intent officially advanced to the Sword Courage Realm.

A faint smile tugged at Li Congxin’s lips as he murmured to himself, “Dear world, I, Li Congxin, have arrived!”

In the void, Gu Li complained impatiently, “Seriously, Dad? Are you that stingy? You can’t even spare us a few transport talismans?”

With a resigned sigh, Gu Li pulled several silvery-white talismans from inside his robe. “Fine. One each. Stick them on.”

Before anyone could react, Gu Changsheng quietly gathered up every last talisman and calmly tucked them away in full view of everyone.

Gu Li stared at him for a moment, then rolled his eyes and muttered, “A distinguished alchemist, and you’re still pocketing something like this. You miser!”

Gu Changsheng’s expression didn’t so much as flicker. With a perfectly straight face, he said, “Ahem. You’ve never had to manage a household, so you do not know how quickly expenses add up. Besides, I only took a few so I could show them to your Uncle Zhang later.”

Everyone found their exchange quite amusing. To Li Guanqi, however, their banter revealed just how close they were. The fact that they could joke with each other so freely already made their relationship better than that of most fathers and sons.

Everyone stuck the talismans on and found it rather novel. After all, they had only ever used transport scrolls before.

The runes on the talismans shimmered with a soft silver light. A powerful spatial force enveloped the group, and an instant later, they vanished without a trace.

Li Guanqi turned back toward the void and said quietly, “May your path to immortality be smooth.”

Fresh from his breakthrough, Li Congxin smiled freely. He stepped onto his sword and soared into the open sky.

Hum!

Spatial power surged outward, engulfing the group in silver light as the talismans appeared to draw them into a shared spatial tunnel, carrying them along the same stretch of space.

The transport talismans were extraordinarily fast, covering the distance from the Daxia Territory to the Falling Sunset Territory in barely half an hour.

Amid a range of lush, rolling mountains, a spatial rift fully one hundred zhang wide loomed above one of the peaks. On the surrounding mountains, cultivators were flattening summits and clearing away enormous boulders.

Mildly surprised, Li Guanqi murmured, “The Gu clan decided to build their own home from scratch?”

Gu Changsheng snorted. “The resources of the outside clans aren’t worth a second glance to those who’ve truly reached the top.”

But then something occurred to him, and he turned to Li Guanqi with a smile. “The Daxia Sword Sect is different, though.”

At those words, Gu Changsheng studied Li Guanqi for a long moment. After some thought, he decided to remain silent. This was neither the time nor the place for that conversation.

“Come. Welcome to the Gu clan.”

Hum!

“Welcome back, Patriarch!”

“Welcome back, Patriarch!”

As they passed through the domain’s barrier, people called out in greeting one after another.

A wave of searing heat immediately struck them head-on. Fiery vital force permeated the domain for a thousand li in every direction, making even the air they breathed feel scorching hot.

Li Guanqi and the others stared around them in astonishment. The land was covered in lava as far as the eye could see.

Pavilions and towers rose above flowing rivers of lava, while bridges stretched into the distance over the churning magma. Dozens of volcanic peaks belched thick smoke as flames of every color erupted from their craters.

Gu Li shrugged helplessly and sighed. “Just look at this. In a place like this, how could I possibly enjoy alchemy?”

As Gu Li spoke, his gaze drifted toward Cao Yan. Cao Yan’s eyes were shining as his gaze darted from one volcano to the next. He murmured without realizing it, “Eroding Moon Hell Flame, Fire Python Beast Flame, Dream Beast Flame… There are so many beast flames and earthly flames…”

Gu Changsheng said proudly, “Indeed. I’ve spent my life collecting every kind of flame I can find, primarily beast flames. As for the supreme flames of heaven and earth, those can only be encountered through fortune. No amount of searching will lead you to one.”

Then, sounding almost aggrieved, he muttered, “I don’t know what lucky pile of dung you lot stepped in!”[1]

Ye Feng shrugged his shoulders and said bluntly, “We don’t have that kind of luck. Big Brother found all of it for us.”

Gu Changsheng turned to look at Li Guanqi in disbelief. “Both of the heavenly flames are yours?”

Li Guanqi shrugged and said nothing.

1. In Chinese folk belief, stepping in dog feces is considered a sign of good luck. Similarly, being pooped on by a bird is sometimes jokingly called “winning the lottery.”

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