Chapter 657: The Full Story
“Not possible?” Su Yi asked coolly. “Just two months ago, that yao sword tried to barge into the ruins of the Immortals’ Sword House, only to suffer injuries and flee. Way I see it, it won’t dare come back any time soon.”
The white-haired woman’s unearthly gaze was instantly solemn.
After a moment’s silence, she said with cold disdain, “Given Qing Luo’s power, not even a Spiritual Revolution Realm cultivator would be a match for him. How… How could he possibly have gotten hurt?”
Although Ning Sihua’s heart was full of dread, she couldn’t help but say, “It doesn’t matter whether you believe it or not. The sword really did get injured and flee, and the ‘Qing Luo’ you speak of was killed!”
“Qing Luo is dead?” The white-haired woman laughed coldly. “You’re contradicting yourself. If Qing Luo really fled like you said, how could you possibly have killed him?”
Ning Sihua was stunned, but Su Yi quickly understood. “So, the yao spirit within the blade calls itself Qing Luo.”
“Divine Misfortune” was the sword’s name. Qing Luo was the sword spirit’s name!
“No wonder the sword’s slaves only recall that they’re named Qing Luo after their memories are erased. It’s clearly the sword’s power influencing them…” Su Yi finally understood.
He looked at the lamp floating above the white-haired woman’s palm. “If I’m not mistaken, when you and Qing Luo joined forces to murder Bai Changhen, you were severely injured too, and you were sealed within that lamp, unable to escape. Am I right?”
The white-haired woman said coldly, “I didn’t murder Bai Changhen!”
Su Yi laughed. “Bai Changhen was killed, while you were sealed within a bronze lamp. When Divine Misfortune’s spirit, Qing Luo, fled, he must have promised to come back for you. I bet he said he’d free you from captivity and take you away from the Final Resting Place. Am I right?”
The white-haired woman said nothing.
However, Ning Sihua noticed that her left hand quivered as Su Yi spoke. It was a subtle but unquestionable clue that the woman wasn’t as calm as she appeared on the surface!
“Fellow Daoist, didn’t you say that with her power, she could have left this place a long time ago?” asked Ning Sihua.
“Leaving doesn’t necessarily mean escaping confinement,” said Su Yi. “Do you see that lamp in her hand? Unless I’m mistaken, it’s an Imperial-level Soul-Refining Lamp. With her power, unless someone helps her, there’s no way she can escape its confines.”
When she heard that, the white-haired woman’s expression finally shifted, and her aura became far fiercer. “Even confined, I’m strong enough to kill you both!”
Su Yi’s gaze shone with faint disdain. “If you could really do that, why would you have waited this long to attack?”
“You really insist on seeking death?” Cold murderous intent arose on the woman’s beautiful face, and she raised her hand.
Weng!
Dazzling, snow-white sword qi shot out of her fair, jade-like palm. It emanated wisps of unearthly crimson luster.
Ning Sihua’s delicate frame stiffened, and she felt a prickling pain all over her skin!
Nonetheless, she watched as Su Yi took a step forward, closer to the white-haired woman. “I said all that earlier simply because I wanted to know the truth. Did you really… Did you really think I can’t handle a tiny little sword spirit like you?”
Imposing momentum suddenly surged from his tall, lean frame. His distant gaze was just as calm as before.
However, his aura was completely different.
The woman’s pupils constricted.
As the young man in blue drew closer and closer, he suddenly seemed tall beyond limit, like a deity from on high, capable of holding the sun and moon and intimidating the heavens.
An indescribable imposing sword aura bore ruthlessly down on her.
She felt as if a Dao Sword had soared out of the void, tearing through the skies, boring through time and space, with momentum capable of shaking eternity—and it was headed right toward her.
In the face of this terrifying slash, she felt as tiny and insignificant as an ant. She couldn’t work up any thoughts of resistance; she even felt an almost irrepressible urge to throw herself to the ground and submit…
Snow-white sword qi emanated a faint crimson glow as it surged out of her palm, but in the face of Su Yi’s imposing aura, it suddenly wailed, then shattered.
Immediately after, the white-haired woman’s delicate frame shook violently, and her face was increasingly pallid. Her gaze was vacant, then terrified, helpless, and overcome with despair.
“Kneel.”
A calm voice resounded within her mind.
It rang like a temple bell and boomed like thunder.
The white-haired woman couldn’t hold out any longer. Her knees thudded limply to the ground, followed by a waterfall of white hair.
Su Yi now stood just three feet away from her, both hands behind his back.
Ning Sihua was stunned, and her phoenix eyes widened in disbelief. Her mind went blank.?A terrifying existence like that actually… knelt? Just like that?
Kneeling before an opponent was an utterly humiliating way to lose.
Furthermore, from beginning to end, Su Yi hadn’t once attacked. He relied purely on his imposing aura to force the white-haired woman to the ground. This was unquestionably difficult to believe.
“You… Just who are you?” The white-haired woman looked up, her eyes full of alarm, fury, and deep-rooted dread.
Su Yi said nothing. He just stretched out his hand and grabbed.
The blue lamp whooshed through the air and landed in his palm.
It was only about the size of his hand, and the bird-shaped wick surrounded in crimson lamp oil blazed, casting dim, mottled light.
The name “Heavensphere” was carved in an ancient script at the lamp's base.
There was no doubt about it: this lamp was the work of the founder of the Immortals’ Sword House, the Heavensphere Yao Emperor!
However, something else quickly drew Su Yi’s gaze.
There was a mark on the lamp’s surface, and it was obviously the work of a sword!
“No wonder this treasure’s aura is so weak. So, it’s long since been damaged. Add that to tens of thousands of years of corrosion, and it’s no longer what it once was. If it were, I’m afraid you’d still be trapped inside. Never mind causing trouble; you wouldn’t be able to take so much as half a step outside the lamp.”
Su Yi fiddled with the lamp and said casually, “However, your origin has long since been refined into the lamp. Although you can escape its confines, it still controls your life and death. You’ll live so long as the lamp exists, but if it’s destroyed, you’ll die.”
The white-haired woman trembled from head to toe, and when she looked at Su Yi, her eyes shone with indescribable astonishment.
It seemed she couldn’t even imagine how a young Gathering Stars Realm cultivator could have such terrifying perception or such a wide breadth of knowledge.
“I understand the gist of what happened. Back then, Bai Changhen was in possession of this lamp, and he thought he could use it to intimidate Divine Misfortune into behaving itself,” Su Yi said, looking lost in thought.
“But he would never have guessed that you’d ambush him out of nowhere, meaning he had no choice but to use this treasure to suppress you at the last minute. However, this created an opening for Divine Misfortune to exploit, resulting in the deaths of the third-generation leader of the Immortals’ Sword House, as well as the destruction of the seventy-two Exquisite Chrysalises and the deaths of every disciple present. All of them faced calamity.”
The white-haired woman bit her lip. “I said I didn’t kill Bai Changhen! He was greedy and insidious, and he brought his death upon himself!”
“Oh?” said Su Yi with great interest. “Let’s hear it, then. If you can convince me, I’ll leave you a path to life.”
The white-haired woman fell briefly silent, and her expression was suddenly conflicted. “When the Prohibition of Ancient Darkness descended upon us, His Excellency the Heavensphere Yao Emperor made a choice to prevent the termination of the Immortals’ Sword House’s legacy…”
She went on to explain the full situation. It wasn’t complicated.
The Heavensphere Yao Emperor believed there were only two paths they could take to avoid the end of their legacy.
The first was to lead their experts away from the Azure Continent and explore the perilous unknown of the starry sky in search of a new place to cultivate.
One group left, but another—this one led by Bai Changhen—built Exquisite Chrysalises within the Final Resting Place in an attempt to escape the corrosive power of the Prohibition of Ancient Darkness.
When the Heavensphere Yao Emperor left the Azure Continent, he left three things behind.
The Allspirit Sword Sutra he’d created.
The Heavensphere Soul-Refining Lamp.
And the first sword he’d forged after proving his Dao and entering the Imperial Realm, “Celestial Glaze.”
The white-haired woman in red was Celestial Glaze’s weapon spirit.
Before Bai Changhen set out building the Exquisite Chrysalises, the spirit of Divine Misfortune, Qing Luo, secretly warned the spirit of Celestial Glaze. He said that Bai Changhen had decided to refine Celestial Glaze so as to suppress Divine Misfortune.
Once that happened, Qing Luo would be thoroughly suppressed, but the white-haired spirit of Celestial Glaze would be doomed beyond a doubt.
Qing Luo also said that he could help her escape this calamity, but that was on the precondition that she help him take down Bai Changhen.
The white-haired woman had rejected this idea.
At the time, she simply didn’t believe that Bai Changhen would dare refine Celestial Glaze. After all, it was the sword the Heavensphere Yao Emperor had left behind. She was the blade’s weapon spirit, but she and the Heavensphere Yao Emperor were as close as a master and apprentice.
Against all expectations, upon completing the seventy-second Exquisite Chrysalis, Bai Changhen really did try to refine her…
This left her no choice but to fight back.
In the end, although Bai Changhen used the Heavensphere Soul-Refining Lamp to suppress her, this created an opening for Qing Luo, who killed his master.
“I’ve never hated Bai Changhen. He used his body to nourish his blade, so Qing Luo kept getting stronger and stronger, but Bai Changhen’s cultivation reached a bottleneck. A long time passed, but he couldn’t break through. The longer he remained stuck, the greater the odds of Qing Luo turning on him,” said the white-haired woman. “That’s why he tried to refine Celestial Glaze; he hoped doing so would help suppress Qing Luo.”
“But even though I understand, I couldn’t tolerate my life ending just like that, which… is what led to that disaster…” Here, she trailed off and fell silent. Her expression was melancholy.
After hearing the full story, Su Yi’s heart didn’t even waver. He looked at the woman and said coolly, “The Heavensphere Yao Emperor left Celestial Glaze behind. That means he wanted you to serve Bai Changhen, yet you made him lose his life. Furthermore, you caused the deaths of every single disciple the Immortals’ Sword House left behind. Do you… Do you really think you’re innocent?”
The white-haired woman tensed, looked up, and met Su Yi’s gaze. “Does being a sword spirit mean that my life is not my own, and that others can decide whether I live or die?”
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