First Immortal of the Sword

Chapter 2394 – A Guilty Conscience

Late at night.

Their battle had long since destroyed Yellow Sands City. The startling vestiges of battle stretched as far as the eye could see.

Even the sandstorm, which typically enveloped the area year-round, had vanished. The atmosphere was extraordinarily quiet and still.

“Brother Daoxuan, how are your wounds?” Yan Chizhen and Five Desires walked over and looked at Su Yi anxiously.

“No big deal,” said Su Yi, glancing down at the indentation in his chest. His expression didn’t even waver.

“What… what happened here?” Treasure Leaf looked around in a daze, as if questioning everything his eyes told him. “What’s going on?”

“Look,” said Su Yi, gesturing to his wounds. “This is your masterpiece.”

Treasure Leaf looked flabbergasted. His expression shifted erratically, but after a brief pause, he slowly seemed to grasp what had happened. He couldn’t help but grimace. “It’s not my fault. You can’t blame me for that.”

Su Yi laughed and patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry; I’m not that petty. I’m just glad you’re okay.”

The others exchanged glances. They couldn’t help but laugh.

It almost felt as if they’d returned to their glory days, wandering the Endless Ocean with Yi Daoxuan and their other old friends.

Su Yi’s heart was full of emotion, too. He’d overcome grave perils and enormous obstacles today, but his old friends were still here. That was more than comfort enough!

“Five Desires, lead the way. Let’s go check on your sectmates,” said Su Yi.

Five Desires’ expression was complicated. His shoulders drooped, and he hung his head. “Ol’ Devil Yi, the Dipankara Buddha was right. Back then, I was indeed too cowardly. I didn’t dare to avenge you. All I could think about was protecting my sectmates, so I…”

Here, Su Yi interrupted him. “I don’t want to hear any more of that kind of talk.”

Yan Chizhen nodded. “It’s true. Brother Daoxuan doesn’t hold a grudge. If he did, how could he have come to see you?”

Five Desires grimaced, but inwardly, his heart felt warm. He was deeply rueful.

He’d spent countless years in a prison of his own making. His enemies controlled and abused him at whim, but all he could do was make concession after concession after concession.

Now that he’d suddenly come back to his senses, he realized how unreasonable and absurd his behavior had been all this time.

Proximity blinded those right in the thick of things. Being subject to others’ control for too long was like being stuck in a swamp. The more you struggled, the deeper you sank.

It was only when someone pulled you out of the water that you could realize the truth: you’d stepped onto the wrong path the moment you first entered the swamp.

A heart full of concern was weighted down by it.

A heart full of guilt had to bear that bitterness.

And a heart full of fear had to face the disasters born of cowardice!

“Let’s go,” said Su Yi. He took a step forward and wrapped his arm around Five Desires’ shoulder.

……

The Western Paradise Spirit Mountains.

Beneath the bodhi tree, the Dipankara Buddha suddenly frowned. Blood flowed from the corners of his lips, only to disappear a moment later.

Still, his pallid face was proof that he’d suffered a heavy blow!

“The Eight Ultimate Taboos of the Aberrant Dao vanished long ago, during the Age of the Five Supremes. How could Su Yi possibly have grasped one?” The Dipankara Buddha frowned.

Despite all his calculating, he’d never even considered that Su Yi had long since acquired means of countering the Paired Heart-Guiding Worms!

“Did you lose?” Gu Huaxian appeared silently, a hint of sadistic glee in her expression.

“Now you can’t blame me for my defeat in the Bamboo Mountain Hidden Realm, right?” Gu Huaxian appeared not far from the Dipankara Buddha and gazed at his slightly pallid face. “As you said, Paired Heart-Guiding Worms are ultimately unseemly little tricks. As extraordinarily useful as they can be, once broken, they aren’t even worth a fart. On the contrary, their destruction does great damage to the wielder!”

The Dipankara Buddha thought nothing of it. “I can now say with some degree of certainty that Su Yi acquired long-lost Aberrant legacies in the Ruins of Supreme Emergence. That was indeed outside of my calculations.”

“Hah! What good does figuring that out now do you?” Gu Huaxian said with a cold laugh. “Treasure Leaf and Five Desires are still alive, and Su Yi made you fall flat on your face once more! If the world finds out about this, what will become of your reputation?”

The Dipankara Buddha said calmly, “I never thought I could kill Su Yi this time. I just wanted to borrow his hands to test Di E, that’s all.”

“Did Di E show up?” asked Gu Huaxian.

“He didn’t,” said the Dipankara Buddha. “But that terrifying spirit of the natural order backing him did.”

Gu Huaxian was stunned. “That existence… from the River of Destiny?”

The Dipankara Buddha nodded. “Even she suffered a massive setback and returned in defeat. She couldn’t touch Su Yi either.”

Gu Huaxian’s heart shook, and her expression shifted. “Su Yi has already grown that strong?”

“It’s because of that rusted sword sheath,” said the Dipankara Buddha. “It’s extraordinary even by the standards of taboo treasures. Its power can disregard the Laws and the natural order. Even the power of that spirit from the River of Destiny was unable to block it. It’s terrifying beyond measure.”

Gu Huaxian’s brow furrowed. “At Skybright Mountain, the old hunchback got complacent. That’s how the sheath managed to devour him… Right, did you manage to pry the sheath’s secrets out of the old hunchback?”

Earlier, she’d given the old hunchback’s remnant soul to the Dipankara Buddha for questioning.

The Dipankara Buddha nodded. “I learned a few secrets. The inside of the sheath is an endless dark ruin. Anything it devours is like a feather helpless to do anything but float there. It’s completely unbelievable.

“That aside, the old hunchback suspects that an artifact spirit is hidden within the sheath.”

“An artifact spirit?”

“Yes,” said the Dipankara Buddha. “A taboo treasure like the sheath is unbelievable in its own right. Add an artifact spirit to the mix… and it’ll be all the more dangerous.”

Artifact spirits were sentient!

And the sword sheath could defeat even the little girl’s power of the natural order. It was thus easy to imagine how dangerous the artifact spirit was.

Gu Huaxian realized that too. She sighed, “Does that mean that no one in this world can defeat Yi Daoxuan now?”

The Dipankara Buddha shook his head. “No. Given Su Yi’s strength, he cannot possibly fully master the sheath. Were that possible, he would never have gotten injured, and his friends would never have gotten smacked around like that.”

Here, the Dipankara Buddha’s gaze grew deep and heavy. “External treasures are, ultimately, just that: external. They cannot make Su Yi invincible in this world! If he were that capable, he’d have attacked the Western Paradise Spirit Mountains and settled our grudge a long time ago.”

Gu Huaxian nodded. “Then what should we do next?”

The Dipankara Buddha instantly fell silent.

Gu Huaxian had suffered a major setback in the Bamboo Mountain Hidden Realm, and she’d returned in abject defeat.

He’d suffered a quieter, but also major setback in the battle of Yellow Sands City, and he’d failed to achieve his ends.

More importantly, during that battle, he caught a whiff of danger!

But the danger didn’t originate from Su Yi. Rather, it originated from Di E!

He’d originally sent a message to Di E, requesting him to come out and help him capture Su Yi, but against his expectations, Di E hadn’t shown up. He’d sent that mysterious little girl to attack in his stead.

The Dipankara Buddha couldn’t help but suspect that Di E distrusted him.

“There’s two things we need to do next,” the Dipankara Buddha said calmly. “First, once we’ve helped Yu Xun reforge his body, we need to send him to cultivate with Di E.”

Gu Huaxian’s brow furrowed. “Why do such a thing?”

“I cannot let Di E question my allegiance prior to the Dark Days of Legend,” the Dipankara Buddha said calmly. “By now, I’m sure he knows that Yu Xun is our flesh and blood. If we give him Yu Xun as a hostage, he’ll naturally relax and realize that we’re working loyally on his behalf.”

Gu Huaxian laughed coldly. “You’re using your own son as a hostage? You sure are ruthless.”

“When have you ever cared about our son’s life?” asked the Dipankara Buddha.

Gu Huaxian instantly clammed up.

“Second, twenty or so years remain until the Dark Days of Legend. No matter what happens, we cannot pay any heed to any worldly affairs prior to that,” said the Dipankara Buddha. “Especially if Su Yi is involved. No matter how great a commotion he causes, it’ll be just a little over two decades.”

Gu Huaxian furrowed her brow in confusion. “Didn’t you say you were going to give Su Yi an opportunity to go to the Boundless Battlefield? Don’t tell me you’ve given up on it?”

“I haven’t given up, but I won’t get directly involved,” said the Dipankara Buddha. “I’ll just go as a spectator and watch the show from a distance.”

“About when do you have in mind?” asked Gu Huaxian.

“It depends on when Su Yi decides to go to the Boundless Battlefield,” said the Dipankara Buddha, slowly shutting his eyes and entering meditation.

……

Three days later.

A treasure ship flew through the sky. It had been flying for about half a month, departing the Eastern Victory Divine Continent and passing through the Southern Flame Divine Continent on its way to the Endless Ocean.

Demon Venerate Five Desires and Demon Ancestor Treasure Leaf were drinking together on board.

Yan Chizhen was planning how to rebuild his physical body.

And Su Yi sat sprawled out in his wicker chair, eyes narrowed in thought.

When they left the Eastern Victory Divine Continent, they took Demon Venerate Five Desires’ sectmates with them. There’d been no major waves during the process.

It was just as Su Yi had told the Dipankara Buddha during their standoff. The Dipankara Buddha could threaten Five Desires’ sectmates, but Su Yi could threaten the lives of everyone in the Western Paradise Spirit Mountains in turn.

The Dipankara Buddha naturally couldn’t accept mutual destruction.

Thus, Su Yi and his companions stopped along the way to gather up the sectmates imprisoned or watched by their enemies.

Evil begets evil.

To deal with an evildoer, you had to be even more wicked than them.

Su Yi had never feared threats. This was the biggest difference between him and Demon Venerate Five Desires.

“You don’t recognize her?”

It might have looked like Su Yi was pondering, but in truth, he was conversing with his first incarnation’s heart devil in the rusted sheath.

He was stunned to learn that the heart devil didn’t know the little girl from the River of Destiny.

“She’s no more than a spirit of the natural order from the River of Destiny. I long since ceased to pay characters of her ilk any heed. How could I recognize her? How could she possibly be worthy of my attention?” the heart devil responded casually in a seemingly inadvertent display of bone-deep, tyrannical pride.

“Only someone like you, someone yet to reach the River of Destiny, would take her seriously,” said the heart devil, taking a moment to jeer at Su Yi.

Su Yi naturally paid this no heed. It seems the little girl knew Xiao Jian, or perhaps my second incarnation…

“Why didn’t you suggest that we cooperate this time?” the heart devil said suddenly. “If you’d said something, defeating that little girl would have taken no effort at all.”

He sighed as if it were an awful pity. “It’s a shame. You’re so on guard against me that you cost that spirit of the natural order who follows you around a chance to undergo metamorphosis!”