First Immortal of the Sword-Chapter 1949: Dead Gods

Others saw gods as lofty and superior. They could only gaze upon them from afar.

But Su Yi had never looked up to the gods. Ultimately, they were all just cultivators striving for the Grand Dao. The only difference was their cultivation. What need was there to look up to them, let alone worship or revere them?

It was for this reason that his every move and gesture was so jarring and out of place.

Take now, for instance. Everyone here knew that the spearwoman was an unfathomably powerful goddess. And for whatever reason, she wasn’t subject to the fetters of the natural order. She could freely descend into the Immortal Realm!

That was unbelievable in its own right.

It was for this reason that Xi Ning and Luo Tiandu, divine children from the God Domain, viewed her with such awe and dread. This was also why they called her “senior.”

But Su Yi was different. He and the spearwoman had clashed in the Human Realm, twice. He’d come out ahead both times, too. Why fear her?

Against Xi Ning and Luo Tiandu’s expectations, the spearwoman didn’t lose her temper. She just took a good hard look at Su Yi and said, “Very well. It really isn’t a suitable occasion for a duel, and since you’re here…. There might well be hope for that girl, A’Cai.”

“What happened to A’Cai?” Su Yi couldn’t help but recall the lively long young woman with the golden imprint of a serpent eating its own tail on her forehead.

When he and A’Cai first met in the Netherworld’s chaos source, she’d taken the form of a golden silkworm, and she was absorbing the Tree of the Ten Thousand Worlds of Samsara’s power. Only later did he learn that A’Cai was an Undying Immortal Silkworm with innate mastery of Undying Power. She could freely traverse time and space!

“She’s trapped in the Spacetime Boundary Marker,” said the spearwoman. A subtle hint of an apology was visible on her face. “She got stuck because of me. I’ve been trying to figure out how to save her, but all of my attempts have ended in failure.”

She spoke with undisguisable regret and concern.

“Did you get hurt trying to save her?” asked Su Yi.

The spearwoman nodded. “I’ve been fighting the dead gods of the prior epoch, and at one point, I carelessly let one of the old-timers ambush me, resulting in a few scratches.”

Scratches? Su Yi could tell at a glance that the spearwoman was hiding the severity of her injuries; these were no mere “scratches.”

Su Yi asked a few more questions, and after the spearwoman cleared things up, he finally understood what was going on here.

The “dead gods” the spearwoman spoke of were the most terrifying divine remnants in the Place Abandoned by Heaven. In life, they were Master Gods of the prior epoch!

The difference between them and other divine remnants was that their bodies remained, albeit badly damaged, and that although their souls were destroyed, their awareness lingered. Ordinary people wouldn’t even have been able to tell that they’d died a long time ago!

The dead gods protected the forbidden ground at the heart of the Place Abandoned by Heaven. The Undying aura there could ensure their continued existence. There, they were inextinguishable.

But at the same time, the forbidden zone was like a cage. The dead gods were trapped there for all eternity. If they left, they’d vanish from this world for good.

That aside, there was a Spacetime Boundary Marker of the prior epoch in that forbidden zone. It demarcated the time and space of this epoch and the prior epoch, and it was mysterious and taboo. According to the spearwoman, the Spacetime Boundary Marker had most likely been placed there by an expert of the prior epoch, a supreme ruler who’d transcended the River of Destiny. This was done to sever any connection between the old epoch and the new one, and to seal the former epoch off completely!

These secrets astonished even Su Yi. He suddenly recalled that lady divine wraith in the Cave of Divine Tears and the secrets she’d shared with him.

In the prior epoch, that is, the Spirit Martial Epoch, there was an existence who’d transcended the River of Destiny. They called him “the Esteemed Demon God.” Furthermore, the divine wraith was staunchly convinced that the Spirit Martial Epoch hadn’t been destroyed, as the Esteemed Demon God would never have let that happen.

Now, when he learned the secrets of the Spacetime Boundary Marker from the spearwoman, Su Yi couldn’t help but connect the dots. Could the Esteemed Demon God have left it here?

He shared his hypothesis with the spearwoman to see if she could confirm it.

She was startled; she hadn’t anticipated that Su Yi had heard of the Spirit Martial Epoch’s Esteemed Demon God. Suddenly, the way she looked at him turned a bit strange. In the end, she just nodded and said that even if the Esteemed Demon God hadn’t left the Spacetime Boundary Marker, it was undoubtedly connected to him.

As for how A’Cai had gotten trapped inside in the first place? It was simple. A’Cai was an Undying Immortal Silkworm capable of shuttling freely through space and time. The spearwoman asked her for help entering the Spacetime Boundary Marker; she wanted to investigate the secrets of the prior epoch. Yet in the end, A’Cai got stuck inside.

After hearing the full story, Su Yi couldn’t help but frown. “Weren’t you worried you’d get A’Cai killed?”

The spearwoman had a guilty conscience about this already. She disregarded Su Yi’s rebuke and sighed. “How could I have sent that girl into danger without making thorough preparations? Don’t worry, A’Cai is fine. She’s just trapped. If not for my temporary inability to use my full power, a mere Spacetime Boundary Marker wouldn’t be anywhere near enough to stop me!”

Her voice was full of frustration, but also bone-deep pride.

Xi Ning and Luo Tiandu were inwardly startled. The spearwoman had just let an important detail slip: she was suppressing her cultivation base. Otherwise, she’d have been strong enough to shake that mysterious and taboo Spacetime Boundary Marker!

The two of them couldn’t even imagine how powerful the spearwoman’s real cultivation base was.

“Fortunately, you’re here.” The spearwoman shifted tacks and looked at Su Yi. “Your intervention ought to be enough to save A’Cai.”

“What makes you say that?” asked Su Yi.

“Come with me.” Instead of answering, the spearwoman turned and walked off.

“Let’s go.” Su Yi beckoned to Xi Ning and Luo Tiandu, then followed the spearwoman further into the mountains.

Enough time to brew a cup of tea later, their field of view cleared up as they left the mountain range behind. A vast, open space appeared before them.

The ground was so red that it might as well have been caked blood. Everywhere they looked, they saw the vestiges of a fierce battle: vast chasms, craters, split skies… Even the dome of heaven was gray and oppressive.

A dense, Undying aura permeated the surrounding area. It gave them the impression that this dark, bleak landscape was somehow eternal and indestructible.

“I’m surprised you dared to return, woman!”

As soon as they arrived, a cold, clear voice rang out.

Boom!

Heaven and earth trembled, and the air shook as a startling beam of black light shot toward them from afar. In the blink of an eye, it was just ten thousand feet away.

The black light rumbled and boomed, then transformed into a dwarf-like old man with long, droopy, snow-white eyebrows. He gripped a fly whisk, and his robes were badly battered. He had an otherworldly air about him, but his entire body emanated shocking death qi, and his eyes glinted a strange shade of red.

Most startling of all, there was a bloody hole right through his forehead. And it was still bleeding!

When the short old man appeared, heaven and earth trembled. Countless black flames soared into the firmament, manifesting a mysterious Dao Palace behind him. The palace had thirty-three floors, each representing a layer of heaven, and countless godlike figures appeared to protect these floors. It was a soul-stirring, heart-shaking scene.

But it was also unsettling, because all thirty-three floors of the Dao Palace emanated dense death qi. What should have been the abode of the gods was instead a dark vision of deities trapped in purgatory!

Boom——!

When Xi Ning and Luo Tiandu saw this, both felt as if they’d been struck by lightning. Their hearts and minds were under terrifying suppression.

Su Yi’s gaze was instantly solemn, and deep within his sea of consciousness, the long-dormant Sword of the Nine Hells rumbled and buzzed. It had obviously been startled into action.

A lethal threat bore down on him. Su Yi’s vital energy was under terrifying suppression, and he felt suffocated.

He couldn’t help but feel astonished. What kind of terrifying existence is this? Could this be one of the dead gods the spearwoman spoke of?

The cold, austere hum of a spear rang out.

Clang——!

It was like the sound of the Grand Dao. When it reached her companions’ ears, it instantly neutralized the oppressive power assailing them.

The spearwoman gripped a long blue-gray spear and pointed it at the short old man. She roared, “The power of reincarnation has appeared before you. Why haven’t you bowed?”

Every word went off like a thunderclap, booming throughout heaven and earth.

The source of this c𝐨ntent is freeweɓnovēl.coɱ.

The elderly dwarf froze,stunned, a hint of turmoil in his unearthly red eyes. His expression shifted, filling with panic, alarm, and dread, as well as the agony of something too painful to even recall. Even the thirty-three-story Dao Palace shook behind him; from a distance, it seemed like he’d lost his mind.

It was an astonishing sight. How could just one sentence have made such a terrifying existence lose his cool so badly?

The crux of the matter had to be the word “reincarnation.”

Su Yi was vaguely starting to understand why the spearwoman was so certain that he could save A’Cai. It was because he controlled the power of reincarnation!

Suddenly, a voice as mellow and pleasant as a spring breeze resounded throughout the landscape. “Reincarnation? Where? Reincarnation has long since vanished from this world.”

The spearwoman’s pale purple eyes focused at the sound of this voice.

Suddenly, a figure appeared out of nowhere beneath the distant skies. He was a thin man in Confucian robes, and he was covered in blood. His hair hung loose, and there were numerous injuries all over his body, all of them so deep that his bones were visible. His flesh was in tatters.

His gaze was calm and gentle, and his thin face was as smooth and mellow as jade, but his entire body emanated dense, strange death qi. But that was not even the most important thing; the main issue was that the man’s head wasn’t attached to his neck. Rather, he held it in the palm of his left hand!

Su Yi had seen a lot over the years, but he still felt a chill course down his spine.

The man in Confucian robes seemed to notice. His hand shifted his head so it could look at Su Yi, and he smiled comfortingly.

“Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid. I lost my head during the Epoch Tribulation, and even though it’s still intact, I cannot reattach it. I have no choice but to keep holding it like this.”