Zhennan Pass.
When Ao Zhen's message jade arrived in Wang Hao's hands, on the sea due south, the aberrant tide had already closed to within a hundred li.
Wang Hao finished reading the jade slip, his face a blank mask. He simply handed it to the Demon Lord beside him, then said one thing.
"That old bastard Li Cangming sent me a gift. And that half-step tenth-rank aberrant sent me one too. Do I look like easy prey to everyone?"
The Demon Lord read the jade, and a shadow of gloom passed through his pitch-black, vortex-like eyes. "Your Majesty, this minister will take the Dark Legion out to sea and intercept—"
"No need." Wang Hao waved a hand.
"Three aberrant tides, and each one has a second eighth-rank aberrant hiding inside. Even if I sent all of you out, you couldn't stop all of them. I need something that can take on multiple eighth-rank aberrants at once."
He looked down at the sword at his waist—the Heavenly Sword.
From the sheath, the sword let out an impatient hum.
"Wang Hao, you finally remember me." The Heavenly Sword's voice dripped with barely-contained battle-lust. "I've been cooped up in this sheath for ten days, about to rust. Eighth-rank aberrants? I'll eat them one by one!"
"Didn't you say anything below ninth-rank was just a banquet? What's an eighth-rank?"
"An appetizer." The Heavenly Sword was utterly unapologetic. "But an appetizer is still food. I've been starving for ten days—I won't even pass up an appetizer."
Wang Hao drew the Heavenly Sword.
The blade let out a scream that split clouds and cracked stone the instant it left the sheath. Golden sword-light surged down the edge, and the Annihilation Dao patterns on the spine were even more clearly carved than ten days ago—that battle had been brutal, but after devouring a mass of aberrant remains, the sword's presence had clearly grown stronger.
Its ranking had risen from one hundred twenty-six to one hundred fourteen, jumping twelve whole places.
"Sword-bitch, I permit you to take human form."
The Heavenly Sword was silent for a breath, then said something Wang Hao hadn't expected.
"I've been waiting for you to say that."
Golden light exploded from the blade, and a black silhouette split away from the body of the sword. He was a young man who looked to be around twenty, lean and sharp-featured, with a face that was seventy percent Wang Hao's—but a completely different spirit.
Wang Hao's smile was bright with calculation. This young man's smile was pure, reckless arrogance—the kind of arrogance that wouldn't bother if he punched a hole through the sky itself.
He wore a long black robe patterned with sword-glyphs, his hair loose down his shoulders, each strand honed as sharp as a blade-edge. Arms crossed over his chest, he lifted his gaze to the black tide closing in across the southern sea, and the smile on his lips was that signature, infuriating, punch-me-in-the-face grin.
"Eighth-rank aberrant." The Heavenly Sword licked his lips. "Here I come."
The words had barely left his mouth before his figure vanished from the battlement.
The next instant, a black sword-light exploded across the sea.
In his manifestation, the Heavenly Sword was even faster than Wang Hao had anticipated.
His body was the sword, and the sword was his body. No need to channel petty energies, no need to cycle techniques—his mere existence was itself a blade.
A blade that could fly, cut, devour—and curse.
He charged into the aberrant tide with no subtlety at all. He simply ran straight into it.
Wherever that black sword-light passed, low-rank aberrants fell in rows like wheat under a scythe. A layer of golden sword-light rippled across his skin, and the instant it touched aberrant flesh, they melted like ice under the summer sun.
"Weak! Too weak!" The Heavenly Sword rampaged across the waves, one golden longsword of condensed sword-qi in each hand, and every strike landed precisely on an aberrant's core.
He wasn't fighting. He was harvesting.
A seventh-rank aberrant sea-serpent lunged from the flank, jaws gaping to devour his soul.
The Heavenly Sword didn't even turn his head. His left hand lashed backward, the golden blade puncturing the serpent's skull, spearing straight through the aberrant core inside. The serpent's body burst in a flash of sword-light, black remains splattering in every direction.
"A seventh-rank, and you dare ambush me? I'm ranked one hundred fourteen now—one hundred fourteen understand? There aren't two hundred artifacts in the entire continent ranked above me. A seventh-rank aberrant isn't even worthy to shine my shoes!"
Out on the sea, the soldiers of the Great Xia Navy stared at the black shape tearing through the aberrant tide, every single jaw hanging open.
"What the hell is that thing?" A young cannon-master pointed at the water, voice trembling.
"His Majesty's sword." Han Shanyue stood at the prow of the flagship, his iron leg grinding against the deck with a screech, the corner of his mouth twitching. "His Majesty's sword just took form."
"Took... took form? An artifact manifests a body?"
"Don't be dramatic. Anything that belongs to His Majesty—since when has any of it been normal?"
That's what Han Shanyue said aloud. In his head, he was cursing up a storm.
He'd lived long enough to have read accounts of swords manifesting bodies. But he'd never seen a manifested spirit fight like this—no wait, he'd never seen one talk like this.
"Hey, that eighth-rank one over there! Don't run! I haven't eaten you yet!" The Heavenly Sword was chasing an eighth-rank aberrant starfish across the sea, a creature a hundred spans across, each of its five tentacles equally long, every tentacle bristling with suckers, and in every sucker—an eye.
Eighth-rank aberrants had a certain animal cunning, and this one could feel something in the Heavenly Sword that made its instincts shriek in terror—not the sword's ranking, but the way the Annihilation Dao pattern fused into him seemed to snuff out all existence. Aberrants, as distortions of existence itself, were withered by it all the more fiercely.
No wonder the starfish ran.
But running did no good.
The Heavenly Sword was too fast. His substance was a blade, and a blade's flight was speed itself among all artifacts.
In a handful of breaths, he'd caught up, both swords lashing out to shear through the starfish's two forward tentacles at the root.
Tentacles fell, black pus spraying.
The starfish screeched an ear-rending cry, its remaining three tentacles thrashing wildly at the Heavenly Sword.
He didn't dodge. He let them hit him.
Golden sword-light flared across his body again. The tentacles slammed against it like flesh against an anvil, and the recoil shattered most of the eyes in their suckers.
"Had enough? Then I'm digging in."
He opened his mouth, and a jet of golden sword-light shot from his throat, drilling straight into the starfish's bulk.
It exploded inside him, shredding the aberrant core to pieces.
The creature's body began to collapse—a hundred spans of its mass melting into black sludge that dissolved into the sea, leaving only a fist-sized aberrant core behind—the most refined essence of an eighth-rank, all its years of digested power.
The Heavenly Sword reached out, snatched the core from the air, and popped it into his mouth like a sugar bead. Crunch. Crunch. Swallowed.
"Mediocre flavor. Not as savory as a ninth." He frowned, then turned to the aberrants still left on the water. "But better than nothing."
He charged out again.
On the battlement of Zhennan Pass, Wang Hao watched the black blur tearing through the sea below, and the corner of his mouth twitched.
“This Sword-bitch — I let him take form so he could fight battles for me. But instead, he turned it into an all-you-can-eat buffet.”
Wei Zhongxian stood behind him and said flatly, “Your Majesty, your sword takes after you.”
Wang Hao turned and glared at him. “Old Wei, what do you mean by that?”
“This old servant means that your sword, like yourself, has a hearty appetite.”
“……Old Wei, you’re getting better and better with your words.”
Wang Hao turned his gaze back to the sea. The Heavenly Sword alone was holding back at least half of the aberrant tide on the southern front, greatly easing the pressure on the Great Xia navy and the defenders of Zhennan Pass.
Rune cannons hammered the sea surface, and spirit-light beams blasted columns of blue through the aberrant tide, shredding low-tier aberrants by the dozens.
But Wang Hao knew this was only temporary.
No matter how capable the Heavenly Sword was, he was still just one being.
His combat power was enough to crush an eighth-tier aberrant, but aberrants weren’t enemies you could overwhelm with sheer force of numbers—they had no morale, they didn’t rout, they didn’t retreat. As long as their cores weren’t shattered, low-tier aberrants would surge forward in endless waves until they buried their target.
What’s more, every one of the three aberrant tides carried two eighth-tier aberrants. The Heavenly Sword was dealing with two on the southern front, but at Haigang Harbor and Linhai County, one lurked in the shadows on each side, where Ao Guang and Ao Zhen were locked in bitter struggle.
e vast world of cultivation, where he becomes the master of the Heavenly Ruins Sacred Hall, a dying old man with barely a tenth of his former cultivation remaining. He is immediately confronted with a deadly crisis: his subordinates have rebelled, and his protectors are forcing him to abdicate. At the critical moment, the system descends from the heavens: [Ding! The host has been detected facing a life-or-death crisis. The system is now officially activated!] [As a gift, you have received the Supreme Beginner’s Pack and awakened the ultimate cheat: ten thousand years of pure cultivation essence every second!] Yin Tianjue: “Wait… ten thousand years of cultivation every second? That’s six hundred thousand years a minute, and in one day… I can’t even calculate it. Either way, I’m already invincible!” You’re a peerless prodigy rarely seen in ten thousand years? Sorry, I gain ten thousand years of cultivation every second. You’re an undying ancestor who has guarded a sacred land for countless ages? Sorry, I gain ten thousand years of cultivation every second. You’re the strongest chosen one, blessed with heaven-defying destiny? Sorry, I gain ten thousand years of cultivation every second. From this day forth, I have only one thing to say: “I gain ten thousand years of cultivation every second. Now, how exactly are you supposed to deal with that?”
his freshman year, Su Bai accidentally bound the "Indulgence Tycoon System." 【Sleeping in? Reward: +$1,000】 【Spent $288 at a street barbecue stall? Cashback: +$2,880】 【Dropped $14,396 on in-game skins? Special reward unlocked: A brand-new Porsche Panamera!】 Luxury cars, penthouses, corporate shares, financial empires… College life was all about living freely and doing whatever he pleased! … When the adorably naive academic genius faced family medical bills and financial struggles, Su Bai waved his hand dismissively: "Your future is on me." "Wuwu~ Big Brother is so good to me! I’ll become a scientist to repay you!" When the genius girl got bullied by a shady professor? Su Bai casually dropped a billion-dollar investment, forcing the university to grovel and beg for her return. A company’s funding chain collapsing? Su Bai smirked—cash was the one thing he’d never run out of. Years later, when people traced the rise of the AI prodigy beauty, who was the man behind her success? Not just that—Su Bai also became the tsundere campus belle’s unattainable dream, the contrast senior’s daily necessity, and the beautiful counselor’s emotional anchor…
lity and could only live as an ordinary mortal. He only wished to live a peaceful life. Yet he didn't know— The dog he adopted, because it ate his food, became a legendary demon king. The kitchen knife he casually forged became a peerless divine weapon, causing numerous experts to fight desperately for it. The young disciple he took in became an immortal lord that led an era, due to cultivating the techniques Ye Feng taught him. Even the skeletons he looked down on the most were ominous demon kings that suppressed countless worlds. Many years later, looking at the void shattered with a punch, Ye Feng murmured to himself: It turns out the peerless kings were myself all along...
to panic—he has a system. As long as an investment target dies, he can claim a reward. And since he is immortal, the one thing he has plenty of is time. ... Countless years later. “Immortal Emperor of Longevity? I invested in him.” “Supreme Celestial Venerable? I invested in him.” “Undying Empress? I invested in her.” “...” “Heh. Once they’ve all died, even the Heavenly Dao will have to kneel and call me Dad.”
