I, the Sword Bearer

Under the pressure of your aura, Shen Yue and the others were forced to their knees, prostrating themselves on the ground in a row.

The children in the yard had never seen Grandpa so fiercely angry before and were frightened, yet they felt no discomfort.

This was because your control over power had reached the pinnacle of refinement.

“We have sacrificed so many comrades! Paid such grievous costs! I have spent my entire life plotting to repel foreign enemies and protect this realm’s living beings! Is this what it all comes to in the end—to devour our own people?! If I die one day and descend to the underworld, how could I face Hua Wuyan, the Sword Master, and the brothers who fought alongside me?!”

Your roaring shouts were deafening, carrying both spiritual and physical force.

The assembled bigwigs on the scene spat blood on the spot.

They dared not offer any resistance, silently admitting their faults.

Shen Yue gritted his teeth and said,

“Swordholder, we were wrong!”

“Have you already refined the pill?”

“No! We came today just to seek your consent before continuing research into the pill’s feasibility—nothing has been actually smelted yet.”

“Don’t lie to me! Or I won’t hesitate to erase a few battle sages from the human realm!”

“We wouldn’t dare!”

Thinking back to the days when Shen Yue, the lofty head of House Shen, could no longer even speak with you on equal terms now made the contrast stark.

Dongfang Yuque wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and sighed.

“Swordholder, how many more years of life do you have?”

“None. It’s a matter of days.”

Dongfang Yuque began to weep at this, even though you had just reprimanded him.

Though he had concocted such a crooked scheme, his intention at heart was for you to live longer, so that the human realm might have a protector.

You realized that after the battle with the dragon-folk, all factions in the human realm had developed an overreliance on you.

With you around, they felt secure.

Learning that your end was near, they panicked, wild ideas springing up everywhere.

Perhaps leaving would not be a bad thing—it would force humanity out of their hothouse, facing the tumultuous storms of the Void Realm, and grow far more rapidly.

You chuckled lightly, withdrew all your aura, and sat back down in your lounge chair, like a frail old man on his last breath.

You spoke to them,

“If you cannot achieve immortality, then strive to live a full but brief life, passing on your achievements and experience to future generations. Let this cycle repeat, allowing the whole race to grow slowly—that too is a remarkable feat.”

The group bowed deeply, your words deeply instructing them.

“Swordholder, do you need us to stay and guard you?”

Shen Yue actually wanted to say “see you off,” but couldn't bring himself to utter the words, so he changed “guard” from your phrasing.

You caught the implication and smiled.

“Go about your business. Having these adopted children of mine to see me off is more than enough.”

You had told Li Lingyue that you still had fifty more years of life left, so she wasn’t by your side at present.

You were worried that if she were near you during your passing, she wouldn’t be able to accept it and might do something reckless, trying desperately to prolong your life.

After your death, they could inform her—by then, the deed would be done, and she would be more inclined to accept it.

“In that case, we’ll take our leave.”

Just as Shen Yue and the others were about to depart, the sky over Baiyun County shattered!

“Crack, crack...”

A spatial vortex began from a tiny black speck, rapidly expanding until it covered most of the visible sky.

Light was blocked out—darkness descended!

The townspeople who looked up were so terrified they fled in all directions.

Some elders, seeing this, were reminded of back when Wuxiang had shrouded the world with its blood-red mist.

“What’s happening now? Is another monster going to destroy the world?”

“Why is it that our place suffers so many disasters?”

“I told you, Baiyun County is cursed!”

Shen Yue, Dongfang Yuque, and the others instantly recognized what it was.

“A spatial passage! Someone has opened a passage to the human realm!”

“Is another world about to launch a realm war against us?”

“Didn’t the Swordholder shift our realm’s position? How did they find it??”

Compared to Shen Yue’s tension, you were perfectly calm.

That the human realm had been found wasn’t surprising.

Because the human realm had never vanished from the Void Realm—you had only made its coordinate information chaotic and patternless.

This meant that for specialized, assembly-line attackers like the dragon-folk, their standard procedure for locating the human realm would be utterly useless.

However, if someone roamed aimlessly or made small-scale repeated attempts, they might still stumble upon it.

Who could it be?

“Swoosh! !”

Five figures burst forth from the spatial passage.

The passage then closed, being forcefully repaired by the world’s rules and disappearing.

The five “people” who arrived in the human realm were largely similar to humanity.

But they had two pairs of snow-white wings on their backs, reminiscent of Western angels on Earth.

“Good heavens, the angelic race, and all five are at the divine tier...”

Crossing the Void Realm on foot like this meant that these individuals were undoubtedly of high cultivation.

Undoubtedly, this was another intelligent race from the Void Realm, though probably not actually called “Angels.”

If they were naturally born flight-capable, it implied their race’s upper limits were nothing short of spectacular.

Shen Yue and the others flew up, attempting to communicate with these five alien visitors.

“Who are you people?”

The five winged beings looked around, pausing before their gaze fell upon Shen Yue and the others.

“%&￥@(!”

One of them spoke a phrase that was incomprehensible.

But each carried a conch-shaped spirit artifact.

This conch absorbed their voices and replayed them, now emitting human speech.

So it was a translation device.

“Natives, is this the human realm?”

Though displeased at being called “natives,” Shen Yue knew their cultivation level surpassed his, so he replied with restraint.

“That’s right. What brings you here?”

The five foreigners, faces lit with joy, chattered among themselves.

The translation device rendered their words.

“Finally found the human realm!”

“Damnit, it cost me over a hundred years of my lifespan just to get here!”

“It’s all the dragon-folk’s fault—they obscured the realm’s coordinates, terrified that other invaders would find it!”

“Then some nameless bastard altered the coordinates directly, making us take such a detour!”

“Thank fate we got lucky and stumbled our way in!”

The five celebrated fanfaronadingly, as if no one else were present. Then, with overbearing condescension, they pointed at Shen Yue and the others.

“Natives! Now, tell me quickly—where is the Ascension Road of the human realm!”