This Sword Is Called Dragon Slayer

A rainy night.

Inside the Ganlu Palace, red candles flickered wildly like weeping blood.

Wu Lingxiao had dismissed all the attendants.

Barefoot, her jade-like feet stepped on the cold golden floor bricks. She wore nothing but a crimson gauze robe as thin as a cicada's wing. It was the same color she had worn when they first met twenty years ago.

She wanted to compensate Ye Xuan.

She thought that by using the utmost tenderness and this body that all men in the world dreamed of, she could stitch this man's heart back into her own chest.

"Husband..."

Holding a white jade wine cup, Wu Lingxiao leaned close to Ye Xuan, who was sitting on the edge of the bed, her movements careful and almost obsessive.

Amber liquid rippled in the cup. "This is your favorite osmanthus wine from the past... Let me feed it to you, alright?"

Ye Xuan sat in the shadows, not saying a word.

He was like an ice sculpture that had lost its soul, exuding a deathly chill.

He neither dodged nor responded, not even lifting his eyelids.

"Drink! Why won't you drink?"

The tenderness in Wu Lingxiao's eyes was instantly replaced by a morbid brutality. She violently smashed the wine cup, splashing the precious osmanthus wine all over the floor.

She suddenly leaned forward, her red-painted nails digging fiercely into Ye Xuan's chin, forcing him to look up. Her eyes revealed a spine-chilling paranoia:

"Are you thinking about that bitch again? Are you?"

"Let me tell you! Since you have returned to this Ganlu Palace, even if you die, you must die on my dragon bed! If you dare to think of her one more time, I will send a voice transmission to Youzhou right now and have someone slice Ninth Sister's flesh off piece by piece to feed my spirit hounds! I will rip out her tongue, pull out her immortal bones, and gouge out those eyes you love so much to soak them in wine, serving them to you every single day!"

Hearing these words.

Ye Xuan finally moved.

He looked straight into that breathtakingly beautiful face, now twisted by jealousy and madness, just inches away from his own.

There was no fear or anger in his eyes, only a mocking resolve that saw right through life and death.

"Wu Lingxiao."

He softly spat out these three words without a hint of a tremor.

"I will no longer be threatened by you."

"The reason I came back was not to wag my tail and beg for your mercy, nor was it to drag out my miserable life."

"I came... to put an end to all this disgusting madness."

"What did you say?" Wu Lingxiao's pupils shrank, her heart sinking heavily.

The next moment.

An extremely violent and utterly tragic aura erupted from Ye Xuan's body.

Originally only at the Nascent Soul realm, his aura began to climb madly in a way that defied the laws of heaven.

Soul Formation... Void Refinement... Body Integration!

His ink-black hair turned to snow inch by inch from the roots, instantly becoming as white as paper.

His once full and smooth skin began to shrivel, wrinkles creeping up around the corners of his eyes. His boundless vitality drained away rapidly, like a punctured waterskin.

He was burning his lifespan! He was crushing the foundation of his divine soul to use a forbidden art!

"Stop it!"

Wu Lingxiao screamed, her voice carrying a terror she herself hadn't even noticed.

She lunged over like a madwoman, trying to hold him down. "Are you crazy? This forbidden method will burn your lifespan dry! You will die! Stop, I order you to stop!"

"Then I invite Your Majesty to stop me yourself."

Ye Xuan's voice was as calm as if he were discussing tonight's rain.

"No... don't..."

Tears burst from Wu Lingxiao's eyes. The cruelty from a second ago vanished without a trace, leaving only humble panic. "I was wrong. I won't force you anymore. I won't touch Ninth Sister... Please, husband, please stop, okay..."

Ye Xuan ignored her pleas.

He slowly raised that withered hand and grasped lightly at the empty air.

Clang!

A clear and resonant sword cry tore through the dead silence of the palace. A three-foot longsword, burning with a ghostly white flame, condensed out of thin air in his hand.

"Draw your sword."

Ye Xuan said coldly, the tip of the sword pointing straight at the glabella of the Great Wu Empress.

"What?" Wu Lingxiao slumped to the ground, looking up blankly at this white-haired man.

"I told you to draw your sword!"

Wasting no more words, Ye Xuan moved like lightning and slashed out directly with his sword!

This strike had no flashy divine abilities; it contained only the purest, ultimate killing intent and will to die.

Wu Lingxiao subconsciously tilted her head to dodge.

Swish!

A lock of severed black hair fell to the ground, accompanied by a bloody scratch left on her cheek by the sword aura.

"You want to kill me?"

Wu Lingxiao clutched her chest, in so much pain she was almost convulsing. She stared fixedly at Ye Xuan, her eyes crawling with mad, bloodshot veins. "We finally reunited after so much difficulty... and for that bitch, you're throwing away your own life just to kill me?"

Ye Xuan's expression remained indifferent. With a flick of his wrist, a sky full of sword aura crisscrossed, shredding the gauze curtains in the bedchamber to pieces:

"Since Your Majesty said you wanted to compensate me."

"Then I ask Your Majesty... to please go die!"

Rumble!

Thunder exploded, and the domed roof of the palace was forcibly blown off.

The two of them rushed into the violent rainy night, erupting into a massive battle tens of thousands of feet in the sky.

Behind Wu Lingxiao, nine dazzling golden phantom true dragons roared out; it was the imperial dragon aura automatically protecting its master.

Facing the power Ye Xuan had exchanged his life to obtain, as a Tribulation Transcendence realm Empress, she was completely unafraid, but she dared not strike back.

She was afraid that even a trace of her overflowing magical power would completely shred this man whose oil lamp was already burning out.

She could only defend wretchedly, letting the sword aura hack out ripples on her protective golden dragons, while continuously letting out mournful pleas.

"Husband! Stop fighting! I will give you the empire, alright? I will give you the throne! Put the sword down!"

"If you want to torture me, I will carve my heart out and show it to you right now! Just don't hurt yourself!"

Ye Xuan turned a deaf ear to it all.

His figure in the torrential rain moved faster and faster, his sword moves becoming increasingly bizarre, clinging to her like a bone-deep ulcer.

"Over the past twenty years, Feng'er and I lived in the bitterly cold lands of Youzhou, yet we supported each other every day, living in perfect harmony."

As Ye Xuan struck with his sword, he calmly narrated in an extremely cruel, slow tone. Every word was like a poisoned knife plunging ruthlessly into Wu Lingxiao's heart.

"Shut up! Shut up! You only have me as your wife! You are mine! Even if I have to turn you into a human swine, you can only stay by my side!" Wu Lingxiao roared furiously in the rain, clutching her head. Her morbid possessiveness drove her to the brink of cultivation deviation.

"The 'True Dragon Hegemon Art' cultivated by your royal family is claimed to be unparalleled in the world, immune to all magic."

Ye Xuan's eyes focused, and the longsword in his hand suddenly changed its style. The originally majestic sword momentum instantly turned sinister and tricky, like a venomous snake flicking its tongue, and stabbed with absolute precision right through the gaps between the scales of the golden dragon phantom!

Every strike accurately pierced the weak formation cores of the protective dragon aura.

"However, over these twenty years, Feng'er told me the incantations of this royal unpassed secret, word by word, in its entirety."

"I studied it day and night, pouring my heart and blood into it, running through it tens of millions of times in my mind, solely to create a sword art specifically meant to counter it."

"This sword art is named Dragon Severing."

"Today, I will use your blood to sacrifice to this sword that I have prepared for you for twenty years."

Slash!

With a single swing of the sword, the golden dragon wailed and violently collapsed!

Wu Lingxiao's protective True Essence, hailed as the absolute strongest defense in the world, was actually broken!

The icy blade sliced through her shoulder. The crimson blood of the Empress gushed out, dyeing the pouring rain red.

Clutching her wound, Wu Lingxiao looked at the snow-haired man before her in absolute horror.

"You... you actually plotted for twenty years... just to kill me?"

For twenty years of days and nights, she had pined for him deeply in the Weiyang Palace, staring at his portrait. Yet he, in the arms of another woman, had been studying how to pierce her heart with a single sword strike?

"You were the one who forced me to become a demon."

Ye Xuan pulled his lips into a cold, sinister grin.

Following this high-intensity outburst, Ye Xuan's aura began to rapidly decay. The aura of death around him had reached its absolute peak.

However, he had no intention of stopping.

Throwing his head back, he let out a spine-chilling, tragic laugh. Reaching into his robes, he pulled out a pitch-black pill that radiated a dense aura of death, and swallowed it without a second thought.

"No! That is the Nine Netherworlds Death Pill. Even immortals cannot save you if you eat it! Spit it out! We command you to spit it out!" The moment Wu Lingxiao recognized the pill, she went completely mad. She threw herself at Ye Xuan desperately, trying to pry his mouth open.

But it was too late.

The moment the pill entered his stomach, it was like boiling oil hitting a roaring fire.

Ye Xuan's aura instantly shattered the bottleneck of the Body Integration Realm, forcefully skyrocketing to the Tribulation Crossing Realm.

This was the ultimate terminal lucidity.

This was the final swan song of his broken vessel in this world.

"This sword strike is the true—Dragon Severing!"

Gripping his sword with both hands, Ye Xuan merged entirely with the sword light, transforming into a streak of white brilliance so dazzling it eclipsed the world.

In that instant, the torrential rain filling the sky evaporated into nothingness, and the thunder in the firmament was cleft in two.

This strike carried his final resolution to thirty years of imprisonment, coercion, and entangled love and hate.

It ignored space, ignored time, and ignored the spiritual energy shield Wu Lingxiao had instinctively raised!

Squelch!

The white light pierced through like a falling sun.

The longsword forcefully pierced through Wu Lingxiao's right shoulder. Rampaging sword qi sliced a massive, bone-deep gash from her shoulder straight down to her abdomen. Blood cascaded across the sky like a waterfall.

"Ugh... ah..."

Wu Lingxiao let out a miserable cry. The immense impact sent her staggering backward, her internal organs shifting from the force.

"With the next strike, I will claim your life!"

Ye Xuan roared, weeping tears of blood. He raised his dim, shattered sword once more and thrust it straight toward Wu Lingxiao's heart meridian.

Watching the fatal blade approach, the berserk Tribulation Crossing spiritual energy within Wu Lingxiao, along with her survival instincts as a top-tier cultivator, caused her to subconsciously counterattack.

She did not want to kill him. She only wanted to push the sword away, to subdue this man who had lost his mind, and then take him back to her bedchamber. She would use countless heavenly treasures to sustain his life, even if it meant turning him into a cripple who could do nothing but breathe. She did not care!

In her haste, Wu Lingxiao struck out with her palm.

However.

Right at the instant her palm, containing the world-toppling power of her spiritual energy, was about to strike.

She saw Ye Xuan's face.

Ye Xuan smiled.

It was a smile filled with the relief of liberation, extreme cruelty, and the absolute triumph of a completed scheme.

The berserk Tribulation Crossing magic power coursing through his body, capable of destroying heaven and earth, suddenly vanished into thin air like a receding tide!

He dispersed all his defenses.

He dispersed his protective sword qi.

He even voluntarily bared his chest.

Like a powerless mortal, he spread his arms wide, resembling a bird embracing freedom, and willingly met the Empress's world-destroying palm strike.

"No!"

Wu Lingxiao instantly realized what was happening. An unprecedented, ultimate terror gripped her heart. Her shrill, voice-breaking scream even drowned out the thunder in the sky.

She desperately tried to withdraw her magic power, to reverse her meridians, willing to suffer the backlash just to stop this palm strike.

But the distance was too close, and it was all too late.

A dull, heart-stopping thud rang out.

Wu Lingxiao's palm landed solidly on Ye Xuan's completely unprotected chest.

There was no suspense.

His breastbone shattered inch by inch, and his heart instantly exploded into a mist of blood under the immense force of the palm.

Like a blood-red kite with a broken string, Ye Xuan traced a tragically beautiful arc through the raging storm. He crashed heavily into the white jade plaza below, shattering the stone and landing in a cold pool of blood.

In this moment, the world was forcefully put on pause.

It was quiet.

The rain was still falling, but it was dyed a blinding scarlet by his blood.

"Husband... Husband!"

Wu Lingxiao fell from the sky, stumbling like a madwoman. Her knees slammed heavily into the muddy water. Crawling and scrambling, she threw herself over to him, tightly clutching Ye Xuan's broken body to her chest like a ragged doll.

Her hands were shaking violently. Her entire body trembled, and her teeth chattered, emitting sounds of sheer despair.

"Why... why did you disperse your cultivation? Why didn't you dodge!"

"Imperial Physicians! Summon the Imperial Physicians! Capture everyone from the Medicine King Valley! If you can't save him, We will execute your entire nine clans!"

Emitting dry, agonizing howls like a dying beast, Wu Lingxiao frantically poured her pure spiritual energy into Ye Xuan's body without regard for her own life.

She pulled countless priceless Nine-Revolution Immortal Pills from her storage ring and haphazardly stuffed them into his mouth, but as soon as they went in, they were washed back out by the gushing blood.

She even condensed a spiritual blade, wanting to cut open her own chest and dig out her heart to give to him.

"It's fine... everything will be fine... We are the destined Empress, We can defy the heavens and change fate! We forbid you from dying, do you hear me? If you dare to die, We will bury the entire world with you!"

However.

No matter what she did, it was all in vain.

That palm strike was too ruthless; it had directly shattered Ye Xuan's soul essence. Coupled with the fact that he had taken the Death Pill and burned away his lifespan, his oil lamp had long since dried up.

Let alone the Empress, even if a true immortal descended to the mortal realm, they could not save a man whose heart was set on death and whose very soul had been pulverized.

Ye Xuan lay quietly in her arms, letting the blood mixed with rainwater continuously well up from his pale lips.

His breath was as faint as a flickering candle in the wind.

Yet, in this final moment of his life, he slowly opened his eyes.

In those once-clear eyes, there was no fear of death, no lingering attachment to life, and not even any hatred toward Wu Lingxiao.

There was only the lofty, triumphant satisfaction of a profound vengeance finally achieved.

With his own death, he had stabbed a knife into Wu Lingxiao's heart, a wound that would never heal.

"I wish Your Majesty... cough, cough..."

Vomiting black blood mixed with fragments of his internal organs, Ye Xuan smiled as he looked at her. His voice was airy and light, as if drifting up from the Nine Springs of the underworld:

"Eternal immortal blessings... and a long, endless... life..."

"No! No! I don't want an endless life! I only want you! I just want you alive!"

Wu Lingxiao wept like a helpless toddler abandoned by the entire world. Her lofty imperial crown had fallen into the muddy water, and tears of blood smeared her breathtakingly beautiful face. "I beg you... please don't leave me behind... I'll change, I'll change everything, just don't go..."

Ye Xuan looked at her humble appearance, groveling in the dust, yet the temperature in his eyes remained as cold as ten-thousand-year ice.

He exhausted his last trace of strength to slightly raise his mud-stained hand.

Wu Lingxiao thought he was going to touch her face. She hurriedly leaned in, rubbing against his palm like a dog begging for pity, a trace of morbid hope even igniting in her eyes.

However.

That hand stopped abruptly in mid-air, half an inch away from her cheek.

Then, as if approaching some extremely putrid, nauseating filth.

Ye Xuan furrowed his brows deeply and flung his hand aside with disgust and absolute resolve.

"As for me... I will take my leave first..."

Using the very last ounce of strength in his life, Ye Xuan slightly turned his head and cast one final glance at Wu Lingxiao.

His eyes were filled with cold disdain and repulsion.

His pale lips moved slightly, softly but incredibly clearly, spitting out the final words he would ever say to the Empress of Great Wu in this life:

"Truly disgusting."

The moment his voice faded.

The curve of his lips froze forever.

An arm fell limply, hitting the muddy water with a thud and splashing a smear of crimson.

His life force was completely severed.

"..."

Holding Ye Xuan's body, Wu Lingxiao froze completely in place, like a stone statue drained of its soul.

Truly disgusting.

These were the last words he left for her.

Not love, not hate, not regret.

It was disgust.

He would rather commit suicide, rather use the most cruel method to scheme against her so she would kill him with her own hands, than be touched by her again. He refused to leave her with even the slightest beautiful memory in the final moments of his life.

"Ahhhhhhhhhh!"

A heart-wrenching, world-piercing scream of tragic despair shot up into the sky from the ruins of the Weiyang Palace, even drowning out the rolling thunder in the nine heavens above.

The sound was so shrill, desperate, and mad that even the vicious ghosts in the Netherworld would shudder in fear upon hearing it.

"No!"

"You cannot die! Wake up!! You are mine!"

"I am not disgusting! I love you! Look at me! Look at me!"

Wu Lingxiao tightened her arms fiercely, as if trying to knead this gradually cooling corpse into her own flesh and blood.

She shook him frantically in the torrential rain, recklessly kissing his cold lips stained with black blood. Her tears and his blood blurred together.

"You will wake up... I will turn you into a puppet... I will freeze you in a profound ice coffin... You cannot escape. Even if you go down to the Yellow Springs, I will drag you back!"

But no matter how she roared, no matter how mad she went.

That young man who used to hold an umbrella for her on rainy nights, who would gently call her name, would never, ever come back.

Meanwhile.

In the extreme cold lands of Youzhou, deep within the Hundred Thousand Mountains, inside the Severing Emotion Soul-Locking Array.

Wu Lingfeng, who had been pinned in the dark abyss by ninety-nine soul-locking nails, suddenly clutched her heart.

"Pfft!"

A mouthful of bleak, vibrant lifeblood violently sprayed onto the stone wall in front of her.

The faded red string on her wrist, which Ye Xuan had personally woven for her back then, suddenly and without warning snapped with a crack.

Drop.

A red bean bead representing mutual yearning fell, rolling silently down the slanted stone slab into endless dust and darkness.

Wu Lingfeng stared blankly at her empty wrist. Two streams of clear tears slid silently down her cheeks.

As a Dao companion who cultivated the same technique, she sensed it.

The aura of that fool who once smiled and told her, "As long as you are alive, I will always be here," had completely vanished from this world.

"Ah..."

Kneeling in the freezing cold pool, Wu Lingfeng dug her ten fingers deeply into the hard rock and let out an agonizingly suppressed roar.

The ninety-nine soul-locking nails on her body tore her flesh and blood due to her violent struggles. Blood dyed the cold pool red, yet she seemed to feel no pain at all.

Those eyes that were originally always gentle as water and aloof from the world saw their pupils shrink rapidly at this moment, finally shattering. They transformed into two bottomless pools of blood, churning with monstrous demonic qi.

"Wu, Ling, Xiao..."

In the darkness, the voice pausing at every word sounded like a curse from the Nine Nether Abyss.

Her white hair, agitated by the demonic qi, danced wildly like a mad demon.

"I will definitely kill you."

"I will trample your empire, I will peel your skin, pull out your tendons..."

"I will definitely... tear your body into ten thousand pieces!"