A Decade for Two

On the shore of the East Sea, the two saw the ocean for the first time.

Ye Xuan had never seen the sea.

He was a poor boy who grew up in an inland mountain village; the farthest he had ever traveled was the market in town.

When the boundless azure surface of the sea unfolded across the horizon, he was completely stunned.

"Big brother... is this the sea?"

"Yeah."

"Why is it so big? I can't see the edge."

Ye Xuan took off his shoes and stepped barefoot onto the white sandy beach. Frightened by the freezing seawater rolled in by the waves, he jumped up with a yelp, then laughed and ran back, bouncing back and forth in the surf.

He was like a child.

No, he was still a child to begin with.

Ye Jiuzhou sometimes forgot this point.

Ye Xuan was two years younger than him, only twenty-five or twenty-six this year. In the cultivation world, this age could not even be considered a youth; he was still an ignorant junior.

"Big brother! Come here too!" Ye Xuan waved at him from the waves. His pant legs were rolled up above his knees, and he stumbled as a wave hit him, almost sitting flat in the water.

Ye Jiuzhou stood on the beach, his white clothes like snow, snapping in the sea breeze.

He did not move.

But as he watched Ye Xuan playing in the surf, the corners of his mouth unconsciously curled up.

That evening, the two sat on a reef watching the sunset.

The scene of the setting sun sinking into the sea was even more spectacular than sinking into a sea of clouds. The entire ocean surface burned like a boiling pot of golden magma. The boundary between the sky and the sea blurred, as if the whole world was on fire.

The side of Ye Xuan's face was dyed a warm orange by the afterglow. A few glittering grains of salt clung to the tip of his nose, and tiny water droplets left over from the evaporated seawater hung on his eyelashes, reflecting fragmented rainbows in the setting sun.

Ye Jiuzhou did not know how long he had been watching.

By the time he realized it, the sun had completely set. The sea turned from gold to deep blue, and stars began to emerge in the night sky.

But his gaze, from beginning to end, had never once looked at that sea.

What he was looking at was always the same person.

Ye Jiuzhou abruptly turned his face away, his heartbeat roaring in his ears like a drum.

No.

This feeling was too dangerous.

He was a man.

The Yin-Yang Creation Pill had completely remolded him into a man.

No matter what kind of struggle and chaos remained deep within his soul, his identity, his stance, and his fate had already been nailed to the three words Ye Jiuzhou.

He had to inherit the Sword God Palace. He had to marry Shen Qingshuang. He had to become the number one sword cultivator in the world.

He could not have feelings for a man...

"Big brother, what are you looking at?" Ye Xuan's voice came from his side, filled with curiosity.

"...Looking at the sea."

"Liar. The sea is over there, but your face is turned this way."

"Shut up."

Time flew by like a fleeting white steed.

The ten-year period had arrived.

Relying on Ye Jiuzhou's unsparing pile-up of resources, combined with Ye Xuan's desperate drive to cultivate, Ye Xuan had actually created a feat that could be called a miracle in the cultivation world.

Shattering the core to form the Nascent Soul.

Nascent Soul stage.

Although it was only the most ordinary Nascent Soul, with average quality, impure spiritual energy, and a foundation that wasn't particularly stable. Placed in those top-tier sects, this kind of Nascent Soul was worse than a gatekeeping disciple.

But this was Ye Xuan's Nascent Soul.

A poor boy with a mixed spirit root, no special physique, a lower starting point than anyone else, who had stumbled along and been crushed under the feet of fate countless times, had forcefully broken into a realm that originally did not belong to him using the clumsiest and most stubborn method.

Nascent Soul stage.

In the eyes of mortals, this was already a land-bound immortal.

On the day Ye Xuan formed his Nascent Soul, the phenomena were ordinary. There were no auspicious signs falling from the heavens, no chorus of ten thousand beasts. There was only that less-than-beautiful Nascent Soul inside his body, quietly opening its eyes.

But as Ye Jiuzhou stood watching from a distance, the corners of his mouth curved into an extremely shallow arc.

As for Ye Jiuzhou himself, he was even more terrifying to an outrageous degree.

In ten years' time, he had crossed Soul Formation and stepped into Void Refinement.

This year.

A piece of news was like a massive boulder thrown into a calm lake, stirring up monstrous waves throughout the entire cultivation world.

The legendary Fallen Phoenix Mystic Realm was about to appear once again.

Rumor had it that in the center of the mystic realm, on an altar forged from the bones of an ancient true phoenix, slumbered a drop of natal essence blood left behind by an ancient true phoenix, immortalized over hundreds of millions of years.

"That is my fortuitous encounter."

Ye Jiuzhou stood before the entrance to the mystic realm, gazing at the void fissure that was slowly splitting open.

A cold gleam of absolute certainty flashed in his eyes, and deep within his pupils, golden phoenix shadows faintly circled.

He possessed the Nine-Revolution Heavenly Phoenix Sword Bone. If he could receive the baptism of the phoenix blood, his physique would reach major completion, and he could even use it to break through to the Dao Integration stage.

"Let's go! Big brother, I'll accompany you to snatch it!"

Without a second word, Ye Xuan hoisted the high-grade spirit sword Ye Jiuzhou had given him onto his back and followed without looking back.

There was no hesitation or fear in his eyes, only a natural, unquestionable firmness that required no reason.

It was as if accompanying Ye Jiuzhou through hell and high water was the most natural thing in the world.

This was a feast of slaughter.

The news of the mystic realm's opening attracted the gaze of the entire cultivation world. Tens of thousands of cultivators entered the mystic realm, among whom were no shortage of veteran giants at the Void Refinement stage, and even a few old monsters who had half-stepped into Dao Integration.

Everyone had come for that drop of phoenix blood.

Kill.

From the entrance all the way to the heartland.

The laws of heaven and earth within the mystic realm were twisted and deformed by the battles of countless cultivators; space shattered, and time fell into chaos.

Blood dyed every inch of the land red, and corpses paved the road to the altar. Fellow disciples killed each other, allies turned against one another, fathers and sons became enemies, and husbands and wives slaughtered each other.

In front of that drop of phoenix blood capable of defying the heavens and changing fate, all the ugliness in human nature was magnified to the extreme.

The two joined forces, fighting bloody battles all the way.

More accurately, it was Ye Jiuzhou sweeping away everything in the front, while Ye Xuan finished off enemies, blocked hidden arrows, set up formations, and even acted as bait in the back.

Wherever Ye Jiuzhou's sword light passed, not a single blade of grass remained.

With a sweep of his sword across the sky, over a dozen Golden Core stage cultivators were simultaneously reduced to ash; with a point of his finger, an old early-stage Void Refinement cultivator's chest was pierced by golden sword qi.

And Ye Xuan was like his shadow, always guarding his weakest spots.

His cultivation was not high enough, but his sense of smell for the battlefield was unreasonably keen. Every hidden poison needle shot from the shadows, every killing intent concealed in the dark, every flash of greed in the eyes of an ally—he could detect them all at the first moment.

He had blocked three hidden arrows for Ye Jiuzhou.

Every single one was fatal.

After finishing off the enemies in front, Ye Jiuzhou turned around to see Ye Xuan pulling out the hidden arrow still bleeding from his shoulder, grinning and saying "It's fine, just a flesh wound," while casually tossing aside the broken arrow shaft.

Ye Jiuzhou grabbed his wrist and pulled him behind his back.

"From now on, stand behind me."

Looking at Ye Jiuzhou's slightly reddened eyes and the tight grip on his wrist, Ye Xuan put away his cheeky smile and nodded seriously.

"Okay."

Finally.

They stood at the peak of the altar.

Surrounding them were mountains of corpses. There were enemies, as well as those who were originally supposed to be allies.

The final survivors of the entire mystic realm were only the two of them.

In the center of the altar, an ancient jade bottle hovered at the core of an array forged from the bones of a primordial True Phoenix.

Within the jade bottle, a single drop of blood pulsed quietly, radiating a terrifying heat like a burning ruby.

With every beat, it sent tremors rippling through the surrounding fabric of space.

The energy contained within this drop of blood was so horrifyingly vast that, should it ever be unleashed, it would be enough to obliterate everything in its path.

It was the Essence Blood of a True Phoenix.