Three Hundred Years Later

There is no sense of time in the mountains; when the cold ends, one knows not the year.

Severed Emotions Cliff, the deepest forbidden ground in the back mountains of the Sword God Palace.

Above this thousand-meter precipice, a layer of lead-gray clouds, so thick they almost took physical form, lingered year-round.

Three hundred years.

A full three hundred cycles of spring and autumn.

Spring departed and autumn arrived, flowers withered and bloomed. The mortals at the foot of the mountain had already gone through three generations of change, yet the figure in secluded meditation atop Severed Emotions Cliff remained as still as an eternal stone statue.

Over the past century, the Sword God Palace had changed its managing elders three times. The disciples who had personally watched the Palace Master enter the secluded stone chamber now mostly had snow-white hair and beards; some had even turned to dust, their bones buried in the Myriad Swords Mound in the back mountain.

The newly admitted disciples only knew that a legendary Palace Master lived deep within the forbidden grounds of the back mountain.

It was said that he once cleaved the raging waves of the Eastern Sea for ten thousand miles with a single sword strike. It was said that he single-handedly suppressed the Demon Emperor of the Northern Region. It was said that he was the closest person in this world to becoming the Supreme Being of the Sword Dao.

But no one had ever seen him.

He was like an ancient and vague legend, sealed atop this forever cloud-covered Severed Emotions Cliff, gradually becoming a deeply guarded taboo in the mouths of the older disciples.

Until today.

An earth-shattering boom erupted from the depths of Severed Emotions Cliff without any warning!

The mountain-protecting barrier shattered like a mirror struck by a heavy hammer, sending thousands of golden runic fragments flying in all directions, wrapped in a violent storm of spiritual energy!

The forests within a hundred miles all bent under this shockwave. Countless century-old trees were uprooted, and flying sand and rolling stones blotted out the sky and sun.

And amidst the sky filled with a shattered rain of light, a heaven-piercing gray sword pillar suddenly shot into the clouds!

Above the Nine Heavens, the vast firmament was forcefully torn open by this single sword strike, leaving a massive rift.

Ye Jiuzhou had come out of seclusion.

He stood quietly on the jagged giant rock at the highest point of the cliff, his gray robes fluttering wildly in the astral winds gathering from all directions.

His facial features were as sharply defined as remembered. A high nose bridge, deep-set eyes, and a jawline as cold and hard as a blade's cut. In terms of facial features alone, he could still be called unparalleled in handsomeness.

However, the traces left on him by the passage of time and the forbidden art were shocking.

His hair, which was once as smooth as silk and as black as raven feathers, was now half withered.

The left side remained as dark as night, while the right side had turned as white as snow. The stark contrast of black and white draped over his significantly thinned shoulders, dancing wildly in the wind, exuding an indescribable sense of desolation and eeriness.

His skin had lost the healthy color of a living person, displaying an almost sickly pallor, thinly covering his angular bones.

And the aura surrounding his body was bizarre to the extreme.

Gray spiritual energy roamed and coiled over his skin like thousands of ice snakes, with every wisp of spiritual energy containing a bone-chilling sense of deathly stillness.

His cultivation base had impressively reached the peak of the Tribulation Transcendence realm!

He was only a hair's breadth away from the Mahayana realm!

Such a cultivation level, looking across the entire cultivation world, was enough to place him among the very top handful of experts.

After three hundred years of bitter cultivation, his strength had undergone a complete metamorphosis.

But at what cost?

The cost was that not a single trace of a living person's warmth could be felt from him anymore.

It was the purest, most thorough deathly stillness that came after severing the seven emotions and six desires.

This was the price of the Supreme Emotion-Forgetting Extinction Sword.

To practice this art, one must first sever their own emotions. Only by cutting away all seven emotions and six desires can one glimpse the ultimate realm of the Sword Dao.

The deeper the emotions, the more painful the severing, and the heavier the backlash.

And Ye Jiuzhou had spent a full three hundred years to completely uproot and sever that unforgettable affection. Or rather... he thought he had severed it.

Respectfully welcoming the Palace Master out of seclusion!

A soundwave like a tsunami rolled up from below Severed Emotions Cliff. Tens of thousands of disciples from the Sword God Palace knelt densely on the ground, their heads stretching from the foot of the mountain all the way to the midway point, resembling a dark, pressing tide.

Every disciple deeply bowed their heads, not daring to commit the slightest transgression of looking up to peek.

A terrifying, almost tangible coercion poured down from the top of the cliff, like an invisible ten-thousand-foot mountain pressing on everyone's spines.

Even those elders in the Body Integration realm felt their legs go weak at this moment, cold sweat pouring down their foreheads, with only one thought in their minds:

Is this still human power?

Although the Palace Master from three hundred years ago was already powerful enough, he was far from being so powerful that it induced despair.

What exactly did he experience during these three hundred years of seclusion? And what kind of price did he pay in exchange for this appalling leap in strength?

Ye Jiuzhou stood in the air, looking down at all living beings.

His gaze swept over the dense crowd of kneeling people, his eyes showing no ripples.

His pupils were an extremely pale and faint gray, like two pools of completely frozen, stagnant water. There was no joy or anger, no sorrow or happiness, and not even the shifts in light and shadow could stir the slightest ripple within them.

The eyes of a dead person were probably nothing more than this.

After a long silence.

Ye Jiuzhou finally spoke.

Where is Ye Xuan?

Just a few words.

His tone was as flat as a pool of stagnant water, without any fluctuation, without any warmth.

But everyone present felt an indescribable aura of danger in those words.

Tens of thousands of disciples did not even dare to breathe heavily.

Finally, an outer sect elder with white hair and beard tremblingly crawled out from the crowd on his knees.

He buried his head deeply, his forehead pressed tightly against the cold stone slabs, his voice trembling so much that the words were barely audible: Re... reporting to the Palace Master, Per... Perfected Ye Xuan, he...

The old man swallowed hard, as if making a tremendous resolution, before intermittently speaking the second half of his sentence:

He is now a mighty figure in the Body Integration realm, and can be considered... somewhat renowned in the cultivation world.

He stealthily raised his eyes to look at the gray-robed figure atop the cliff. Seeing no reaction from the other party, he gathered his courage and continued:

Today... is exactly the day of his grand wedding with Liu Ruyan, the daughter of the Pavilion Master of the Cloud Smoke Pavilion in the Southern Borders. At this moment, the wedding banquet should have already begun.

Grand wedding.

The moment these words came out of the old man's mouth, the originally dead-water-like aura suddenly underwent a subtle and terrifying change.

The expression on Ye Jiuzhou's face did not change in the slightest, still a mask of eternal indifference.

But deep within his gray pupils, something that had been forcibly suppressed for a full three hundred years burst forth at this moment.

A grand wedding?

I did this to forget you.

I spent a full three hundred years of time, locking myself in this sunless stone chamber.

Day after day, year after year, I circulated that humanity-devouring forbidden cultivation method, personally severing my seven emotions and six desires cut by cut.

With every cut, it was a heart-piercing pain.

With every cut, a piece of what belonged to Ye Jiuzhou died forever.

I turned myself alive into this shell that is neither human nor ghost. My heart meridians were severed inch by inch, my essence blood dried up, and my head full of black hair turned half white.

And you?

What are you doing?

You are chasing fame and fortune in the mortal world, you are cuddling with beauties in a den of romance, you are joyfully... getting married amidst the deafening sounds of gongs and drums?

Do you even deserve it?

Ye Jiuzhou's mouth twitched slightly, and a hint of a smile actually appeared in his eyes. However, this trace of a smile was unimaginably tyrannical.

"Courting death."

Ye Jiuzhou coldly spat out these words.

The next instant, space distorted!

Ye Jiuzhou's figure lingered in its original spot for less than a split second before vanishing into thin air atop the Severing Emotion Cliff, just like a drop of water merging into the ocean.

There was no sound of the air tearing, no fluctuation of spiritual energy, and not even a single afterimage left behind.

Only the remnants of the white jade steps that had been crushed into powder drifted down in the wind, silently proving that the scene just now was no illusion.

The tens of thousands of disciples kneeling prostrate on the ground looked at each other in dismay. After a long, dead silence, a wave of gasps erupted one after another.

A young disciple's legs trembled, his face deathly pale. His lips quivered as he squeezed out a sentence: "Where... where did the Palace Master... go?"

The white-haired elder who had delivered the message remained prostrate on the ground, his entire body shaking like a leaf.

His back was completely soaked in cold sweat, and his clothes clung tightly to his skin, outlining his gaunt, bony spine.

He opened his mouth, only to find that his throat was completely parched. It took him a long while to squeeze out a few hoarse, distorted words:

"The Southern Border... Cloud Smoke Pavilion."