Rage

Under Ye Jiuzhou's almost perverse oppression and torment, Ye Xuan went mad, and he also grew stronger.

Hatred is the world's most violent poison, and also its most overbearing nourishment.

He stood up from humiliation time and time again. Every time he was trampled into the mud by Ye Jiuzhou, he would crawl back up with even greater speed.

He swung his sword through despair time and time again.

Whenever the dead of night arrived and hatred surged and bit within his body like tens of thousands of venomous snakes, he would draw his sword, slashing into the void strike after strike.

He swung, slashed, and thrust tirelessly, until his arms grew so sore and numb they lost all sensation, until the webbing between his thumbs split open to reveal white bone, until the surging hatred was temporarily suppressed deep down.

The gentle Ye Xuan of the past died.

Taking his place was an Asura drenched in murderous aura, his eyes burning with the black flames of revenge.

His Sword Dao also underwent a terrifying metamorphosis, watered by his hatred.

Ye Xuan's sword was no longer the strict and orthodox righteous sword arts of the past.

It became fierce, tyrannical, and left no room for mercy. Every strike contained killing intent, and every strike aimed straight for the vitals.

There was no mercy in his sword, no pity, no hesitation, only the purest, most ultimate desire for destruction.

The people of the cultivation world began to look at this young man with a gaze of awe and fear.

They whispered in private that Ye Xuan had become a second Ye Jiuzhou.

No, perhaps even more terrifying than Ye Jiuzhou.

Because Ye Jiuzhou's coldness was innate.

But Ye Xuan's coldness was forced out of him.

A madman who is forced into madness is often far more unreasonable than one born mad.

Finally, five hundred years later.

Ye Xuan had metamorphosed into a peerless powerhouse who made all the sects in the world look upon him with reverence.

Ye Jiuzhou had reached the Mahayana realm, revered as the Number One Sword in the World, suppressing the current age.

And Ye Xuan, relying on his innate Flawless Dao Body, his five hundred years of ceaseless and frenzied cultivation, and that monstrous hatred intense enough to burn the heavens and destroy the earth, forcibly slaughtered his way into the Late Tribulation Transcendence realm, becoming a giant of his region, titled the Heaven Severing Sword Venerable.

This time, Ye Xuan had a female confidante by his side.

Nangong Guluan.

The Young Pavilion Master of the world's second-largest sword sect, the Severed Emotion Sword Pavilion.

She was extremely beautiful, like a snow lotus on a high mountain, cold and aloof, seemingly untouched by the mortal world.

At the major gatherings of the cultivation world, countless young masters of noble families and heaven's chosen of great sects fell to their knees at her skirt, yet she never even spared them a glance.

But only when facing Ye Xuan would she reveal a smile as gentle as water.

The two fought side by side, in perfect harmony, and were hailed by the cultivation world as an immortal couple.

The news reached the Sword God Palace.

Inside the gloomy grand hall, massive stone pillars supported a dome dozens of feet high, shrouded in a layer of gray mist that never dissipated. The ever-burning lamps emitted a cold, pale bluish-white light, illuminating the entire hall like a giant tomb.

Ye Jiuzhou was wiping his divine sword.

His hair had grown a bit whiter.

Reporting to the Palace Master...

A spy knelt at the entrance of the grand hall, trembling all over, not daring to lift his head.

He reported all the details: where Ye Xuan met Nangong Guluan, how the two fought side by side, how they cherished each other, how they held hands for the first time on a moonlit night as bright as silver, how they traveled together through the cultivation world, in perfect harmony...

Ye Jiuzhou's sword-wiping movements did not stop.

His expression did not change at all.

Those gray eyes were like two pools of dead water that would never ripple, calmly watching the edge of the sword in his hand, as if the spy's words were just a gust of wind passing by his ear, not worth a single trace of attention.

The spy carefully finished his last sentence.

The outside world... the outside world says that Ye Xuan and Nangong Guluan are a match made in heaven... and are the only hope... capable of standing against you, Palace Master.

Hearing the spy's report, his movements stopped.

His fingers paused on the sword blade for just a moment.

Just a single moment.

Severed Emotion Sword Pavilion... Nangong Guluan...

Ye Jiuzhou slowly raised his head.

In those eyes that had been dead and silent for five hundred years, an extremely tyrannical killing intent flashed for the first time.

Everyone in the world thought he was just a jealous madman who would not allow Ye Xuan to have happiness. But having cultivated the Supreme Forgetfulness Extinction Sword, he knew the background of those madwomen from the Severed Emotion Sword Pavilion all too well.

The Severed Emotion Sword Pavilion's defining sect technique was called the Mortal World Severed Emotion Slash.

This technique was one of the most evil and conscience-devoid forbidden arts in the cultivation world.

No, even the term forbidden art was not enough to describe its wickedness. It was more like a meticulously designed death trap using love as bait.

The first step of their cultivation was to enter the mortal world and find a man with outstanding talent and profound destiny. This man had to be exceptional enough, exceptional to the point of being worth spending decades or even centuries to groom.

Then, they would love him with all their might.

Making him love them so much he would rather die than live without them.

Loving them so much that he would be willing to brave boiling water and walking on fire, not hesitating to die ten thousand times for her.

Loving them until his soul and hers merged into one, no longer able to tell each other apart.

And then...

At the very moment when their affection was deepest and the man's guard was at its most relaxed...

Swing the sword.

Slay their true love.

Through this, they would sever their emotional ties, prove their Supreme Great Dao, and become a saint on the spot.

This was the essence of the Mortal World Severed Emotion Slash.

Feeding it with the most genuine love, and harvesting it in the cruelest way.

The deeper the love, the stronger the sword intent when killing. The deeper one was loved, the more painful the death would be.

During the process of cultivating Supreme Forgetfulness, Ye Jiuzhou had accidentally come into contact with the cultivation manuals of the Severed Emotion Sword Pavilion. When he finished reading the entirety of the Mortal World Severed Emotion Slash...

He threw up.

This was the only time he had such a strong physiological reaction after cultivating Supreme Forgetfulness. It was not due to the backlash of a forbidden art, but a disgust stemming from his very soul.

And now, the demonic claws of this group of women were reaching toward Ye Xuan.

His Ye Xuan.

What a Nangong Guluan...

Ye Jiuzhou's voice echoed in the dark grand hall.

You want to use him as your whetstone? Use his life to prove your Dao?

Keep dreaming!

Boom!

From the back mountain of the Sword God Palace, a gray sword light shot into the sky.

This sword light tore through the night sky, tore through the clouds, and tore through the last trace of restraint and endurance on Ye Jiuzhou's body. He transformed into a gray meteor, instantly tearing through the firmament, heading straight for the extreme north.

Ye Jiuzhou was traveling at the fastest speed of his life.

Because he knew that Nangong Guluan had already cultivated the Mortal World Severed Emotion Slash to its final stage.

If he was even one step too late.

Ye Xuan would die.

Die under the sword of the person he loved the most.

Die in what he thought was happiness, but was actually a most meticulously designed hell.

This was something Ye Jiuzhou absolutely, absolutely would not allow to happen.

The extreme north, Severed Emotion Cliff.

Nangong Guluan, dressed in a blue gown, was sitting cross-legged on a jutting bluestone at the top of the cliff. Her clothes fluttered loudly in the wind, yet she showed not the slightest hint of feeling the cold.

Across her knees lay a longsword, its blade as clear as autumn water, faintly reflecting the shadows of the sky full of snowflakes.

She was waiting for Ye Xuan to return.

Beneath her half-closed, beautiful eyes hid the kind of excitement and greed a hunter only shows when watching a trap, like a venomous scorpion that had lain dormant for a long time and had already raised its stinger.

As long as she killed Ye Xuan, her Unfeeling Sword Intent would reach great completion, and then she could challenge Ye Jiuzhou, the man who suppressed all sword cultivators.

Suddenly, the wind stopped.

The sky full of flying snow froze in mid-air, every snowflake suspended in place.

A suffocating and terrifying pressure, like a tangible ocean tide, crushed down from the horizon and enveloped the entire Severing Affection Cliff.

The thousand-year-old ice on the cliff walls emitted the cracking sounds of being overwhelmed, and ice shards rustled down.

Nangong Guluan suddenly opened her eyes, her pupils shrinking to the size of pinpricks.

Ten zhang in front of her, a figure had appeared at some unknown time.

There were no footsteps, no sound of piercing the air, as if he hadn't walked over, but had materialized directly from the void.

His black robes fluttered, and a head of white hair danced without any wind, every strand radiating a faint, icy light.

Ye Jiuzhou held a divine sword in his hand, his expression indifferent.

"Ye Jiuzhou?"

Nangong Guluan gripped her sword hilt tightly, her knuckles turning white.

She forced her breathing to steady, adjusting her expression to its usual cold and aloof appearance, her voice devoid of any fluctuation:

"Are you here to snatch him away again? Ye Xuan is not here."

"I am not here to snatch anyone. I am here to kill."

Ye Jiuzhou looked at this woman, his eyes full of killing intent:

"I will only ask you one thing."

"What level have you cultivated your Unfeeling Sword Scripture to? When do you plan to kill him?"

Nangong Guluan's expression changed slightly. Her heartbeat skipped a beat, and the cold wind poured into her throat, freezing into a block of ice in her chest.

But she was, after all, a genius of the Unfeeling Sword Pavilion rarely seen in hundreds of years. In just an instant, she put back on a pitiful mask. Her eyes turned slightly red, and her voice was so soft it seemed ready to break:

"I don't know what you are talking about. My heart for my beloved Ye is true, the heavens and earth can bear witness!"

"True heart?"

Ye Jiuzhou laughed.

"Your true heart is to pierce his heart with a sword when he is completely devoted to you?"

"Nangong Guluan, we both cultivate the unfeeling sword. You can fool that idiot, but you cannot fool me!"

"Leave him. Or die!"

Ye Jiuzhou issued his final ultimatum.

Seeing her disguise torn away, the tenderness in Nangong Guluan's eyes instantly peeled off, revealing her true face beneath.

"Hmph, Ye Jiuzhou, you are meddling too much!"

She slowly stood up. Her robes moved without wind, and the aura around her suddenly erupted like a volcano. Countless pink sword energies surged from her body, swirling and hovering around her like millions of writhing threads of living creatures.

"He is my whetstone, my opportunity to achieve the Dao! This is the ten-thousand-year inheritance path of my Unfeeling Sword Pavilion!"

"As long as I kill him, I can prove my Dao. I can surpass you and become the number one sword in the world!"

"Who do you think you are? You are just a madman who wants to kill him too! What gives you the right to torture him, but I cannot kill him?"

"I am a madman."

Ye Jiuzhou did not refute it. He merely raised that sword slowly, his movements extremely slow, as if conducting some solemn and cruel ritual.

The sky full of wind and snow gathered, surged, and roared behind him. Billions of ice crystals condensed into a snow-white frost dragon, its dragon eyes like two silver moons, and its dragon roar shaking the entire cliff.

"But I will absolutely not allow him to die by anyone else's hands."

"Then let's fight!"

Nangong Guluan gave a sharp shriek and struck first. Her blue clothes turned into a streak of flowing light, her sword edge tearing through the void, dragging a long pink trail behind her.

"First Form of Unfeeling—Myriad Threads of Affection!"

She swung her long sword dozens of times in succession, the sky full of pink sword energy transforming into countless threads as thin as gossamer, covering the sky and earth as they enveloped Ye Jiuzhou.

Every thread contained hallucinogenic charm arts and extremely sharp cutting power. They penetrated everywhere, weaving into a dense net of death capable of slicing a mountain peak into fine powder.

"Insignificant tricks."

Ye Jiuzhou stood in place, not retreating a single step. He didn't even bat an eyelid.

He simply swung out a single sword strike.

The sword light was not gorgeous, not majestic, and could not even be called fierce. It was more like a sigh.

"Heaven and Earth Grieve Together."

A gray ripple slowly rippled outward with him at the center. Wherever it passed, the moisture in the air condensed and shattered, making fine crackling sounds, as if the heavens and earth themselves were weeping for it.

There was no earth-shattering explosion, no destructive frenzy, only pure extinction.

The moment those pink threads of affection touched the gray ripple, they were like withered leaves meeting a raging fire, like morning dew meeting the blazing sun—instantly withering, fading, and dissipating.

The sky full of enchanting pink was completely swallowed by the gray in a single breath, turning into nothingness.

"How is this possible? Your Unfeeling Sword Intent has actually reached such a realm?"

Nangong Guluan turned pale with fright, her figure retreating explosively. The snow beneath her feet was trampled into two deep trenches.

"What do you know of being unfeeling?"

Ye Jiuzhou's figure flashed, appearing in front of her like a phantom.

The two were barely three feet apart, his voice so cold it didn't sound like a living person:

"The unfeeling of the Unfeeling Sword Pavilion is to slay one's true love, it is selfishness."

"While my unfeeling..."

Is giving all my feelings to one person, leaving not a trace of attachment for this world.

He did not speak the second half of the sentence aloud.

His lips moved, ultimately just pressing into a thin line.

What answered Nangong Guluan was an unadorned sword light, yet it was so fast it transcended time.

This sword strike had no flashy moves, no superfluous sword energy, just a simple thrust. But it was this very thrust that made the world lose its color and the Great Dao tremble.

Nangong Guluan fought back desperately. She did not hesitate to burn her essence blood, condensing all her cultivation onto the tip of her sword, thrusting out the strongest strike of her life.

The blade condensed hundreds of years of her obsession and madness. The pink light surged to its limits, almost incinerating herself along with it.

But in the face of Ye Jiuzhou's already perfected Sword Dao, all of this was like a mayfly trying to shake a giant tree.

"Crack!"

Nangong Guluan's long sword snapped in the middle. The fragments spun and flew into the wind and snow, carrying a few drops of dark red blood.

Immediately after.

A muffled sound of penetration.

The divine sword pierced straight through her heart.

Terrifying sword energy exploded inside her body, like millions of needles simultaneously piercing through her internal organs, instantly shredding her last wisp of vitality.

"Pfft..."

Nangong Guluan spat out a mouthful of fresh blood, the blood mist freezing into tiny red ice crystals in the freezing wind.

The light in her eyes rapidly dissipated, her pupils dilating as her body fell backward like a kite with a broken string.

Right at this moment.

"Guluan!"

A heart-wrenching roar exploded from the horizon, the sound wave wrapped in monstrous sword intent, tearing the clouds along its path to pieces.

The hand with which Ye Jiuzhou held his sword trembled slightly.

Just a slight tremble.

He did not turn his head.

Because he knew who had come.

He didn't even need to listen; just the emotion contained in this hoarse roar was enough for him to recognize that this was the voice he was most familiar with in this world, and the one he was least willing to face.

Ye Xuan rushed over like a madman. His movement technique was completely chaotic, stumbling as he flew across the final distance, catching the falling Nangong Guluan in his arms.

The woman in his arms had a shocking, bloody hole in her chest, still gushing dark red blood.

Blood soaked through the blue robes and dripped down his arm. Drop by drop, it dyed the flawless white snow red, like blooming red plum blossoms.

"Guluan... Nangong Guluan, hold on! I have medicine! I have divine medicine!"

Ye Xuan frantically pulled out various medicinal pills, scattering bottles and jars all over the ground.

His hands were trembling violently, unable to even twist open the bottle caps. The pills he tried to put into her mouth slipped through his fingers time and time again.

Nangong Guluan looked at the incredibly anxious man before her, his eyes full of love.

His tears fell onto her face drop by drop. Searing hot, they were the last trace of warmth she would feel in this life.

She knew she could not survive. The unfeeling sword intent had pierced her body, severing all her life force.

But she was the Young Pavilion Master of the Unfeeling Sword Pavilion. Even in death, she had to complete her final verification of the Dao.

Since she could not kill Ye Xuan's physical body, she would kill his heart.

She would make him live in eternal agony, carrying his love for her and his hatred for Ye Jiuzhou, never able to let it go.

Thus, using her last ounce of strength, she slowly raised her blood-stained hand and tremblingly stroked Ye Xuan's face.

Her cold fingertips brushed over his brow bone, the corners of his eyes, and the bridge of his nose, as if tracing his features gently for the last time. Her eyes revealed a heartbreaking depth of affection and reluctance to part.

This act was arguably the most perfect sword strike of her entire life.

"Lord Ye... don't... don't cry..."

"I... am so sorry... I can't... can't accompany you... to the end..."

"It's... it's him..."

She turned her head with great difficulty and used her remaining strength to lift a finger, pointing at the black-robed figure standing with his back to them.

From an angle Ye Xuan couldn't see, a fleeting, malicious thrill flashed in her eyes:

"Big brother... he said... you don't deserve happiness... so..."

Her hand fell limp.

A faint smile seemed to linger at the corners of her mouth.

She had completely perished.

"Ah!"

Holding her corpse, Ye Xuan roared at the heavens.

The surrounding snow-capped mountains could not withstand this surge of grief and indignation, letting out a muffled rumble.

Tens of thousands of tons of snow cascaded down from the peaks. The world turned blindingly white, as if the apocalypse had descended.

Ye Xuan slowly set down the now-cold body in his arms. He tucked her stray hairs behind her ear, closed the eyes that would never look at him again, and then slowly stood up.

Two lines of bloody tears flowed from his eyes. In an instant, his long hair, originally as black as ink, turned white inch by inch from the roots at a speed visible to the naked eye.

"Ye Jiuzhou!"

Ye Jiuzhou, with his back to him, closed his eyes.

The wind and snow battered his face, but he remained motionless.

Did his heart ache?

It did.

It ached so much that his internal organs were twisting tight, so much that something deep within his soul was shattering piece by piece.

His hands were hidden in his sleeves. His fingernails had dug deeply into his palms, and blood dripped through his fingers onto the snow.

Just like everything he had done.

But he could not explain. Nangong Guluan's final act before her death had already pushed Ye Xuan's hatred to an irreversible peak.

At this moment, any explanation would only backfire. Not only would Ye Xuan refuse to believe it, but he would also feel that Ye Jiuzhou was insulting the dead and insulting the unforgettable love Ye Xuan thought he had.

Since that was the case...

Then let this hatred be even more fierce.

Hating him was still better than being dead.

"Haha... Hahahaha!"

Ye Jiuzhou suddenly threw his head back and laughed wildly.

He laughed until he was doubling over, laughed until his entire body trembled, laughed until even the sword in his hand hummed and vibrated.

His laughter echoed through the wind and snow, carrying a loneliness and desolation that pierced to the bone.

This was not the laugh of a victor.

This was the laugh of a man who had personally destroyed his own last shred of warmth.

"Good, good, good! Ye Xuan, you ask me why?"

Ye Jiuzhou suddenly turned around, his eyes filled with madness:

"Because it pleases me!"

"Because you are my toy! The people I, Ye Jiuzhou, want to kill, not even the King of Hell can save! The things I want to destroy, not even the Heavenly Dao can protect!"

He pointed at Ye Xuan, his gaze crazed and paranoid:

"I have done so much for you... cleared out the trash for you, helped you sharpen your sword Dao."

"But what about you? You have disappointed me too much. It has been five hundred years, and you are still this weak. You can't even protect your own woman!"

"Trash! You are an absolute piece of trash!"

Every word was like a knife gouging into Ye Xuan's heart.

And at the same time, gouging into his own.

"Since you will only hate me..."

Ye Jiuzhou fiercely waved his sleeve, his black robes billowing like waves of ink.

The divine sword in his hand let out a high-pitched dragon's roar. The tip of the sword pointed straight at the heavens, and the dark clouds in the sky were actually split open by this strike, revealing the pale grey light behind them.

"Then just hate!"

"Hate me to your bones! Hate me so much that you want to kill me even in your sleep! Only then will you have the drive to become stronger!"

"One thousand years!"

Ye Jiuzhou's voice exploded like thunder, echoing over the Severed Emotion Cliff, lingering for a long time:

"I will give you another thousand years!"

"A thousand years from now, at the peak of the Heavenly Mountain."

"You and I will decide the victor, and we will decide who lives and who dies!"

"We will not rest... until one of us is dead!"

In the wind and snow, Ye Xuan stared fixedly at the figure he hated to his very core.

The bloody tears had dried on his face, freezing into dark red ice shards.

His head full of white hair danced wildly in the wind. Contrasted with his young yet aged face, he looked exactly like an Asura crawling out of hell.

He slowly drew his own sword.

"Fine."

Ye Xuan's voice was extremely hoarse:

"One thousand years."

"Ye Jiuzhou, you better wash your neck clean and wait."

"In a thousand years, I will definitely sever your head and carve out your heart, to offer them as a sacrifice to Nangong Guluan's spirit in heaven!"

Ye Jiuzhou took a deep look at Ye Xuan.

Just that one look.

He carved that face twisted by hatred, that hair turned white because of him, and those eyes weeping tears of blood, inch by inch, deep into his memory.

He looked at this man whom he had loved for a lifetime.

Even if I die by your hands...

So be it.

"I will be waiting."

Ye Jiuzhou coldly threw down these words, turned around, and transformed into a pitch-black streak of light, disappearing into the sky full of wind and snow.

The afterimage of his black robes lingered in the air for a moment, like a reluctant backward glance, before being swallowed by the blizzard.