Sword Emperor Ye Wushuang and Ye Xuan Are Exactly Alike

After hearing this, Ye Xuan did not retort, nor was he angry.

He simply stood there quietly. Starlight fell upon his brows and shoulders, coating him in a cold, silvery glow.

His fingers slowly brushed over the hilt of the sword at his waist. The pads of his fingers traced the fine patterns on the crossguard, as if caressing the back of an old friend's hand.

"Impossible?"

He spoke.

His voice was not loud, but it reached everyone's ears clearly.

The corners of his mouth curled up slightly. There was no frivolity or arrogance in it, but rather a calm composure that had settled after weathering countless storms.

"Just because others cannot do it, does not mean I cannot."

He turned his head and looked at Ying'er beside him.

In an instant, his entire aura underwent an earth-shattering change.

The steadiness, deep as an abyss and towering as a mountain when facing powerful enemies, instantly melted into a pool of gentle spring water when meeting Ying'er's gaze.

"Ying'er, stand a bit further away later." His voice suddenly became very light and gentle, as if afraid of shattering a dream. "I might cause quite a commotion next."

He reached out and tucked back the loose strands of hair that the lake breeze had blown across Ying'er's face. His fingertips carried an imperceptible warmth:

"Because... I am going to slay him."

Ying'er looked up and met his gaze.

She saw the bottomless abyss beneath the calm surface of his eyes, and she saw a certainty that she couldn't understand but which inexplicably put her at ease.

Although she was terrified in her heart, her knuckles turning white as her small hands clutched the corner of her clothes, looking at her master's confident profile, she took a deep breath and nodded vigorously.

"Mhm! Master can definitely do it!"

She clenched her small fists and raised them to her chest, puffing out her cheeks and saying earnestly:

"Ying'er is cheering for you!"

Her childish voice echoed over the empty Mirror Lake, possessing an innocence that seemed somewhat out of place.

"Hmph, what shameless boasting."

Pei Yuzhi snorted coldly, turned her face away, and said no more.

In her eyes, Ye Xuan was nothing more than an arrogant fool who didn't know the immensity of heaven and earth just because he had a bit of talent.

The greatest taboo for cultivators is to be arrogant. If he couldn't even weigh his own worth, how could he delusionally talk about slaying the Sword Emperor?

She closed her eyes and began to silently circulate her cultivation method, sinking her mind into the nirvanic state of the Supreme Forgetfulness.

Right at this moment.

A low hum came from the depths of the lake.

The sound was not loud, but it felt as if it struck directly upon everyone's skulls.

Immediately after...

The entire Mirror Lake began to tremble violently.

The originally mirror-calm water surface began to boil. It was not the boiling of water being slowly heated, but rather as if a sun was awakening at the bottom of the lake, instantly igniting the vast expanse of water.

Countless starlight fell from the sky, as if the stars filling the heavens had been crushed by an invisible hand, turning into billions of tiny specks of light that drifted down into the lake.

Five extremely terrifying sword pressures slowly rose from the bottom of the lake.

When the first sword pressure rose, the soft sword in Pei Yuzhi's arms suddenly trembled and let out a wail. Dense cracks appeared on the blade; it was not truly cracked, but rather the sword spirit shrinking back into itself in fear.

When the second sword pressure rose, the smile on Tantai Jue's face finally vanished completely. The muscles on his bare upper body tensed to the limit, and every old scar throbbed with a dull ache.

When the third sword pressure rose, the cloth band over Mo Qixing's eyes fluttered without any wind. His fingers had already clasped the hilt of the ebony sword on his back, his knuckles turning white from the force.

The fourth and fifth sword pressures shot into the sky simultaneously...

"It's coming!"

Mo Qixing shouted in a low voice, and the ebony sword in his hand was instantly unsheathed. The moment that ancient sword left its scabbard, it let out a muffled dragon roar, blasting open a circular ripple on the lake surface.

Within the boiling lake water, five figures slowly condensed.

This process was extremely slow.

First were the feet.

A pair of bare feet stepped onto the lake surface, every toe clearly visible, the nails long and sharp. Then came the calves, knees, waist, and then the chest, shoulders, and neck—

And finally, the face.

These five figures were entirely composed of starlight and liquid silver. Beneath their skin flowed liquid galaxies, and every inch of their musculature glowed faintly.

At first, their faces could not be seen clearly; there was only a blurry outline. But that sword intent, which could change the color of the world, pressed solidly upon everyone's hearts.

This was true imperial might.

Even if it was only at the Soul Formation stage cultivation base, that depth of understanding of the Sword Dao had already touched the boundaries of the Dao.

Standing before these five phantoms, everyone had the illusion that they were not facing five people, but five mountains with no peaks.

However, as the starlight gradually dispersed.

The quicksilver-like luster slowly faded from their faces, and their facial features became clear little by little.

They were five young men dressed in white, holding longswords.

Their white clothes were whiter than snow, their black hair like waterfalls. Their sword-shaped eyebrows reached their temples, and their starry eyes held a sharp edge. Their features were so handsome they were almost demonic, the lines sharp yet elegant, and a faint, arrogant smile hung on the corners of their mouths.

This smile was not a disdain for anyone, but a free-spiritedness deep in their bones, a complete indifference to all things in the universe.

When the faces of these shadows became clear...

Everyone present, except for Ye Xuan, was stunned.

Pei Yuzhi's body stiffened. Her lips parted slightly, and the first crack appeared on her iceberg face that hadn't melted in ten thousand years.

She stiffly turned her neck, looking at that shadow, and then at Ye Xuan standing beside her.

She looked at the Sword Emperor's shadow again.

She looked at Ye Xuan again.

The Sword Emperor's shadow.

Ye Xuan.

Exactly the same.

No, exactly the same could not describe it.

They were simply carved from the exact same mold.

The same sword-shaped eyebrows, the same starry eyes, the same curve of the jawline, the same shoulder width ratio. Even the trace of a cynical charm at the corners of the eyes was completely identical, like a reflection left by time in this Mirror Lake.

One was from ten thousand years ago, the other from ten thousand years later.

"This... what is going on?"

Tantai Jue was the first to react.

He widened his bull-like eyes, his amber vertical pupils almost squeezing out of their sockets. He extended a thick finger, pointing at the shadow, his arm trembling slightly, and his voice stammering, completely devoid of his previous arrogance:

"This Sword Emperor's shadow... why... why does it look exactly like this kid?"

An expression known as astonishment appeared on Pei Yuzhi's eternally unchanging iceberg face.

Her fingers unconsciously gripped the soft sword in her arms tightly, her knuckles pale as paper.

She looked at Ye Xuan, the original contempt in her eyes completely replaced by an immense confusion.

Too similar.

No, this wasn't just similar at all.

Even Ye Xuan's habit of shifting his center of gravity slightly to the right when standing, even the almost imperceptible upward curve at the corner of his eye when he raised his gaze, even the careless yet murderously angled way his fingertips rested on his sword hilt...

All were exactly the same.

Although Mo Qixing could not see, his divine sense swept over the five phantoms, swept over Ye Xuan, and then swept back to the Sword Emperor's shadows...

His body jolted violently, and the ebony sword in his hand almost slipped from his grasp.

"The bone age is wrong..." he muttered in a low voice, his hoarse tone carrying an imperceptible tremor. "The structure of the Qi Sea is wrong... the alignment of the spirit veins is also wrong..."

Deep within his cloth-bandaged eye sockets, something seemed to throb violently.

"But why are the patterns of the sword bones on his body so similar? This kind of similarity cannot be explained by bloodline inheritance... This is..."

He swallowed the second half of his sentence, not daring to speak it aloud.

Facing the shock of the crowd, Ye Xuan appeared unusually calm.

He just stood there quietly, the starlight spilling over him to outline a lean and straight silhouette.

He looked at the five phantom figures, looking at himself from ten thousand years ago.

That high-spirited "Ye Wushuang" in snow-white robes, who had roamed the world with his sword.

Deep within Ye Xuan's eyes, in the very deepest depths, a trace of ancient sorrow and nostalgia flashed by. It was as fast as a meteor streaking across the sky, vanishing in an instant.

He did not speak.

Above the mirror lake, starlight cascaded down like tens of thousands of silver threads.

Five figures condensed from quicksilver and starlight stood quietly, their white robes fluttering despite the absence of wind.

Their faces, identical to Ye Xuan's, delivered an unprecedented shock to the minds of all the chosen geniuses present.

"This... how could there be someone so similar in this world?"

Pei Yuzhi's beautiful eyes widened slightly, her voice betraying an unconscious loss of composure for the very first time.

Her fingers gripping the flexible sword turned white from the force, her nails almost digging into her palms.

In her gaze toward Ye Xuan, the original contempt had long since vanished into thin air. It was replaced by a profound shock and uncertainty, as if she were witnessing something that simply should not exist in this world.

"Could it be... he is a descendant of the Sword Emperor?" She rapidly deduced various possibilities in her mind, only to reject them one by one. "No... that's not right. The Sword Emperor left no heirs; this is a universally acknowledged fact across the entire cultivation world. Then where does this similarity come from?"