The Peerless Sword Emperor

Ye Xuan did not explain.

He simply looked at himself.

That was him from ten thousand years ago. The unrivaled Sword Emperor who had severed all worldly ties and discarded all emotions.

Ye Xuan sighed silently in his heart.

Without any warning.

The five shadows moved simultaneously.

No gathering of momentum, no wind-up, no superfluous movements.

The white robes of the five phantoms exploded in the exact same instant, their movements perfectly synchronized, as precise and flawless as the operation of the Heavenly Dao.

Four of the shadows shot out like meteors, each locking onto a target...

The first darted toward Pei Yuzhi. The moment its soft sword left the sheath, the lake surface within thirty feet of her instantly froze. Pushing the Supreme Dao of Forgetting Emotions to its absolute limit, her pupils faded of all emotion, turning into two pools of stagnant water.

The second lunged at Tantai Jue. Instead of retreating, this madman charged forward to meet it head-on. Amidst loud laughter, he threw out both fists, taking a strike from the Sword Emperor barehanded. The lake beneath his feet was shattered, forming a sunken crater thirty feet across.

The third charged at Mo Qixing. With his ebony sword held horizontally before him and his cloth bandages wildly fluttering, his figure instantly blurred into afterimages. Using incredibly bizarre footwork, he weaved through the phantom's sword edge, every step landing precisely in the gaps of its sword intent.

The fourth darted toward the recently arrived Lei Wanjun.

Lei Wanjun should not have been here.

Although his strength was not on par with the top three, relying on an ancestral protective talisman and an extremely forbearing nature, he had managed to play the pig to eat the tiger, clearing the previous trials and squeezing into the final layer.

Facing the phantom of the perfected Soul Formation Sword Emperor at this moment, his face instantly turned as pale as paper. Cold sweat poured down his forehead; before he could even wipe it away, the longsword thrusting toward his face was already reflected in his pupils.

He crushed a life-saving pill in his mouth and barely managed to block the first strike. But from just that first strike, blood spilled from his mouth, the webbing between his thumb and forefinger tore open, and he almost lost his grip on his weapon.

As for the fifth shadow...

It did not rush toward Ye Xuan.

It floated straight toward Ying'er, who was standing in the corner.

Ah!

Ying'er watched the terrifyingly oppressive phantom closing in on her. The imperial pressure weighed down on her frail body like a collapsing mountain.

Her knees gave way, and she almost knelt on the lake's surface. Her little face was deathly pale, her lips trembled, and her large eyes filled with tears of terror.

Subconsciously, she closed her eyes, squatted down with her hands clutching her head, and buried her face between her knees, shrinking herself into a tiny ball.

Don't kill me... Please don't kill me... Ying'er didn't do anything... Her voice was as thin as a mosquito's, laced with a crying tone.

Ye Xuan's eyes twitched.

His figure instantly erupted, the speed at which his Sun-Slaying Divine Sword was drawn being so fast that not even Pei Yuzhi could catch its afterimage.

In a single step, he crossed thirty feet, his sword point aimed squarely at the phantom lunging toward Ying'er...

However.

He stopped.

When his sword tip was just an inch away from the phantom's back, he forcefully halted the strike.

Because he saw a scene that made him disbelieve his own eyes.

The phantom of the Sword Emperor, originally brimming with murderous intent, had abruptly stopped in its tracks when it was three feet away from Ying'er.

The sword in its hand lowered.

The longsword capable of tearing the firmament apart hung limply by its side, just three feet from Ying'er.

The scene that followed...

Almost made all the heaven-chosen geniuses, who were locked in bitter combat, drop their jaws in shock.

The cold phantom of the Sword Emperor slowly bent over.

He crouched down.

Resting one hand on the lake's surface and kneeling on one knee, he slowly raised his other hand and reached toward the trembling Ying'er.

On that face formed of mercury and starlight, the cold lines were melting inch by inch.

The murderous aura dissipated, the imperial pressure was withdrawn, and within those eyes that should have been completely hollow, a highly humanized look emerged.

It was tenderness.

He gently placed his palm on the top of Ying'er's head.

And rubbed it.

His movements were incredibly gentle.

That hand, which had severed the sun and moon and shattered the stars, touched the crown of Ying'er's head with a force as light as a petal falling on a shoulder.

His fingertips trembled slightly as they slowly glided along Ying'er's soft hair, as if caressing a lost and recovered peerless treasure.

Feeling the warmth on top of her head, Ying'er timidly opened one eye through the gaps of her fingers.

She saw the originally terrifying phantom crouching in front of her. There was no killing intent, no oppressive aura; he was just quietly patting her head.

Huh...? She opened her other eye, tilting her head and looking at the phantom through tear-blurred eyes. You... you're not going to kill Ying'er?

The phantom did not answer. It could not speak.

But the corners of his mouth curved up slightly.

This is...

The hand with which Ye Xuan gripped his sword trembled slightly.

His pupils shrank to the size of pinpricks, and his heart felt as if it had been violently seized by an invisible hand.

An inexplicable, surging emotion welled up from the depths of his chest, clogging his throat and leaving him speechless.

Watching the phantom stroke Ying'er's head, and seeing the gentle, guilt-ridden expression on the face of himself, something in his mind began to churn wildly.

Where did that guilt come from?

He didn't know.

And who was that pity for?

He didn't know.

The Sword Emperor phantom did not attack.

Crouching before Ying'er, in the final moment his fingertips lingered on her hair, he suddenly lowered his eyelids.

On that face composed of starlight and mercury, the gentle expression slowly solidified, like someone wanting to firmly engrave the scene before them into their very marrow before saying goodbye.

Then, its body began to disintegrate.

It didn't shatter; instead, it transformed into a sky full of flowing light.

Countless fine specks of light began to peel away from its fingertips, spreading up its arm, shoulder, and chest, melting inch by inch like an ice sculpture in the spring breeze.

The specks of light hovered around Ying'er like fireflies, tracing a path of near-attachment as they slowly, bit by bit, sank into her frail body.

Ying'er opened her eyes in bewilderment.

Those large eyes, still clinging to unshed tears, were filled with the reflection of golden, fragmented light, as if she were in a dream.

She looked down at her hands; there were no wounds, no pain. Instead, her body felt warm all over, an indescribable heat seeping outward from the marrow of her bones.

This feeling was very strange.

It didn't feel like spiritual energy being infused into her body; rather, it felt more like... being held in someone's embrace.

Between her eyebrows, a faint golden sword-shaped mark slowly surfaced. The mark existed for only a single breath before fading away like ink seeping into rice paper, as if it had never appeared at all.

This scene left everyone dumbfounded.

While they were all fighting tooth and nail, on what grounds did a little girl receive the Sword Emperor's gift?

However, they had no time to dwell on it.

With the loss of that one phantom, the sword intent originally divided among the five shadows began to surge wildly, much like five rivers losing a branch, causing the remaining water to flood into the other four channels.

The offensive of the four shadows suddenly intensified, their momentum skyrocketing by nearly thirty percent!

Pei Yuzhi's expression changed. Running the Supreme Dao of Forgetting Emotions to its absolute limit, the temperature around her plummeted below the freezing point, and the lake surface beneath her feet condensed into frost.

Tantai Jue laughed uproariously as he charged forward to meet the attack. The skin on his fists had already split open, sending blood splattering through the air, yet the more he fought, the more frenzied he became.

Mo Qixing took a half-step back. This was the first time he had retreated today.

"Since that is reserved for Ying'er, then my opponent..."

Ye Xuan abruptly turned his head and looked toward the center of Mirror Lake.