Lingxiao Sect, Azure Breeze Pavilion.
The four of them had gathered once again in Zhong Yi’s Illusion Arena room.
“Junior Brother Lu has made another illusion? This one looks surprisingly serious!”
When one focused their spiritual sense on an illusion crystal, snippets of scenes from within would appear. It was a preview technique Lu Ze had developed in his spare time, similar to the thumbnail previews from his previous life.
Watching the realistic scenes, somewhat dim and gloomy, with countless flashes of saber and sword light streaking past, Zhong Yi’s anticipation immediately began to rise.
“It’s obviously an illusion centered around combat. Old Zhong, can you even participate?” Zhou Yue teased.
“Bah... What nonsense are you spouting? This time, it’s not just our cultivation that’s being sealed. Even our understanding of the Dao will be temporarily cut off inside the illusion. Everyone starts from the same line, so don’t underestimate me, all right?”
Zhong Yi clearly refused to accept that, then turned toward Zhou Qiaoling in confusion.
“Speaking of which... Junior Sister Qiaoling, didn’t you say you absolutely wouldn’t play combat illusions? Why are you here this time too...?”
Zhou Qiaoling pursued pleasures different from those of ordinary people.
Fighting and killing held no meaning for her. There had to be the thrill of making money or treasure hunting to keep her interested.
Aside from team-based illusions such as Immortal Demon Clash and Naraka: Bladepoint, she flatly refused to touch single-player combat illusions.
This time, the tags on Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice were perfectly clear:
[Single-Player], [Cultivation], [Swordsmanship].
Besides those, there was also a baffling [Soul] tag, which left Zhong Yi utterly puzzled.
Any one of these tags should have been enough to scare Zhou Qiaoling away, so he truly couldn’t figure out why she had shown up.
“She’s been slacking off on her sword practice lately and made Elder Liu of Sword Inquiry Peak angry.”
The moment Zhou Yue brought it up, he immediately broke into a grin.
Zhou Qiaoling’s talent for cultivation was actually not bad, but among the disciples, her heart for pursuing the Dao was far from resolute. Her motto was essentially three days of fishing and two days of drying the net.
Recently, she had become obsessed with making spirit stones in Auction King. She had hit the jackpot in every match and gone several days without practicing her sword.
Elder Liu Qingmei of Sword Inquiry Peak had caught her in the act and decided to punish her.
“Punish her... by making her play an illusion?”
Zhong Yi was dumbfounded after hearing Zhou Yue’s explanation.
What kind of punishment was that?
Zhou Qiaoling had neglected her cultivation because she was addicted to illusions, and Elder Liu had punished her by making her continue playing illusions?
“Hahaha, this is all thanks to Elder Lu—er, Junior Brother Lu!”
Zhou Qiaoling wore a wickedly pleased smile and kept gloating.
“He said his new illusion would help with sword cultivation, and he strongly recommended it to Master. That’s how things turned out this way!”
“Junior Brother Lu really is a great guy...” Zhong Yi sighed.
“Exactly~ We get to play an illusion~~”
Zhou Qiaoling cheered like an elementary school student about to go on a spring outing.
“Aren’t you worried that Sekiro is just a sword-training version of If You’re a Cultivator, Descend One Hundred Floors?”
Zhong Yi immediately laughed.
“Brrr...”
Zhou Qiaoling shuddered violently.
“Then I’ll quit and practice my sword for seven days and seven nights outside Master’s door. Surely Master will forgive me then... All right, Master Liu is urging me. I’m going in!”
With that, Zhou Qiaoling injected her spiritual sense into the illusion crystal, and the scenes of Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice slowly unfolded before her.
At the same time, Zhou Yue seized the opportunity and tossed out a special talisman.
In an instant, a small barrier formed around Zhou Qiaoling.
“Old Zhou, what are you...?”
Zhong Yi was utterly confused.
“Shh... Elder Liu gave it to me personally. She said she got it from Junior Brother Lu. It can lock Sis’s spiritual sense inside the illusion. She isn’t allowed out until she clears it.”
“Oh~~~”
Zhong Yi understood immediately. The two exchanged a knowing smile.
“Heh heh. That’ll teach Sis to act like she isn’t human every day!”
“This one’s foolproof!”
Mu Yawen had already entered the illusion and begun watching the opening cinematic. The other two stopped wasting time and entered the illusion in succession.
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice began with an opening cinematic packed with information.
A land almost devoid of spiritual energy. A country called Ashina. A war known as the “Dragon’s Heritage.”
As a slight swordsman stabbed the throat of the shogun’s great general, control of Ashina changed hands.
The one who wielded the sword was the Sword Saint, Isshin Ashina.
...
The scene shifted.
On a battlefield that had just seen the end of a war, its ground strewn with corpses and thick with the stench of death, another imposing figure appeared.
The air was heavy with the rotting odor of death. A blood-red setting sun bathed the mountain of corpses, while murderously hostile crows were startled into flight by the white-haired old man’s terrifying killing intent, their cries fading into the distance.
“Oh?”
The white-haired old man walked with interest toward the only trace of life in that sea of death.
It was the figure of a boy.
His eyes were numb and lifeless. Fearless of the deathly aura, he picked up a sword stained with rust and blood from the hands of a fallen soldier.
“A stray dog who’s lost his soul?”
The old man slowly came to stand before the boy. The blade in his hand quietly sliced across the boy’s cheek, his words laced with mockery.
What he had not expected was that the boy neither dodged nor showed any fear. He merely raised his head woodenly and stared straight at the old man with those hollow eyes.
The boy extended his hand and grasped the grim sword blade, thick with the aura of countless deaths. Blood flowed endlessly from his palm, running down the edge.
The corners of the old man’s mouth lifted slightly. He changed the way he addressed the boy.
“Want to come with me, hungry Wolf?”
The boy lowered his head.
Like a lone wolf that had found its master.
...
[After being picked up from the battlefield, the Wolf trained and eventually became a highly skilled shinobi...]
...
...
As the storyteller narrated, the opening cinematic conveyed a tremendous amount of background information.
The others watched in confusion, but Zhong Yi was thoroughly engrossed.
“The country of Ashina? And all those four-syllable names? It sounds a bit like the culture of that region called Japan in ancient times...”
Zhong Yi stroked his chin as he analyzed the scene for the viewers in his livestream.
“What? You’re asking why there’s no country of Japan anymore? Obviously, it joined the rest of the world ages ago! Who would want to live in that godforsaken place? Its spiritual energy is thin, and its ley lines are all blocked...”
The more Zhong Yi spoke, the more he felt that the region where Ashina was located resembled that place.
In the world of Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, spiritual energy was not merely scarce—it was practically nonexistent.
Naturally, spiritual roots did not exist there either.
Whether they were swordsmen, samurai, or shinobi, the only way to improve was to constantly refine the “energy” within themselves, hone their combat skills, and at most forge a higher-quality weapon.
“No wonder Junior Brother Lu said this place can improve our swordsmanship...”
Zhong Yi suddenly understood.
In such a low-martial world, honing one’s combat skills would clearly yield the greatest improvement.
The cultivators had not only been cut off from their cultivation; they would even forget their insights into swordsmanship. Naturally, they would seek every possible way to improve their combat skills.
This was nothing less than an especially efficient form of experiential cultivation in the mortal world.
If the opponents within the illusion were peerless masters of swordsmanship, the benefits it brought would undoubtedly be immense!
“It’s just that... I wonder whether cutting off one’s understanding of swordsmanship is actually possible.”
Zhong Yi swallowed nervously.
Even though Lu Ze’s illusion had repeatedly challenged his understanding, he still felt that isolating the existence of the “Dao” on its own was nearly impossible.
At this moment, the opening scene of the illusion continued to unfold.
More than twenty years after Isshin Ashina “stole the country,” Ashina’s fortunes had declined, and the Wolf Shinobi had lost everything he once possessed.
The adoptive father who had raised him, and the master he was supposed to protect…
…
The scene shifted to a mountain road blanketed in windblown snow.
A graceful woman walked through the swirling snow beneath a crimson-red umbrella. She did not stop until she reached a withered well.
A fair hand emerged from the sleeve of her exquisitely tailored garment, and a letter slid down into the well.
The biting wind lifted the snowflakes and carried the woman’s gentle, water-soft voice:
“Shinobi, for the sake of your master…”
“Please awaken.”
The letter slowly drifted to the bottom of the well.
At the frost-covered bottom sat a down-and-out man with graying temples and a gaunt, withered frame.
The moment the letter landed beside him, Zhong Yi’s spiritual consciousness sank into the man’s body.
The illusion officially began.
e bizarre and supernatural had descended. The previous emperor was a thoroughgoing tyrant; no longer satisfied with human women, he had set his sights on a stunningly beautiful supernatural entity. He met his end in his bedchamber, drained of all his vital essence. As the legitimate eldest son and crown prince, Wang Hao was thus hastily enthroned, becoming the young emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty. No sooner had he awakened the "Imperial Sign-In Intelligence System" than he was assassinated by a Son of Destiny—a classic villain's opening. The Great Zhou, ravaged by the former emperor's excesses, was in national decline. The great families within its borders harbored their own treacherous schemes, martial sects began to defy the imperial court's decrees, and border armies, their pay and provisions in arrears, grumbled incessantly against the central government. Fortunately, the central capital was still held secure by the half-million Imperial Guards and fifty thousand Imperial Forest Army who obeyed the court's orders, along with the royal family's hidden reserves of power, barely managing to suppress the realm. As the Great Zhou's finances worsened and supernatural activities grew ever more frequent, the court sat atop a volcano. Ambitious plotters everywhere dreamed of overthrowing the dynasty, and even some reclusive ancient powers emerged, attempting to sway the tides of the world. At the first grand court assembly, the civil and military officials nearly came to blows, fighting tooth and nail over the allocation of fifty million taels of silver from the summer tax revenues. The spectacle opened Wang Hao's eyes—the Great Zhou's bureaucracy was not only corrupt but also martially proficient, a cabinet of all-rounders. Some officials even had the audacity to suggest the emperor release funds from the imperial privy purse to address the emergency. Wang Hao suddenly felt weary. Let it all burn.
lan, the Luo family, tracked him down - along with the babies in their arms. Mo Xuan stared pensively at the paternity test results from over a dozen top institutions, both domestic and international, showing a 99.99% match between himself and the two baby girls. At 23, Mo Xuan, a doctoral student, had become the father of two three-year-old children. The kicker? The mothers weren't even the same person! He gradually realized he was being lured step by step into an elaborate trap designed by these two yandere sisters. "Be good, little Xuan. Sister's life belongs to you entirely." "Brother, if you try to run away, I'll have no choice but to tie you up." Mo Xuan: "Do whatever you want, ladies. I give up."
nd fell into a coma while saving his younger sister from an out-of-control car. He became a vegetable. No one knew that his consciousness had crossed into a world of cultivation. Over the course of sixty years, he began as the lowest kind of mine slave, struggling to survive amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood. By sheer chance, he eventually obtained the complete memories of a fallen Immortal King. Alchemy, medicine, formations, feng shui, physiognomy, artifact forging… Every great inheritance of the cultivation world was now his. But when he opened his eyes again, he discovered that ten full years had passed in the modern world. To pay for his treatment, his father had sold the family’s shop and house, leaving himself covered in lasting injuries and illness. His mother had cared for him day and night, and more than half of her hair had already turned white. His younger sister, who had been only fifteen back then, was now twenty-five. To help repay the family’s debts, she had been forced to lower her head and put on a smiling face in places of glittering lights and endless revelry. Only then did Chen Xuan understand that what he had lost was not merely ten years. He had lost the life his entire family was meant to have. The good news was that he had brought back the memories of an Immortal King’s entire lifetime. The bad news was that his soul had returned alone—his cultivation had not come with him. Spiritual energy was scarce, resources were depleted, and the modern world still had firearms, surveillance, capital, and laws. If he wanted to protect his family, break free from everyone’s control, and become truly invincible beneath the heavens, he would have to start all over again.
s the Eldest Princess, renowned for her cold and aloof detachment, became the most docile of lambs, obeying his every command without question. But when the final move was played on the chessboard, as Gu Chenghan seized everything and ascended on the verge of apotheosis, that very Princess suddenly embraced him from behind, her tone carrying a dependence never heard before: "Wait... you haven't yet... commanded me to love you forever." Gu Chenghan froze abruptly. She... hadn't been hypnotized?! ... [The Eldest Princess's Diary] [When my soul was extracted, becoming the sole spectator outside my own shell] [At first, there was overwhelming fury, until I saw] [How he used my sword to effortlessly shatter my inescapable doom] [How he wielded my authority to eradicate fatal conspiracies I had never even detected] [Like a deity, he rescued me from the deep mire I was trapped in] [If not for those annoying vixens, he and I would be a match made in heaven] [I think I am ill, gravely ill] [My deity should belong to me alone] ... "Hypnosis? Oh, it succeeded, my dear Master." "Only this time, it's my turn to hypnotize you."
