Translator: Subudai11 Editor: Chrissy

  Either Sword God or Sword Demon was essentially a wisp of Zhong Shengming’s remnant soul. It was just that the strength of this Sword God of Bai Li was too powerful that even if it was just a remnant soul, it was seemingly as powerful as other cultivator’s intact primordial spirit.

  Of course, a remnant soul was still a remnant soul. Behind its power, there were some limitation and weakness. As for a corporeal body? That was even more an excessive expectation.

  However, for Wang Lu’s question, Sword Demon only gave a faint response, "For cultivators above Unity Stage, mortal body is not important. As long as I can unite with the other, the remnant soul, primordial spirit, magical power, and mortal body can be fully integrated with each other."

  Wang Lu laughed. "Then that’s good. I was afraid when you go out later, you’d be immediately killed by the sunlight, astral wind, or something like that. Although you’re a born demon, after getting along with you, I feel like there’s still some good in you, so it would be quite a pity if you die just like that."

  "Humph! Why don’t you take care of yourself first!"

  Sword Demon didn’t mind about Wang Lu’s disrespect. Perhaps he was quite increasingly fond of Wang Lu’s original magical ability or perhaps Wang Lu’s existence as his trump card was quite meaningful to him.

  However, he couldn’t just ignore Wang Lu’s follow up question.

  "Then what about the future?"

  Sword Demon was stunned for a moment. "Are you sick?"

  "No. I’m just curious." Wang Lu chuckled. "Given the fact that we are now in such a good situation, I think we are qualified to think about the future. For example, what are you going to do after we succeed in defeating the Sword God and you manage to become Zhong Shengming?"

  Sword Demon didn’t answer but just stared at Wang Lu with very strange eyes.

  "This is not a question that you should ask." Sword Demon lightly said, "What are you hesitating about? Are you afraid I’m going to eat you?"

  Since the other side had come straight to the point, Wang Lu decided that he should be straightforward as well. "It’s not uncommon to get rid of someone once that someone has served its purpose, but I am not worried about this. If you want to move against me, you have too many opportunities to do that, so worrying about it is useless. What I am really curious about is what you are going to do in the future?"

  "Oh?"

  Sword Demon didn’t answer, but instead revealed a slight smile on his face; it was just that, it wasn’t the slightest bit friendly.

  Wang Lu said, "When you go out later, what are you going to do? Before you died, you were the best cultivator in the entire Nine Regions, no one can match your achievements in taking the four in nine divine tribulation and other things, so what are your plans after you come out of this tomb? Taking divine tribulation to ascend to the immortal world? Or do you want to rule the Nine Regions?"

  Upon hearing this, Sword Demon could not help but chuckle, however, before he could give his response, Wang Lu continued, "If you want to ascend to the immortal world or rule the Nine Regions, why did you choose to ascend in the Bai Li Region? Why bother challenging the four in nine divine tribulations? The life of Sword God of Bai Li is definitely full of delight, so it’s hard to imagine that his death would be filled with everlasting regret! However, since you don’t have any regret in your life, why bother trying to come back to life even if takes thousands of years?"

  As soon as Wang Lu’s voice fell, Sword God’s eyes suddenly became incomparably sharp.

  This was one really good question!

  For the average person, survival was the instinct of all living beings. And for cultivators, ascension was the ultimate dream! Putting these two ideals together, it was easy to assume the reason why Zhong Shengming tried to come back from death; because of the serious injury in taking the divine tribulation, even if it were to take more than ten thousand years, he still wanted to ascend to the world of immortals.

  Perhaps some people would say there were numerous cultivators in the world, and based on the fact that each of them was an individual with their own ideals and dreams, how many of them have the longing for ascension? For most of them, even struggling for their entire life couldn’t make them reach the Jindan Stage and thus eventually they would return to ashes. During this period, the convenience of immortal cultivation method gave them far more pleasure than the pursuit of higher stages.

  However, there was obviously no comparison between them; they just realized that ascension was a hopeless dream for them. If there was a chance, who would miss it? Rumor has it that the treasure on the higher realms was like things in dream and fantasy. Everything was much better than in the Nine Regions. As long as one could survive the divine tribulation and ascend into the immortal world, one would enjoy endless immortal fortune and happiness… As the saying went, forever enjoying immortal fortune was a fate.

  However, with Zhong Shengming’s brilliant ability, as long as he was willing, soaring to immortality was a very probable outcome—even in the history, only a few cultivators managed to ascend to the world of immortals, and Zhong Shengming has been one of the top figures in this long years. Even the three immortals of Bai Li could not conceal the light of Zhong Shengming.

  However, even when he had almost a certain chance to immortality, Zhong Shengming actually took the suicide path by challenging the four in nine divine tribulations! This obviously meant that, in his mind, some things were weightier than ascension to immortality! In other words, the ascension to immortality thing was not that important to him. Towards such a character, if one said the reason why he painstakingly tried to resurrect even after his death was that he wanted to break the threshold of immortality, wouldn’t that be a contradiction?

  Sword God of Bai Li should belong to a hero who died with no regret!

  This was a simple truth. However, perhaps no ordinary person would venture to think to this direction. Only Wang Lu… a person who was similarly lacking in devotion to immortal cultivation and ascension could make this connection.

  Unfortunately, while this was a good topic of discussion, this was not really the time to bring it out. Sword Demon remained silent, and his eyes became even sharper. Even if he was just a wisp of remnant soul, he still gave out a strong sense of oppression. However, Wang Lu was without fear; the pressure from his Master in Spirit Sword Mountain was not lesser than this, and in most cases, he was the last one to laugh.

  While the two people were still in the silent confrontation, Wang Lu suddenly uttered a ‘huh’ cry, reached into his shirt and touched the booklet in his inner pocket.

  That was the team leader handbook of Spirit Sword Sect. At this time, it was burning hot. He didn’t open it in front of the Sword Demon, but reached into its inner page and touched it, and then he immediately understood.

  The situation has deteriorated.

  In that page, the name of Big Sister Zhu Shiyao has turned from orange to red. Moreover, it was dark red going black!

  This meant that the situation of Big Sister has changed from the initial predicament situation to dangerous, or even death! Once the color was completely black, it meant that she was dead.

  However, this didn’t make any sense. How did the situation suddenly deteriorate? They just had a fight, and although Zhu Shiyao lost, she wasn’t hurt as bad as him. At most, only several pints of blood came out of her nose… It would be ridiculous to say this loss of blood was the cause of her sudden situation worsening.

  Or was it because after the previous lost, eager for victory, she began to cultivate some kind of demonic cultivation method? Or because she lost the melee fight, she wanted to practice long-range attack, and in order to quickly enhance the strength, she cut something of her that shouldn’t be cut? (Reference to Dong Fang Bu Bai)

  Unfortunately, these conjectures were a bit absurd.

  At the same time, the complexion of Sword Demon also changed. He then looked at Wang Lu. "It seems that you also knew."

  Wang Lu nodded and was about to speak, when there was a sudden surge of magical power from afar. When he turned his head, a jaw-dropping scene greeted him.

  Far away, the vast sea of black haze suddenly surged. Within the darkness, numerous stellar lights flickered, and in a moment, half of the sea of black haze became as bright as day! The bright stellar lights tore the dark and innumerable lightnings snaked on the border of light and dark, intensifying the surging space.

  In the center of that great chance, a graceful woman was holding a sword. The sword light flickered as it primed the black haze outside the stellar lights to crazily roll.

  Who was she if not Zhu Shiyao?

  Seeing this scene, Wang Lu could no longer maintain his calm anymore. His mouth opened wide in shock and his pupils rapidly contracted.

  "This is not fair! I want to complain, I want to report!"

  "Watch out!"

  When Wang Lu was still in shock of this sudden change, Sword Demon cried out, grabbed Wang Lu’s hand and fiercely pulled him to the side.

  The next moment, the distant Zhu Shiyao revealed a hint of ferocious smile and then swung her Great Sun Golden Brilliant Sword.

  Suddenly, the rivers of stars in the sky fell, sweeping through the dark haze and lightning. For a time, it was as if the heaven collapsed and the world ended.

  Such level of raw power was not something that a Xudan and even Jindan Stage cultivator could compare. In this closed world, such coercion and heaven’s fury were exactly the four in nine divine tribulations!

  No matter what his original magical ability was, it could never be able to compete with it. This collapsing world could not be evaded by him, however, Sword Demon quickly reacted with maximum speed as he pulled Wang Lu to the side in a flash. Although they could not launch a counterattack, they still managed to board the boat.

  The sea of bitterness boat!

  It was at this time that Wang Lu appreciated the well-deserved reputation of the sea of bitterness boat. In addition to the ability to brave the way on this boundless sea of bitterness, when misfortune came, it could act as a shelter to go through the difficulty.

  The moment Sword Demon and Wang Lu boarded the sea of bitterness boat, the stellar lights and lightnings finally fell to that bright space, triggering a tide of boundless destruction.

  However, within that tide, there was no shadow of the sea of bitterness boat.

  —


  "Time is limited, so there’s no need to say any nonsense talk."

  In a piece of narrow and small space, Wang Lu and Sword Demon stood face to face, with incomparably solemn expression. Then, after a moment of silent, Sword Demon was the first to bring out a topic.

  "The situation is very simple, Sword God is attaching himself in Zhu Shiyao’s body…"

  Before he could finish, Wang Lu coldly interrupted him, "Attaching himself in Zhu Shiyao’s body? I think you mean forceful possession!"

  Sword Demon closed his eyes. "No matter what it is, the other side’s strength is far above you and me."

  Wang Lu sneered. "The only way to compete is with you doing the same thing to me right? Which would then unleash your consciousness and skill of a Mahayana Stage Daoist Immortal, making you on the same level as Sword God?"

  Sword Demon asked back, "Do you have a better way?"

  Wang Lu thought for a moment. "It seems to be no."

  "Then you…" Sword Demon has just opened his mouth when he saw the sword was thrust straight at him. However, he did not hesitate. Moving sideway, he lifted his hand and blocked that sword attack with his own sword. At the same time, his tone of voice remained serious as he said, "Don’t waste time in infighting."

  Wang Lu didn’t speak but just swung his Sword of Mount Kun and launched his original magical ability. The surrounding hundreds of meters of area immediately filled with forest of broken swords and the sky were covered with densely packed dark cloud.

  Surrounded by these broken swords, Sword Demon sighed.

  "If you want to kill me, it’s really not that hard, but this will not do you any good."

  Wang Lu stimulated the broken swords to float in mid-air, his killing intent has become sharper.

  "I think it’s the right choice to kill you! There are some things that I didn’t say, but it doesn’t mean that I didn’t know them. The first time we fought against Sword God, you infused me with your heaven splitting sword qi, which seemed to help me at first, but, in fact, it’s just to confuse people! I have been wondering, I have no enmity with Big Sister, but why would she want to kill me? Later on, I thought that perhaps Big Sister’s vision is not that good, that was why she didn’t recognize me with that demonic qi… and where does this demonic qi come from?"

  Regarding this, Sword Demon didn’t deny at all. "That’s right, it was me who put the demonic qi in you. But, if I didn’t do so, I’m afraid at that time, you and your Big Sister would’ve cooperated to slay me instead! Humph, you’ve always like being reasonable, so tell me, was it wrong?"

  Wang Lu also did not hesitate. "It was me who was wrong. After I chop you, I will burn books for you!"

  As soon as he finished, the myriad of flying swords immediately flew downward.