Chapter 5 - Encounter in the Mist.

Running, running with all his might. Even with various obstacles around, he couldn't stop running. Frantically running in the fog, Xu Xuan had completely lost his sense of direction. After all, the surroundings were a dense fog, making it almost impossible to see anything clearly. The fellow disciples who had started running with him had also disappeared into the fog one after another.

During this, Xu Xuan heard many voices. Some shouted that the demon-evil had been defeated, telling them to go back. Xu Xuan ignored them. There were voices of fellow disciples hoping he would turn back to help, but Xu Xuan ignored them.

He even heard the voice of Master Yezi, who hadn't returned since going down the mountain, telling him to lead the way back up the mountain to save people. He ignored that too. There were various other similar voices, but Xu Xuan ignored them all.

After all, Xu Xuan's greatest strength was listening to advice, and having been baptized by horror novels in his previous life, this kind of trope was child's play to him. Horror stories he had read in his previous life often featured cases where the voices and illusions of loved ones would trick the protagonist into turning back, and if the protagonist fell for it, they would be doomed forever.

With this thought, Xu Xuan ignored all the voices that came from the fog along the way. He just kept running, watching the blood-red light in the distance continuously move forward, even as his body felt immense fatigue and his lungs burned with a fiery sensation.

But this fog seemed boundless, and time, in Xu Xuan's perception, became incredibly long. Until finally, he was exhausted, only able to drag his weary body forward step by step.

As he moved with difficulty, the red sword energy ahead disappeared. He was completely lost in the fog.

"Boy, you failed. No need to go on. The sword light you were following has disappeared." It was at this moment that a woman's voice echoed in Xu Xuan's ears.

"Is it a hallucination again? This time it's someone I don't know trying to persuade me?" Hearing the woman's voice, Xu Xuan showed a smile. "But this voice is quite pleasant this time."

"It's not a hallucination, oh!" Hearing Xu Xuan's words, the voice came again.

"Tsk, all hallucinations say that. If you want me to fall for it, you'd have to bring a real beauty in front of me."

"Just look up and you'll know. Don't worry, no need to turn back, just look forward."

"Hmm?" Hearing the other party's words, Xu Xuan subconsciously looked up, and what met his eyes was a beautiful woman. She looked about seventeen or eighteen years old, dressed in a seductive and beautiful red dress, with her thighs exposed. Xu Xuan could clearly see two ancient symbols tattooed like a design on her beautiful thighs. Xu Xuan had just seen these two symbols not long ago; they were precisely the symbols 'Chiyou' on the sword worshipped by the Sword Hall. However, iron chains were bound to the woman's hands, feet, and neck, causing a series of clanking sounds with every step she took. At this moment, the woman was walking backward, looking at Xu Xuan. Despite the sound of chains when she walked, Xu Xuan couldn't hear any footsteps touching the ground.

"Holy cow, a big beauty!" Seeing this scene, Xu Xuan couldn't help but exclaim, "But I won't listen to you. At least until I get out of this fog, I won't stop."

"Are you very afraid of death? But when you were in the sect, didn't you often waste your time? Why are you so precious about life now? Do you know? If you don't rest and keep going, your legs will be crippled. You've already been walking for three days, oh." Looking at Xu Xuan, the woman's red lips curled slightly. "Just stop here, maybe you won't die after all."

"I'm not gambling on that. Besides, I wasn't wasting time. It's precisely because I cherish life that I want to enjoy every day to the fullest and live each day well, isn't it? I don't have any grand ambitions; I just want to live each day freely and unrestrained." Looking at the beauty in front of him, Xu Xuan continued to move forward in the fog, speaking in a somewhat helpless tone, "I didn't expect to be so cautious, yet still end up in trouble."

"Hmph, your dream is not small at all! In my opinion, such an ideal is a grand and ambitious ideal." Hearing Xu Xuan's words, the beautiful woman suddenly said seriously.

"Huh? How is that a grand ambition?"

"Heh heh, don't you understand? To live each day freely and unrestrained, without any threats, means you need to possess power that transcends everything in this world. Only by transcending all power in the world can a person have the right to be willful."

"Is that so? If you put it that way, I was naive."

"However, your way of thinking doesn't resemble that of the Sword Hall; it's more like those of the Daoists."

"Speaking of which, I've been on the mountain for so many years, and I still haven't seen what Daoists are like." Hearing the other party's words, Xu Xuan sighed as he walked. And in the next second, Xu Xuan seemed to trip over something. The seductive woman in the red dress clearly saw this but didn't warn Xu Xuan. Instead, she stood still and watched Xu Xuan trip, then fall right into her arms.

"This sensation... Huh? Are you real?" Feeling the sensation from the woman's skin, Xu Xuan's face couldn't help but flush slightly.

"This concubine is not exactly human, but it depends on how you define 'human'." The woman said, then sat down on the ground with Xu Xuan in her arms, placing Xu Xuan's head on her lap. "There, now you can rest."

"That won't do."

"You've already walked out of the fog," the woman said with a smile. It was then that Xu Xuan noticed the surrounding fog had dissipated at some point. At the same time, a strong sense of fatigue and drowsiness appeared. Lying on the woman's lap, Xu Xuan couldn't help but fall into a deep sleep.

"Interesting. An interesting wish and a firm will, and most importantly, his sword is broken. What a destined encounter! Boy, let this concubine see how far you can go in the future." Looking at Xu Xuan sleeping on her lap, the woman couldn't help but talk to herself. Immediately after, the woman took the iron chain from her neck and threw it towards Xu Xuan's body...

Xu Xuan didn't sleep comfortably. He felt cold and hard, and he also saw a mountain peak.

It was a large mountain entirely formed of dark red metal. Despite its dark red metallic luster, the entire mountain strangely writhed as if it were a mountain of flesh. As if this mountain was alive.

Countless sharp swords were plunged into this mountain, but what horrified Xu Xuan was that beneath each sword, a person was impaled. These people had distorted faces, each appearing to have died a tragic death. But as Xu Xuan's gaze fell upon them, these impaled people all opened their eyes, and then a series of tragic wails erupted. For a moment, the entire dark red mountain peak resembled the legendary Mountain of Knives Hell. Read at Novels Haven (novelshaven.com)

Only, there were swords on the mountain, not knives. And this mountain looked alive no matter how he saw it.

At this moment, Xu Xuan's gaze turned to the mountaintop. At the very top, a beautiful woman stood. It was then that Xu Xuan realized the woman was the same beautiful woman he had seen earlier.

However, unlike before, the beautiful woman's slender legs below her jade feet were gone, replaced by countless metal tube-like objects inserted into her legs. Countless metal tubes connected the woman to this living metal mountain.

Or rather, they were originally one entity?

At this moment, the woman held a huge dark red longsword in her hand, and beside her was half a body.

"Master!" Seeing this half-body, Xu Xuan immediately recognized it. But at this moment, he found that he could do nothing, only watch everything unfold before his eyes. As for his body, it was now bound by countless chains to a huge sword.

Right in front of Xu Xuan, the beautiful woman's longsword fell, plunging into the half-corpse of Master Ouzi. And as the longsword was plunged in, Master Ouzi's half-body also let out a tragic wail.

It was at the instant the wail sounded that Xu Xuan abruptly opened his eyes. Rubbing his heavy, swollen eyes, he noticed that he was sleeping on a main road at the foot of a mountain.

What Xu Xuan didn't expect was that when he got up, he realized why he had felt so hard. Because he had been using the body of a longsword as a pillow. Consequently, there seemed to be a red mark pressed onto his face.

"I actually fell asleep with a sword as a pillow. Speaking of which, what was with the young lady I saw earlier and that mountain?" Picking up the longsword from the ground, Xu Xuan's mind was filled with questions. But he immediately noticed that the hilt of the sword was actually an iron chain. Following the chain, Xu Xuan saw a shocking sight.

The other end of the iron chain on the sword's body had entered his arm. It went into the flesh of his arm through his wrist. Xu Xuan tried to tug at it a few times, then realized that this iron chain had grown into his body like a plant. As for exactly where it extended within his body, he didn't know.

Although somewhat surprised, Xu Xuan quickly calmed down. After all, having truly witnessed the strangeness of this world, encountering something like an iron chain growing into his arm no longer seemed like a big deal to Xu Xuan. However, the one thing Xu Xuan felt fortunate about was that this longsword, which was linked to him, was none other than the Chiyou Sword they had always worshipped.

This meant that the red sword light he had been following all along was actually the light of the Chiyou Sword.

He sheathed the Chiyou Sword behind his back. Fortunately, the length of the iron chain didn't seem to affect his daily life, and what he needed to do now was simple: go to Jianxia Town at the foot of the mountain for a good meal and some rest. After all, his current location was precisely on the main road leading from the mountain to Jianxia Town.

And when he turned back to look at the mountain range where the Sword Hall was located, Xu Xuan then saw that the entire mountain peak was already completely enveloped in fog...