On the city wall, Ye Zhibai held her breath.
Her hand had let go of her sword hilt at some unknown point, and she now gripped the freezing stone battlements so tightly that her knuckles were pale, though she didn't notice it.
Her gaze was pulled by an invisible force, locking onto that thin, withered figure on the snowfield.
That was sword intent.
A sword intent that blanketed the world.
Even across three li of wind and snow, that sword intent was as clear as if it were right in front of her.
It wasn't killing intent, it wasn't pressure, and it wasn't even a force that could be described with words.
It was pure sword intent.
The kind that could make the soul of every swordsman tremble.
At the same time, the world changed color.
The fine, drifting grains of snow suddenly became violent. The snow filling the sky wasn't falling; it was surging upward!
Countless snowflakes were swept from the ground by an invisible force, as if heaven and earth had been inverted.
The leaden clouds began to churn violently.
A low rumble echoed from deep within the cloud layer.
Then, a crack tore open right through the center of the clouds, and golden celestial light poured down from the rift, landing squarely on Gu Yiyou.
A single strand of sword intent.
It had triggered a phenomenon of heaven and earth.
“Watch closely,” Chen Zui suddenly spoke.
Ye Zhibai didn't hear Chen Zui's words at all.
Her entire mind had been swallowed by that sword intent.
The snow-white longsword at her waist was humming violently, its blade vibrating incessantly.
She pressed her hand down on the hilt, but she couldn't stop the resonance.
It was a symphony of sorts—her sword was responding to that sword intent that was about to be unsheathed.
Chen Zui’s hand also unconsciously tightened around the long spear beside him, his eyes fixed intently on that thin figure.
He drew the sword.
Gu Yiyou pulled the rusty sword from his shoulder inch by inch.
The blade had no brilliance and no sharp edge; it was still covered in rust, looking like a piece of scrap iron.
But the moment the tip of the sword left his shoulder, an invisible Presence surged in all directions like a tide.
The accumulated snow was pressed down three inches by this power, and the five Grandmasters all took a step back simultaneously.
It wasn't that they wanted to retreat, but rather that their bodies were reacting to an instinctive fear.
The bald man’s face changed, overcome by a primal terror.
The thin old man’s sword wailed shrilly.
The middle-aged scholar’s folding fan shook wildly, and he didn't even notice as five steel needles fell to the ground.
With every inch the blade emerged, the phenomenon between heaven and earth grew more intense.
The crack in the clouds grew wider, and the golden celestial light poured onto the snowfield like a waterfall, dyeing the entire expanse a brilliant gold.
The upward-swirling snowflakes danced wildly in the golden light, as if countless invisible swords were weaving through the air.
A gale erupted, kicking up a thousand piles of snow.
That wind wasn't a northern wind; it was a sword wind radiating outward from Gu Yiyou as the center.
The sound of the wind was like a howl.
It wasn't the ordinary howling of wind and snow, but a true sword howl.
The howl was deep and desolate, like a sob coming from deep within the earth, yet also like a thunderclap striking down from the heavens.
The entire Luoyan City began to vibrate.
The bricks and stones of the city wall hummed in resonance, the snow on the battlements fell in flurries, and the withered trees at the foot of the wall swayed madly, the sound of breaking branches never-ending.
Ye Zhibai could no longer hold herself up and was practically leaning over the battlements.
She wanted to see the trajectory of this strike clearly.
But she knew that with her current cultivation, she couldn't possibly see the full extent of this strike.
Still, she kept her eyes wide open, doing her best to engrave every shred of sword intent into her mind.
Amidst this earth-shattering sword howl, Chen Zui heard an extremely crisp sound of a copper bell.
It was that bell—the rusty copper bell tied to the end of the sword hilt.
It rang in the gale. Ting-a-ling, ting-a-ling, ting-a-ling.
This sound was tiny, yet it drowned out the howling of the swords across the sky.
Three li away.
Gu Yiyou looked up, the light in his cloudy old eyes reaching its peak.
“The sword strikes.”
The blade was completely unsheathed.
Time stood still at that moment.
The wind stopped, the sword howl stopped, and even the snowflakes dancing in the sky froze mid-air.
Everything in the world seemed to have been paused, with only that single flash of sword light moving.
Sword intent surged like a tide, sweeping across heaven and earth.
The five Martial Arts Grandmasters all moved to block at once, using their respective ultimate techniques.
The bald man threw both fists, his fist aura transforming into a golden shield as heavy as a mountain.
The thin old man’s sword moved like a swimming dragon, the sword light weaving a dense, airtight net in front of him.
The middle-aged scholar fanned his folding fan frantically, and an Ink-Wash Landscape appeared on the fan’s surface, turning into an ink-colored barrier to try and stop the sword light.
But beneath a single sword strike, all techniques were void.
The five Martial Arts Grandmasters were like paper and mud before this strike, unable to withstand a single blow.
The sword light dissipated.
Movement returned to heaven and earth.
The snow began to fall again, and the wind began to blow once more.
The five Grandmasters lay scattered across the snow, covered in blood and breathing weakly, but not a single one was dead.
Gu Yiyou withdrew his sword Presence; he had not killed them.
He returned the rusty sword to his shoulder. The blade was still covered in rust, as if that world-shaking strike had never happened.
He turned around and beckoned to Xiao Chengyan, who was staring in a daze.
“Let’s go.”
Only then did Xiao Chengyan snap out of it. He quickly mounted his horse and followed Gu Yiyou, their figures gradually disappearing into the curtain of snow to the north.
On the walls of Luoyan City.
Silence returned to the world, as if that terrifying scene had never occurred.
But the crack in the battlements caused by the sword intent and the white longsword at Ye Zhibai’s waist, which was still humming slightly, both spoke to the fact that everything just now had been no illusion.
Ye Zhibai remained leaning against the battlements, motionless.
A soft yet burning light appeared for the first time in her eyes, which were usually as cold as frost.
She had begun learning the sword at age five and entered the Inquiry Realm at sixteen, praised by her entire sect as a once-in-a-century sword genius.
For all these years, she had been practicing the sword, honing the Frost-Sigh Nine Forms, refusing to stop until every move and every stance was identical to the sword manual.
Her master said she was hardworking, her fellow disciples said she was gifted, and everyone believed she would eventually inherit the Sect Leader’s mantle and bring glory to the sword path of the Frost-Sigh Sect.
But that single strike just now had shattered her understanding of the past twenty-plus years.
Such a sword strike actually existed in this world.
It didn't rely on sword techniques, it didn't depend on internal energy, and it wasn't even confined to the sword itself.
When the sword was unsheathed, heaven and earth were cleared.
When the sword was sheathed, heaven and earth were silent.
“Let’s go.”
Chen Zui’s voice pulled her back to reality from her trance.
Ye Zhibai regained her senses and found her hands still gripping the battlements, her knuckles already white from the cold.
She let go, turned toward Chen Zui, and looked at him with burning eyes.
“Are you leaving? Why not come to my sect for a visit?”
“No. I still have to deliver this blade to Little A-Man.”
Ye Zhibai fell silent for a moment before she slowly spoke, her voice much softer than usual.
“Will we meet again?”
“We’ll meet again if fate allows.”
Chen Zui smiled.
“The martial world is both large and small. Perhaps one day while having a bowl of noodles in some town, I’ll look up and see you.”
Ye Zhibai said nothing more. She only gave Chen Zui a deep look, then unfastened the snow-white longsword from her waist. Holding it horizontally with both hands, she solemnly performed a Sword Salute toward him.
This was the highest etiquette of the Frost-Sigh Sect.
“Until we meet again.”
Chen Zui did not look back again.
Carrying his red-tasseled spear, he walked down the stone steps one by one, passed through the city gate arch, and walked out of Luoyan City.
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