First Immortal of the Sword

Chapter 2579 – The Yellow Finch, the Patrolling Spirit

Xiao Jian raised his fingertip, and… Kcch!

“The Dark Days of Legend ultimately aren’t the least bit interesting. Not one of these people can fight. Those who can are all in hiding. It’s terribly dull,” sighed Xiao Jian. “I might as well just find a quiet place to wait it out.”

Several months had passed since the curtains opened on the Dark Days of Legend. The world had been plunged into upheaval, with storms of bloodshed raging all over the place. Beacon fires lit the skies, and top factions vied for dominance and Fragments of Heaven’s Will. The world knew no peace.

Countless shocking battles unfolded every day.

To the common folk, battles between immortals were already unimaginably destructive.

To ordinary deities, battles between Master Gods were a similarly huge deal.

But to Xiao Jian, they were barely worth taking note of.

Perhaps this was what happened when you experienced too much and reached too high a position. It was, after all, lonely at the top.

But Xiao Jian knew that all of this had only just begun.

The natural order was breaking down, and the old was giving way to the new. The old balance of power would inevitably be rebuilt.

The big fish were still biding their time, but when that day arrived, they’d rise to the surface and stir up powerful waves.

“Forget it. Nothing in this world matters as much as a good book,” sighed Xiao Jian before walking off.

Reading had always been one of Xiao Jian’s obsessions.

When he first learned to read, he didn’t like playing like other kids his age. He preferred to sit alone and read. By the time he blew out his reading candles, his whole body had been bathed in moonlight.

To Xiao Jian, pursuing the Grand Dao was lonely, and reading was the best way to soothe that loneliness.

“If I hadn’t insisted on avenging my big sister, I might never have become a sword cultivator. I’d have become a schoolteacher instead, or what an avid reader might call… a pedantic old fuddy-duddy.”

As he walked, he seemed to recall something, and his eyes shone with nigh indetectable grief.

No matter how strong they were, who could possibly live free of frustration, grief, and regret?

……

The Central Divine Continent.

By the time the Ages of the Five Supremes ended, this place had already been reduced to a forbidden zone to all life.

This was the heart of the God Domain, the site of its primordial chaos, a place once full of countless orthodoxies and schools of thought, the greatest of the Divine Continents!

But all of its glories were in the past. It had since been reduced to scorched earth.

Over the years, it had become a place so dangerous and forbidden that people paled at the mere mention of its name. Not even Master Gods dared to risk themselves here!

No one knew how many unparalleled elites had entered the Central Divine Continent, only to perish there.

There had also been cases where heretical cultivators captured prisoners and sent them into the Central Divine Continent to uncover its secrets.

But without exception, none of them returned.

By now, practically no one was still paying attention to the Central Divine Continent. They just saw it as a forbidden zone.

Yet currently, in a massive gorge somewhere in the Central Divine Continent, a strange cataclysm unfolded.

Boom!

A stretch of unearthly, blood-red lightning collapsed and fell like rain, surging like tidewaters through the devastation and darkness.

The tide of lightning could have easily ripped through a Master God, destroying his body and soul.

Yet when it neared the gorge, the all-encompassing tide of lightning vanished into a gaping maw.

The maw was like an abyss, capable of devouring the heavens themselves. It was as terrifying as could be.

That tide of lightning could have easily destroyed Master Gods, yet compared to that enormous mouth, it was like an unassuming little stream, quickly devoured down to the last drop.

A long time passed before that abyssal maw closed and vanished into the enormous gorge.

Moments later, a sigh rang out.

“The lightning tribulation power manifested after the Will of Heaven collapsed isn’t even enough to fill the gaps between my teeth. If things go on like this, I won’t be able to recover my vitality by the time the ruins of Red Pine Mountain open.”

Boom!

Suddenly, the firmament dimmed, and an oppressive, terrifying air of calamity enveloped the gorge.

A yellow finch with sharp red claws shot over, beating its wings. It was tiny, only half a foot long, and it looked no different from the ordinary finches of the mundane world.

But when it arrived in the sky overlooking the gorge, a startled cry rang out. “This is bad! That’s the Patrolling Spirit of Red Pine Mountain!”

Boom!

The massive gorge shook, and countless streaks of blood-red light shot into the firmament, stirring up all-encompassing blood-red divine flames.

They were only dimly discernible, but a figure appeared deep within the gorge, then shot out of it and into the distance. Their speed was downright shocking.

The finch, however, wasn’t the least bit concerned. It preened itself with its beak, then extended one of its sharp red claws.

Far away, beneath the overcast skies, that fleeing figure stiffened as if caught in invisible claws, unable to move a muscle.

Upon closer inspection, they were a battered soul body, but their aura was incomparably terrifying. They weren’t any weaker than a Half-Step Eternal!

Except now, they were trapped like a bug.

When the finch raised its claws, it dragged the battered soul body out of the gorge.

The battered soul body cried out in terror. “No——! Forgive me, Patrolling Spirit. I understand what I did wrong!”

But the finch was entirely unmoved. It extended its neck and pecked, devouring the battered soul like an ordinary bird eating a worm.

Then, it threw back its head and burped before flying into the distance.

Once the sparrow left, the terrifying, calamitous aura enveloping the gorge faded away. Everything returned to stillness. It was as if nothing had happened at all.

…

Tens of thousands of miles from the gorge, there stood a scorched plain covered in dried blood. Nothing grew here, not even an inch of grass.

That is, save for a single verdant leaf hidden amidst the desolation.

The leaf suddenly shook, then dove beneath the surface of the earth and landed in a palm as fair and smooth as jade.

It had entered a space carved deep beneath the surface of the earth, a little room. Lanterns hung from the walls, their swaying light illuminating the room’s interior.

A girl knelt on a prayer mat, eyes closed, holding her hands in front of her stomach. A golden marking arose on her forehead, like a snake devouring its own tail.

She was cultivating. The one who’d plucked the leaf, however, wasn’t. She was a woman sprawled out on a soft couch. Her black hair had been pulled back into a ponytail, and she held it in place with a red string. A bronze mask obscured her face, save for her beautiful purple eyes.

She was extremely tall and graceful, and her position on the soft couch emphasized her long, slender legs.

These were none other than A’Cai and the mysterious spearwoman, Lin Jinghong.

The verdant leaf lit up in Lin Jinghong’s hands, reflecting the scene that had just taken place in the vast gorge.

“I knew that geezer would get himself killed sooner or later.” Lin Jinhong sneered. “He snuck bites of the crumbled natural order at regular intervals, as furtive as a thief. If I were the Patrolling Spirit of Red Pine Mountain, I’d have killed him too.”

“What are you talking about, Big Sister?” Over on the prayer mat, A’Cai silently opened her eyes.

“It’s nothing big. Do you remember that old-timer hiding in the gorge? Way back when the Ages of the Five Supremes ended, the old man used a secret method to go into dormancy there,” Lin Jinghong said casually. “Not long ago, the Dark Days of Legend began, and the natural order of the God Domain crumbled, waking the geezer back up.

“But he was too frantic to recover his vitality. Just now, the Patrolling Spirit of Red Pine Mountain caught him devouring the lightning tribulation power originating from the Fragments of Heaven’s Will. In the end, the pitiful worm got himself eaten.”

“Eaten?” exclaimed A’Cai. “Big Sister, didn’t you say that even the weakest of those capable of hiding out in the Central Divine Divine Continent were still comparable to Half-Step Eternals? How… could someone like that just get eaten?”

Lin Jinghong laughed and put the verdant leaf away. “The Patrolling Spirit is a spirit of the natural order born of the God Domain’s chaos source, an incarnation of its Laws. Opposing it is like opposing the God Domain’s entire chaos source. Compared to that, what does a Half-Step Eternal amount to?”

She paused, her purple eyes glinting with disdain. “Besides, during their long years lying low in the Central Divine Continent, the calamitous power here has worn away those old-timers’ vitality. All of them are badly injured. None are that strong anymore.”

“Then could you defeat the Patrolling Spirit, Big Sister?” A’Cai asked curiously.

The corners of Lin Jinhong’s lips rose slightly. “If I had to fight that yellow finch, I’m at least eighty percent confident… that I wouldn’t lose too badly.”

“???” A’Cai didn’t know what to make of that.

Lin Jinhong rose from her soft couch and stretched. “Of course, that’s just relying on my current personal strength. If I used external powers, I could snuff out a little birdie like that in a flash.”

A’Cai couldn’t help but laugh. Her Big Sister Lin often said things beyond the pale, and she frequently bragged that even on the River of Destiny, no one could defeat her.

Still, there was no denying that she was strong, and that her methods were quite wondrous.

For example, she’d led A’Cai safely into the Central Divine Continent as soon as they arrived in the God Domain.

They’d spent the past few years here, seeking all manner of good fortune here. Even though they frequently ran into danger, Lin Jinghong resolved it every time, startled but unharmed.

Her manifold wondrous abilities had long since convinced A’Cai, who’d developed absolute faith in her.

“It’s just a pity that we can no longer explore the outside world. Otherwise, I’d love to go duke it out with Su Yi. I’ll show him just how strong I’ve grown over the past few years,” Lin Jinghong sighed.

A’Cai grinned. “Big Sister, you can’t bully Fellow Daoist Su.”

Over the years, she’d watched Lin Jinghong’s cultivation base soar with her own eyes. It was like witnessing one miracle after another.

She already subconsciously assumed that Lin Jinghong had long since left Su Yi in the dust.

“No way. I must bully him!” A cold smile tugged at Lin Jinghong’s lips. “In all my years of cultivating, I’ve never once lost to someone of the same level of cultivation… until I fought him in the Human Realm, and he came out just barely ahead. No matter what, I have to settle this score!”

A’Cai couldn’t help but worry on Su Yi’s behalf.