The third watch had just passed when Ye Qingxiao opened his eyes.
He slipped silently from his bunk, retrieving the cloth-wrapped steel sword hidden beneath his bed. Moonlight filtered through the latticed window, glinting off the blade's seven notched stars—a discarded relic he'd scavenged from the sword mound's outskirts, its cracked surface strangely attuned to the Thirteen Forms of Azure Mist he practiced.
"Going to the back mountain again?" a hushed voice came from the upper bunk.
Ye Qingxiao's wrist twitched, the sword tip carving a half-moon in the earthen floor. He looked up to see Senior Brother Zhou Yan propped on one elbow, knowing amusement in his eyes.
"The inner disciple trials are tomorrow..." Ye Qingxiao licked his chapped lips. "I need to perfect the 'Willow Caressing Breeze' stance."
Zhou Yan sighed and tossed down an oilpaper bundle from beneath his pillow. "Kitchen's spiced beef. The back mountain dew will chill your lungs again."
The warmth lingering on the package seeped into Ye Qingxiao's palms. Three winters ago, when the patrol elder had dragged him half-frozen from the blizzard, it was Zhou Yan who'd daily unknotted his meridian blockages. Though still stagnant at Body Tempering's third layer, at least he could now complete a sword form without coughing blood.
"Thank you, Elder Brother." He tied his straw sandals and tucked the beef into his tunic.
As the door creaked open, Zhou Yan's final warning followed him: "Steer clear of the Sword Stele. Last month Old Zhang from the kitchens—"
"I know!" Ye Qingxiao laughed over his shoulder, already swallowed by the ink-dark night.
The mountain path glowed with phosphorescent moss. Ye Qingxiao climbed using protruding stone ribs as footholds, his left hand never leaving the sword hilt. For three years of moonless nights, he'd trained in these foothills. Not truly hoping to pass the inner sect trials—aristocratic disciples surpassed his three-year toil with a single Spirit Nurturing Pill—but because only sword grip could quell the fire ants gnawing his veins.
Ahem—
The mid-slope wind stabbed his lungs. Ye Qingxiao braced against a twisted pine, coughing until crimson speckled his palm like some cursed sigil. He wiped it away mechanically, biting into the beef just as a shadow sliced through the canopy overhead.
Ye Qingxiao flattened against the cliff face. The silhouette moved too quickly for moonlight to reveal more than a metallic glint—sword edge or something keener. Then came eleven more, streaking toward the main peak like arrows.
The mountain's protective arrays hadn't stirred.
His fingernails gouged stone crevices. That aura turned his blood to glacier melt, exactly like the near-death freeze three winters past. He should be sprinting to rouse the dormitories, yet his legs carried him toward the forbidden back slope—where the soul-devouring Ancient Sword Stele stood.
Gravel skittered beneath his feet. When Ye Qingxiao stumbled into the clearing, the main peak erupted in noontide brilliance.
BOOM—
The shockwave slammed him against the stele. Coppery blood filled his mouth as he turned to see the scripture pavilion disintegrating in violet lightning. Burning scrolls rained like comets, punctuated by distant shrieks. A horizon-spanning sword glare sheared the mountaintop clean away.
"Azure Mist Sword Sect. You are judged."
The voice needled his eardrums. Ye Qingxiao's dilated pupils reflected seven star-crowned figures encircling the main peak, their bronze-masked leader sheathing a blade that dripped molten metal instead of blood.
"Seven Luminaries..." Ye Qingxiao recalled Zhou Yan's tales of an eastern isle where cultivators forged swords from liquid steel.
Another thunderbolt struck. This time he recognized a tumbling figure in indigo robes—still wearing the tassel Zhou Yan had braided at dawn.
"Elder...Brother..."
His nails splintered against the stele's grooves. The smoldering pain in his meridians exploded, white-hot needles threading every vessel. As the masked swordsman turned toward the back mountain, Ye Qingxiao mustered his last strength to drive the broken sword toward his own heart.
Better this than becoming a sword puppet—
CLANG!
The blade shattered on contact. Simultaneously, the silent stele cracked open, bleeding dark fluid as golden sword runes squirmed across its surface like tadpoles. They coalesced into three dripping characters:
TAIYI TREASURY
"So here it hides."
The icy voice came from ten zhang above. Ye Qingxiao looked up to see the bronze mask floating beyond reach, its lips curling. "Saves me the trouble of soul-scouring."
The cultivator's finger twitched, unleashing a molten river of sword qi.
Facing death, Ye Qingxiao's mind became still as mountain snow. Those weren't mere inscriptions—they were microswords dueling inside the monolith. When the molten death hung three inches from his brow, he performed his first true swordsman's gesture—tracing the runes' curvature with two fingers.
Crack.
Time stuttered. The suspended sword qi trembled as the masked man's eyes bulged. Then the stele detonated into starlight, seventy percent shooting into Ye Qingxiao's forehead while the remainder became a reverse meteor shower.
"Sword Dao Seed?! Impossib—"
Golden needles shredded the scream. Ye Qingxiao watched the tiny swords pierce through molten qi, each pass extracting silvery mist from the cultivator's body. After seven cycles, the invincible enemy stood frozen mid-snarl, an ice sculpture reflecting the burning sect below.
Ye Qingxiao collapsed, gasping. The fire in his brow had cooled to glacial clarity, a miniature sword spinning behind his eyes. Fragmented knowledge flooded his mind, clearest among them a verse:
"Mortal dust tempers the sword's bone,Falling stars illuminate the divine court.When the Abyss appears once more,Ten thousand ages shall hear the sword's report..."
BOOM—
The main peak's thunderous collapse shook him upright. His vision had transformed—every splintered beam became a sword, every blood rivulet a crimson blade. Even the mountain's subterranean veins pulsed like sheathed weapons.
"Sword Sight..." Ye Qingxiao touched his feverish eyelids, recalling Chronicles of the Nine Provinces descriptions of ancient sword saints' abilities.
He staggered toward the carnage. The herb garden's Elder Alchemist lay bisected among smashed pill furnaces, white hair mingling with his own intestines. Disciples from the enforcement hall stood frostbitten in sword stances, their final formation incomplete. At the scripture pavilion's summit, the sect master hung pinned to the "Azure Path of Righteousness" plaque by seven astral swords, a charred hole where his heart should be.
Ye Qingxiao scaled the crumbling beams. The sect master's lips moved, expelling two bloody bubbles:
"Seven...Luminaries..."
"Who? The star-islanders? Why destroy us?" Ye Qingxiao gripped the withered wrist.
The dying man's gaze locked onto Ye Qingxiao's glowing forehead. A ghastly chuckle bubbled from his throat: "Taiyi...Sword Treasury...Good...Good..."
Bone cracked as the sect master's death grip left five bleeding furrows. With final effort, he tore open his robe—a bronze shard embedded over his heart, etched with half a star chart.
"Sword...Casket..."
As Ye Qingxiao grasped the fragment, the corpse crumbled to ash. The mountaintop shuddered violently. He leapt toward the nearest outcrop only to be blasted sideways—but the moment his back should have shattered, the mental sword pulsed, cloaking him in golden light.
Tumbling down the avalanche, Ye Qingxiao glimpsed a sword beam erupting from the stele's ruins. Within that pillar of light, a shadowy figure saluted him with blade in hand.
Then the storm broke.
Consciousness returned amid branches stabbing his ribs. The bronze shard had impaled his palm, blood mingling with rain to stain the sword-shaped brand now seared on his chest. When he probed the Taiyi Sword Treasury in his mind, golden runes rearranged into:
First Realm: Azure Edge Bone
Splashing footsteps approached. Through blurred vision, Ye Qingxiao saw a slender figure wading through floodwaters, her lantern glowing with captive fireflies.
"Father! Someone's here!" The voice rang like jade wind chimes.
Ye Qingxiao tried to warn her away but vomited blood instead. His final sight before darkness took him: emerald firefly light, and in the girl's foggy pupils—the golden sword scar between his own brows.