First Immortal of the Sword

There was a starkly different corpse!

Its bones were tinged dark silver, and they were extremely thick. There was a flame-shaped marking on its head.

The Soul Flame Bone Marking!

This was an innate characteristic of Formless Demons.

There are nine Demon Law Rings in the Soul Flame Bone Marking. This guy was a Demon Noble! Su Yi’s brow furrowed.

The demons of the Beyond had experts comparable to those of the Immortal Dao. They could be roughly divided into four levels: Demon Captains, Demon Generals, Demon Nobles, and Demon Kings.

These levels corresponded to Universe Realm Immortals, Void Realm True Immortals, Saint Realm Immortal Lords, and Miracle Realm Immortal Kings.

This corpse belonged to a Formless Demon, one of the nine great demon races of the beyond. Its Soul Flame Bone Marking had nine layers of round Demon Law Rings, which meant it was a Demon Noble, an expert comparable to an Immortal Lord!

And Formless Demons were crafty and insidious. They were natural assassins who excelled at transformations and catching people off guard.

Wang Ye established the Academy of Eternal Night for the express purpose of training generals to protect the Immortal Realm’s Nine Gates of Heaven and maintain the peace!

Throughout its long years of history, everyone in the Academy of Eternal Night, no matter who they were, had to undergo blood-soaked tempering on the battlefields of the Nine Gates of Heaven.

Some disciples of the Academy of Eternal Night rose to prominence defending the Nine Gates of Heaven, proving their Dao amidst oceans of blood to become top powerhouses of their respective regions.

Of course, many disciples died in battle too. There was no avoiding casualties.

To take down the demons of the Beyond, every disciple of the Academy of Eternal Night was required to take a course in Demon Hunting.

During this course, they used a compilation of texts and knowledge Wang Ye had personally put together. It listed the distribution, characteristics, legacies, talents, and origins of the demons of the Beyond in elaborate detail. There were also methods, tricks, and strategies for hunting them.

This knowledge had been collected into a Daoist canon Wang Ye called Notes on Demon Hunting. It was one of the Academy of Eternal Night’s most precious texts.

It was for this reason that, when it came to understanding the demons of the Beyond, extremely few fations could compete with the Academy of Eternal Night.

Who could have imagined that despite knowing the demons like the backs of their hands and waging war against them for countless years, a Formless Demon Noble’s corpse would appear in the Academy of Eternal Night?

After a moment’s silence, Su Yi continued ahead.

He quickly discovered yet another corpse of a Demon Noble. This one belonged to a Goldenflame Demon. Its right arm was covered in an intricate golden demon totem shaped like a vertical eye.

Goldenflame Demons were also among the nine great demon races of the Beyond, and their foundations were incomparably ancient.

On the road ahead, Su Yi discovered numerous similar corpses. In addition to Formless and Goldenflame Demons, there were Floating Demons, Silvermoon Demons, and Wind Ray Demons.

And all of them were Demon Nobles comparable to Immortal Lords!

There were dozens of them in total!

Five of the nine great demon races made an appearance, but they were just a pack of Demon Nobles. With strength like that, there’s no way they could have fought their way into the secret tunnel.

Su Yi’s eyes flashed. He suspected that Demon Kings had led these Demon Nobles into battle, and it was even possible that a Demon Sovereign had appeared!

And... it’s possible that a traitor appeared among our ranks.

Su Yi’s heart was heavy.

Back then, only he and the nine Teaching Elders knew how to open the secret passage to the Underground Palace of Seeking the Profound.

Even if a Demon Sovereign, the strongest among the demons of the Beyond, had appeared, they could never have broken the formation. In other words, it was highly likely that someone in the Academy of Eternal Night had betrayed them and let their enemies inside!

If there was really a traitor, they had to be one of the Nine Great Teaching Elders. No one else could have opened the secret passage.

Su Yi couldn’t help but rub his forehead.

He dared not jump to any conclusions. After all, Wang Ye had chosen to reincarnate after the Battle of Eternal Night, prior to the Age of Fallen Immortals.

Eight thousand years passed between his reincarnation and the onset of the long Age of Fallen Immortals.

And it was during that cataclysm that the Academy of Eternal Night fell.

Su Yi had no idea how the academy had changed between Wang Ye’s reincarnation and the Age of Fallen Immortals. He knew nothing of those eight thousand years at all.

I hope it isn’t as I suspect, Su Yi sighed to himself.

When a tree falls, the monkeys scatter.

When dragons lack a leader, they are sure to run amok.

This is, and always has been, the cruel but unshakeable reality.

Wang Ye was the pillar of the Academy of Eternal Night. With him in attendance, the academy had nothing to fear.

But Wang Ye disappeared after the Battle of Eternal Night. Everyone in the Immortal Realm thought he was dead. It was easy to imagine how great an impact this had on the Academy of Eternal Night.

And that’s before even considering Wang Ye’s greatest enemies—the Blood Firmament Immortal Emperor, Jiang Tai’e, and the Leveling Heavens Immortal Sovereign. How could they possibly let their hated enemy’s faction go?

Even worse, Wang Ye slew twenty-two top experts of the Immortal Dao during the Battle of Eternal Night. Each had a powerful faction behind them.

After the curtains fell on the Battle of Eternal Night, these factions were sure to seek revenge against the Academy of Eternal Night. It was thus easy to imagine how tumultuous and perilous the academy’s situation had been.

But Su Yi knew better than anyone that despite the dire impact of all this, none of that was enough to destroy the academy.

His reasoning was simple.

The Academy of Eternal Night had been the greatest academy in the Immortal Realm, with disciples from different factions and schools of thought from across the Immortal Realm. Their ranks included Buddhists, Daoists, Confucianists, and yao cultivators, among others. The academy's prestige was so high that anyone who tried to attack it would provoke the ire of the entire Immortal Realm, and they’d have to pay a grievous price if they were to succeed.

Furthermore, although many cursed Wang Ye and called him “the Tyrant”, he had numerous fiercely loyal friends.

Like Ye Chunqiu, the "Ancient Spring and Autumn," or Xiao Ruyi, who pursued the "Little Joys of the Immortal Dao," and Xu Fushi, who sought to be "Supreme in This Floating World!"

Or Xing Zhao, one of the three Yao Sovereigns of the Dark Northern Seas, or the seventh leader of the Central Immortal Court, the Southern Profound Immortal Sovereign.

Even disregarding these experts of the pinnacle of the Immortal Dao, Wang Ye’s subordinates were a terrifying force. It wouldn’t do to disregard them!

None of his old friends and allies would have just stood back and watched as external enemies flattened the Academy of Eternal Night.

By now, Su Yi knew that the academy had met its end during the Age of Fallen Immortals.

This proved that, while it might well have suffered in the aftermath of the Battle of Eternal Night, and it might well have shaken on its foundations…the Academy of Eternal Night survived for eight thousand years after Wang Ye’s reincarnation!

Su Yi walked confidently ahead. Before long, he’d reached the end of the tunnel.

A vast underground space, like a hidden realm, appeared before him.

An ancient palace stood at the far end, as towering and majestic as a mountain. It was grand, imposing, and austere.

The Underground Palace of Seeking the Profound!

The most forbidden place in the Academy of Eternal Night!

Back then, Wang Ye put an enormous amount of effort into building it. And his goal... was to leave the Academy of Eternal Night a path to survival. If they encountered insurmountable disaster, all they had to do was take refuge within the Underground Palace of Seeking the Profound. That would be enough to stop even their most powerful enemies from finding them!

But that wasn’t the end of the Underground Palace of Seeking the Profound’s wonders. It contained numerous Daoist canons and other texts, as well as a treasury and an immortal spring useful for cultivation. The treasury contained many of the wondrous treasures Wang Ye had accumulated over the course of his life.

It was no exaggeration to say that the Underground Palace of Seeking the Profound was the greatest treasury of the Academy of Eternal Night!

Glass lamps hovered in the air like stars, casting their clear light and dispelling the darkness.

But when this underground world came into view, Su Yi saw numerous corpses in dense piles. Most had already rotted away.

Their fragmented treasures were rusted, ruined, and strewn across the ground.

It seemed as if this wasn’t a hidden realm at all, but an ancient battlefield turned into a barren graveyard!

Su Yi’s heart sank. It was just as he thought. A brutal, bloody battle had broken out in front of the Underground Palace of Seeking the Profound!

With countless casualties!

Most of the corpses belonged to experts of the Academy of Eternal Night.

But there were also many corpses of demons from the Beyond.

Countless years had passed, and the corpses were no longer recognizable. Furthermore, their belongings were nowhere to be found.

Su Yi took a deep breath, then disregarded all that and proceeded toward the Underground Palace of Seeking the Profound.

A massive ritual ground stood before the palace. It was split into nine regions, like a nine palaces diagram.

Long ago, Wang Ye placed the Nine Extremes Heaven-Slaughtering Formation on the ritual grounds. It consisted of nine unrivaled Great Realm immortal swords.

It was once one of the Immortal Realm’s three great killing formations!

Even experts of the Great Realm would be trapped and killed if they entered the Nine Extremes Heaven-Slaughtering Formation!

But now, the ritual ground had long since split and collapsed, and nothing remained of the Nine Extremes Heaven-Slaughtering Formation. All nine of its unrivaled immortal swords were missing.

When Su Yi saw this, his heart sank, and his expression darkened.

Back then, a traitor surely appeared amongst the Academy of Eternal Night’s ranks!

Otherwise, this sword formation alone could have warded off all of the academy’s enemies!

There were numerous scattered, fragmented corpses here too.

Strangely, they looked as if they’d been gnawed on, and they were riddled with holes, snapped, and strewn about.

Despite Su Yi’s superabundance of experience, he couldn’t identify them.

Hm?

Su Yi’s pupils constricted.

He just saw a figure shrouded in dense death qi sprawled out on the collapsed altar!

But that corpse-like figure seemed to sense Su Yi’s gaze. They suddenly shook, then sat upright.

A pair of bloodthirsty eyes peered out from behind long, matted hair and locked onto Su Yi.

Seth's Thoughts

When Su Yi recalls Wang Ye's old friends, he uses the phrases associated with them, which were introduced back in chapter 1536:

“The ancient spring and autumn, the little joys of the Immortal Dao, Who is supreme in this floating world? Seeing me is like seeing the heavens!” "(..) the House of Little Joys has passed these four phrases down for generations. Each represents a supreme expert at the pinnacle of the Immortal Dao. And the last phrase represents the most mysterious of the four!”