First Immortal of the Sword

Cold gales swept throughout heaven and earth, roaring like dragons.

Suddenly, a clear cry resounded throughout the nine heavens, and a massive figure blotted out the sky.

It was a Great Peng!

Its wings were like clouds filling the sky, and its body was fully one hundred thousand feet long and shrouded in dense, overflowing Dao Light. Its sharp claws glittered as if they were forged out of molten gold.

And its eyes were like lakes of lava reflecting monstrous divine light.

Even mountain ranges seemed minuscule by comparison.

Off in the distance, the disheveled old man clucked his tongue and exclaimed, “I have to say, the bird that baldy raised sure is something!”

Su Yi laughed to himself. How could you compare a Zhuyou Great Peng to ordinary immortal fowl?

Rumor has it that this vicious bird can devour stars whole and rip flood dragons apart with its claws. It’s their natural bane! And its vertical eye can illuminate the subtleties of the nine heavens and ten earths and glean insight into deep, unknowable secrets!

“How’d you steal the bird from the Divine Fulcrum Pure Lands?” Su Yi asked with great interest. The Zhuyou Great Peng was their sect-protecting true spirit, and it was extraordinarily precious.

“I said, I didn’t steal it!” the disheveled old man snapped. He then said with smug pride, “I just told it that if it helped me, I’d find it a lady friend. It was all too happy to come with me. There’s nothing for it; I understand the dirty bird far too well. It’s a perverted hooligan, just like the old baldy!”

“....” Su Yi didn't know what to say to that.

Meanwhile, beneath the dome of heaven, the Zhuyou Great Peng had already gotten to work. It folded its wings and stood in the air. The vertical eye at the center of its forehead slowly opened.

What kind of eye was it?

It was like a dark portal to the netherworld, distant, strange, and indifferent. Countless inscrutable glyphs of the Grand Dao surged within it. And when it fully opened…

Boom!

Heaven and earth shook violently, and the sky distorted, as if time and space had inverted. Even the frigid gales came to a standstill.

Everything was frozen in place.

A streak of incomparably radiant light full of an inscrutable aura swept throughout heaven and earth.

This was the Torch Light of the Zhuyou Great Peng. It could perceive the secrets of heaven and earth, and even scenes of the past, present, and future!

“Tch! The Zhuyou Torch Eye really lives up to its reputation. If I could scoop it out and fuse it into my divination coins, it’d be like adding wings to a tiger.” The disheveled old man’s gaze heated up.

Su Yi said casually, “Sure, but you’d only incur even more severe divine punishments. They mean it when they say the secrets of the heavens are not to be revealed.”

The disheveled old man clamped his jaw shut, then sighed. “When I began my pursuit of the Dao of Divinations, I knew I was stepping onto a path of no return. I’ll never be able to slough off these tribulations.”

As they conversed, a screech echoed through the air. It was the Zhuyou Great Peng! A strange, murky gray streak of tribulation light had slammed into it, trapping it firmly in place.

It couldn’t break free, and its physical body was on the verge of being destroyed. Bloody gashes appeared all over its body, and many of its feathers withered and fell off.

The disheveled old man jumped in fright, then took to the skies and flung a black disc.

Crunch!

The disc shattered into pieces. In the face of the tribulation light, it offered no more resistance than paper.

But the old man had no time to worry about his lost treasure. He bellowed, drew his belt, and shook it in midair.

The belt was actually a black string covered in strange, intricate, and contorted Dao markings. When the old man attacked, it transformed into a lightning whip and struck the tribulation light.

Boom!

A deafening explosion rang out.

The pale gray tribulation light was so strong that the slightest contact split the black string in two!

“Fuck!” The disheveled old man couldn’t help but curse.

The Zhuyou Great Peng shrieked, “You old bastard, can you help me or not? Can’t you tell that I’m on the verge of death? Hurry up and use whatever you’ve got left. Hurry——!”

Su Yi furrowed his brow and was just about to intervene when the old man bellowed, “Don’t! Whatever you do, don’t let that power touch you. If you do, the gods will set their sights on you, and you’ll be in for endless trouble!”

The bony old man gnashed his teeth and charged, holding a foot-wide bronze disc aloft in both hands. He swung it with all his might.

Boom!!

The pale gray tribulation light shook violently, but in the end, it couldn’t take it and collapsed with a bang.

But a strange scene followed. The tribulation light scattered like rain, burning black marks on the surface of the old fortune-teller’s bronze disc.

The rain of light touched the old fortune teller too, leaving tiny holes in his skin. He grimaced in pain and yelped repeatedly, but in the end, he held on.

After he saved the Zhuyou Great Peng, it shrank until it was just about a foot tall and staggered in midair before steadying itself.

However, its vertical eye was bleeding. It was a startling sight!

“How are your wounds?” Su Yi immediately rushed over.

However, the disheveled old man seemed to disregard his wounds. He grinned and slapped his thigh. “We did it! I just knew that after you returned to the Immortal Realm, the secrets of Mount Taiwu’s disappearance would resurface!”

But then, he broke into hacking coughs. His face paled, and he almost toppled out of the sky.

Su Yi helped support him, then sighed. “If you die, I’ll be ill at ease for the rest of my life.”

The old man said irritably, “Relax! I’ve overcome too many tribulations to count. I don’t care about this one.”

“I’m the one who suffered the most, okay? If I’d known I’d run into a tribulation like this, I wouldn’t have agreed to come even if you’d found thousands of lady Great Pengs for me!” shrieked the Zhuyou Great Peng. Its feathers had fallen off, and its skin was charred. In its bald state, it looked extraordinarily wretched.

The old fortune teller said urgently, “Never mind all that. Hurry up and tell us what exactly you saw?”

Su Yi looked at the bird too.

But instead of answering, the Zhuyou Great Peng wailed, “How could you worry about anything else when my wounds are this serious? You have no conscience, old man!”

Whap!

The old man smacked the bird on the head and bellowed, “I lost two of my secret treasures to save your life, and even my Amplifying Divinity Disc was damaged. I got hurt badly, too. Are you seriously still going to say I don’t care about you?”

The Zhuyou Great Peng instantly wilted and sighed. “This is what they mean when they speak of ill-fated encounters. How could I have fallen for your lies?”

But when it saw that the old man was about to hit it again, it hurriedly explained what it saw with its Zhuyou Torch Eye.

“When I examined this place earlier, I caught a hint of a strange and mysterious power. Before I could react, I found myself in an illusory space,” said the bird. Its eyes were full of undisguisable terror. “There, I saw a river cutting across the void. It was enormous, and it looked endless!

“And I also saw figures standing atop it!

“There was a woman seated on a Vermillion Bird, surrounded by an endless sea of flame, and a man standing atop a cloud with countless stars shining behind him.

“There was a gaunt monk with three heads and six arms walking through an ocean of blood and mountains of corpses. He held a vast and holy Buddhist kingdom aloft in the palm of his hand.

“And there was a Daoist seated on a wooden sword. He looked like a teenager, but when he scanned his surroundings, endless sword qi ripped through the void!”

The Zhuyou Great Peng shuddered from head to toe. “Most terrifying of all was the figure standing in the darkness. I couldn’t see his features clearly, but the countless talisman markings around him manifested a divine ring out of the power of the Laws behind him.”

Su Yi and the disheveled old man exchanged glances. They could already guess that the “river” the bird spoke of was the River of Epochs.

And the figures standing atop it were undoubtedly gods!

They couldn’t help but feel solemn after this revelation. They now dared say with certainty that the gods were involved in Mount Taiwu’s disappearance!

“He was far too terrifying!” said the Zhuyou Great Peng. “I barely even glanced at the figure hiding in the darkness, but I felt a rending pain in my soul, as if it were being ripped apart. Just as I was on the verge of breaking, the man in the shadows said, ‘Just as I thought. You really aren’t dead!’”

The bird looked completely baffled. It muttered, “What a waste of breath! If I were dead, how could I possibly have used my Zhuyou Torch Eye to see all that? Right? Right?”

The old fortune teller glanced at Su Yi and transmitted, “It seems my hypothesis was right on the mark. The gods were behind Mount Taiwu’s disappearance, and they indeed used it as bait to draw you here. They knew you’d take the bait after returning to the Immortal Realm, and now, they’ve set their sights on you!”

“You really aren’t dead!”

Those words were, of course, directed at Wang Ye, who’d undergone reincarnation and returned as Su Yi! The disheveled old fortune teller understood that full well.

Furthermore, he gleaned new truths from this statement!

But Su Yi knew that the “you” the gods referred to wasn’t just Wang Ye. It also referred to his past lives, especially the two who’d died at the hands of the gods!

He knew this because of his encounter with Divine Emissary Mi Zhen in the Starjade Forbidden Zone’s Path of Endless Trials.

Mi Zhen had served the Dipankara Buddha, the Buddha of the Past.

At the time, Mi Zhen told Su Yi that two of his past lives had died at the hands of the gods.

Once over the River of Epochs, and once in the Heavenly Fate God Domain!

It was also then that Su Yi learned that despite the gods killing him twice, they failed to truly end him.

This was, naturally, thanks to the Sword of the Nine Hells!

At the same time, the gods seemed to know that he’d reincarnated. In the name of eradicating him completely, they worked together to restrict the natural order of the Immortal Realm and kill everyone they found suspicious.

They even used the Laws of the natural order to unleash catastrophe upon the Human Realm, shattering the Path of Transcendence and severing the mortal and immortal!

And they sent their emissaries to search the Human Realm for the power of reincarnation!

All of this was to sever the Reincarnator’s road ahead and restrict his cultivation!

This was why his incarnations went from being strong enough to fight gods to… growing weaker with each incarnation.

The Dark and Gold Star Realm’s access to the Path of Heaven’s Ascension was severed in ancient times. In the Eastern Profound Star Domain, the End of the Dharma shattered the Path of Transcendence. The cataclysm of the Age of Fallen Immortals swept through the Immortal Realm.

The gods were behind all of these catastrophes!

It was also during this encounter with Mi Zhen on the River of Spacetime that the Dipankara Buddha tried to kill him, only for the mysterious Luo Yao to come to his aid.

And Luo Yao, a woman with the power to fight gods, called Su Yi her “Daoist Brother!”