Chapter Twelve: Ancestor of the Primordial Spirit Realm

Chengyue, Chengjin, and Liao had been running for dozens of miles.
“Fellow Daoist Chengyue, where exactly are we heading?”
Liao, gasping for breath, could not help but ask.
“Naturally, we’re going to my Sword Martial Sect. According to the map, it’s farther from here than your Xuantian Dao Sect! Once we arrive, we’ll ask my master to help avenge Junior Brother Chengkun!”
Chengyue’s expression was steely. She had never expected the snake demon entrenched in that village to be a master of the Unification Realm. The matter was likely far more complicated; those monsters must be plotting something sinister.
“That’s good. Why don’t you fly ahead to your sect, Chengyue? Chengjin and I will wait nearby for you and your master. Then we’ll go slay the demon together!”
Liao proposed a compromise. He and Chengjin lacked spells for swift travel, whereas Chengyue could ride sword light and cover a thousand miles in a day.
Chengyue glanced at the two and agreed that there was no time to lose. If the snake demon escaped now, it would be difficult to track her down again. She nodded, and a streak of green light appeared in her hand; the sword of light whisked her body skyward, and in the blink of an eye, she had vanished.
Elsewhere, Xu Cheng was silently gathering spell talismans. Yet the snake demon would occasionally bring over a bowl of meat broth—in which it was sometimes his own hand, sometimes his leg!
Forming talismans was taxing, and with his collarbone pierced, Xu Cheng had to rest after focusing for a while.
“Your flesh is surprisingly tasty!”
The snake demon licked her crimson lips and remarked. Xu Cheng had just stopped cultivating and saw that the foot in her bowl was his own.
In this moment, silence was Xu Cheng’s only weapon.
“Not speaking? Well, you’re out of hands and feet now! Let’s see how your tongue tastes!”
The snake demon grabbed Xu Cheng’s jaw, forcing his mouth open. He felt a salty, fishy liquid flooding his mouth, and his tongue was torn out.
“Mmm… mmm…”
Unable to speak, Xu Cheng could only groan, his tongue gone.
“Hahaha!”
The snake demon laughed heartily, clutching his tongue as she left.
Fortunately, Xu Cheng’s cultivator’s resilience allowed his bleeding to stop after a short while, though the pain still burned fiercely.
He vowed silently, “If I do not avenge this, I am no true man. Should I escape with my life, I will hunt this snake demon to the ends of the earth!”
He calmed his mind and continued his cultivation. Unexpectedly, the agony quickened his pace in forming talismans, though even so, he could only complete two hundred a day.
Meanwhile, Chengyue rode her sword light, pushing herself with every ounce of strength, and finally, after an entire day, she reached the Sword Martial Sect.
“Master! Master!”
She landed, breathless, calling out.
“Yue’er, what makes you so anxious?”

Crossing a narrow path, an elder appeared ahead—none other than Chengyue’s master, Sword Sage Jianyu. Jianyu’s bearing was like a sword unsheathed; approach him, and one felt surrounded by tens of thousands of blades.
Skipping lengthy explanations, Chengyue quickly relayed her urgent tale: when they investigated the snake demon, Chengkun was devoured and the three survivors barely escaped. She hoped Sword Sage Jianyu would avenge Chengjin.
“A snake demon! Hmph! How dare it prey on members of my Sword Martial Sect!”
Jianyu, fiercely protective, radiated such anger that swords flashed in the air all around him.
“Shura! Enlarge!”
Jianyu performed a spell, summoning a sword in the sky that grew until it could carry five or six people. He pulled Chengyue onto it, and together they became a streak of light, vanishing toward the horizon.
In the blink of an eye, they returned to the spot where Liao and Chengjin waited.
“Chengjin, and the young brother from Xuantian Dao Sect—quick, board the sword!”
Jianyu’s voice thundered through the space below. Liao and Chengjin revealed themselves, having hidden in a cave for safety, wary of the snake demon’s pursuit.
Once atop the sword, they sensed the immense power of the sword cultivator. Were it not for Jianyu’s restraint, their mere presence would have prevented them from boarding the sword at all.
The divine blade surged beneath them, carrying all four at blinding speed. Liao felt no instability, as if standing on solid ground.
After the time it took a stick of incense to burn, they arrived at the oppressive village. Liao worried inwardly whether his foolish junior brother was still alive.
“Spirit sense: Sword awakens all things!”
Jianyu murmured, and suddenly everything seemed to come alive—but all in the form of swords. Even mice and frogs bore sword shapes.
“So he really is an Ancestor of the Spirit Realm!”
Liao had suspected Jianyu’s cultivation, but seeing it firsthand stunned him.
Meanwhile, the snake demon in her lair sensed something amiss, her animal instincts warning her.
“Hmph! Those three must have brought reinforcements. To feel such deadly threat, it must be at least a Spirit Ancestor. You really do have powerful allies!”
She seized Xu Cheng’s collar and snarled. He was covered in blood and unable to speak. But her words gave Jianyu the opening to lock onto her location.
“Sword settles the universe, ten thousand swords unite! Slay!”
Behind Jianyu, tens of thousands of swords materialized and surged toward the cave where the snake demon hid.
The boulder above her head was blasted open, exposing her back to the storm of sword energy.
“To think I’ve failed at the last moment! Damn it!”
The snake demon narrowly dodged the first wave of sword energy. Had Jianyu not been so skilled, Xu Cheng would have been struck as well.
“Junior brother!”
Liao spotted Xu Cheng from afar, but his condition was wretched.
“Let your junior brother go meet the King of Hell!”

The snake demon hurled a mass of glowing green, which split midair into hundreds of green snakes, darting toward Xu Cheng.
“Still want to kill?”
Jianyu roared, and lightning-fast sword energy shredded the snakes to bits. Yet, with this distraction, the snake demon slipped underground and fled for miles.
“Running again!”
Furious, Jianyu set Chengyue and Chengjin down, then became a streak of silver and disappeared.
As Jianyu was about to catch up, the woman cried, “Lord Demon, save me!”
A massive, inky-black hand appeared ahead, grabbing for Jianyu.
“Another Spirit Realm practitioner?”
Jianyu saw through his opponent’s strength at a glance. He transformed into a gigantic sword and cleaved through the hand. Yet, the snake demon had already vanished, leaving only a trace of demonic aura in the air, and Jianyu returned in frustration.
“Junior brother, are you all right?”
Liao freed Xu Cheng from the iron hook. Tongueless, Xu Cheng could only mumble incoherently.
“My poor junior brother!”
Liao wailed, then burst into tears.
“He’s still alive! Take him back to your sect—perhaps there’s a miraculous spell to restore him!”
Chengyue, seeing the scene, couldn’t help but reassure them. To a stranger, it might look as if Xu Cheng had already died.
“You’re right, maybe Master has a way!”
Liao stopped crying at once, and Xu Cheng inwardly complained about his eccentric senior brother.
A flash of silver appeared above; Jianyu returned.
“Master, did you avenge Junior Brother Chengkun?”
Chengyue rushed forward to ask, and Liao watched keenly, wondering if a Spirit Ancestor could easily handle a Unification Realm demon.
“No. Another demon of the Spirit Realm blocked me. From today onward, you two will return to seclusion. Until you reach the Unification Realm, you are not permitted to leave!”
Jianyu’s voice became cold.
“Master!”
Chengyue, much like Liao, enjoyed roaming and hated being bound by sect rules.
“No more discussion. When you both reach the Unification Realm, I shall allow you to avenge him personally!”
Jianyu’s tone brooked no argument.