"After the Li clan of Heavenly Sword Mountain was exiled, its branches grew vast over the years, yet their lineage remained remarkably clear. Everyone's deep roots and orthodox bloodline were distinctly recorded. The era I belonged to was one when several major branches were at their most prominent—and most magnificent. Back then, I was still an unmarried maiden. I was also a child of the third-ranked Lineage among the five great Lineages of the Li clan, and I witnessed the Li clan's sweeping rise and fall..." Li Huairong thought for a moment, seemingly transported back to the past in an instant.
"There were actually five Lineages..." I was startled. This was far more detailed than what Xuan Xichen and Li Guxian had told me. I had no idea how long Li Huairong had lived, but she had clearly enjoyed an astonishingly long life.
"Heh, five Lineages wasn't that many. There were quite a few other Li branches that had split off but weren't important enough to be counted. I was only talking about the several branches that could be considered major at the time... Back then, the Li clan fought among themselves. The most powerful, from ancient times to the present, was always the Heavenly Sword Lineage, which was also the inheriting Lineage of Heavenly Sword Mountain. As for the several branches beneath it, they were really nothing more than embellishments of the main Household Lineage, enfeoffed throughout the various regions of Heavenly Sword Mountain's domain." Li Huairong explained.
"That Sword God Lineage possesses the Large and Small Sword Arts. Shouldn't it have been the strongest?" I asked in surprise.
"The fragments of the Twelve Chapters of the Heavenly Sword—the Offensive and Defensive Sword Stances, the Inner and Outer Sword Hearts, the Large and Small Sword Arts, the Suppressing Sword