A single thought could turn the sea into a vast expanse; in the blink of an eye, it could bring life and death.
Ten thousand years were but an instant; a moment could last for eternity.
The universe was vast, and countless lives busied themselves scrambling for survival.
The birth and death of humans, the withering and flourishing of trees, the vicissitudes of mountains and seas, the birth and death of planets, and the changes of the universe.
They had no basis for comparison, much less any way to understand one another.
Across the boundless starry sky, countless powerful beings were likewise fighting for the right to survive and seeking a path to immortality.
Countless stars formed a galaxy. Within the void of this galaxy, a Fairy seemed to drift through the ages, her sleeves fluttering. She was elegant and ethereal.
She wandered through the universe. Because of her existence, divine power radiated outward, making the starlight of this galaxy shine bright and splendid.
As the Fairy grew stronger, more and more cosmic dust gathered around her. Gradually, the dust condensed into masses. With the boost of the Fairy's power, they slowly transformed into stars, joined the galaxy, revolved around her, and glittered brilliantly.
On these new stars formed from cosmic dust, life slowly appeared as the river of time flowed onward.
They multiplied and flourished, passing things down from generation to generation.
The Fairy continued wandering through the universe, constantly encountering other powerful beings—sometimes fighting, sometimes fleeing, sometimes confronting them, and sometimes forming alliances.
The countless lives on the planets that depended on the Fairy knew nothing of this.
They struggled to survive, struggled to reproduce, struggled to compete, and struggled to pass on their legacies.
They did not know that if the Fairy ever fell, this entire galaxy would slowly turn to dust.
They did not know, and so they remained simple yet calculating, complicated yet simple.
They did not know that the time spanning countless generations of their lives was but the space between a single breath of the Fairy.
All around the Fairy, both near and far, were beings like her. To the west was a gigantic wolf, to the east a hideous scorpion, and to the south a huge bear.
Farther away were countless powerful beings of strange and grotesque forms.
Around every being was a powerful, vibrant galaxy teeming with life.
They fought one another, formed alliances, confronted one another, hunted one another, and depended on one another. In this vast universe, they acted out the laws of survival belonging to beings as powerful as themselves.
Yet even they were subject to the law of the jungle, just like the weak in their eyes!
In a still more distant region of the universe, more stars formed a vast ocean.
At the edge of this sea of stars, the light of one galaxy had already grown extremely dim.
That was because the being upon which this galaxy depended had died.
In the void, a gigantic, hideous beast stood with its head held high, utterly motionless.
It had once been a god whose power had known no bounds.
Its head was like a lion's, its tail like a scorpion's, its neck like a dragon's, and its limbs like a bear's. Its two wings shone with alternating light and darkness—the Wings Covering the Sky.
This was a powerful Flying Bear.
Its eyes still glared ferociously into the void, and its hands remained poised in an attacking motion.
Its body still radiated the blazing power that sustained the galaxy.
But its formidable vitality had already vanished.
It was dead.
Yet the galaxy that depended on its power still existed.
The lives within the galaxy had no idea that the being upon which they depended had died.
The planets beneath their feet would soon scatter completely into cosmic dust after losing their divine power.
They continued developing with fervor in their respective pursuits.
Some fought for supremacy, some studied, some schemed against one another, and some deceived one another...
Not far from it, in the starry sky, a gigantic centipede stretched endlessly across space. Around it lay a bright and splendid galaxy.
Its entire body emitted a strange blue light.
The blue light was constantly devouring the Flying Bear's galaxy...
Clearly, this centipede was the murderer who had killed the Flying Bear.
Its divine radiance was also completing the final plunder after killing its opponent.
The Flying Bear stood silently.
Waiting to disappear.
Waiting to be completely devoured by the centipede.
Or waiting to be replaced or surpassed by a new god.
Flying Bear Star System, on one of its resource planets.
Earth Star!
Two factions had been fighting for more than ten thousand years.
One side believed that benevolent thoughts were fundamental. All living beings possessed benevolent thoughts; as long as those thoughts were guided, the world would surely become peaceful, and life would surely grow better and better.
The other side believed that evil thoughts were eternal. All living beings were born evil and naturally followed the law of the jungle. Even plants developed canopies and root systems that squeezed out the living space of other plants—how much more so for living beings? The human world was a great arena. Who was nobler than anyone else?
Even ants treasured their lives. Living beings competed and slaughtered one another every moment. Who in this world had not killed countless creatures? And yet they still proclaimed themselves sages? Thus, two great factions emerged.
The positions and beliefs of both sides were unshakably firm.
Good and evil could not coexist.
The benevolent side, however, was advantageous for ruling and maintaining social order.
Thus, the benevolent side gradually became the ruling force across the continent, but the evil side never disappeared. It too possessed immense power and had infiltrated every industry across the continent.
One side was the orthodox faction, the other its enemy. Naturally, they became mortal foes.
One side regarded the other as its greatest threat, while the other regarded its opponent as an enemy sworn to the death. After countless years, the two factions confronted one another and fought to the bitter end.
But at some point, the evil side changed its faith and began worshiping the Heavenly Centipede God.
From that moment onward, the balance of the battle gradually, slowly, ever so slowly began to tilt...
An old, dilapidated temple.
It enshrined a statue of a deity no one could identify.
It seemed to depict a beast.
Its head was like a lion's, its tail like a scorpion's, its neck like a dragon's, and its limbs like a bear's. It had a pair of wings.
According to what the old people passed down by word of mouth, this was the ancient Flying Bear God.
No one knew what the Flying Bear God was responsible for. Countless gods existed in every legend, but no one had ever heard of anything the Flying Bear God governed.
Thus, the incense offered to the Flying Bear God had dwindled to an extreme.
The Flying Bear God's wings were now both broken, and its tail had been snapped off several times. All that remained was a lump behind its buttocks.
One of its upper foreclaws had broken off, and its ears were gone as well.
One of its eyeballs had even been gouged out.
Rain poured down from the heavens.
Seven people sheltered from the downpour inside the ruined temple.
The temple had fallen into disrepair. Outside, heavy rain fell; inside, moderate rain fell. Still, they had managed to clear out a little dry space.
After shielding it with their clothes and such, it was just enough to stay in.
Bright crimson rainwater ran down from the seven people's backs and merged into the streams.
All seven were gravely wounded.
No wonder they had holed up in this tiny temple. With such heavy rain and such severe injuries, if they continued traveling through the storm, they probably would not last long before dropping dead.
The atmosphere was extremely solemn.
"This mission has left me sick to my stomach. I really want to slaughter every last one of those bastards from the Sole True Sect..."
One person sighed, breaking the silence. "A hundred and seventy thousand people! Two small towns, warriors and ordinary folk alike—and not one survived. When I saw the corpses covering the ground, I collapsed on the spot."
The others remained silent.
Yet an oppressive atmosphere spread soundlessly.
After a long while, someone said hoarsely, "The Sole True Sect has committed countless heinous acts. Just the aftermath of massacres we've witnessed with our own eyes has happened four times already. And there are all those bloodbaths we've only heard about—blood debts piled sky-high. But the Sole True Sect has existed for tens of thousands of years, and we still haven't been able to eradicate them."
"This time, apparently, they discovered our mole, so they massacred the villages and towns to vent their anger and make an example. Damn it! What does discovering a mole have to do with ordinary people? Those bastards from the Sole True Sect truly have no humanity!"
"When have they ever uncovered one of our moles without massacring the towns and civilians?" several others said with a sigh.
"That's their method. Whenever they expose a mole, the mole's hometown is inevitably razed to the ground. If the mole has no hometown, they simply slaughter two towns at random to intimidate us. When have they ever cared about the innocent? The Sole True Sect only cares that its own interests are not threatened. For that, it wouldn't care if it slaughtered everyone under heaven."
"It's a shame we can't find their headquarters. Otherwise... sigh!"
A sigh escaped. Everyone's spirits sank.
No one had ever managed to locate the headquarters of the Sole True Sect. The Guardians had sacrificed countless experts and worked for countless years, yet had never made any progress.
Now that the Sole True Sect's strength had grown increasingly vast, that hope had become even more remote.
No one spoke after that. The atmosphere was as oppressive as the storm clouds overhead.
Several sighs.
Heavy and stifling silence.
After a long while, perhaps deliberately trying to break the uncomfortable atmosphere, someone said:
"Boss, we can rest for a while after this mission, right? This hurts like hell."
One of them clutched his chest. "I want some leave."
"Heh... single dog, do you really want leave? You want to go home for a blind date, don't you? I heard your family sent you a letter a few days ago?"
The boss sneered. "Fourth, don't harbor too many fantasies about life. Maybe your blind date will be as fat as a pig, as stupid as a donkey, as short as a vat, and as ugly as you."
The other five immediately convulsed.
They were laughing, but the laughter tugged at their wounds, making them convulse in pain.
"Boss, that mouth of yours truly lives up to your nickname, Drunken Swordsman!"
Fourth instantly broke down. His brows twisted ferociously as he wailed, "I just want to take some leave! Did you have to curse me so viciously?"
The boss leaned in the Flying Bear God's lap, his head resting against the statue's crotch. A terrifying hole pierced through the right side of his upper chest.
"Fourth, you need to wake up. Life isn't only about ugly women from faraway blind dates. The most important thing is the sordid mess right in front of you."
He struggled to steady his breathing, sprinkled medicinal powder over his wound again and again, and drawled lazily, "We haven't escaped the Sole True Sect's pursuit yet. Forget about such a wonderful thing as a blind date for now. We'll talk about it after we truly get back."
"But after hearing you say that, I suddenly don't want to go back anymore."
Fourth spoke mournfully.
"Don't think so badly of it. Maybe she really will be a woman." The boss closed his eyes and offered his blessing.
But once those words came out, Fourth did not even want to speak anymore.
I'm a man. If I'm looking for a wife, who else would I look for besides a woman? What does 'maybe she really will be a woman' mean? That sentence is downright heinous.
"I'm taking leave when we get back too. My daughter was born two months ago, and I still haven't seen her." Seventh's face was filled with tenderness.
The others immediately wore their most auntie-like smiles. "Need us to help choose her name?"
"Thank you, but no." Seventh's face was full of wariness.
Clearly, he knew these fellows could not produce anything good from their dog mouths.
This time, the boss was not joking. He closed his eyes, fell silent for a moment, then said softly, "Don't forget to take my gift back to NanNan."
"Yes." Seventh slowly nodded.
"And don't forget ours either."
"But when we get back, our Ninth Squad will have made a name for itself. At the very least, getting promoted should be no problem, right?" Fifth's face was full of longing.
"It shouldn't be a problem. We have enough merits—more than a hundred."
Second calculated carefully. "We can become Gold Medal Guardians. Though that means Gold Medals for the whole team. Only the boss has enough merit for an individual Gold Medal; the rest of us can only get Silver Medals. We each still need to complete another three or four hundred merit points' worth of missions, but we're not far off."
"I'll be satisfied with a Gold Medal. Many Venerable-level experts are only Gold Medal holders. We're merely Emperor-level. What more could we ask for?"
Everyone was quite satisfied.
"Boss, won't you be able to call yourself Gold-Rank Drunken Sword from now on?"
Fifth had a sudden inspiration.
The others immediately burst out laughing. "Yes. Officially recognized: Gold-Rank Drunken Sword Fang Zhi."
The boss, Fang Zhi, rolled his eyes, shifted his body, and said, "Ugh, the underside of this Flying Bear God is pressing against me so uncomfortably. Did they carve that thing too? I can't move right now. Who's going to help me adjust it?"
"Boss, that's not easy to deal with. It's hard to make it go soft."
Fourth tossed out a sarcastic remark.
Still, he stood up and tried to help the boss shift position.
Just then.
A sharp wind roared through the sky.
Then came a boom. It seemed that two powerful beings had clashed in midair, and the entire earth trembled.
All seven were jolted off the ground and dropped back down. They looked at one another, utterly bewildered and terrified.
Pfft! Fang Zhi's buttocks landed squarely on the protrusion beneath the statue again. In an instant, he wished he were dead. His mouth hung open, his eyes bulged with rage, yet he could not make a sound.
His face turned waxen yellow, and beads of cold sweat the size of soybeans seeped out.
"What the hell is this!"
He reached out to feel it.
It seemed to be a piece of iron? Using all his strength, he pulled it out from beneath himself and was just about to breathe a sigh of relief.
Then he heard a swish.
A figure dropped from the sky.
A spear, illuminated by lightning, gave off a ghastly white glow.
It seemed to be made of white bone.
All seven were shocked at once, their hearts plunging into an icy cavern.
There was only one spear like this under heaven.
"The Cloud Top Weapon Compendium's White Bone Dream Shattering Spear!"
How could such a powerful existence have appeared?
"They're hunting us? What the hell, are they using a butcher's cleaver to kill chickens?"
The instant the figure landed before the temple, the torrential rain filling the sky seemed to stop as well. Within a hundred zhang around where the person had landed, not a single raindrop remained.
Yet in the distance, the downpour was clearly still raging, the strands of rain linking together into lines.
The man was thin and tall, but standing within the curtain of rain, he seemed to be propping up the entire rainy sky.
The space behind him seemed to have turned into darkness. Alone, he blocked out all light!
He leaned on the White Bone Spear and looked up. With a single glance, he saw the expressions in the seven people's eyes.
In an instant, he identified them as enemies, not friends.
"Die!"
The spearhead sprang up and shot forward in an instant.
One thrust, seven kills.
Seven streaks of light flew out like meteors.
All seven were already gravely wounded and had no way to dodge.
What was more, the newcomer's cultivation was far above theirs. Though it was merely a casual strike, even if they had been unharmed and at their peak, they still could not have blocked it! The gap was simply too great!
A sigh.
It carried a trace of relief.
The broken body of Fang Zhi, the eldest brother, with a gaping hole in his chest, suddenly flew up from the divine statue. At this moment, his reaction had already become instinct.
He spread his arms and charged into the spear shadows like a moth throwing itself into the flames.
In his hand, he still clutched the Iron Shard stained with his own blood.
He had just pried it from the divine statue.
But in his haste, this was the only weapon Fang Zhi could draw out by relying on instinct.
With a clang.
It was extremely faint.
Blood-light burst apart.
"Big brother!"
The six men shouted together, grief-stricken beyond words.
Fang Zhi's body abruptly scattered into blood-colored fragments within the spear shadows, unable even to leave behind a final word.
Yet he had blocked every attack.
Because at the instant he threw himself forward, a blade-ray descended from the sky.
The blade-ray was more dazzling than lightning.
It intercepted the opponent's spear.
And it also stopped right before Fang Zhi's chest.
The blade-ray and spearhead collided at Fang Zhi's chest, but this was, after all, the White Bone Dream Shattering Spear. Even this blade could only halt the opponent's follow-up attacks; it could not save Fang Zhi.
The blade-light flashed, giving everyone a strange feeling. It seemed that this slash had severed every bond in the world.
From then on, the heart was left vast and empty.
The clash of blade and spear erupted with an unprecedented burst of energy and light, illuminating everyone's brows and eyes in jade-green!
Moreover, the radiance lingered without fading!
Fang Zhi's entire body turned into blood-colored fragments and exploded outward, as though draping the radiance in a vivid red halo.
This was not light that a clash of blade and spear could produce.
Both the wielder of the blade and the wielder of the spear revealed astonishment in their eyes.
The eldest brother's life had only blocked the opponent for less than a second.
But that sliver of time was already enough.
A thin figure, White as Snow, landed in the ruined temple amid the pouring rain without a speck of dust on him.
His back seemed to carry a hint of loneliness.
He held a long blade, its light white as snow.
"Duan Xiyang, your opponent is me!"
The Cloud Top Weapon Compendium's Dream-Transcending Emotion Severing Blade.
Another legend had arrived.
The two stood facing each other. Behind one, darkness filled the heavens; behind the other, the world remained as it was. It was as though light and darkness existed simultaneously, sharply distinct yet evenly matched.
The sensation was bizarre beyond words.
But the six men had no time left to be shocked.
Their hearts had long since been filled with grief. In their eyes, cracked with rage, there was only the sight of their eldest brother's body torn to pieces within the opponent's spear shadows.
"Big brother..."
The six men felt their hearts shatter piece by piece.
They raised their eyes and stared at the spear-wielder with eyes blazing red.
The White Bone Dream Shattering Spear, Duan Xiyang! They would carve this man's face into their memories forever.
Within the space where blade and spear had clashed, that radiance still remained. Moreover, at this very instant, it suddenly blazed brighter.
The wielders of the blade and spear both revealed shocked expressions.
They retreated at the same time.
Then, the mass of radiance suddenly shot into the sky, tore through the curtain of rain and the void, and vanished in an instant.
A bolt of lightning split the endless sky.
A peal of thunder rang out, and the mountains, rivers, and lands all trembled.
"An omen?! Soul snatching?!"
The two men, the Dream Shattering Spear and the Emotion Severing Blade, both shook violently. Then they made the same move.
They swept out their divine senses.
But they sensed no fragmented soul energy at all.
It was as though no one had died here.
Only a trace remained on the tip of the Dream Shattering Spear, and even that was rapidly fading.
The two reached out at the same time, their fingers pointing toward the spearhead.
They sensed the slightest hint of it, and it had already vanished.
The Emotion Severing Blade furrowed his brows. "You severed his true self?"
The Dream Shattering Spear frowned. "I didn't sever it completely. Less than thirty percent."
The two men's expressions changed simultaneously.
"Who was that person?"
Almost at the same moment, the two asked the six men.
Then, without the slightest hesitation, the Emotion Severing Blade turned and slashed thousands of times at the Dream Shattering Spear like a raging storm.
The blade-rays gathered into a canopy of light that blotted out the sky.
"Go!"
He himself spun around, and a whirlwind suddenly rose, sweeping up the six men's bodies. With a sharp whoosh, they transformed in midair into a streak of rapid light.
In an instant, they vanished beyond the horizon.
With a resounding boom,
Duan Xiyang of the White Bone Spear rode boundless darkness up to the cloud tops. Watching the light in the distance that he could no longer catch, his eyes flickered.
"Investigate!"
"He definitely isn't dead!"
For a long time afterward, both sides across the entire continent began conducting all sorts of secret searches.
A soul omen!
This side regarded Fang Zhi as the chosen one and the hope of the future; that side regarded Fang Zhi as a thorn in its eye and a thorn in its flesh, a great enemy of the future.
They searched for many years without finding any result.
But there were always people who continued striving.
It was not until a hundred years later that they finally gave up. At least publicly, they no longer issued new orders each year.
Whether anyone was still investigating in secret was unknown.
As for Fang Zhi's six brothers, they had never forgotten. They continued searching in secret.
They never gave up, searching year after year in their own way.
They firmly believed that their eldest brother was still alive!
Time flowed on.
One hundred years, two hundred years, five hundred years passed...
In the end, they still could not find him.
(A new reader error-reporting feature has been added to Qidian. If you find any mistakes, you can use it to notify me, and I'll see it immediately in the backend. Thanks for your effort.)
My hand has recovered, and I didn't get slashed. The curse of one slash per book has been broken; I'm back to full strength.