The Past That Once Was

Within the village, now a complete shambles, a killing aura permeated the air. The surrounding Black Wind Bandits had all become wary, their grips on their sabers tightening involuntarily.

As the leader of this expedition, the one-eyed big man's strength was something these Black Wind Bandits knew only too well!

An Entry Realm Warrior,

and one at mid-Entry Realm,

the one-eyed big man was strong enough to easily cut down any one of them!

Yet such a powerful expert had been wounded by the youth opposite him in a single exchange!

Could this boy

be some passing expert from beyond these lands?!

The Black Wind Bandits all felt somewhat tense.

Meanwhile, disbelief still lingered on the one-eyed big man's face!

That strike in their exchange

had also confirmed something for him:

the little brat before him truly was not a martial artist!

If he had been an Entry Realm Warrior who had cultivated Qi and Blood, that slash just now would have been enough to kill him in one blow!

It was precisely because the blade had been so light and powerless

that he had escaped disaster!

But

why?

Why was it like this?!

He had been wounded by an ordinary person who was not even a martial artist?!

"I am no longer the man I once was!"

As the one-eyed big man began doubting his life, Yang Qingyun, seated on horseback and looking at the bloodstained saber in his hand, revealed a weathered sorrow in his eyes that did not match his youthful face.

Indeed,

he was not yet a martial artist.

He had only just been reborn,

but

within this young body lived the soul of a Viscera Refining expert who had weathered the world and roamed the future for thirty years!

The Martial Path began at Entry Realm, followed by Body Tempering, Blood Exchange, Viscera Refining, and Innate Realm.

Perhaps in the new era ten years after the Spiritual Qi Resurgence, a Viscera Refining Realm martial artist was nothing special.

But in this old era,

a Viscera Refining Realm martial artist was already a first-rate expert throughout the Southern Wilderness!

Especially after the road ahead had been cut off in his Previous Life, he had spent ten years tempering himself in the Viscera Refining Realm, digging into every muscle, every wisp of Qi and Blood, every scrap of force, and every posture of exertion in his body, mastering his own strength to its utmost peak!

This was a powerhouse who, at peak Viscera Refining Realm, could challenge opponents above his level and slay Innate Realm experts in defiance of the natural order—a man capable of achieving feats that would shake the entire martial world in the old era!

"My experiences are not something you can comprehend!"

"You cannot imagine how much I once paid to obtain this strength."

Scenes of the past swept through his eyes.

Deep in Yang Qingyun's gaze were longing, unwillingness, and fury. In the end, as his Previous Life faded away, everything turned into a long sigh.

In his Previous Life,

because his body's Potential had been Squeezed Dry,

his Talent for cultivation had been as poor as worthless trash after he stepped onto the Martial Path.

Every step forward had been fraught with difficulties!

But so what?

His body's Potential had been exhausted, making it difficult for his cultivation to advance even an inch?

Then he would put in ten times the effort of others and use sheer hard work to Make Up For the gap in cultivation speed!

He could not advance to Innate Realm, could not switch to cultivating immortal techniques, and the road ahead was cut off?

Then he would dig deeper into the strength he already possessed, master every fraction of Qi and Blood and every thread of force, and excavate every bit of Potential already within his body!

His bodily origin was depleted, leaving the Qi and Blood in his body far less abundant than that of Viscera Refining Realm martial artists of the Same Realm, making him less enduring in battles against opponents of the same rank?

Then he would practice again and again, trying to reduce the consumption of strength in battle, save every fraction of Qi and Blood expended, and achieve ten parts of effect with one part of strength!

As long as he could move forward, no amount of effort was too great!

If practicing once was not enough,

then ten times, a hundred times, a thousand times!

Again and again, he repeated dull cultivation; day after day, he trained without taste or color!

The hands that practiced the saber were covered in thick calluses!

Even when he could not see any progress, even when a hundred or a thousand sessions of training brought no visible improvement,

he still did not give up!

At last, through more than ten years of relentless effort,

those originally negligible improvements accumulated bit by bit, ultimately granting him the ultimate meticulous control and application of every fraction of his own strength!

All these changes

stemmed from those three years!

He would never forget

the moment when, after struggling to survive for three years in that hellish mine shaft, he crawled out and saw his reflection in a pool of water.

At that time, his entire body had been reduced to skin and bones. His muscles had nearly been Squeezed Dry, leaving only a layer of skin. Having not seen sunlight for three years, his skin was a ghastly pallor. He looked exactly like a dried corpse that had crawled up from hell, no longer even resembling a human!

But he had survived in the end!

He had gritted his teeth and crawled out of that hell!

From that point onward,

he had undergone an earth-shaking transformation!

Difficulty in cultivation was nothing,

nor was being unable to advance in cultivation!

None of it could ever stop his footsteps from moving forward again!

Nothing could ever break him again!

Thus,

under day after day and year after year of arduous cultivation,

gradually,

he went from Entry Realm to Body Tempering, then Blood Exchange, and finally Viscera Refining.

With a constitution that was almost worthless after his bodily origin had nearly dried up, he gritted his teeth and used a hundred, a thousand times the effort of others, advancing step by step until he reached the first-rate Viscera Refining Realm of the Southern Wilderness!

In the end, he earned the name Lightning Blade through saber techniques honed to lightning-like speed by bitter training!

And after that,

heaven and earth changed drastically, Spiritual Qi began to resurge, and the achievements he had painstakingly built over fifteen years were ultimately drowned completely beneath the tide of the era.

Yet he had still never thought of giving up!

Even when faced with the despair of not seeing the slightest progress,

every single day,

he still swung his blade until sweat poured down like rain!

It was precisely through such ruthless determination that, during the ten years of the new era after the Spiritual Qi Resurgence, even with the road ahead cut off, he had dragged his battered body onward and raised his cultivation from Viscera Refining Realm to peak Viscera Refining Realm!

Though the road ahead was cut off,

though he could not advance to Innate Realm,

though all his efforts were nothing but futile labor!

He had still, through the sweat and effort he poured in and through relentless attempts within the Viscera Refining Realm, driven himself to the utmost limit!

On the path of human Qi and Blood and force,

the depth of his attainment was enough to call him a grandmaster!

And on this day,

that perseverance from his Previous Life, which had never once slackened, finally gave him the most magnificent reward!

It gave his reborn self the capital to change everything!

If I had given up in my Previous Life, then even if I were given another chance, I would not have the ability to change the fate of my Previous Life!

But this time, I will not repeat the same mistakes!

I will sever the destiny of my previous life. In this life, I will climb to the peak of this world and behold splendor I never saw before!