The moment the Sword Demon's body turned to ash, the Obsidian fragments of the Greedy Wolf Demon Sword erupted with a blinding black light at the bottom of the Demon Fall Cliff.
Billions of fragments, like a constellation of stars flying in reverse, tore through the night sky, coalescing into a twisted humanoid shape in the eerie light of the Blood Moon's pupils— Black Hole three zhang in diameter split open in the Demonic Soul's chest, twelve ink-black tentacles dancing wildly like ancient sea serpents, each tentacle's Blood Characters runes pulsating eerily.
The edges of those runes glowed with Phosphorus Fire green light, and with each pulsation, spiderweb-like cracks appeared in the void. Deep within the cracks, the phantoms of the Three Realms and Six Paths could be vaguely seen twisting and rotating, as if trying to suck all things into this abyss of resentment that had not healed for three hundred years.
Each shift in the runes' light and darkness was accompanied by a sob from the Netherworld, the resonance of countless wronged souls sealed deep within the Sword Mound. Their wails transformed into tangible sound waves, causing the rocks of Demon Fall Cliff to crack inch by inch, revealing countless sword remains buried deep beneath, each bearing a forgotten name.
The putrid Black Blood seeping from the character "hate" left a scarlet trail in the air, congealing into countless gnashing, vengeful faces wherever it passed.
The bloodstains on their claws were embedded with fragments of clothing from those slain by the Sword Demon throughout the ages. The Black Blood dripping from their fingertips formed spiderweb-like Demonic Runes on the ground, each Demonic Runes emitting a suppressed Curse.
The Curse transformed into shrieking black crows that swept past, their feathers carving the characters for "kill" and "annihilate" into Ren Xiaoyao's eyelids. Each mark oozed tiny beads of blood, echoing the old eyelid wound he had suffered when he was twelve years old and practicing Sword Qi.
The blood droplets fell to the ground and transformed into Gu, instantly hatching into tens of thousands of Memory-Devouring Insect. The frequency emitted when they flapped their wings was the same as the sound of bones cracking when the Sword Demon's cultivation was destroyed three hundred years ago. The sound was also mixed with the crisp sound of his own sword blade breaking when he was fifteen years old. The two sound waves intertwined on his eardrums to form a concerto of death.
The sound of bones cracking as the "kill" character was uttered caused dark purple blood droplets to seep from the cliff face. The broken swords and blades floating above the blood river suddenly stood up, and the faces of the dead reflected in the blades opened their mouths in unison—the last words of every corpse before their death over the past three hundred years had turned into blood-red tadpoles that swam on the river surface, forming a hideous incantation that read " Give me back my life."
As the sound waves surged, countless skeletal hands emerged from the riverbed, their finger bones still adorned with fragments of protective gear from past Sword Master. As they reached for Ren Xiaoyao's reflection, the tassel on the sword at his waist suddenly tightened, leaving the same red marks as those inflicted on the Sword Demon by the Soul-Locking Pillar three hundred years ago.
The blood beads seeping from the red marks arranged in the air to form runes of Soul-Locking Pillar. Each rune burned his skin, leaving an indelible mark. The pattern of the mark was exactly the same as the pattern on the hilt of the Greedy Wolf Demon Sword, as if it wanted to engrave his soul into the next demon sword.
When the myriad phosphorescent claws formed from the "Extinction" character scratched at the Green Mang Sword, the black mist seeping from each crack revealed the mangled remains of cultivators severed at the waist.
New vengeful spirits kept emerging from the wounds of those mutilated bodies, and the sword scars on their severed arms corresponded one by one to the old wounds Ren Xiaoyao had suffered from practicing swordsmanship over the years: the crescent-shaped scar on the inside of his left wrist, the sword slash mark under his shoulder blade, and the puncture wound on his ankle.
The moment the severed arm reached for his shadow, the old scar on his left wrist suddenly burst open, and the oozing viscous blood drew the outline of the Greedy Wolf Demon Sword in the air, with the tip pointing directly at his heart.
The moment the blood congealed, it formed a miniature severed sword, with all his unspoken apologies engraved on its blade. Each word dripped blood, and the blood droplets that fell to the ground grew into black Worry-Dispelling Grass, their petals inscribed with the mistakes he had deliberately forgotten.
"You want to annihilate my soul?" The Heart Demon's voice was like shards of glass crushing a rusty iron pot. The Deep Blue Sparks that flew from the friction of his vocal cords landed as Demon Eye. Within the bloodstains of the Soul-Locking Pillar, the Sword Demon's screams as his collarbone was pierced by iron chains were spreading in the form of visible sound waves.
Each sonic wave pattern transformed into a sharp spike piercing Ren Xiaoyao's temple, causing a bone-chilling pain on the inside of his skull. At the same time, the image of his master hitting his skull with a ruler when he was fifteen years old flashed through his mind, and the two pains twisted into a knot at the nerve endings.
The cerebrospinal fluid seeping from the knot was drawing Tai Chi Symbol in the void, representing his childhood and the Sword Demon's later years, respectively. They were spinning wildly and devouring each other. At the center of the Tai Chi Symbol was the reflection of the silver hairpin left by his mother, which was being gradually swallowed by darkness.
"Three hundred years of resentment have long since turned my bone marrow into Poisonous Slurry!" The tiny soul flames surging in the Black Hole's chest suddenly formed a revolving lantern, with each cluster of soul flames reflecting a distorted face that was repeating the moment when his tongue was cut out.
When the sonic blades, congealed by the "hoarse" sounds of blood, tore through Ren Xiaoyao's clothes, the blood seeping from the wounds actually drew the patterns of the Greedy Wolf Demon Sword in the air. What seeped from the patterns was not blood, but the regret he felt when he accidentally killed a butterfly at the age of twelve—the golden spots on the butterfly's wings were now swirling in the blood patterns in the form of poisonous mist, perfectly coinciding with the traces of Scale Powder that splattered on his wrist guard when he used the tip of his sword to lift the butterfly's corpse.
Suddenly, the compound eyes of a butterfly appeared in the poisonous fog. Each compound eye reflected images of his repentance at different ages, flashing wildly on his retina. In those images, he was repeating the same action: pointing the tip of his sword at innocent lives.
As the twelve tentacles pierced the light shield, the " Mind-Eroding Fluid " dripping from their barbed ends wove a black net in the air. The moment they touched the cliff wall, Red Thread lines suddenly shot out from the blood holes in the eye sockets of countless wailing faces amidst the rising green smoke.
Those Red Thread precisely connected to Ren Xiaoyao's ear canals, twisting together the scream of the Sword Demon when his Sword Demon was cut off three hundred years ago and his childhood memory of being scolded by his master into a pretzel—he heard his master's angry roar of "idiot" overlapped with the muffled groan of the Sword Demon when his ear was cut off. The two sound waves collided on his eardrums, creating tiny blood holes. The blood droplets that seeped out fell to the ground and actually congealed into miniature Soul-Locking Pillar.
The Soul-Locking Pillar was engraved with all his fears, each word emitting a chilling laugh, the frequency of which was perfectly synchronized with his heartbeat, as if counting down for him, calculating the final moment when his soul would be devoured.
As the tentacles entangled the Star Orbit light shield of the Green Mang Sword, Ren Xiaoyao saw the Black Blood seeping from the War-Scar Totem crawling up his shoulder along the gaps in the light shield.
With each inch the fine Demonic Runes at the edge of the scorch mark spread, a new sword scar lit up beneath his skin—each Dao Wound from his years of sword practice, from the cut on the back of his hand from the wooden sword when he first entered the sect, to the deep, bone-revealing side waist wound left from fighting Devil Creature in adulthood. Now, they were all awakened by his Heart Demon, like countless black snakes writhing beneath his flesh, leaving behind a gilded mark of "loser" wherever they went. The strokes of the mark were exactly the same as the inscription on the Greedy Wolf Demon Sword.
The slime left by the black snake as it crawled formed Star Map on his skin. It was his birth chart, which was now being gradually covered by the shadow of the Greedy Wolf Star. Every star on the Star Map was going out, except for the Greedy Wolf Star, which shone brighter and brighter, emitting an ominous red light.
The moment Ren Xiaoyao's consciousness plummeted, his palm carbonized inch by inch. The old scars etched on the exposed black veins suddenly cracked open, and black ants crawled out, biting the words "loser" as they crawled toward his heart.
The broken sword he held, its Red String rotting into black leeches, would crawl over his skin with each inch of flesh, bringing to mind the terrified face of the twelve-year-old who had accidentally killed a butterfly—the butterfly's Scale Powder exploding in his mind as poisonous dust, each explosion accompanied by his scream from back then and the faint sound of the butterfly's last flap of its wings.
Even more horrifying was that those faint sounds were mixed with the breathy sounds he heard from the throat of an innocent person he had accidentally killed when he was twenty years old, forming an endless echo wall in his sea of consciousness.
Suddenly, countless mirrors appeared on the Echo Wall, each mirror reflecting a version of himself repeating different mistakes, forming an infinitely nested, terrifying loop. In each loop, he was gradually Demonic Transformation, his eyes increasingly resembling the Heart Demon before him.
When the Heart Demon face that transformed from the plaque of the " Luoxia Sect " devoured the phantom, the screams of his junior brothers and sisters and the roar of the Sword Demon being driven away intertwined into a demonic sound, which shook Ren Xiaoyao so much that the blood of his soul seeping from his seven orifices fell to the ground and formed Miniature Sword Mound.
Around each Sword Mound, the sighs of his years of failed sword-making converged into a black tide, in which floated all the cowardly moments he dared not show to others: the cowardice of secretly hiding medicine for wounds at the age of ten, the lie of concealing the failure in sword-making at the age of fifteen, and the escape after accidentally killing an innocent person at the age of twenty.
These moments suddenly transformed into drowning vengeful spirits, their fingernails painted with the same black glaze as the Greedy Wolf Demon Sword, dragging him deeper into the tide of blood.
Suddenly, a giant millstone emerged from the depths of the blood tide, grinding his conscience and the Sword Demon's resentment into bloody mud, emitting a nauseatingly sweet and pungent odor, mixed with the Sandalwood Incense that burned year-round in the council hall of the Luoxia Sect, creating a strange fragrance.
When the tentacle tightened around her neck, the childlike whimpers seeping from the purplish-black marks transformed into black needles, piercing into the memory knots deep within her consciousness.
As the twelve-year-old's cries overlapped with the roar of the banished Sword Demon, the sword-shaped phlegm coughed up by Ren Xiaoyao fell to the ground and transformed into a miniature Greedy Wolf Demon Sword, frantically devouring his shadow—where the shadow was gnawed, images of his master's scolding over the years appeared, and in those images, he was repeating the same sentence. "You will never amount to anything."
Amidst the howls of the Heart Demon, his own sobs from when he was three years old and lost in the mountains suddenly broke in. The frequencies of the two voices resonating were exactly the same as the wavelength of the demonic sound when the Greedy Wolf Demon Sword devoured living souls.
The ripples formed by the wavelengths etched Demonic Runes into his pupils, contracting and expanding with his breath, as if they were about to completely devour his soul in the next second. The pattern of the Demonic Runes was exactly the same as the Black Hole on the Heart Demon's chest, and it was slowly expanding.
As saliva spurted from the skull mouth at the tip of the tentacle, a black maggot, gritting the words "trash," crawled across the sword pattern. Ren Xiaoyao watched helplessly as the Golden Runes peeled away and merged into the black mist.
The phantom images of seven cultivators raising their cups emerged from the black mist, and the accusatory conversations hidden within the sunset Totems on their sleeves suddenly overlapped with the whispers he had exchanged about his fellow disciples half a year ago—those harsh words he had forgotten now turned into poisonous needles piercing back, causing him excruciating pain in his spiritual acupoints, as if ten thousand ants were gnawing at his heart.
Even more terrifying, the trajectory of the poisoned needle piercing through him drew a map of the Luoxia Sect in his mind, and at the end of the secret passage was the council hall where the Sword Demon was framed back then.
Blood Characters suddenly appeared on the stone table in the council hall, recording how seven cultivators used his mother's belongings as bait to set up this conspiracy that spanned three hundred years. At the end of the Blood Characters was his mother's name, with the four large characters " Abandoned Child Project " written next to it.
As the Sword Shield formed by biting his tongue were swept across his sea of consciousness by the azure light, the moment the black energy dissipated, Ren Xiaoyao saw that with each drop of venom from the " Thorn of Betrayal " behind the boy's Heart Demon, the engraving of the character "war" on the broken sword deepened.
The tiny phantoms of Sword Demon, formed from resentment, cycled through the scenes of being banished within the engravings. With each cycle, his heart clenched, as if the seven poisonous thorns were not piercing his Heart Demon, but rather piercing through time and space, embedding themselves deep within his own soul.
He could even see the pattern of seven cultivators' cufflinks engraved on the tip of the poison stinger, exactly the same as the Black Iron Sword- shaped buckle that his master often wore.
Blood suddenly seeped from his cufflink, writing the four characters "Respect for Teachers" in the air. Each character was burning, revealing the "hypocritical and despicable" truth beneath. After the flames died down, the ashes left behind formed his mother's birth and death dates.
The moment the Heart Demon roared and pierced the dantian, the cries of an infant sucking in True Qi through the " Soul-Sucking Aperture " were mixed with the mournful cries of countless dead souls transformed into silver needles.
On the blade where Ren Xiaoyao had committed suicide with his left arm, the nursery rhyme hummed by the gaping mouth of the Heart Demon was exactly the same as the lullaby his mother hummed before her death—only every note was distorted by the soul-devouring sound of the Greedy Wolf Demon Sword.
Within the shattered vortex of True Qi, the images of his past defeats in sword practice mocked him. "See? You're just like him, destined to be consumed by hatred."
At the center of the vortex, the swaddling clothes he had been abandoned outside the mountain gate when he was just born were spinning. The edges of the swaddling clothes were embroidered with the silver thread patterns that his mother often used when sewing.
The silver thread suddenly transformed into a snake's tongue, licking his brow and bringing a cold, numbing sensation. The numbness spread along his nerves, causing him to gradually lose control of his body.
When the First Generation Sword Master's Blood Characters appeared, Ren Xiaoyao sank into the Nine-Layer Prison deep within his sea of consciousness.
In the moment of his failed sword practice projected onto the cage wall, when he was ten, a snake's tongue in the rainstorm branded him with the word "coward" on his throat; when he was fifteen, the scarred chain was engraved with "you will never amount to anything"; and when he was twenty, on the purple grass on his grave, the Curse of "murderer" exploded with lightning, making his soul tremble.
With each ounce of fear absorbed by the poisonous vine at the core of the cage, the transparent soul of the boy's Heart Demon moved one inch further away from the broken sword, and the light in his eyes dimmed into a flickering candle flame, the frequency of which matched the pulse of Ren Xiaoyao's mother before her death.
The candle suddenly exploded, and the Mars formed the mother's last words, each sentence repeating "Live on, don't hate." The words burned in the void, forming a warm portal of light.
"Protecting doesn't mean not making mistakes!" The moment the pure white sword intent shattered the cage, Ren Xiaoyao saw the Heart Demon whispering on the fragments, "They all deserve to die. The world has wronged me. I'm so cold. Save me." Like a scalpel, it dissected his feigned strength.
Deep within the twisted words of his master within those " Bewitching Needles," as the notes of his mother's lullaby transformed into Light Cocoon enveloping his sea of consciousness, he suddenly heard, three hundred years ago, on the Soul-Locking Pillar, the Sword Demon, in his excruciating pain, vaguely utter not Curse, but a very soft "Mother."
This cry overlapped with the cry of "Mother" he uttered when he was five years old and in a coma during a high fever, creating concentric ripples in his mind.
As the ripples spread, they drew the mother's palm lines in the air, each Dao Patterns radiating a warm light that healed all his wounds. In the center of the palm lines appeared a baby's footprint, left at his birth and carefully kept by his mother in his swaddling clothes.
When the lightsaber that provoked the black energy at the heart demon's core touched the lens, in the hands of the mother's corpse in the adult sword demon's pupils, the word "" on half a piece of hard wheat cake suddenly glowed - it was the blessing carved by the mother with her last strength. There were still traces of chipped fingernails on the edge of the wheat cake, and there was even wheat bran from three hundred years ago embedded in the cracks.
Amidst the trembling of the young Sword Demon's blade as he furiously slashed at the plaque, the baby's cries overlapped with the sound of his mother's departing footsteps. Ren Xiaoyao heard the footsteps pause three times, corresponding to the three times his mother turned back to silently sob after he was abandoned outside the mountain gate. The length of each pause was exactly the interval between his breaths during his three near-death experiences.
The sound of his mother's heartbeat suddenly broke into his breathing intervals, resonating with his heart and producing a wonderful healing power that reminded him of the warmth he felt in his mother's arms as an infant.
When the sword intent illuminated the "war" character carved by his mother on the broken sword, the fingernail fragment embedded deep within the strokes suddenly oozed warmth—it was the temperature of the blood droplet from his fingertip seeping into the sword's pattern when his mother accidentally broke off her fingernail while carving the character for him three hundred years ago. Now, this warmth emanated through the sword, causing the ice layer of resentment frozen deep within Ren Xiaoyao's sea of consciousness for three hundred years to crack for the first time.
As the crack spread, he saw that the texture of the broken nail fragment perfectly matched the broken edge of the only keepsake his mother had left him—a silver hairpin.
The silver hairpin suddenly hummed, resonating with the Green Mang Sword to form a warm energy field that dispelled all darkness. Within the energy field, the image of his mother appeared, smiling at him with eyes full of love and care.
As the Light of Purification swept across the sea of consciousness, the battle cry that had been unfinished for three hundred years transformed into countless starlight, stringing together the infant Sword Demon's babbling, the boy's joyful leaps as he wielded his sword, and the spirited smiles of the young man into a River of Time.
On the half of the Heart-Protecting Mirror that Ren Xiaoyao caught, the light bursting from the character "war" revealed a sword tassel formed from bloodstains on the mirror's edge. Suddenly, a three-hundred-year-old dewdrop on a blood-red gladiolus petal shattered—the smiling face of his mother reflected in the dewdrop perfectly overlapped with the blurry face in his childhood memories. The sound of the dewdrop shattering was just like the last note his mother softly hummed when she tied the sword tassel for him. The lingering melody of that note was the very beginning of the melody of " Sword Mound Ballad ".
As the melody began, all the vengeful spirits started to wail, not because of pain, but because they had finally been freed. Their figures gradually faded, turning into starlight and merging into the River of Time.
As the wind whipped up the twelve sword-shaped butterflies from Demon Fall Cliff, their wing veins forming the " Truth-Breaking Style Heart-Questioning Style " sword technique flowed, the silver threads along the edges of the wings suddenly connected to form Star Map — the Big Dipper that his mother had embroidered on his swaddling clothes when he was an infant. Each star had a Transparent Threads tied to its tail, and the other end of the thread was connected to the twelve fireflies that floated out of the Black Hole's chest when the remnant soul of the Sword Demon broke free from hatred.
The trail of fireflies perfectly traces his life from an abandoned baby to Sword Master, with a butterfly resting at each turning point, its wings engraved with the ancient seal script for "forgiveness".
The ancient seal suddenly emitted a golden light, resonating with the Big Dipper to form a huge protective shield that enveloped the entire Demon Fall Cliff. Countless sword patterns appeared on the shield, representing the legacy of the righteous Sword Master of past generations, now all gathered on his body.
When the newly added " Delusion-Slaying " Star Orbit of the Green Mang Sword resonated with the Amber Tear the sword tassel, what rang in Ren Xiaoyao's mind was no longer the cheers of victory, but the sigh of the young Sword Demon as he released the broken sword and caught his mother's white hair.
In that sigh, three hundred years of hatred melted away like ice and snow, revealing the unchanging original intention beneath—the word "war" that Mother carved on the sword was not for killing, but for protection, just as the wind of Demon Fall Cliff eventually condensed the demonic energy into butterflies, turning hatred into sword-shaped dewdrops on the Glazed Ancient Tree Jade Marrow Valley, reflecting the light of hope every morning.
In the halo of light refracted by the dew, he saw his mother sewing a new sword tassel, the stitches weaving with the unspoken maternal love from three hundred years ago.
Motherly love transformed into a ribbon of light, wrapping around the hilt of his sword to form an eternal protective mark. The mark was inscribed with the words "Love and Protection," radiating a warm and powerful light.
At this moment, he finally understood that what the First Generation Sword Master meant by "to slay demons, first examine your own heart" was to let every swordsman see that Heart Demon are never external enemies, but rather the self that has been distorted by trauma.
The moment Ren Xiaoyao embedded the Heart-Protecting Mirror into the sword hilt, a new movement suddenly appeared in the altered melody of " Sword Mound Ballad": "The soul returns not to the battlefield, but to the long sword wound by a loving mother's thread... Hatred dissipates, love is without sorrow, when the battle soul returns, the moon is like frost." This melody flowed through the sea of consciousness like a clear spring, each note condensing the whispers of the remnant soul of the Sword Demon at the end of reincarnation, and illuminating the way home for all souls trapped by hatred.
The wind from Fallen Demon Cliff no longer carried demonic energy, but instead lifted the twelve sword-shaped butterflies into the sky. The ancient seal script of "Forgiveness" on their wings shone brightly with the Big Dipper constellation, transforming in the fading light of the blood moon into the silver thread patterns that Mother had embroidered on the swaddling clothes years ago. Those patterns suddenly turned into streams of light, seeping into the "Demon Slayer" star trail of the Azure Light Sword, causing the sword to burst forth with an unprecedentedly soft golden light—the unspoken worries in the blood droplets from Mother's fingertips when she carved the sword three hundred years ago, now finally merging with Ren Xiaoyao's sword intent.
Ren Xiaoyao looked down at his palm. The sword scars that had been awakened by his Heart Demon were dissipating like Stardust, replaced by a warm, glowing mark like his mother's palm lines. The moment he grasped the hilt, the Green Mang Sword suddenly resonated, and the Amber Tear on the tassel shattered. In the rain of light that splashed out, the truth from three hundred years ago emerged: his mother had not abandoned him, but had entrusted him, an infant, to a passing woodcutter when she used her last bit of True Qi to seal the Greedy Wolf Demon Sword at the bottom of the Demon Fall Cliff, while she herself was silenced by those who had framed her.
"So the truth behind the ' Abandoned Child Project ' was to use my existence as bait, making the remnant soul of the Sword Demon mistakenly believe that its bloodline was severed, thus lowering its guard against the seal..." Ren Xiaoyao murmured to himself, his fingertips tracing the "war" character his mother had carved on the sword. Suddenly, he discovered a miniature Sword Talisman hidden deep within the strokes—a protective spell condensed from his mother's lifelong sword intent, which would only appear when the holder truly understood "protection rather than killing."
At this moment, the afterimage of the inner demon gradually became transparent in the light beam. Resentment no longer surged out of the black hole in its chest, but twelve fireflies floated out. Each firefly turned into the smiling face of his mother. One of the fireflies fell on Ren Xiaoyao's eyebrows, allowing him to see it instantly The scene before the death of the mother: She used her cracked nails to carve the word "" on the wheat cake. When the blood droplets seeped into the cake lines, what she was humming was the inflection of "The Ballad of the Sword Tomb", and the frequency of that melody happened to conflict with the soul-eating wavelength of the Greedy Wolf Demon Sword.
"Mother..." Ren Xiaoyao finally uttered the cry that had been suppressed for three hundred years, tears dripping onto the Heart-Protecting Mirror on the sword hilt. Suddenly, the images of two generations of Sword Master were reflected in the mirror—the moment when the young Sword Demon caught his mother's white hair perfectly overlapped with Ren Xiaoyao's current stance as he held the sword. In the golden light emanating from the Heart-Protecting Mirror, his mother's voice rang out as clear as morning dew. "The word 'war' is not about violence, but a blade that Mind-Guarding Power, a weapon that protects the last vestige of warmth for all living beings, even when scarred."
As the words fell, the Obsidian fragments at the bottom of Demon Fall Cliff suddenly floated to the surface, reforming in the morning light into a brand new sword—its blade shimmering with patterns of starlight and maternal love, its hilt adorned with an everlasting silver tassel. The moment Ren Xiaoyao grasped the new sword, illusory images of the Three Realms and Six Paths flashed across the blade, finally settling on the profile of his mother sewing the tassel.
From then on, the Sword Demon was no more, only a Sword Master used the dew on his sword tassel to reflect his mother's love every morning. When Ren Xiaoyao turned to leave the Demon Fall Cliff, the demonic energy behind him had all transformed into sword-shaped dewdrops, hanging on the Glazed Ancient Tree in Jade Marrow Valley. Each dewdrop reflected the same scene: his mother's smiling eyes reflected his infant self, and the sword engraved with the character "War". At the end of reincarnation, he finally found his original heart of protection.