Battling Emperor Tian Zhong

Guangzhou, Mist Mountain.

The sun hung overhead, its light blocked by the mist and casting a strange rainbow halo.

Thunder Sword Saint Shu Yifan was already past forty. Even after entering the Dao through martial arts, the rate at which his vital energy and blood declined with age had clearly slowed, far slower than that of ordinary martial artists. His looks aged more slowly as well, and whether his vital energy and blood were flourishing no longer had much effect on his combat strength. He carried something of an otherworldly air—yet in recent years, he could still clearly feel himself growing old.

This aging was unlike that of ordinary martial artists.

Ordinary martial artists trained in their youth, fierce and fond of fighting, wearing down their bodies. Once their vital energy and blood could no longer keep up in old age, their faces and bodies would wither drastically within just a few years. Their strength, recovery, and reaction speed would all decline sharply, leaving even a grandmaster of a generation far inferior once age overtook them.

Shu Yifan did not show this so clearly in those respects.

It was foreseeable that even twenty years from now, when he reached sixty, the decline in these areas would likely still not be too apparent.

Yet the heart would still grow weathered.

This body was still slowly heading downhill with the passage of time. Perhaps decades from now, he would not appear much older, still wielding his sword like thunder, perhaps even thirty percent stronger than he was now. Until a few days before his death, he might still be the Thunder Sword Saint invincible throughout the martial world—yet when his allotted lifespan ran out, nothing could stop him from walking toward the grave.

In barely more than a decade, the world had