The grand formation had been destroyed, its spiritual power exhausted. No matter how exquisite the patterns were, they were now nothing more than scratches carved into stone.
He looked at the pitch-black houses by the roadside, the sword marks slashed across the trees lining the streets, and the red brick and gray tiles hidden beneath the night.
This small town was exceptionally quiet in the dusk, so quiet that it scarcely seemed part of the human world.
Those houses seemed to be asleep, yet also seemed dead. Their dark, hollow windows were like empty eyes, silently watching this intruder.
Daoist Wu sighed and muttered to himself, "So you've been hiding here all along. You actually hid for ten years!"
His voice was low, as though he were speaking to himself, yet also as though he were speaking to someone concealed in the darkness.
There was a trace of sentiment in it, a trace of melancholy, and an indescribable hint of satisfaction.
Ten years.
To cultivators of this world, ten years was no more than the flick of a finger.
One period of secluded cultivation, one journey, one moment of enlightenment, and ten years would pass. But to him, it had been incomparably long.
For ten years, through more than three thousand days and nights, he had thought constantly of that sword.
Frostfall.
The sword's name was like a thorn lodged in his heart, impossible to pull out and impossible to press down.
Whenever he closed his eyes, the sword's shadow would appear before him...
The legendary Frostfall was three feet and three inches long, two fingers wide. Its blade was like autumn water, its edge like frozen ice, and a tiny frost flower was carved into its hilt.
He wanted that sword. Not in any ordinary way—he wanted it with