All Emerge

Chen Zhi'ang had previously returned to the academy to seek aid over the Southern Borderlands' gu crisis.

Later, hearing that Shen Yi had slaughtered in all directions, and that A' Yue and the Immortal Physician, the Medicine King, had joined forces to stabilize the situation, he felt that bringing a group of scholars over would not be of much use.

Just then, Wuxin sent word that the Martial Arts Tournament might be held at Mount Tai, so Chen Zhi'ang simply remained active in Sanghai Prefecture.

Now, Shen Yi and the others

were heading north to meet up with him.

Thus, three people and two horses took the official road north.

The Martial Arts Tournament was set for Mid-Autumn Festival, still more than a month away, so time was plentiful.

Yet the collapse of the grotto-heavens cast an invisible pressure over the head of every person in the martial world.

In merely half a month, news of the emergence of Celestials had spread far and wide throughout the martial world.

According to intelligence from Heaven's Secret Pavilion and the Pacification Office,

an peerless swordsman had come from the north, calling himself the Sword Demon. Wherever he passed, every sword-cultivating sect and independent sword cultivator was slaughtered by his hand.

When he first appeared, he had been a decrepit old man. Yet the more he killed, the younger his appearance became, and the more vigorous his blood and vitality grew.

Even the Mount Tai Sword Sect of Central Prefecture had been challenged at its gates by the man alone, sword in hand. Its sect master, protectors, and sword-wielding elders had all died at his hands.

Sword cultivators across the realm were frightened out of their wits at the mere mention of him, avoiding him whenever they saw him.

The moment Shen Yi's