His Astonishing Perseverance Had No Spectators

The sun hung high in the sky, casting its light and heat impartially upon the world—neither young nor old, noble nor base. Such great love was as merciless as fate itself.

A fawn waded through a stream; birds darted through the forest.

At first, only a dim red glow could be seen at the edge of the sky, but in the blink of an eye, it drew near.

The tail of the flame formed a line of fire, like a divine hand sweeping a brush across the heavens, splitting the vast sky.

The thousands of miles of mountains and rivers in the Zhuang Kingdom were nearly scorched by this line of fire. Suddenly, a black light shot up into the sky, blocking the path ahead.

A cold connection was established between heaven and earth, and the primordial energy surged violently. From the four cardinal directions, absolute baleful energy abruptly linked together!

The sky in the northeastern corner of the Zhuang Kingdom was shrouded in dark clouds.

The bright day suddenly turned dim.

A muffled grunt rang through the air: "Nine Sha Profound Yin!"

The light point only tangled with the baleful clouds for a moment before plummeting from the sky.

The light point fell faster and faster, growing larger and larger, until finally...

It howled down like a falling star!

The wilderness outside Maple Forest City was barren of human habitation. Only a small Daoist temple stood there, long since abandoned and dilapidated.

"Boom!"

The fire point struck the ground, blasting a massive crater, but as if restrained by some force, the shockwave did not spread further. When the rolling dust and smoke cleared, a man in a flame-colored robe appeared.

This man had sword-like brows slanting into his temples, a handsome and heroic bearing, and his crimson flame robe was ornate and ancient, exuding great nobility. Yet now, his hair was disheveled, and his robe bore cracks, revealing a hint of distress.

"Who would have thought that I, Zuo Guanglie, would die in such a desolate backwater..." The flame-robed man's gaze swept around, taking in his surroundings, and he asked with a strange melancholy, "What is this place called?"

First the sudden darkening of the day, then the falling star. The few beggars living in the ruined temple had long since lost their wits, kowtowing frantically before the temple gate. Hearing the question, one of them stammered fearfully, "Imm... Immortal Lord, this is the outskirts of Maple Forest City. This temple... I... we don't know its name."

The flame-robed man's fingers twitched, as if he would erase these beggars from existence.

In this age of great contention, the kingdoms waged endless wars. But in recent years, no conflict had been as fierce as the great battle between Qin and Chu. Both sides had committed nearly a hundred thousand cultivators, and the river valley plain at the center of the battle had been stripped of all life, the ground sinking for a hundred miles.

As a key figure on the losing side—especially having single-handedly broken through Hangu Pass and nearly turned the tide of battle—being hunted from heaven to earth was something he could hardly resent.

But these beggars were also beggars of the Zhuang Kingdom. And the Zhuang Kingdom had dared to secretly aid the violent Qin, allowing them to set up an ambush formation within its borders... These people all deserved to die.

Yet he flipped his hand and extinguished the sparks at his fingertips.

"Zuo Guanglie, Zuo Guanglie, is this your measure? Taking your anger out on these pitiful wretches who aren't even worth a second thought?"

Zuo Guanglie murmured to himself, then sighed. "You may go."

He clasped his hands behind his back and turned his gaze to the ink-stained sky. Those hidden in the shadows, the powerful closing in like wolves—those were the ones Zuo Guanglie should kill!

The beggars, as if granted a pardon, scrambled to their feet and fled. Only the one who had first spoken hesitated for a moment, glancing back at the ruined temple, but the companion beside him yanked him hard, nearly making him stumble. "Do you want to die?"

These beggars sprinted with all their might, running as they had never run in their lives.

Zuo Guanglie did not shift his gaze, but his brow furrowed slightly. "Not taking your companion with you?"

Within the range of his spiritual sense, there were no secrets.

The wooden statue of the deity in the temple had long since vanished, probably burned as firewood by the beggars. But under the offering table lay another beggar, barely clinging to life, motionless, counting down the days until death—this was the reason for that beggar's earlier hesitation.

The mysterious immortal's words could not be ignored. The beggars even swarmed back again.

Exerting every ounce of strength, gasping for breath.

But in the eyes of those watching this place, they were no more resilient than ants, nor any faster than snails.

Far too... slow.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

The dense, piercing shrieks that suddenly approached from the horizon...

Countless translucent water arrows flew like a swarm of locusts, converging under some force to rain down upon Zuo Guanglie.

The water-element primordial energy surged wildly across heaven and earth.

The translucent arrow rain formed a massive funnel, blotting out half the sky!

This was the Great Qin Military Department's highly representative large-scale area-of-effect Dao art: Ten Thousand Flow Arrow Rain.

"Here they come!"

Zuo Guanglie looked up at the sky, the fierce wind whipping his flame robe and long hair. He raised his right hand high. The wide sleeve of his crimson flame robe slid down, revealing an arm carved like jade.

Pale and powerful.

A red orb of light was born in his palm, and in the next moment, it blazed with brilliant radiance. A fierce, intense light radiated in all directions.

It was as if Zuo Guanglie had raised a sun with a single hand!

This was his unique Dao art, the one that had made him famous at the Yellow River Assembly at the age of fifteen.

Blazing Sun!

Countless translucent water arrows refracted the sunlight falling from the sky into a myriad of colors, only to be dyed crimson in the next instant.

That was an incomparably violent, incomparably blazing crimson.

With Zuo Guanglie's right hand as the center, the sky for a hundred zhang in every direction was shrouded in red. The Ten Thousand Flow Arrow Rain vanished in an instant.

This scene was so magnificent that it was difficult for anyone to notice the faint ink traces at the edges of the painting.

Before the Blazing Sun had even spread, countless arrows had already scattered and fallen. The group of running beggars collapsed one after another. Their bodies were riddled with pierced holes.

They didn't even have a chance to let out a single scream before they died.

Life was so fragile.

"Mass slaughter—is that also your Way?" A hint of mockery curled at the corner of Zuo Guanglie's mouth. It was unclear who the words were meant for, but his eyes, bright as stars, gradually turned cold.

"Anyone who holds back while trying to kill Zuo Guanglie is a complete fool."

A cultivator in a frost-patterned Profound Robe descended from the sky.

This man had a gaunt face and pale skin.

His narrow eyes locked tightly onto Zuo Guanglie: "Mere ants—do they even exist in your eyes?"

As he spoke, the line of Profound Robe cultivators who descended with him sealed off all four directions, forming hand seals. In an instant, eighteen translucent water serpents took shape, shrieking and crisscrossing through the air as they lunged at Zuo Guanglie.

Their movements were eerily synchronized. From appearance to action, they wasted not a single breath.

The low-grade Dao art Snake Binding, under their masterful manipulation, was especially fierce and vicious.

Zuo Guanglie's expression did not change. He pulled his hands apart, and a blade of flame took shape in his palms.

"Gongyang Bai!"

He casually gripped the flame blade, stepped through the air several times, and cleaved the encroaching water serpents in two.

"Since you've even brought the Nine Sha Profound Yin Formation, why waste our lives with such boring Dao arts?"

"Boring? You still think..." Gongyang Bai spread his hands, which had been clasped before him, and suddenly lifted them upward, "that this is your game!?"

The fallen bodies of the water serpents did not dissipate. Instead, the next moment, they all sprang up—severed tails grew heads, half-formed heads extended into tails.

One split into two, two split into four...

This was a brand-new variation of Snake Binding, one that gave this Dao art a new lease on life and opened up a much broader range of application.

Thus was born the Chaotic Water Snake Den.

Hiss~ hiss~ hiss~

The sound was piercing and grating.

Dense, ferocious water serpents surrounded Zuo Guanglie. As far as the eye could see, there was not a single gap.

But the chaotic hissing could not drown out his clear, resolute voice.

"Ying Wu is willing to deploy even the Nine Sha Profound Yin Formation—I ought to die. But this broken temple doesn't even have a name... How could this nameless place be worthy of burying Zuo Guanglie!?"

Flames suddenly erupted from Zuo Guanglie's body.

Blazing, roaring, clawing at the air.

This fire ignited anything it touched, spreading from point to line, instantly expanding outward.

At seventeen, with this Prairie Fire Technique, he had burned thousands of Yin Demons to death, shaking the Border Wasteland!

The entire Chaotic Water Snake Den caught fire. Countless water serpents writhed and shrieked in the flames, turning into steam.

Amid the roaring, hissing steam, Zuo Guanglie shot into the sky, his long hair wild, his aura explosive.

At that very moment, an eagle's cry rang out!

A massive black eagle plunged down from the heights. It faced Zuo Guanglie head-on and suddenly swept its wings.

Hundreds of iron feathers howled through the air, each carrying a blade's light. Every blade light was a different technique—some fierce, some venomous—yet all fused into one.

Blade light fell like a torrential downpour, slashing Zuo Guanglie back down into the snake den.

A Mo Sect mechanism beast—the Blade-Feather Flying Eagle.

On the eagle's back, a barefoot man with a masked face and a copper box strapped to his back stood against the wind, silent. Or rather, his words were already in the blade light.

Under the support of the Nine Sha Profound Yin Formation, the myriad serpents grew wildly, constantly regenerating. The Prairie Fire Technique lacked endurance and was slowly being extinguished.

A prolonged defense was bound to fail. Water serpents kept carving wounds into Zuo Guanglie's body, sending blood spraying. At most, he let out a muffled grunt, swinging his flame blade with one hand to drive back only the serpents striking at his vitals.

A myriad serpents gnawing at the flesh, the Profound Yin flaying the soul.

Such pain was beyond what ordinary people could endure.

But Zuo Guanglie formed seals with one hand and swung his blade with the other, without the slightest hesitation.

And yet, the veins on his forehead were already bulging!

Gongyang Bai interlaced his ten fingers, raised them before him, his long hair stirring without wind: "Zuo Guanglie, surrender now, and you can still have a whole corpse sent back to your homeland!"

The temperature plummeted. A layer of white frost formed on his brows. The entire Chaotic Water Snake Den froze into an ice sculpture.

This was the forbidden secret art of the renowned Gongyang Clan of the Qin Kingdom—called the Profound Ice Dungeon.

Those who enter this dungeon find their breath turning to frost after one breath, their blood freezing solid after two, and their flesh stiffening into death after three.

The water serpents froze into ice serpents, and Zuo Guanglie himself was coated in white frost.

Gongyang Bai silently watched all of this—the next breath would bring the freezing of blood.

But!

Suddenly, he heard the sound of a river surging, a violent torrent raging like maddened waves—it was Zuo Guanglie's blood in full gallop!

How could a great river be frozen by winter frost?

The violent upheaval of that blood seemed to detonate into an ancient sound, both agonized and fervent—

"Boil! Blood! Ignite! Soul!"

His flame robe burned, his long hair burned, his brows and eyes burned, his flesh and blood burned, his soul... burned!

Body and will, life and spirit, everything burned.

Both the Pit Vipers and the Profound Ice shattered in an instant. Amid the white steam, Zuo Guanglie was bathed in flames from head to toe.

He looked down at his own fire-blazing hands, as if feeling the power of this imperial forbidden art.

Then he suddenly looked up at the Blade-Feather Flying Eagle in the sky!

The moment their eyes met, the iron-masked man decisively plummeted backward.

That precious Blade-Feather Flying Eagle... was reduced to ashes in an instant!

Zuo Guanglie clapped his hands together, and blossoms of flame bloomed in the air, spreading into a sea of fire in a single moment.

Blazing flames, scorching the heavens and burning the earth.

Even the baleful clouds gathered high in the sky by the Nine Sha Profound Yin Formation seemed to become fuel for the fire!

This Flame Flower City-Burning Art could be called Zuo Guanglie's most genius creation. At nineteen, he used this art to break a city in a single battle!

Flame flowers—supremely beautiful, supremely devastating.

The iron-masked man, falling backward, spread both arms wide, his ten fingers splayed. Each finger connected to a translucent thread, the other ends of which plunged into the bronze box and yanked out violently!

Puppet Flying Crows!

His ten fingers moved like threading flowers, and dense swarms of puppet crows flew out of the bronze box, charging at those flame flowers. Each puppet crow could extinguish one flame flower, but the flowers seemed endless while the crows were limited.

Gongyang Bai, ignoring the backlash from the broken Profound Ice Dungeon, pressed his index finger to his chin and suddenly opened his mouth! A white, misty cold fog surged from his mouth, and wherever it went, the flame flowers were annihilated.

The Gongyang clan's bloodline secret art—Breath-to-Frost.

The eighteen black-robed cultivators he had brought also began forming hand seals.

The flame flowers and white frost collided, producing white steam that gathered into clouds high above.

Suddenly, a torrential downpour fell, shrieking as it pierced the air.

The eighteen cultivators combined their arts into this Chain-Rainstorm!

Flame flowers, frost, and rain—the three coexisted briefly in midair, forming a dazzling spectacle.

Within this scene, the handsome flame-robed man suddenly threw his head back and roared: "Extreme Flame Power, burn the heavens and boil the seas! True Ancestor Zhurong, enter my body!"

Inside him, a single point of warm firelight, different from all the rest, suddenly swelled.

With just this one swelling change, the puppet crows self-immolated, the baleful clouds scattered, and the rain vanished without a trace!

In an instant, all sound and color were seized away!

Gongyang Bai's face changed drastically: "Where did he get a Seed of Zhurong? How can he possibly activate the Zhurong True Form?"

"This is Zuo Guanglie..." The iron-masked man spread a pair of mechanical iron wings on his back, hovering beside Gongyang Bai, his voice thick with gravity: "The man who nearly single-handedly fought his way through Hangu Pass!"

Within the infinitely expanding power of the fire path, Zuo Guanglie's seven orifices blazed with flame.

"Come on! Mo Jingyu!"

"Gongyang Bai!"

With a casual wave of his hand, a Fire Flood Dragon tore through the air, forcing Gongyang Bai and the others to retreat repeatedly.

"What are you—famous clans! noble houses! geniuses!—dare to boast before me?!"

He seemed driven mad by the burning Seed of Zhurong, losing his reason, his emotions raging.

"Family disgrace and national hatred—rivers and seas could not wash them clean!"

The Battle of River Valley was already lost, and he seemed to hear the wailing of ten thousand households in Chu.

Or perhaps, within the flames, he saw his father, who had died in battle when he was fourteen... as if speaking to him.

Speaking... what?

Zuo Guanglie laughed, laughed until tears streamed down, but the tears were instantly dried by the heat.

"Here is a fine head—who dares to take it?"

Behind him, the faint shadow of a majestic, supreme deity holding a fire dragon loomed.

At last, he burned everything, and merged into the flames.

"The one who kills my body is none but myself; the one who burns my soul is none but Zhurong!"

The blazing flames in his eyes finally lost all emotion.

Only the coldest killing intent remained, fixed upon those who surrounded him.

"Die!"

Mo Jingyu reached behind him, trying to flip open the bronze case on his back and unleash his final life-saving measure. But his hand trembled uncontrollably, unable to muster even a shred of strength.

In his spiritual perception, there was no wilderness, no ruined temple, not even a single person. Only fire—only boundless waves of flame. The violent blaze nearly warped space itself, and nearly incinerated his thoughts.

Before such overwhelming power, how was he any different from those beggars who had died before him?

At the horizon, a streak of cold light came from the west.

The mere glimpse of this scene gave Gongyang Bai the illusion that his eyes were being cut!

There was no time to investigate, because in the very instant he saw it, the cold light had already reached Zuo Guanglie and swept past him in a single arc!

Zuo Guanglie's roar came to an abrupt halt.

"So noisy."

A young man in white robes suddenly appeared.

He had an exceedingly cold face, standing sideways as if forever keeping his distance from the world.

He slowly sheathed his sword, his voice flat, devoid of any fluctuation.

Zuo Guanglie's head plummeted, rolling twice on the ground, but because he had used Boiling Blood Burning Soul, not a single drop of blood could spray forth.

Only then did the piercing, thunderous shriek ring out in the air!

It was the sound of the white-robed man's sword coming from the west, tearing through the sky!

Gongyang Bai and Mo Jingyu exchanged a glance, both seeing immense shock in each other's eyes.

"Li Yi, I am under the orders of Prince Ying Wu..."

But Gongyang Bai only got this far before shutting his mouth and immediately grabbing Zuo Guanglie's head, turning to flee.

Because the white-robed man had already turned his gaze toward him.

His hair, his brows, his eyes, even the corners of his lips—all carried a sharpness like a sword. Yet his gaze was so flat it was almost tepid.

But within that tepidness lay a chilling indifference.

Whether it was a genius heir to the ancient Mo Sect or a scion of one of the world's renowned bloodlines—

No one dared ask why. No one dared speak another word.

Zuo Guanglie was dead, but the Zhurong Fire Seed within him had not dissipated; it was still slowly expanding.

This power was far beyond what the spent Zuo Guanglie could control. He was merely a trigger, a medium—using his genius and his desperation to allow a sliver, a fleeting moment, of the Zhurong True Form's great power to vent into this world.

The white-robed man flicked out a black token and watched it in silence.

The black token lay still for a long time before a domineering voice rang out—"We're even."

The moment the words fell, the token, made of extraordinary material, seemed unable to bear the weight of that voice and instantly shattered into countless black shards, slipping through Li Yi's fingers and falling with a rustle.

Only after all the cultivators had left and the token in his hand had crumbled did Li Yi tilt his head slightly, looking at the expanding Zhurong Fire Seed.

He stretched out a slender, pale hand, curling his fingers into the shape of a pouch.

Only now, when no one could possibly notice, did he reveal a trace of childlike innocence beneath his usual tepid indifference.

He softly called out: "Boom!"

The moment his fingers spread open was exactly when the Seed of Zhurong exploded.

An invisible force bound the explosion, preventing it from spreading, only blasting Zuo Guanglie's corpse into countless shreds of flesh.

Crimson flames bloomed freely in that small space—radiance condensed into a single instant, splendor contained within a single pocket.

This ultimate beauty was his alone to savor.

The corner of Li Yi's mouth lifted slightly, but it vanished in an instant.

The fireworks were over.

He didn't even glance at what remained of Zuo Guanglie's body, nor did he show the slightest reluctance. With a flash of sword-light, he was gone in an instant.

From beginning to end, in this battle outside the nameless ruined temple, no one spared a single thought for what lay inside.

To powerful cultivators, the weak Zhuang Kingdom was hardly worth a glance. To the three-thousand-li expanse of the Zhuang Kingdom, Maple Forest City was as insignificant as dust. And even within tiny Maple Forest City itself, this ruined temple in the wilderness had long been forgotten.

But this broken temple was not empty.

Inside lay a dying beggar, waiting only for death.

He had already prepared himself for death and was waiting for it, but he hadn't died yet, and from start to finish, he had "heard" this spectacular battle.

When the battle ended, everything fell silent.

He was still alive.

He might be lucky, but the word "lucky" sat ill at ease with him. His tattered clothes, his gaunt, sickly face, even his nearly drifting breath—all of it defined misfortune.

But he was still alive, after all.

He thought for a moment, then struggled to turn over, rolling out from under the offering table.

He gritted his teeth, using every ounce of strength, and with great effort, swaying, he stood up.

He had stood up, after all.

From the offering table to the temple gate, it was one hundred and thirty-seven steps.

From the temple gate to Zuo Guanglie's corpse, it was three hundred and twenty-four steps.

The beggar silently counted each step he dragged himself, constantly telling himself, almost there.

Almost there.

Every muscle in his body protested, trembled.

No one knew where the strength to keep moving came from.

His astonishing perseverance had no audience.

Now he stood before Zuo Guanglie's corpse, this journey finally at its end—if that pile of mangled flesh could still be called a corpse.

He slowly, slowly crouched down. Crouching was too strenuous, so he simply sat.

He was truly very ill; even through the grime that obscured his face, a sickly pallor was visible.

His hands trembled too.

Trembling, he groped through that pile of mangled flesh, searching.

Mangled flesh, mangled flesh, bone splinters, fragments of some metal, mangled flesh, finger bones, an unrecognizable half of a wooden object...

A bottle!

He flipped over that mass of unrecognizable blood and flesh and found a half-broken jade bottle!

The mouth of the bottle had been completely blown off, leaving only half the belly.

The beggar suppressed his slightly ragged breathing and brought the jade bottle before his eyes.

He carefully removed a piece of flesh blocking the bottle's opening and looked into the bottom.

He saw the only thing left in the bottle: a single, dark, round pill. His breath stopped.

He recognized it—it was the Vein-Opening Pill he had dreamed of day and night, once obtained and then lost again!

I've been writing seriously for several years now. My strength, my softness, my love and hate, my confusion, my bewilderment—all of it is tied to this.

I know many people leave, many people forget, many are busy with work, many are weary of life.

I hope this novel will make you fall in love with me again.

I hope it can give you the courage to face life, strength in hardship, and direction in confusion.

At the very least, in times of loneliness, it can keep you company.

The update schedule is as follows: two chapters daily, updated at noon and 8 PM respectively, each chapter guaranteed at least two thousand words. On weekends, one chapter at 8 PM.