At the finals of the Yellow River Assembly in Dao Calendar 3919, Huang Sheli, who kept claiming to be a maiden of twenty when she was in fact twenty-four, met the nineteen-year-old Jiang Wang. Though she repeatedly used Reverse Journey, she could not turn the battle around, and in the end, she shook hands and conceded defeat.
In that year's semifinals, Qin Zhizhen, then twenty-three and ranked first in foundational strength among all the states, held an overwhelming advantage on paper. Wielding the Horizontal and Vertical Blade, he revealed the bearing of the Yama Son of Heaven, yet was ultimately defeated before the Sword Immortal wielding Longing.
In the occasional post-battle reviews afterward, Jiang Wang always said that the key was Xiang Qian's sword strike that clinched the title, which had secured an advantage for him before the battle. Qin Zhizhen himself, however, had never looked for excuses.
The splendor of the 3919 Yellow River Assembly finals ranked among the top three in all of history, perhaps even contending for first.
For it to blaze so brilliantly was never the light of any one person alone. It was prodigies shining together, a host of stars reflecting one another; it was also an era advancing, a lifetime of great contention, that had produced this unprecedented anthem.
Before Li Yi burst onto the scene and shattered that unseen shackle, history had never known a True Insight cultivator under thirty—generation after generation, the cultivation system was overturning what had come before, and Li Yi was the era's resounding note, arriving as naturally as water flowing into a channel. He could almost be regarded as a landmark event in the flourishing of the human path.
Jing Kingdom had hidden him away for three years. He attained True Insight at twenty-six, yet was not urgently