The night was pitch-black.
The wind and snow in the Kunlun Mountains grew ever more urgent, battering down upon them, soon coating the two figures in the Sword Family grounds with white.
Xu Xuan let the Dusk Drum obscure his cultivation and magical power. Though he could break through merely by reaching out to his true self, he allowed the Lesser Yin Dusk Drum to weaken him.
The two faced each other in silence.
Was he testing me? Or... using me to verify something?
Xu Xuan silently worked through the possibilities, a suspicion already forming.
The Dusk Drum had come at a remarkably opportune moment, reducing both men to mortals just as victory and defeat were about to be decided, as though one more step would let them touch something.
Sinful karma.
The sinful karma of divine thunder.
Xu Xuan could clearly see the sinful karma the other man bore. It was some connection between this Celestial Pivot Sword Immortal and Xuanhao, recorded by altar thunder.
Countless broken swords surrounded them, large and small, of every shape and design. Even the peaks stood upright like heavenly swords, and boundless severance manifested here.
The swords in their hands hummed and trembled in response, darting through the snowy night like wild geese in flight.
"Divine thunder... pursues flawlessness."
Their blades clashed, scattering streams of light that illuminated two faces bearing very different expressions.
Zhou Shi stepped back, his figure disappearing into the darkness. Only his voice came through the roaring wind and snow, seeming to rise from every direction at once.
"Does anything flawless exist beneath heaven?"
"No such thing ever existed."
Xu Xuan's silver robe snapped in the raging wind. Snow had dyed his brows white, and a thin layer of frost had formed on his lips.
A golden sword thrust