Arc 76Chapters 1876–1900
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Xu Taiping and Su Chan agreed to settle their conflict with a single sword strike, as Su Chan unleashed the sword mountain’s rain of blades against Xu Taiping’s perfected Demon-Slaying Crane-Listening Stance. Xu Taiping’s decades of practice let him meet the assault head-on, leaving the duel’s outcome unresolved.
Xu Taiping used the Netherworld Power sealed in his Soul Seal to consume the Power of Wuji’s Unrestricted Method in his wounds and Su Chan’s Sword Mountain, then shattered half the mountain with an Extreme Law punch. Su Chan acknowledged his plan but pointed out that the blow had not destroyed the whole Sword Mountain, leaving their battle unresolved.
Xu Taiping kept fighting Su Chan as his strength dwindled, while the soul-seal brands exposed on his body broke the Wang You Wind’s hold over the Shangqing Realm. With everyone’s memories restored, the old city lord ordered Thousand Mechanisms City to locate the ruins in Outer Heaven and rescue Xu Taiping.
As Xu Taiping's life-and-death struggle with Su Chan neared its end, the cultivation world remembered his sacrifice in the Mysterious Wasteland Tower and mobilized to rescue him. Thousand Mechanisms City and Giant Deer City began attacking the demon abysses, while Su Chan unleashed a wave of black swords that swallowed Xu Taiping.
Xu Taiping continued fighting Su Chan despite his depleted qi, blood, and strength, but Su Chan used his sword mountain to repeatedly knock him through the ruins. The spectators saw Su Chan’s attacks as deliberate humiliation of Xu Taiping, True Martial Heaven, and the Shangqing Realm.
Su Chan continued torturing Xu Taiping in front of the Five Heavens, trying to destroy the human cultivators’ resolve, while the Heartless Demon Emperor forbade Li Yezhu from intervening and demanded Xu Taiping die publicly. Just as Su Chan moved to deliver the final blow, Xu Taiping summoned the Rusty Lion Sword and unleashed a vast golden sword shadow.
Xu Taiping used his final Hidden Sword Art strike against Su Chan, whose black sword gates absorbed its power with Wuji's Unrestricted Method. Xu Taiping identified the character that unraveled Su Chan's swordsmanship, and his golden sword shadow shattered the gates and rushed toward Su Chan.
Su Chan broke Xu Taiping’s Hidden Sword Art with the Character Deciphering method and pressed his attack while Xu Taiping was nearly defeated. Encouraged by the cultivators watching and the jade bracelet’s power, Xu Taiping realized he had hidden one final sword in their memories of his feat at the Mysterious Wasteland Tower, and prepared to draw it.
Xu Taiping called on the spectators to lend him their swords, drawing on the sword intent he had hidden in everyone who witnessed his strike in the Mysterious Wasteland Tower. Their swords helped him resist Su Chan’s black sword light, and Fairy Lingyue realized she could choose whether to return the sword he had hidden within her.
Fairy Lingyue and nearby cultivators sent their sword strikes to Xu Taiping, but the few willing offerings could not stop Su Chan’s sword shadow from breaking his growing blade. As Xu Taiping’s strike neared collapse, Baili Yuan and Cangzhu pledged to help cultivators across the Five Heavens send him their swords.
The Abyssal Pavilion offered its vacant Thirteenth Seat to Xu Taiping, but the Heartless Demon Emperor threatened anyone who sent him a sword with the Nine Abysses Blood Pupil Brand. As Xu Taiping’s Sword Shadow began to falter, Zhang Tianze and the Sea-Calming Tower vowed to protect those branded and sent three hundred thousand soldiers’ swords.
As cultivators and great powers across the Five Heavens pledged to aid Xu Taiping, their offered swords began gathering to support him against Su Chan. Xu Taiping struggled to hold his ground, then realized his sword strike might surpass Senior A Meng’s as he attained sword enlightenment.
Xu Taiping received a surge of true essence through the Listening Wind Tower jade bracelet, which seemed to connect him with Buyu, and used it to withstand Su Chan’s overwhelming sword strike. He revealed the Sea-Swallowing Seal attributed to Ancient Buddha Kasyapa, then drove his growing golden sword shadow into Su Chan’s black canopy.
Xu Taiping used a Sword Domain forged from the sacrifices of past heroes and the arriving golden-armored warriors to defeat Su Chan’s demonic army and pierce him with the Rusty Lion Sword. Before Xu Taiping could withdraw his sword, a rotting giant dragon emerged from the Land of Chaos and lunged at him while he was too exhausted to dodge.
Xu Taiping escaped the Chi Dragon’s attack, and Lü Daoxuan appeared and cut through the Demon Mother’s barrier and the beast with a single sword strike. Lü Daoxuan then gave Fairy Lingyue a Bronze Coffin and asked her to hide Xu Taiping inside it so he could evade Nine Abysses’ pursuit.
Lü Daoxuan erased the Chi Dragon and the traces of his intervention, then warned Fairy Lingyue to hide Xu Taiping in the bronze coffin. After three years of sleep in the Netherdark Demon Grotto, Xu Taiping awoke.
Xu Taiping awoke in a bronze coffin in the Netherdark Demon Grotto and found Lü Daoxuan suffering behind the Bronze Gate. As they shared wine and began to discuss the nine bronze coffins, Fairy Lingyue arrived to join them.
Xu Taiping learned he had slept for three years in the bronze coffin and watched Fairy Lingyue’s memories reveal that Lü Daoxuan had saved him from the Chi Dragon. As a fierce battle sounded beyond the Bronze Gate, Fairy Lingyue admitted she could not explain how Lü Daoxuan appeared outside it or why he seemed unlike Recluse Sansan.
Xu Taiping learned that the Nine Abysses had made him a target in the next Heaven-Demon War contest, while Fairy Lingyue delivered the True Martial Sword Champion Token and a Scroll of Time. The scroll was part of a trial for Xu Taiping to become the Abyssal Pavilion's Thirteenth Seat, though Fairy Lingyue warned that this trial would be different.
Xu Taiping learned why Heavenly Lord Cangzhu wanted him to enter the dangerous Scroll of Time trial and heard Lü Daoxuan reveal that he knew how the previous Thirteen Seats holder died. Lü Daoxuan then asked Xu Taiping and Fairy Lingyue to enter the bronze coffin to help him seal an awakened Earth Calamity Demon Seed, leaving them in a strange vision with Lü Daoxuan beside the Bronze Gate.
Xu Taiping and Fairy Lingyue found Lü Daoxuan chained at the Bronze Gate, where he reclaimed the Ink Qilin Sword and explained how he had used himself as bait to recover it. Lü Daoxuan faced the many-armed figure’s next attack with the sword, leaving its streaks of sword radiance suspended as white seal-script characters.
Lü Daoxuan shielded Xu Taiping and Fairy Lingyue from the Netherdark Demon Grotto’s deadly Gang Wind and explained how Taiping had rekindled his will to fight fate. After the wind passed, Taiping and Fairy Lingyue waited at the Bronze Gate as Lü Daoxuan began explaining the nine Bronze Coffins.
Lü Daoxuan told Xu Taiping and Fairy Lingyue that the Azure Profound Sect and its nine Bronze Gates and Coffins descended from the Taixuan Sect. He warned them that the Great Void Calamity would inevitably return to the Shangqing Realm and began explaining the inherited tools they would need to prepare.
Lü Daoxuan explained the Taixuan Demon-Suppressing Coffins’ powers to Xu Taiping and Fairy Lingyue, revealing that the Bronze Coffin could halt the Power of Time and free its occupant from Heavenly Dao constraints. He ended by claiming that, with sufficient materials, the coffin could slay enemies in the River of Time.
Lü Daoxuan explained how his Origin Beginning Clones and the Demon-Suppressing Coffins allowed his Great Dao to coexist with theirs and gave him multiple chances at rebirth. He revealed that the Lü Daoxuan who delivered the coffins was his first clone, Number One, created six hundred years earlier to enter the River of Time and temper himself.