The Azure Cloud Realm.
In the eight thousand years since the sword immortal who led the Mount Tai Sword Sect had ascended to the Immortal Realm, not a single other person had ascended.
Apart from the long-lived cultivators, whose older generation still remembered the spectacle of ascension.
The mortals of the world had all forgotten the grand sight of an immortal ascending.
On this day, the mortals of the Azure Cloud Realm went about their lives and work as usual, concerned with firewood, rice, oil, and salt.
Azure clouds drifted overhead, while mountains, rivers, cities, and towns spread across the earth, filled with the bustle of mortal life.
At the foot of Azure Cloud Mountain lay a small mountain village called Green Ox Village.
Morning.
A group of villagers rose early as usual, shouldered their hoes, and headed out to work in the fields.
The weather was clear and daylight shone bright. A cool breeze swept through the fields, gently swaying the green seedlings.
Just as they were about to step into the fields to work.
Suddenly.
A clear, ringing sword cry resounded through heaven and earth, accompanied by dazzling sword light that tore through space-time.
The entire Qingyun world flashed white the instant the sword light blazed, nearly blinding several villagers from Green Ox Village.
Then, rumbling immortal music rang out.
In the fields.
Several Green Ox Village villagers craned their necks and saw a rift suddenly open in the ordinarily clear sky.
Calling it a rift might not have been quite accurate. It looked very much like a gate!
Mist drifted within it, and clouds of seven-colored radiance rolled leisurely through the air.
Then they saw something else.
Before that gate that had suddenly appeared in the sky, a majestic figure in white slowly withdrew his sword and