Thirty years ago, True Person Jingyang's ascension had drawn the eyes of the entire Chaotian Continent.
No one knew that True Person Taiping, who was nominally in seclusion until death but was actually imprisoned in the Sword Prison, had escaped at that very moment.
For True Person Taiping to pass through the Sword Formation True Person Jingyang had left in the passage and escape from beneath the heavily guarded Shangde Peak, he must have had help within Green Mountain. Liu Ci and Yuan Qijing began a rigorous investigation. Their first discovery was that two pieces of thunder soulwood were missing from Jade Lake Peak, so its peak master at the time, Lei Poyun, was imprisoned in the Sword Prison on the grounds that his cultivation had gone awry and he had fallen into demonic cultivation.
Less than two years later, Lei Poyun suddenly escaped from the Sword Prison, crying out shrilly among the peaks, "If there's no first, then what about the second?"
All of Green Mountain heard those words.
Of the two missing pieces of thunder soulwood, one had indeed been sent into the Sword Prison through Lei Poyun's efforts. It had helped True Person Taiping transfer his soul into the body of one of the Nether Department Demons, allowing him to pass through the Sword Formation Jingyang had left behind.
Lei Poyun had done this because he had been stalled in the Sea-Breaking Upper Realm for many years. True Person Taiping had promised to give him Green Mountain's two highest-ranked swords after escaping, to help him break through.
It had been a great risk, but faced with the great terror, he had ultimately made the choice most cultivators would have made.
But even after True Person Taiping transferred his soul into that Nether Department Demon and was reborn