When the outline of Godfall Island emerged from the sea of clouds, Chu Mo's temples throbbed violently. The island resembled a charred meteorite gnawed apart by a giant, its surface covered in winding cracks. The lava seeping from those fissures was not the usual crimson, but a dark gold gleaming with metallic chill, like the congealed blood of an ancient colossal beast. Even stranger, countless transparent sword phantoms floated above the island, each frozen in a slashing stance, as though guarding some forbidden secret.
"Chu Mo, look at those sword phantoms..." Yun Che's fingertips brushed across the back of his hand, carrying a bone-piercing chill. Only then did he notice that the paths of those sword phantoms perfectly matched the first eight forms of the Primordial Sword Art. Yet every sword tip pointed toward the deep-purple vortex at the island's center—an aura emanated from there that made even the heart of the Chaos Sword Body contract.
The space beneath their feet suddenly cracked like glass, and the two were dragged toward the island by a powerful suction force. In midair, Chu Mo grabbed a floating fragment of stone, only to find its surface engraved with the same runes as the Chaos Sword. Every rune, however, had been slashed open with a gap, like some cursed sword art. These sword marks... feel exactly like the first time I held a sword in the Ye Family's forbidden grounds. The thought sent a chill down his spine, as if invisible hands had laid this trap long before he awakened the Chaos Sword Body.
The instant they landed on the island's surface, the ground suddenly shook. A Scorpion-tailed Demon Spider, a thousand zhang in size, burst from the earth. Its carapace was covered in eye-shaped patterns, every "eye" reflecting Chu Mo's figure. The sound of Yun Che's flexible sword leaving its sheath rang beside him, though it carried a tremor she could not quite conceal—he knew that this girl, who had practiced swordsmanship with him in the Ye Family since childhood, was desperately suppressing her fear of the unknown.
"Careful! Its venom glands are imitating Chaos Power!" When Chu Mo swung the Chaos Sword, he discovered that even his Sword Qi had been dyed gray by the poisonous mist. Amid the Scorpion-tailed Demon Spider's screech, he heard a cunning that did not belong to a savage beast. What flashed through those compound eyes was clearly a hand signal known only to disciples of Godfall Pavilion. These beasts had long since been tamed by Godfall Pavilion, turned into living weapons guarding its secrets.
The crack of a purple whip cleaving the air saved their lives. The woman in purple-scaled armor landed like a night owl. The skull embedded at the end of her whip was devouring the poisonous mist, while the purple curse mark at the corner of her eye flickered with her breathing. "Outsider, you stepped onto Godfall Island with a Chaos Sword Body. You are the first fool to do so in thirty thousand years." Her voice was like a blade tempered in ice, yet when her gaze swept over Yun Che, the depths of her eyes rippled almost imperceptibly.
"Are you from Godfall Pavilion?" Chu Mo stepped in front of Yun Che and noticed the broken-sword totem engraved inside the woman's armor—it matched perfectly with the crack on the First Generation Sword Master's coffin. She gave a cold laugh, and her long whip curled around Yun Che's hair. "Godfall Pavilion? We are nothing more than slaves who guard the Sword Master's grave. Thirty thousand years... and at last, someone has made that old thing's bones stir..."
The deep-purple vortex at the island's center suddenly exploded. An arm covered in sword scars stretched from it, and what flowed beneath its skin was actually liquid power of law. The woman's curse mark flared brightly. Her whip transformed into a giant python and coiled around the arm, only to shatter into fragments the instant it made contact. "Take this girl and leave through the northwestern fissure! There, the First Generation Sword Master left..." Before she could finish, half her armor was torn away, revealing the same Chaos Sword Body mark on her chest as Chu Mo's.
She is also an inheritor of the Chaos Sword Body?! Chu Mo's pupils shrank sharply. The woman coughed up black blood, but a crazed smile curved her lips. "Do not look at me like that, boy. Every generation of Godfall Pavilion sacrifices one disciple to receive the Sword Master Remnant Soul... and you are the perfect vessel, the only one capable of bringing that old thing back completely."
Yun Che suddenly seized him and rushed toward the northwest. Half a teleportation array was carved into the ground there, its incomplete patterns absorbing the Chaos Power within him. Behind them came the shriek of the Scorpion-tailed Demon Spider. Chu Mo looked back and saw the woman nailing her own wrist to the ground with her whip, letting her blood drip into the vortex and forcibly slowing the pursuit of that arm of law. Her purple hair stood out sharply against the dark-gold lava, like a flower of karmic fire about to wither.
"Remember, the black mist of Godfall Island... devours the memories of liars!" Her cry was swallowed by the vortex. The instant Chu Mo stepped into the teleportation array, he saw a Bronze Altar rise from the island's center. The corpse lying atop it looked exactly like the duplicate he had seen in the Primordial Chaos Realm, except that piercing its chest was the woman's broken whip.
The light of the teleportation array was so dazzling that they could barely keep their eyes open. Yun Che clutched tightly at the corner of his robe. Looking down, Chu Mo discovered that a purple scale had somehow appeared in her palm—a fragment of the woman's shattered armor. A line of tiny words had been carved into it in blood essence: "What lies in the Sword Master's coffin is not a corpse, but a thirty-thousand-year deception."
Godfall Island's dark-red outline gradually vanished from sight, yet Chu Mo felt that the island's secrets had only just lifted a corner of their veil. The curse mark at the woman's eye, the sword body mark on her chest, and that corpse identical to the duplicate... all of it told him that what Godfall Pavilion guarded was not the remains of the First Generation Sword Master, but a lie capable of overturning all realms. And he, the current host of the Chaos Sword Body, was stepping deeper and deeper into this scheme within a scheme that had endured for thirty thousand years.
"Chu Mo, you are trembling." Yun Che's voice was filled with concern. Only then did he realize that his nails had sunk deeply into his palm. The Chaos Sword trembled wildly within its sheath, as though urging him to turn back and uncover the truth of that deep-purple vortex at Godfall Island's center. What came from there was clearly the wail of the First Generation Sword Master Remnant Soul, mingled with the mournful cries of countless inheritors of the Chaos Sword Body.
The teleportation array was about to reach its destination. Chu Mo looked toward the gradually clearing starry sky, while the nine sword phantoms of Godfall Island still burned across his retinas. He suddenly understood that those transparent sword phantoms were not guardians, but shackles—the First Generation Sword Master had used his own sword art to turn Godfall Island into a colossal prison, trapping every Chaos Sword Body that tried to seek the truth. And that woman in purple-scaled armor had, until her final moment, used her life to tell him this: the slaves of Godfall Pavilion had never been limited to her alone. As the teleportation array's light completely engulfed them, Chu Mo heard a deafening explosion from the direction of Godfall Island. Looking back, he saw that the deep-purple vortex at the island's center had become a black hole, swallowing the surrounding sword phantoms and lava. Deep within that black hole, a figure in a bronze mask could vaguely be seen holding a Chaos Sword identical to the one in Chu Mo's hand, its tip pointing toward the Ninth Divine Region.
At that instant, Chu Mo's Chaos Sword Body was suddenly wracked by excruciating pain. At last, he remembered that when he had awakened in the Ye Family's forbidden grounds, the voice that had guided him to grasp the broken sword carried the same rhythm as the wail from Godfall Island's vortex—it was the echo of the First Generation Sword Master Remnant Soul across different times and spaces, and the call of fate that every host of the Chaos Sword Body had been unable to escape throughout the thirty-thousand-year cycle.
But this time, Chu Mo tightened his grip around Yun Che's hand. He knew that no matter whether what lay ahead was a trap from Godfall Pavilion, a deception by the First Generation Sword Master, or a conspiracy from the Ninth Divine Region, he would no longer face it alone as he had in the past. The Chaos Sword Body might be a vessel, or it might be a chess piece, but Chu Mo's sword would forever heed only his own sword heart—even if that sword had to cleave apart thirty thousand years of lies, shatter the confinement of Godfall Island, and strike at himself beneath that bronze mask.
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