The light of the teleportation array receded like a tide, and Chu Mo and Yun Che tumbled into a patch of viscous swamp. Purple mist churned around them as if alive, every breath carrying a rusty, sickly sweetness. The Chaos Sword suddenly shuddered violently. Dark golden liquid seeped from the runes on its scabbard, tracing a fragmentary sword art on the ground identical to the one on Godfall Island.
"Watch out!" Yun Che held her flexible sword across her chest, its blade reflecting the warped shadows behind them. Those shadows had condensed from the mist. They resembled disciples of Godfall Pavilion, yet possessed the compound eyes of Scorpion-tailed Demon Spiders. Chu Mo swung his sword, but the Chaos Sword Qi vanished into the mist like a clay ox entering the sea, swallowed without a trace. His temples throbbed. This mist could absorb Chaos Power—could it be connected to the First Generation Sword Master's imprisonment?
Silvery laughter drifted from the fog as a woman in a translucent gauze dress stepped through the mist. What dripped from her skirt was not water, but fluorescent black slime; every drop that struck the ground blossomed into a sword-shaped pattern. "Thirty thousand years... and at last, another wielder of the Chaos Sword Body has entered this place." Her fingertips brushed Chu Mo's blade, and her nails instantly turned gold. "Unfortunately, you came one step too late."
With a flick of her jade-like hand, the woman condensed the mist into chains that wrapped around them both. Just as Chu Mo was about to circulate his power, he saw a curse mark emerge on her chest, similar to the one on the purple-scaled woman, only darker, as though it had been scorched. "I am Wuyin, the former Saintess of Godfall Pavilion." She giggled, yet there was no mirth in her eyes. "That fool Purple Scale thought she could trade her life for the truth? She merely made you fall into a dead end faster."
Suddenly, the ground shook, and hundreds of broken swords rose from the swamp. The runes on their blades resonated with the jade slip in Chu Mo's hand. Wuyin's expression changed drastically, and the chains snapped apart. "Impossible! How could you possess the Fate Defying Remnant Scroll?!" The blast of air tore apart her gauze dress, revealing a back covered in sword scars. Purple blood flowed from every wound.
Seizing the chance, Chu Mo unfurled the jade slip. Ancient characters flew into his Sea of Consciousness of their own accord. In an instant, he saw an underground secret chamber beneath Godfall Pavilion: countless corpses resembling him soaked in golden liquid, each with half a Chaos Sword embedded in its chest. At the far end of the chamber, the Bronze Masked Figure was whipping a chained youth with the purple-scaled woman's long whip—the youth's face was exactly the same as Chu Mo's when he had first entered the Ye family.
"This is the First Generation Sword Master's Memory Cage!" Wuyin shrieked and lunged forward, only to be stopped by the suddenly appearing White-haired Elder and his bone staff. Tears glimmered in the elder's clouded eyes. "Wuyin, stop clinging to your delusions. Chu Mo, quickly activate the Illusion Breaking Array Diagram within the jade slip. Only then can you..."
Before he could finish, blood-red lightning suddenly descended from the sky. The Bronze Masked Figure arrived atop a shadow of swords, the Chaos Sword in his hand resonating with Chu Mo's weapon so fiercely that Chu Mo's tiger's mouth split open. A familiar voice came from beneath the mask. "My young friend, carrying my remnant scroll around everywhere is not a good habit." A crack opened in the mask, revealing eyes identical to the avatar Chu Mo had seen in the Mirror Abyss.
Yun Che suddenly drove her flexible sword into her own shoulder, splattering blood across Wuyin. Something strange happened. The madness in Wuyin's eyes gradually faded, replaced by confusion and pain. "I... what have I done?" She stared at her scar-covered body, then suddenly grabbed Chu Mo's hand. "Run! Godfall Pavilion's Ten Thousand Swords Spirit Devouring Array has already activated. The entire Divine Region will..."
A thunderous crash cut her off. The Bronze Masked Figure swung his sword down, and Wuyin's body dissolved into countless motes of light. One of them entered Chu Mo's brow, carrying her final memories: throughout the thirty-thousand-year sacrifices, every generation of Chaos Sword Body wielders had their memories erased and become vessels for the First Generation Sword Master's resurrection. Purple Scale and Wuyin had once tried to join forces and resist, only to fail.
The White-haired Elder suddenly plunged his bone staff into the ground, and golden runes surged boiling from the swamp. "Old fool, you dare betray Godfall Pavilion?" the Bronze Masked Figure roared, as the runes on his sword lit with an eerie red glow. Yet the elder smiled as he coughed blood. "Chu Mo, remember, the true Sword Master Remnant Soul is in... Agh!" Sword Qi pierced through his body. Before dying, he shoved a token engraved with the character "Nine" into Yun Che's hand.
The purple mist began to contract wildly, forming an enormous vortex. Chu Mo gripped Yun Che's hand tightly as the Chaos Sword flew up on its own and collided with the Bronze Masked Figure's weapon. Amid the violent energy surges, he heard the First Generation Sword Master whisper from the jade slip, "If you wish to learn the truth, go to the Mirror Abyss Corridor in the Ninth Divine Region..."
At the instant the vortex swallowed them, Chu Mo looked back and saw the Bronze Masked Figure remove his mask. That face was unmistakably his future appearance, a mocking smile curling his lips as he held another token engraved with the character "Three." The two tokens merged into one, forming the complete words "Thirty Thousand" in the air—the exact number of years in Godfall Pavilion's sacrificial cycle.
When they landed again, they found themselves in a corridor lined with mirrors. Every mirror reflected a different Chu Mo: some wore bronze masks, some were drenched in blood, and some were being pierced through the heart by countless sword blades. Yun Che tightened her grip around the "Nine" token, whose patterns fit perfectly with the design on the corridor floor. At the far end of the corridor came the earth-shattering sound of chains snapping, as though some ancient existence was about to awaken.
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