Even the Sword Venerable Wuxin was stunned.
He opened his mouth, but after a long while, he managed to squeeze out a sentence:
"Could it be the manifestation of the legacy left by the Sword Ancestor? Although the Wordless Sword Stele has no words, there have always been rumors that the Sword Ancestor sealed his legacy within the stele."
Historically, there have indeed been exceptionally talented individuals who have been able to glean insights from the Wordless Sword Stele, and occasionally even trigger extraordinary phenomena, but nothing has ever been as exaggerated as this.
Before the words had even finished, an even more astonishing phenomenon occurred.
The entire Sword Stele Forest trembled.
The stone ground beneath their feet trembled, the sword tablets on either side hummed, and the flowing sword light in the sky was also drawn towards the Wordless Sword Stele.
Even more astonishing was the sudden appearance of solidified chains of Sword Dao Principle in the void.
The chains were entirely silver-white, their surfaces engraved with mysterious sword patterns, rising from all directions and enveloping the entire Sword Stele Forest.
The chains extended over a vast area, crossing the Sword Stele Forest and stretching all the way to the Nine Pavilions of the Eternal Sword Pavilion, as if to shroud the entire Sword Pavilion headquarters under a vast layer of Sword Dao Principle.
One after another, beams of Sword Intent rose from those sword monuments that were hundreds or even thousands of feet tall, soaring straight into the sky.
Countless mysterious runes emerged from each beam of light, slowly rotating around it as if in celebration or in worship.
Thousands of beams of light rose simultaneously, illuminating the entire sky of the Ten Thousand Sword Domain in a dazzling silver-white hue.
At the heart of it all, above the Wordless Sword Stele, a colossal phantom slowly materialized.
The phantom was tens of thousands of feet tall, its body wrapped in dense chains of Sword Dao. Its face was indistinct, but its aura of suppressing eternity and looking down upon the world poured down as if it were real.
The illusory figure simply stood there silently, yet it sent a shiver down the spines of everyone present.
It was a crushing defeat on a level of life itself, like an ant looking up at a dragon, like a firefly standing shoulder to shoulder with the bright moon.
The silhouette of the phantom was very similar to Han Xuanji's figure, dressed in a green robe, with a slender figure, standing with his hands behind his back.
His face was blurred, his features were indistinct, only his eyes were vaguely visible, his gaze containing boundless True Intention of Sword Dao, as if a single glance could split the heavens and earth, or Ruins of Return.
The smile on Flying Snow Sword Venerable's face vanished completely.
He gazed at the illusory figure, then at the tiny figure in blue robes below it, and remained silent for a long while before slowly speaking:
"Just who is this guy?"
Because he saw the illusory figure slowly raise a hand and press it lightly towards Han Xuanji.
With that one press, the Sword Intent of the entire Sword Stele Forest bowed down, and thousands of sword lights simultaneously tilted towards Han Xuanji, as if ten thousand ministers were paying homage to a king.
Within the Sword Stele Forest, everyone seemed to have lost the ability to speak, or rather, they had been suppressed by this terrifying aura to the point of being unable to utter a word.
Those Sword Pavilion disciples who had initially wondered if Han Xuanji was incapable felt even more ashamed.
Are you kidding me?
If Han Xuanji can't do it, then what are they?
Si Xing stood at the front of the crowd, her arms still crossed, but her fingers had unconsciously dug into the flesh of her arms.
His eyes widened as he stared at the towering phantom, then at Han Xuanji's back below it. His Adam's apple bobbed several times before he finally managed to squeeze out a sentence in an almost groaning tone:
"What... what's going on? Could it be that Young Venerable Han is actually the reincarnation of the Sword Ancestor?"
He was startled by the conjecture and quickly shook his head to deny the absurd idea, but he couldn't think of any other explanation.
Even a fool could see what this strange phenomenon meant.
Chen Xin stood beside Si Xing, and even inexplicably agreed with Si Xing's disrespectful words.
At this moment, his expression lost its coldness, his lips parted slightly, and his calm eyes reflected the sky full of sword light and the towering phantom, with an extremely complex emotion surging deep within his pupils.
He saw the crisscrossing chains of Sword Dao Principle, the myriad sword lights tilting towards the illusory figure, and the True Intention of Sword Dao swirling around the illusory figure.
But what shocked him most was the face of that phantom.
Although blurry, the outline, the figure, and the posture of standing with hands behind his back are clearly those of Han Xuanji himself.
"This..."
Chen Xin's hand unconsciously pressed on the hilt of the sword at her waist, her knuckles turning white from gripping it so tightly.
He suddenly remembered that he had just been thinking that if Han Xuanji's sword tablet was much worse than his, he should go and comfort him.
But what he saw shattered all his hopes.
Although we haven't seen Han Xuanji's sword tablet yet, judging from this situation, is a sword tablet even necessary?
Han Xuanji's Sword Dao may never have needed his judgment.
The illusory figure standing there was the best answer to all the doubters.
Ling Cang and Leng Qianqiu stood in the crowd.
The two stared at the sky filled with sword light and the towering phantom, completely speechless.
Ling Cang's lips moved several times, but he couldn't utter a single syllable.
He suddenly realized that the lingering fear he felt when Cang Kong awakened Zang Kong from the Sword Stele Forest's realm in the Sword Monument Forest was utterly insignificant compared to what was happening before him.
He couldn't even leave behind a single sword stele, but Han Xuanji, standing Wordless Sword Stele, stirred the entire forest of Sword Stele Forest, causing the Daoist aura of the Sword Ancestor to bow down in submission.
He no longer knew how to measure the difference between them.
Leng Qianqiu clenched her fists, her nails digging into her palms, but she felt no pain.
Only one thought echoed in his mind: This is Han Xuanji. This is the champion of the Dragon Terrace Sacred Banquet. This is the person he needs to look up to.
But these are the unparalleled geniuses of their Sacred Court.
With just a slight movement, he had already shocked everyone!
In the void, Ji Mingyue slowly withdrew the half-step she had taken.
She took a deep breath, suppressing her turbulent emotions, and regained her composure as the Pavilion Master.
But her gaze never left Han Xuanji's back. The scrutiny in her clear, cold eyes had completely faded, replaced by a solemnity she had never shown to any of her juniors in tens of thousands of years.
She muttered something to herself, a sound only she could hear:
"This child must not be allowed to return to the Sacred Court..."