The word "Agreed" rang out.
The second floor of the Famous Sword Pavilion fell silent for a moment.
Then mocking laughter erupted from all sides.
"He's mad. The brat actually dared to agree."
"Pavilion Master Shen spent years studying it and got nowhere. Who does he think he is? A master swordsmith?"
"Just watch. If that scrap iron makes so much as a sound today, I'll eat my sword."
The young man in lavish robes flicked open his folding fan, his laughter especially grating.
In his eyes, Chu Yunfei was not brimming with confidence at all.
He had merely been put on the spot with no way to back down, leaving him no choice but to grit his teeth and keep up the act.
"If a youngster wants the limelight, he should first weigh what he's worth."
The female attendant turned pale and desperately shot Chu Yunfei meaningful looks.
Three spirit swords were worth several thousand low-grade spirit stones at the very least.
How was this a wager?
He was clearly staking his entire fortune over a matter of pride.
But Chu Yunfei seemed not to notice.
Holding the black sword, he slowly closed his eyes.
The surrounding mockery and chatter faded away.
His entire awareness sank into the sword blank in his hand.
"The sword blank is real, but the seal inside it is no simple thing."
Within his sea of consciousness, Xiaoxiao Dragon's tone grew a little more serious.
"You little brat, can you really awaken it?"
"Of course."
Chu Yunfei chuckled inwardly.
"I never do anything I'm not confident about."
"Watch closely."
The next instant, the Boundless Creation Scripture began circulating at full power.
Boom!
The vortex of spiritual power within his dantian rapidly accelerated.
A wisp of pure spiritual power surged along his arm into his palm, then seeped into the blade bit by bit through the pitch-black hilt.
At the same time, the Divine Cauldron of Heavenly Mandate deep within his sea of consciousness trembled gently.
Hum.
That wisp of spiritual power immediately gained an ancient, weighty presence.
Chu Yunfei did not forcefully assault the seal.
Following the faint resonance from the divine cauldron, his awareness caught an almost imperceptible fissure deep within the blade, and he sent his spiritual power inside.
One breath.
Two breaths.
Three breaths.
The black sword remained utterly lifeless.
Not the slightest change appeared on its dull blade.
"Tch."
The lavishly dressed young man scoffed.
"All that posturing, and this is it?"
The surrounding crowd gradually lost patience as well.
"I thought he actually had some ability."
"What a waste of time."
"Pavilion Master Shen, just have him get the spirit stones ready."
Shen Zhu said nothing.
But his tightly knitted brows said it all.
Had he really misjudged him?
Was this brat merely an arrogant fool who didn't know when to back down?
Just as everyone decided the farce was about to end.
"Hum..."
An extremely low vibration sounded from deep within the blade.
It was not loud, yet it struck everyone's chest like a heavy hammer.
The mocking laughter stopped abruptly.
Every gaze fell on the black sword at once.
A speck of dark-gold light glimmered on the blade's surface.
It was not ordinary spiritual radiance.
It was an ancient marking.
As fine as a strand of hair, the marking spread forward from the hilt in Chu Yunfei's grasp, like meridians that had slumbered for years filling with blood once more.
One.
Ten.
A hundred.
In the blink of an eye, dense dark-gold markings covered the entire blade.
The black sword that had looked utterly unremarkable a moment earlier now had a completely different presence.
It was still pitch-black.
But it was no longer lifeless.
Like a ferocious beast slumbering in an abyss ten thousand fathoms deep, it opened its eyes across endless ages.
Clang!
The sword's cry soared skyward.
An icy, domineering sword intent erupted with a roar, sweeping across the entire second floor with Chu Yunfei at its center.
That sword intent did not bare its edge.
Instead, it was terrifyingly deep.
Like an abyss with no end in sight, it threatened to swallow even light, spiritual power, and souls.
Hundreds of spirit swords on the second-floor racks began trembling at once.
"Hum, hum, hum..."
"Clang, clang, clang..."
Their cries merged into one.
Those spirit swords, usually shimmering with spiritual radiance and sought after by countless martial artists, now seemed to have encountered a true sovereign.
Their blades bowed low.
Their spiritual radiance withdrew.
Even their cries carried fear they could not suppress.
Several inferior low-grade Yellow-tier spirit swords could not withstand the sword intent at all and fell from their racks on the spot.
Clatter!
Clatter!
The longswords struck the floor, their spiritual radiance rapidly dimming.
The entire second floor instantly descended into chaos.
Only the black sword in Chu Yunfei's hand remained as steady as a mountain.
Its dark-gold markings flowed slowly.
That sword intent, capable of devouring all things, pressed down on the pavilion's spirit swords until none could lift their heads.
Silence.
Deathly silence.
Everyone who had been mocking Chu Yunfei stood frozen in place.
Some had their mouths slightly open.
Some had gone deathly pale.
Others instinctively gripped their own swords, only to discover that the blades were still trembling uncontrollably.
Scrap iron?
Whose scrap iron could make an entire pavilion of spirit swords bow their heads?
The martial artist who had declared he would eat his sword quietly shut his mouth and even retreated two steps behind the crowd.
He dreaded anyone remembering what he had said.
The lavishly dressed young man's folding fan had long since fallen to the floor.
His legs went weak as he stared fixedly at the black sword in Chu Yunfei's hand, the sneer long gone from his face.
"Impossible..."
"How is this possible?"
The discerning eye he took such pride in had been shattered by that single sword cry.
Recalling how he had repeatedly called it scrap iron, he felt his face burn.
It was as though someone had slapped him dozens of times in public.
The female attendant covered her mouth as well.
Remembering how she had just advised Chu Yunfei to choose another sword, her ears instantly reddened.
Every customer in the pavilion had misjudged it.
Only this youth had never once loosened his grip on the sword from beginning to end.
So he had not been putting on a brave front.
He had truly recognized this divine treasure.
Within his sea of consciousness, even Xiaoxiao Dragon could not help marveling.
"You really did pry open a corner of the seal."
"You little brat, you've got some tricks."
Her soul power spread along the Divine Cauldron of Heavenly Mandate, carefully sensing the black sword's presence after its awakening.
A moment later, her voice turned solemn.
"Earlier, this king could only tell that it was a sealed sword blank."
"Only now that the seal has loosened can I see it more clearly."
"This sword was originally of an extremely high tier, but something unknown happened to it. Almost all its might was wiped away, and even its remaining Sword Qi and spirituality were sealed away by someone."
"That is precisely why it looked like scrap iron."
Xiaoxiao Dragon paused for a moment.
"Although only its sword blank remains now, with the seal loosened, its tier is roughly equivalent to a low-grade Earth-tier spirit sword."
Chu Yunfei's heart jolted.
Low-grade Earth-tier!
There were probably only a handful of Earth-tier spirit weapons in the entire Azure Mystic Sect.
What was more, the Abyss-Devouring Sword still had the potential to keep growing.
"Don't celebrate too soon."
Xiaoxiao Dragon unceremoniously doused him with cold water.
"You've only awakened a sliver of this sword's instinct. You haven't truly broken the seal."
"And with your current meager cultivation, even if you were given an emperor sword, how much of its power could you unleash?"
"In a real fight, how strong it can be will still depend on your own ability."
Far from being disappointed, Chu Yunfei's gaze burned even brighter.
So what if he couldn't unleash its full power now?
Time was never what he lacked.
As long as the Abyss-Devouring Sword could grow, sooner or later, he would restore its true edge.
Chu Yunfei's fingers slowly tightened.
The blade trembled gently in response, its dark-gold markings flickering as though it could sense his thoughts.
A faint connection formed between the man and the sword.
In a haze, an extremely feeble consciousness entered Chu Yunfei's mind.
It was so weak that it seemed liable to dissipate at any moment.
Abyss Swallower...
"The Abyss-Devouring Sword?"
Chu Yunfei murmured the name.
The blade trembled gently again.
As though responding.
"A good name."
Staring at the black sword in his hand, Chu Yunfei had already made his decision.
This was the one.
From this day forth, this would be his sword.
Among everyone present, the one truly shaken was not any of the ordinary martial artists.
It was Shen Zhu.
The one-armed old man stood rooted to the spot, his eyes fixed on the dark gold patterns on the blade.
His remaining right hand trembled uncontrollably.
His breathing grew heavier and heavier.
The others had seen only the Abyss-Devouring Sword's might as it subdued a hundred swords.
What Shen Zhu saw, however, was a legend buried beneath countless years.
Dark gold formed its patterns.
Its sword intent swallowed the abyss.
He had once seen those two lines in an incomplete ancient text.
Only a handful of pages remained of that book.
Yet what they recorded was enough to drive any swordsmith mad.
Shen Zhu's lips moved, his voice so low that only he could hear it.
"Could it be..."
"That legend was true?"
He jerked his head up and looked at Chu Yunfei again.
Not a trace of contempt remained in his piercing gaze.
There was only scrutiny, bewilderment, and a hint of awe that even he himself was unwilling to admit.
Just what was this young man's background?
How could he so easily loosen a seal that had left countless master swordsmiths helpless?
Chu Yunfei noticed Shen Zhu's gaze but offered no explanation.
The Divine Cauldron of Heavenly Mandate and the Boundless Creation Scripture were his greatest secrets.
Shen Zhu was merely a swordsmith he had just met.
Even with his closest family, he would not readily reveal them.
With a thought, Chu Yunfei slowly withdrew the spiritual power he had poured into the blade.
Humm...
The Abyss-Devouring Sword quivered softly.
The dark gold patterns on its blade receded like the tide, and the terrifying sword intent that had forced every spiritual sword in the building to bow subsided with them.
Within just a few breaths, the Abyss-Devouring Sword returned to its original appearance.
Pitch-black.
Heavy.
Without the slightest spiritual glow.
Had several spiritual swords not still lain scattered every which way across the floor, everyone would almost have thought that everything just now had been an illusion.
Chu Yunfei casually hoisted the Abyss-Devouring Sword onto his shoulder and turned to Shen Zhu.
A faint smile rested on his face.
"Senior."
"Are you satisfied with this result?"