First Immortal of the Sword

Chapter 931 - Him

It wasn’t that those cultivators were blind or unobservant.

But when You Xue was with Su Yi, she subconsciously suppressed her aura, hiding her cultivation base. Furthermore, she was as docile and obedient as a serving girl.

Thus, all others noticed about her was that she was matchlessly beautiful as a lady immortal.

So when she spoke up and expressed an altogether different attitude than Old Yao White Eyebrows, many of those present found it strange.

They looked at her once more, re-evaluating her. Don’t tell me this stunningly beautiful young woman has an illustrious background?

Then, something happened that the crowd found entirely unbelievable.

Old Yao White Eyebrows, the one they saw as a “senior”, froze. Then, he frantically explained, “Your Excellency You Xue, you’ve misunderstood! I just meant that whether or not we save these people is entirely up to His Excellency Su; this old man dares not overstep his bounds!”

Her Excellency You Xue?

His Excellency Su?

The crowd’s eyes widened, and they were at a loss for words as they suddenly realized they’d misjudged the situation.

The one they saw as a senior, Old Yao White Eyebrows, was actually someone the other two ordered about!

And the “lady immortal” of a young woman wasn’t the most illustrious member of the group either!

Numerous gazes subconsciously shifted, landing on the silent, blue-robed young man with his hands behind his back. It seems… that this is ‘His Excellency Su’!

“How long have you been trapped here?” asked Su Yi.

The middle-aged man in purple said hurriedly, “Your Excellency, we’ve gathered here ever since the Yin-Yang Road was destroyed. It’s been a little over a month.”

“Have any Emperors come to save you?”

The man in purple shook his head and said bitterly, “The path between the first and second layers of purgatory has long since been severed. We suspect that all of the tunnels between layers have been destroyed.”

Su Yi’s eyes narrowed.

In the Nine Great Purgatories of the Dark Capital, the further down you went, the more dangerous it was.

Ordinarily speaking, Emperors who explored the Dark Capital would bring Spirit Dao cultivators of their respective factions to the first three layers of purgatory to temper themselves while the Emperors explored the lower levels.0

The purple-robed man’s words almost certainly implied that the Emperors exploring the lower layers were in a similar predicament.

Su Yi thought for a moment, then asked, “There are far more demons and evil spirits on the first layer of purgatory than is typical. Is this also connected to the destruction of the Yin-Yang Road?”

The purple-robed middle-aged man nodded. “It is.”

Su Yi’s frown deepened.

Earlier, he asked the Nine Serenities Netherworld Crow how they’d destroyed the Yin-Yang Road of the Dark Capital.

After all, it was a manifestation of the source of the City of the Wrongfully Dead. It had stood throughout antiquity, and practically no one was capable of destroying it.

The crow’s answer wasn’t at all what Su Yi expected.

According to the Nine Serenities Netherworld Crow, the power supporting the Yin-Yang Road had begun weakening a long time ago.

On the night of the most recent Lantern Festival, the source energies that formed the Yin-Yang Road were like a pond on the verge of drying up. In the end, it went entirely dormant within Yin-Yang Divine Mountain!

Simply put, they didn’t deliberately destroy the Yin-Yang Road. The power of the Laws that sustained it had weakened!

Now, it seemed that these changes didn’t just prevent people from entering or leaving the Dark Capital; even the paths between the layers of purgatories had been affected!

“Your Excellency, could you perhaps get us out of here?” the middle-aged man in purple asked cautiously.

The nearby cultivators all looked at Su Yi. By now, who could have failed to realize that Su Yi was the one making all the decisions here?

“We’re headed further down, beyond the fifth layer. Wait here for now, but we’ll take you with us when we leave,” said Su Yi. He’d already started walking away.

You Xue and Old Yao White Eyebrows hurried after him.

When he saw this, a young man in ornate robes couldn’t help but plead, “Your Excellency, please, show some compassion! Let us out first. If something happens…”

But before he finished his sentence, he clamped his mouth shut.

“And you think we might not be coming back?” Su Yi paused and smiled faintly.

The ornately-dressed young man shuddered, then said in a quavering voice, “You’ve misunderstood. I wouldn’t dare think such a thing.”

“Oh?” said Su Yi. “Ol’ White Eyebrows, bring him out first.”

Old Yao White Eyebrows hurriedly agreed, and the young man went mad with delight.

However, You Xue looked at him as if he were an idiot. “When you leave the Dark Capital, I’m afraid someone with your paltry cultivation base has little hope of leaving the City of the Wrongfully Dead alive.”

The ornately-dressed young man reacted as if he’d been struck by lightning, and his delighted smile instantly froze in place.

But before he could react, Old Yao White Eyebrows grabbed him by the lapels and disappeared into thin air.

The others looked at each other.

You Xue’s warning filled their hearts with solemnity. action

She was right; with their strength, even if they left the Dark Capital, danger lurked on every corner of the City of the Wrongfully Dead. They would almost certainly be doomed!

Waiting here in the ritual grounds until their saviors returned would unquestionably be much safer.

As for the young man in ornate robes… they feared he was doomed!

Many of them broke out in cold sweats.

Because they’d felt much the same way as the unfortunate young man. They too had worried that Su Yi and his companions wouldn’t return from the lower levels of purgatory, and they wanted Su Yi to send them outside before he continued his expedition…

But now that You Xue had pointed it out, who could fail to understand that leaving prematurely was unlikely to end well for them?

“And here I thought you wouldn’t make things hard on such a small fry,” You Xue said softly.

Su Yi said flatly, “I disdain people who care only about their own life and death. Besides, he told me to be compassionate; I just did what he asked.”7

The other cultivators all felt conflicted.

Sometimes, a single mistake could determine your life and death.

That’s what had happened here!

Before long, Old Yao White Eyebrows appeared out of nowhere once more and said respectfully, “Your Excellency Su, I already sent that kid to Yin-Yang Divine Peak. Whether he lives or dies no longer has anything to do with us.”

Su Yi nodded. Then, without any further delays, he continued ahead.

The entrance to the second layer of purgatory was all the way to the east of the first layer.

Boom!

When Su Yi and company left the ritual grounds, the vast swarm of demons blanketing the landscape bared their fangs, waved their claws, and charged in a mad frenzy.

You Xue’s cold, distant eyes shone with disdain, and she raised her fair hand.

Boom!

Countless dim divine flames descended from the heavens.

In the blink of an eye, the entire landscape lit ablaze. Countless demons tried and failed to dodge in time. The divine flames set them on fire, dissipating their souls.

Fire fell like rain throughout the thirty thousand feet surrounding the ritual grounds.0

“This…”

Everyone in the ritual grounds was overcome with astonishment and rooted to the spot.

Only now did they realize the “Her Excellency You Xue” they’d initially mistaken for a servant was, in fact, a terrifying hidden expert.

As majestic as a goddess and as aloof as an immortal!0

By the time the group gradually regained their senses, Su Yi and his companions had already left.

“It seems…. We perhaps really have been saved.” The middle-aged man in purple couldn’t help but clench his fists. His expression filled with excitement.

The depths of the others’ gazes gradually lit up with hope.

…

The second layer of purgatory.

It was just as expected. Similar changes had befallen this place, and countless demons ravaged the landscape.

Su Yi and company didn’t so much as pause before shooting toward the entrance to the third layer.

……

The seventh layer of purgatory.

A dazzling, resplendent spatial rift hung in the air, like a natural barrier splitting the entire plane in half.0

One side of the barrier was a dim landscape. Terrifying demonic figures lurked amidst the darkness.

The other side was a boundless wasteland. Nothing grew, not even a single inch of grass. The land was entirely barren and shrouded in dim, dusky light year-round.0

“It’s only been a little over a month, but we’ve already buried nineteen of our fellow Daoists. Furthermore, our ‘Rift Barrier’ is about to collapse. When that happens, there’ll be nowhere left for us to run…” a thin old man in black said hoarsely. His expression carried a hint of grief.

Several others sat cross-legged nearby, treating their wounds.

A tall, stalwart man said nothing. He simply mended his battered war sword, his expression wooden.

A white-haired woman sat with her arms wrapped around her knees, silently sipping wine. Her expression was utterly bleak.

A scholarly middle-aged man stood beneath the distant curtain of dusk. He held a bone flute and played a bleak, somber melody. A sorrowful atmosphere permeated the wastelands; there was no getting rid of it.2

“If we die, we die. No Emperor lives forever. I just hope to drag a bunch of demons to the grave with me,” a white-robed man said expressionlessly. He had an ancient sword on his back.

However, his coldly handsome face softened when he looked at one of the women nearby. “Miss Ye Yu, why aren’t you saying anything?”0

She sat there hugging her knees, all alone atop one of the barren landscape’s small hills. She looked utterly alone.

Her eyebrows were curved, and she wore a lotus crow and a form-fitting black dress layered like delicate rose petals. It offset her slender, graceful figure. What skin was visible was as white as porcelain and smooth as lamb suet jade.

Her beautiful little face was full of undisguisable grief.

Ye Yu!

She was the first Empress to assume authority over the Ghost Serpents, the famous Falling Feather Spirit Empress!

But now, she sat there in a daze, gazing at the Rift Barrier splitting the distant skies and whispered, “If only I’d known this would happen… I should have spoken to him then…”

Here, her beautiful eyes glistened with unshed tears, and her expression was full of regret and despondency.

Not long ago, something awakened the Mother and Child Psychic Jade she carried on her person. This told her that the man who’d haunted her dreams for countless years had finally returned!

At the time, she wept tears of joy, and she was already eager to plan her return journey.

Who’d have thought the situation in the Dark Capital would change abruptly and ruin everything?

Ye Yu had never been afraid of death, but the thought of dying without seeing or speaking to him ever again filled her heart with panic and regret.

“Him?” The man in white was stunned, and a bit confused. Who is she talking about?

Apart from the Swordmaster of Abstruse Force who died five hundred years ago, who else could make the Falling Feather Spirit Empress so concerned?