The Prodigies War

The young man became more and more quiet. He practiced his sword every day like an ascetic monk and spent all of his time on cultivation.

No one knew about the pain, resentment, unwillingness, and the internal struggles that he carried.

Cultivation became his only spiritual support.

Several years later, the gray-robed man reappeared and brought him to the Ziyao Empire in the lower world.

“You were born with a sword bone, but it’s not strong enough alone. There’s a baby there who was just born with an Origin Aeth Artery. Go and seize it.”

That was the order the gray-robed man gave as he stood in front of the Lin Clan.

“No!”

For the first time, the teenager resisted.

The bloody scene of his family when he was four years old once again replayed. It was a nightmare that had never stopped haunting him.

He didn’t want the same thing to happen to this completely strange family.

Moreover, he was asked to be the murderer. He resisted it immensely from the bottom of his heart.

Bang!

The response he got was a slap in the face, and a cold and ruthless sentence, “If you don’t go, I will take your sword bone, give it to that baby, and take it as my heir, while you will surely die.”

That night, the entire Lin Clan’s main branch was slaughtered, and their blood dyed Mind Cleansing Peak red.

“Why did you do that? Wasn’t it just to take the Origin Aeth Artery? Why kill them?” The teenager’s rage was unquenchable.

“Childish.” The gray-robed man lightly dismissed him. He had never taken the teenager’s fury seriously.

……

“I swear I will kill you one day!”

That was the vicious oath uttered by the teenager when he became the youngest Cyclic Derivation cultivator in the history of the Omega Sword Sect.

It was extremely firm, just like his sword heart.

It was also on that day that the gray-robed man found him again and said many things.

“Your sword must be devoid of emotions and desires. By killing your parents, I severed your blood ties. By killing the sparrow you raised, I extinguished the warmth in your heart. By killing your maid, I detached your human feelings.

“But without me, you wouldn’t have achieved what you have today. I am your guide and your benefactor, and of course, the person you loathe the most.

“If you can kill me one day, then it means that you will have truly realized the path of utter apathy, and I will instead be very pleased.

“You have to remember that the most powerful sword path in the world can only be found in the word ‘emotionless,’ and it’s not as simple as just saying it.”

After that day, the teenager was plunged into a week of immense pain as his mind suffered relentless torment.

He decided to go into seclusion.

The seclusion lasted ten years.

When he emerged, his heart carried only the Way of the Sword.

……

Fragmented pictures from his memories unfolded in Yun Qingbai’s mind. He realized that they had never been clearer than this moment as he approached his death.

“From the beginning, I’ve never had a choice…” A deep sigh rose in his heart.

He was born with a sword bone and talents that shocked the entire Ancient Wasteland Domain and was regarded as the top sword cultivator of the young generation. His life had been dazzling and brilliant.

But who could have imagined that it had all been forced upon him?

Were there regrets?

No regrets, only hatred for not being able to take control of his own life and cut down all of his enemies!

“What a pity….” Yun Qingbai closed his eyes as he and his primordial spirit turned into a rain of light.

Lin Xun watched expressionlessly.

But in his heart, the huge boulder that he had been carrying for many years was lifted. There was this sense of ease, far from being happiness, but it felt satisfying.

It was very satisfying that his deeply ingrained hatred had been avenged!

He reminisced about that year in the lower world and the extreme rage he had felt upon learning of the Lin Family’s massacre.

For the sake of revenge, he had gone through countless ordeals and near-death experiences in order to become stronger and kill the murderer that he had never met.

He had been waiting for this day for too long!

Now that he had finally put an end to this grudge, how could he not feel satisfied?

“There are still some people that must be buried with you as well…”

Lin Xun recalled Meng Rong, the mother of Ninth Prince Zhao Jingzhen, who had informed Yun Qingbai of his existence, as well as the prince’s grandfather, Meng Qiujing, who was an inner elder of the Omega Sword Sect.

Lin Xun had already found out quite early that if it hadn't been for Meng Rong and Meng Qiujing leaking the news, Yun Qingbai would never have known that there was a baby in the lower world born with an Origin Aeth Artery.

It wasn’t over after the main culprit was dead. The accomplices must not be spared!

Little Silver’s voice suddenly rang out, “Master, this is the memory left in his consciousness, but unfortunately, it’s too fragmented. I could only gather a small portion.”

The God Devourer Insects had an innate talent that let them control the spirit, so it wasn’t difficult to seize some of Yun Qingbai’s memories before his death.

“You should take a look at it. This fellow…” Little Silver presented a magnificent ball of light and hesitantly said, “...is actually quite pitiful.”

Stunned, Lin Xun streamed his spirit sense into the light ball.

And then, he saw the fragmented memories of Yun Qingbai.

On a snowy day when he was four years old, the boy looked woodenly at his parents, who were lying in a pool of blood and snow. He was taken away without being able to utter a word from shock…

In the kitchen was the porridge that his parents had cooked for him, but his parents were no longer alive, and his home was stained with blood.

When the boy was nine, an ordinary sparrow that he had been raising with all his heart and entrusted with all of his warmth to was mercilessly crushed to death.

When he was thirteen…

The scenes were displayed in Lin Xun’s mind.

For a long time, Lin Xun’s expression flickered as his heart became filled with complicated feelings. When he finally grasped the truth behind the matter, he couldn’t hold back a soft sigh.

“No wonder he said that he had no choice. From the beginning, he had never even thought of cultivating the sword…”

Yun Qingbai had been a tragic genius.

Lin Xun recalled when Yun Qingbai had lost his temper before his death. It had been a kind of hatred and resentment that were close to madness, as well as an indescribable feeling of loss and unwillingness.

Only now did Lin Xun realize that Yun Qingbai’s hatred had been directed at someone else, and it was that person who had changed his life and destroyed everything that had ever mattered to him.

“Master, are you feeling bad?” asked Little Silver.

Lin Xun shook his head. “Even if I had known of these things ahead of time, he and I would still have been mortal enemies, and the outcome probably wouldn’t change.”

Little Silver said, “But I think the most detestable person is that gray-robed man who took Yun Qingbai away from his home... That person is simply inhumane and worse than monsters!”

There was unconcealable rage in its voice.

Yun Qingbai had been a child of a simple village. Although his family had been poor, his parents had been hardworking, and they had treated him like a treasure. To think that such a family had met with a calamity just because the child carried a sword bone!

Because of this sword bone, his life was covered in layers of shadow that could not be dispersed.

The most frustrating thing was that his parents’ killer became his mentor, preaching and teaching him…

From the moment Yun Qingbai had practiced cultivation, he had been burdened with great misfortune!

He indeed…had no choice.

That was why Little Silver considered the real culprit to be the gray-robed man.

Lin Xun agreed. His eyes flickered. “Indeed, that person must die!”

This wasn’t a cry of justice for Yun Qingbai. It was just a natural decision now that he had learned there was another culprit behind the massacre of his family!

That person was the one who had steered Yun Qingbai’s fate and accompanied his cultivation path like a shadow.

“Anything on the identity of this gray-robed man?” Lin Xun asked Little Silver.

Little Silver shook its head. “Yun Qingbai’s memory is too fragmented. Moreover, the hatred and resistance toward the gray-robed man are so extreme that his figure is blurry.”

Lin Xun had also noticed this. He mused, “In any case, he must have some relation to the Omega Sword Sect since he can come and go there as he pleases.”

Little Silver agreed. It then said, “Master, do you still remember what that person said? The most powerful sword path in the world can only be found in the word ‘emotionless.’ It can be seen that his sword path must be devoid of emotions and desires as well. As long as we keep this in mind, it will be easy to recognize him when we come across him in the future.”

Meanwhile, Lin Xun hesitated for a moment, then asked, “Little Silver, can you gather any other clues from Yun Qingbai’s memories from when he entered the lower world and killed my family?”

Although his natural power had been taken away when he had been a small baby, he hadn’t died then and had been saved by Mister Lu Boya.

Moreover, the fact that Lin Xun had never known until now that Yun Qingbai hadn’t acted alone back then made him wonder if there were still other secrets behind the massacre.

After all, with the power of the Ziyao Empire and its great emperor and empress, how could they have sat back and watched such a disaster happen?

There had to be something that he still had no clues about!

Little Silver shook its head again. “I can’t. His spirit has collapsed, there’s no way to gather memories.”

Lin Xun sighed in his heart, knowing he needed to make a trip back to the lower world in the future in order to solve this mystery.

Boom!

The gigantic vortex manifested from the Omega Sword suddenly collapsed and burst into a rain of light that filled the whole sky.

“Is that…?”

Imperial Son Shaohao and Fairy Ruowu were shaken.

Ye Mohe, Wang Xuanyu, Mi Hengzhen, and Chi Lingxiao also stiffened and gasped.

Even Toady’s group dropped their jaws.

“Is it finally decided?”

The audience who stood a little further away all watched with their eyes wide open, trying to see it clearly.

It was then that they saw a spectacle emerge from the crumbling vortex.

A handsome figure, whose clothes were stained with blood, floated amidst the rain of brilliant sword light like a dream, an immortal from eternity.

When the rain of light fizzled out, and the world returned to silence, there were still no signs of Yun Qingbai.

The only thing belonging to him that could be seen was the dim Omega Sword in the hand of the only figure in the sky.

The entire region was drained of sound.

On this day that wasn’t far from the closing of the Supreme Realm, Demon God Lin defeated the peerless legendary sword cultivator Yun Qingbai on the Demon Slaying Platform and seized his sword!

This unprecedented duel, which had grasped the attention of the whole nine realms, ended with the victory of Demon God Lin.

In the field, there was only utter silence.