Chapter 274: One Sword, One World, Infinite Sword Formation

"So that's how it is—thank you for your efforts." Su Lin rubbed his chin, understanding the current situation; he hadn't expected this kid Weigong Shilang had learned the ways of human relations.

How to put it? No surprise—he's a businessman; his style has already gone slightly off-track.

Su Lin secretly observed the fellow's current state: he was holding a small hand, strolling down the street, with a massive bodyguard trailing behind.

Wait, why did you buy her red clothes? Berserker shouldn't be doing laser attacks, right?

Su Lin muttered inwardly and withdrew his gaze.

Tunyun chuckled: "It's nothing serious—it won't affect the original main setting."

"No." Su Lin's lips curled into a faint smile as he patted Tunyun's shoulders twice and whispered, "My suggestion? Ramp it up—add more emotional drama and tragic romance."

"Uh, Senior Su Lin, Master Wei said that young lady is his sister," Tunyun's expression showed clear hesitation: "That doesn't seem right—I'm a Buddhist disciple; romantic entanglements harm merit."

He vaguely sensed Senior Su Lin wanted to watch the spectacle, but as a Buddhist disciple with principles, he felt he shouldn't join in—after all, the workload would be enormous.

"Not blood siblings—just acting. Merit? What merit?" Su Lin's nape glowed with a pure, radiant halo as he said: "To be honest, I have some connection with the Buddhist sects."

"Amitabha, Master, with goodwill in heart, even a karmic bond is merit."

Even after Su Lin left, Tunyun's mouth remained open; he rubbed his eyes, wondering if he'd seen wrong.

Wasn't that the merit halo only great Buddhist masters possess? The density of that merit light…

But he was wearing a Daoist robe?! No, wait—he also had three pairs of wings on his avatar. This senior's expertise seems remarkably broad.

"Master Tunyun, you should've said so earlier—I wouldn't have run off, why bother stuffing me in a sack?" Gao Moumou walked out holding a script, casually saying: "Alright, I've swapped a supporting role's lines—revise the details. These days, funding your own cast isn't rare. Master Tunyun, why are you staring?"

"The Buddha says overtime is a blessing," Tunyun replied, voice laced with clear confusion: "Master Gao, I need your help in my cultivation."

Gao Moumou: "?"

Did that monk just get pwned?

【Far to the east, a force navigating the Star Sea discovered a new world—said to be littered with artifacts, endless immortal swords, demonic swords, and divine swords planted like tombstones in dry earth; thus, people named that world the Sword Tomb.】

Under Gao Sheng's hospitality, the travelers aboard the starship arrived beyond a sea of stars. Starlight shimmered in clashing brilliance; at the heart of a vast nebula floated a colossal blue sun, larger than any star—ordinary stars beside it were like grains of sand. In this setting, countless stars formed a celestial horizon as the blue sun rose and set within the star-sea.

Amid this awe-inspiring scene stood an impossibly vast gate, toward which tens of thousands of starships and cultivators surged, including organized military formations.

Seeing Qu Yanping stared, unable to recover—he wasn't merely awed, but felt utterly insignificant before this army composed of immortals.

All his pride, all his self-satisfaction, shattered at once—his strength couldn't match even a single lowly soldier among them.

"Brother Qu, your divine ability has an extraordinary origin. Even in this world, few ordinary immortals can pierce the secrets of heavenly artifacts, let alone survive the backlash as you did," Gao Sheng said with a smile.

"Please, Brother Gao, don't tease me anymore," Seeing Qu Yanping hastily begged, looking embarrassed. Having dealt with merchants in his family's guild, he knew Gao Sheng mentioned this to comfort him.

Not long ago, he'd done a small favor for Gao Sheng's elder—a favor that cost him his life.

At the time, the other's words, "You're not from this world," had terrified Seeing Qu Yanping—until he later heard the same phrase from those of the Yuzhe Sect.

Only then did he realize this world itself bordered many others; outsiders were nothing unusual.

During this time, Gao Sheng and Seeing Qu Yanping toured the Divine City; from his travels, Seeing Qu Yanping grew even more certain of his thoughts.

Illusory Realm? Yet every object here was real—even ordinary cultivators possessed genuine life trajectories, past and present undeniably authentic.

The only regret Seeing Qu Yanping felt was that he could not see these people's futures—not even those of cultivators weaker than him or animals.

His Heavenly Eye could foresee the future to some degree, like Heaven's gaze observing all beings. Logically, even with low cultivation, he should glimpse fragments of the future—but here, not even a single second of the future was visible, not even his own.

One piece of good news: his Heavenly Eye still held value. Due to this world's many powerful figures, the celestial fate was hopelessly tangled, and most great ones skilled in divination had been reassigned—thus, possessing a divination secret technique was highly sought after.

"I wonder if this Sword Tomb is the same one Master Guyue mentioned," Gao Sheng said, standing at the starship's prow: "Perhaps we'll meet him inside."

Seeing Qu Yanping nodded: "Very likely."

"That unreliable younger brother of mine…" Gao Sheng sighed, gazing at the gate known as the Boundary Gate: "I've searched for him for years—never expected he'd run into the Sword Realm again. By the way, Brother Qu, I have a question—don't misunderstand."

Seeing Qu Yanping blinked: "Brother Gao, speak freely."

"You don't have a fondness for men, do you?" Gao Sheng asked.

"Virtual Star God loaded. Gaze upon the stars—ignite your destiny with your own conviction."

As Su Lin's message reached every transcendent being within the Sword Tomb, the Star God version on the forum had just been updated.

In the origin point of the Time River—whether in the starry sky, the Mystical Realm, or a separated small world—appeared several towering figures in various postures.

Aside from the login system offering no rewards, every other location could serve as decisive evidence in court.

"If you don't pay me the copyright fee, I'm suing you," Xing said, spreading his hands: "Credit points or equivalent items."

"Who dares accuse this official?" Su Lin said, munching popcorn while watching the video of Seeing Qu Yanping being attacked: "Why not summon the Star Gods? They're the real plaintiffs."

"Then what about this?" Xing held a baseball bat before Su Lin's face, sneering: "Why does my bat appear among the auctioned heavenly artifacts? Even the Architect's relics are here."

"Think of it as a museum exhibition. Anyway, I haven't logged in today." Su Lin pulled a map from his robe and tossed it to Xing: "I left some loot—go open the chests yourself."

Xing glanced at the map's marked locations—the distance units were planets. Her lip twitched: "Damn it."

"Don't be fooled by his casual, joking demeanor—he's probably at his limit," Ye Fan and Pang Bo dragged a black coffin past Su Lin's teleportation node: "Want to lie down? I'll send you to the Sword Tomb—perfect chance to bury you, save you from all that red hair."

Yi Leina's chest was pierced by a crimson spear, her face pale: "Is the Heavenly Will's blessing really this strong?"

"I've reached the limit of my Light God avatar and my true body," Su Lin struggled to rise from the wide chair, legs heavy as lead as he trudged toward Ye Fan: "Should've never gone this far."

Su Lin was now like a computer—loading these maps, upgrading cultivators, reviving them, respawning monsters—all required him to bear Heavenly Will, i. e., computational power.

If someone asked how he felt now, he could only answer: Thanks, already at 1000%.

"Wasn't he fine just now?" Lu Mingfei thought Su Lin's movements resembled those of a centenarian staggering along—sorry, even the thousand-year-olds in the group walked faster than Su Lin.

"After maxing out Heavenly Will, I experimented with what permissions could do," Su Lin said slowly, as Pang Bo lifted him and placed him atop the black coffin: "I stacked here a lifeless primordial universe from a Parallel World—almost fried my CPU."

Everyone: "."

It's a miracle you can still speak.

"Cancel some of the instances soon, Shuhang—send a message to the cultivators," Su Lin felt too drained to even lift his hand: "All of them, get to Penglai World—dozens of Earth-based instances are about to collapse. I need to free up Heavenly Will. About one…"

"One day?" Song Shuhang quickly pulled out his simulated universe-exclusive phone to draft the message.

Su Lin: "One minute."

"Why are you only saying this now!!!"

To go to such lengths to reconstruct it, one doesn't know whether to call him persistent or stubbornly single-minded.

It was a sight never before seen—a world of relics, countless weapons driven into the earth, still rusting where their holders had long vanished, a land of swords beyond number.

"The third surge of the River of Time is coming! Form the formation!!!"

He could not understand why such a world had appeared; the scenery reflected in his eyes was infinite desolation.

Every sword here had its own history; none was ordinary. Each one, if brought to the Cultivation Realm, would spark a fierce struggle for possession—some even retained divine marvels, their sword qi piercing the clouds.

"Sword Tomb."

All the things he had heard, all he had experienced—what did they amount to before this world where swords were the earth and sword qi the sea? What he had heard, what he had seen—even Jin Xian wielding power to destroy heaven and earth—were insignificant before the Sword Tomb.

"Everyone, steady your minds! 321 seconds until the surge!"

Five Jin Xian occupied the outermost edges of the fleet, forming the Chrono Formation to guard the fleet against the surge as it advanced toward the deeper world of the Sword Tomb.

Even with five Jin Xian acting, the turbulent River of Time seeped through every crack; occasionally, a starship remained intact, yet its occupants vanished without warning.

It wasn't that the five Jin Xian refused to retreat—in truth, they could defy time, but dragging along a large group of liabilities only hampered exploration efficiency. Yet it wasn't until roughly a month after the Three Realms Joint Fleet entered the Sword Tomb that they discovered the River of Time here had manifested and gone berserk.

At that time, the fleet had already lost nearly half its starships, and the spacetime they occupied had been significantly affected; the boundary gate on the other side could no longer be located, and return was impossible.

This was the most terrifying aspect of the River of Time: even with the Chrono Formation isolating it, if one's spirit was stirred by the historical visions within the River of Time, a moment's lapse could drag soul and body into the current, swept toward unknown histories, never to return.

That alone would have been bad enough—but Seeing Qu Yanping's Heavenly Eye still allowed him to perceive the precise historical spacetime he occupied, preventing him from being misled by the River's visions.

But during the second surge of the River of Time, within its illusory yet real flow, ancient dead beings broke free, possessing a female cultivator and silently turning the cultivators of a hundred starships into blood food.

Thus, everyone aboard the starships had to isolate themselves from others, keeping only minimal food supplies in separate rooms, and carving killing arrays outside each room—so that even if a cultivator was possessed, the weakened, incomplete entity could not immediately replenish itself.

All scenery vanished. No sound. No phenomena. Only void.

As if countless eons had passed, the sense of time vanished entirely; each second felt like an eternity of stillness. Seeing Qu Yanping steadied his mind, only the mark of his Heavenly Eye glowing on his forehead.

An ancient ritual melody sounded at his ear; in a daze, he saw bronze bells swaying in the wind.

"Merely echoes of time—ignore them."

He strained to align his gaze with the Heavenly Eye on his forehead, focusing all his attention on the present, silently waiting for the River of Time's surge to pass.

"That eye on your forehead…"

Every hair on his body stood on end. He whirled around instantly—a chill surged from his coccyx straight to his crown, where a "person" had appeared without warning.

"Is it the Heavenly Eye?"

Before him, strands of black hair fell past his waist, neatly parted across his forehead, clad in a plain, slightly yellowed white robe. His face—the most beautiful woman Seeing Qu Yanping had ever seen in his life, without exception.

For a moment, Seeing Qu Yanping was stunned. He bit his tongue sharply; instantly, his Heavenly Eye blazed with brilliant light, runes emerging from all three eyes—but still, she remained.

His spirit trembled violently. He shifted his gaze away, silently waiting for the River of Time to pass.

Even ancient cultivators, once dead, could not break free unless they found a gap in one's spirit to possess—without a vessel, they were powerless.

"How rude. I'm asking you a question."

Seeing Qu Yanping said nothing, as if he hadn't heard.

"Are you waiting for the River of Time to pass?" The woman smiled. "Unfortunately, you won't get the chance—I've made the River of Time stop here forever."

(End of Chapter)