Chapter 548: Where the Sword Soul Resides!

In the sky, the figure in blue robes paused slightly, neither descending nor responding, only gently sweeping his sleeve.

A gentle yet vast warmth, like spring rain nourishing the earth, quietly enveloped Zheng Qianrou and the few members of the caravan with minor injuries.

Zheng Qianrou felt a cool tingling sensation from her wounds; the bleeding halted swiftly, and the pain greatly lessened.

Having done this, the figure in blue robes did not linger, becoming a streak of light that vanished at the horizon's end, as if it had never appeared.

Zheng Qianrou stared blankly at the direction where the figure had disappeared, her heart churning with turmoil.

This mysterious elder not only possessed unfathomably profound cultivation, but his sword qi was purer and sharper than anything she had ever heard of—and yet he saved her with such indifference, bestowing grace without expecting repayment…

Who was he?

Why had he appeared here, and why had he saved her specifically?

In her mind, a face flashed suddenly—several years ago, in Nan Yun Prefecture, equally brilliant, rising like a comet, famed across the land.

But the thought passed in an instant, and she dismissed it.

That figure now stood among the clouds, rumored to be a Great Expert of the Heavenly Palace Realm—how could he possibly appear on this remote trade route to casually save a mere Early Innate Stage warrior like her?

Shaking her head, Zheng Qianrou withdrew her gaze, suppressed her scattered thoughts, and began directing the surviving caravan guards to clean up the wreckage and treat the wounded.

Yet that fleeting glimpse of the blue-robed back, and that miraculous sword strike, had been deeply etched into her heart.

…

Nan Yun Prefecture, a prefecture under Hengzhou, was the starting point of Chen Mu's martial path.

Returning to this old place, his inner state was utterly different.

Chen Mu did not enter the city, nor did he disturb anyone.

He suppressed the awe-inspiring pressure of his Heavenly Palace Realm, his form blending into the wind as he flew directly toward the northeastern mountains, now greatly desolate.

Soon, a peak resembling an inverted giant sword, steep and rugged yet radiating decay and stillness, appeared in his view.

Ba Jian Mountain.

Once the sect seat of Nan Yun Prefecture's major power, the Ba Jian Sect.

The Ba Jian Sect had been destroyed for years; now only broken walls and ruins remained, half-hidden by overgrown weeds and vines.

The mountain wind blew, emitting a mournful wailing sound, adding further desolation.

Chen Mu moved like lightning, passing the ruined gate and heading straight for a partially concealed spot on the mountain's right side, nestled against a sheer cliff.

Pushing aside the thick, curtain-like vines hanging down, a cave entrance nearly two meters high and over a zhang wide appeared.

The entrance was half-buried by fallen rocks and dead branches and leaves; without close inspection, it was extremely easy to overlook.

This was where Duan Tianhe, the Sword Sovereign, had passed away.

Chen Mu stood at the cave mouth, his spiritual sense spilling like liquid mercury, meticulously scanning several li around, especially the interior of the cave.

Aside from a few bats nesting inside and subterranean insects, there was no other life energy, nor any hidden prohibitions or array fluctuations.

Huh~

He waved his hand lightly; a gentle yet powerful airflow spontaneously formed, sweeping away the scattered rocks, dead branches, and vines, hurling them far away and revealing the dark, gaping cave entrance.

Stepping inside, the light abruptly dimmed, but to Chen Mu, it was no different from daylight.

The cave was small, about ten zhang high, and no more than ten zhang in length and width—unchanged from his memory.

Yet it was more ruined, the floor piled with thicker dust, the air thick with damp mildew.

In the center of the cave, the deep green pool from which the invisible beast had once emerged had long since dried to the bottom, leaving only a stone pit covered in moss and cracks.

Back then, it was here that Shi Kuangsheng, Wei Dongliang, Huang Keqin, Di Chunlei, Fang Yuanzuo, Fang Yuanfu, and others had fought fiercely for Duan Tianhe's inheritance, only for Chen Mu to silently claim the Duan Tianhe Sword Scripture from afar.

Afterwards, Chen Mu secretly returned and took away Duan Tianhe's silver-white skeletal remains, burying them in a fengshui treasure site.

On this return visit, the cave contained nothing but the traces left by time.

All the ancient arrays and traps had long since been destroyed in the original battle and subsequent searches.

Could the "Sword Soul" truly be here?

Chen Mu stood motionless at the cave's center, his Heavenly Palace spiritual sense fully unleashed, like the most precise broom, scanning every inch of the cave walls, every fragment of rock, every wisp of air—even several zhang deep into the ground—repeatedly, meticulously, without error.

First pass: no anomaly.

Second pass: no anomaly.

…

Ninth pass: still nothing found.

It seemed this was truly just an ordinary, long-abandoned cave.

Chen Mu was not discouraged.

"Where the heart desires, there the soul resides"—this was both a hint and a state of mind.

He calmed his spirit, no longer merely "scanning," but infusing his spiritual sense with his understanding of the Duan Tianhe Sword Scripture, his comprehension of the Sword Dao, and even the nascent sense of rules from his newly acquired "Four Seasons Martial Domain," to "resonate," to "call out."

Tenth pass of spiritual sense swept through.

As his spiritual sense passed over a square stone slab, nearly three meters long and wide, leaning half against the cave wall, covered in thick dust, seemingly indistinguishable from the surrounding rocks, Chen Mu's spirit suddenly stirred.

At first glance, this stone slab appeared no different from other fallen rock fragments in the cave—indeed, even more ordinary.

But Chen Mu's spiritual sense, infused with the subtle sensations of seasonal cycles and spacetime, detected a faint, almost imperceptible anomaly as it passed over the slab: a peculiar fluctuation, as if slightly displaced from the surrounding spacetime, as if forcibly frozen by some force.

This fluctuation was so weak it nearly did not exist; had Chen Mu not cultivated the Four Seasons Martial Domain and possessed spiritual perception far exceeding ordinary Heavenly Palace cultivators, he would never have noticed it.

"It's this!"

Chen Mu's eyes brightened; he reached out with a gesture.

The heavy stone slab floated up as lightly as a feather, hovering three chi before him.

Removing the thick layer of dust, the slab revealed its true form.

Its material was neither metal nor stone, a deep, dark blue-black substance, smooth on the surface, with no patterns or inscriptions.

Chen Mu extended his finger and lightly touched the slab's surface.

The texture was cold, yet carried a strange "resilience," unlike the hard, brittle nature of ordinary rock.

He attempted to infiltrate with his spiritual awareness, but the stone slab's interior felt like chaos—his spiritual awareness entered as if a mud ox plunged into the sea, unable to penetrate deeper.

After a moment of contemplation, Chen Mu shifted his intent, and without reservation, his pure "Duan Tianhe True Qi" surged violently from his palm into the stone slab.

This time, the stone slab responded.

Hum—

The dark bluish stone slab, the instant it contacted the same-source "Duan Tianhe True Qi," suddenly glowed with a faint, ripple-like silver-white radiance across its surface.

The radiance flowed, and within the stone slab, something seemed to activate, to awaken.

Immediately, under Chen Mu's gaze, the seemingly indestructible strange stone slab began to crack rapidly from the point of Qi infusion, spreading countless fine fissures.

From within the fissures, silver-white light streamed forth.

Crack!