Chapter 85: Prisoner of the Upper Realm, Jiang Che Opens His Eyes

When Jiang Che woke, the first sensation was pain.

Not pain in one place.

It was as if his entire being had been shattered and then roughly put back together.

He opened his eyes.

What he saw was a dark golden prison ceiling.

There were no walls around.

Only countless golden chains hung from the void, piercing his shoulder blades, wrists, ankles, and collarbones, pinning him in midair.

Every chain was inscribed with Upper Realm Runes.

What was chained was not the flesh.

It was the Sword Vein.

Jiang Che moved slightly.

The chains immediately tightened.

The excruciating pain made his vision go black.

"Don't move."

A voice sounded.

Jiang Che turned his head.

In the shadows not far away sat an old man.

The old man's clothes were tattered, his beard and hair disheveled, and chains wrapped around him as well.

But his eyes were bright.

Jiang Che's voice was hoarse: "Who are you?"

The old man smiled.

"From the Lower Realm?"

Jiang Che did not answer.

The old man said: "To be chained in the lowest level of the Heavenly Patrol Prison, it seems you chopped off quite a few of their limbs."

Jiang Che took a breath.

"Are you also from the Human Realm?"

The old man nodded.

"You could say so."

"How many years ago?"

The old man thought for a moment: "I can't remember. About three hundred years?"

Jiang Che's heart gave a jolt.

A cultivator from the Human Realm three hundred years ago?

The old man looked at him and smiled:

"Don't be so surprised."

"In the Upper Realm prison, there are many people from the Lower Realm."

"There are Sword Cultivators, Martial Artists, Scholars, members of the Demon Race, shamans, Royal Family members who refused to be sacrificed, and even Farmers who cursed the Heavenly Gate."

Jiang Che fell silent.

So in these years, the Human Realm rebels swallowed by the Heavenly Gate had not all died.

Some were imprisoned here.

The old man asked: "What is your name?"

"Jiang Che."

The old man froze.

Then, he burst into laughter.

The laughter tugged at the chains, causing him to grimace in pain, yet he kept laughing.

"A member of the Jiang Family?"

Jiang Che's eyes shifted: "You know the Jiang Family?"

The old man said: "Three hundred years ago, I once drank wine with the first Marquis of Zhenbei."

Jiang Che's heart trembled even more.

The old man squinted at him.

"How is it outside?"

Jiang Che said: "The Human Realm shattered the Heavenly Gate, severed the Reception Gate, established the Council Hall, and abolished the Emperor."

The old man was stunned.

Suddenly, the sound of chains clinking came from other shadows in the prison.

Dozens of gazes lit up from the darkness.

"Abolished the Emperor?"

"What is the Council Hall?"

"The Heavenly Gate is shattered?"

"The Human Realm... still exists?"

Jiang Che looked into the depths of the darkness.

He saw many prisoners.

An old man with a broken sword.

A woman covered in runes.

A burly man with half-demon flesh.

A scholar in an old Confucian robe.

They were all chained.

Yet when they heard "the Human Realm still stands," their eyes blazed with astonishing light.

Jiang Che suddenly smiled.

"It does."

"And it stands."

In the darkness, low sobs echoed.

Three hundred years of imprisonment.

A hundred years of torment.

What they feared most hearing was not that they could never escape.

But that the Human Realm had already knelt.

Now someone told them the Human Realm still stood.

This kindled fire in withered bones better than any Spirit Medicine.

At that moment, footsteps came from outside the prison.

A Heavenly Patrol Angel appeared.

His brow scar ran deeper, his face grim.

Seeing Jiang Che awake, he sneered:

"Still alive."

Jiang Che said: "Disappointing you again."

The Heavenly Patrol Angel's gaze turned icy.

"You shattered Kunlun True Gate, destroyed our Heavenly Patrol Blood—your crimes grow heavier."

Jiang Che laughed: "Do you Upper Realm folks have a Council Hall too? You're awfully practiced at stacking up charges."

Someone in the prison chuckled softly.

The Heavenly Patrol Angel's gaze swept over them—the laughter was instantly crushed into muffled groans by chains.

He walked to Jiang Che's side.

"Do you think the Human Realm won?"

"Without you, they won't last long."

Jiang Che said: "Then you may be disappointed a second time."

The Heavenly Patrol Angel narrowed his eyes.

Jiang Che looked at him, word by word:

"The Human Realm never lacks successors."

The Heavenly Patrol Angel sneered.

"Then I shall let you watch it die."

He raised his hand—a golden mirror materialized in the prison.

The mirror showed the Human Realm.

The Capital Council Hall still argued.

Sword Cultivators still patrolled the Tian Duan Cliff.

At the Luo'an Orphanage, children read books.

In Jinling's Wenxin Hall, someone was speaking truth.

At the peak of Kunlun Mountain, Xie Tingxue held the Green Bamboo Sword, waiting silently.

Jiang Che gazed at the mirror's image, his eyes gentle.

The Heavenly Patrol Angel said: "I will tear it apart, piece by piece."

Jiang Che lifted his eyes to him.

"Before you do."

"I will leave this place first."

The Heavenly Patrol Angel laughed as if hearing a joke.

"No one has ever escaped the Heavenly Patrol Prison."

Jiang Che looked toward the prisoners in the surrounding darkness.

Those forgotten Lower Realm rebels slowly raised their heads.

Jiang Che smiled.

"There never was."

"Now there is."

He closed his eyes, sensing the lingering Sword Intent within him.

The Green Bamboo Sword was not in his hand.

His Sword Veins were chained.

He was trapped in the Upper Realm Prison.

But his mother once said.

The sword is not only within the sword.

In Jiang Che's heart, a point of Green Light ignited.