Chapter 37: 37. Chapter Thirty-Seven

37. Chapter Thirty-Seven

Guan San is currently stroking the server, please complete your subscription to defeat him! Seeing the young cultivator still sweating profusely while changing hand seals, Atian withdrew her hand and, with quick eyes and nimble hands, grabbed the hairpin that had been blown away. Her meticulously combed bun had already come undone, and the violent gale brought on by the rapid descent billowed her long hair and robes, carrying a familiar yet strange salty, damp scent.

That was the scent of the sea.

Ignoring the weightlessness brought on by the fall, Atian hugged the sword hilt and looked around. She saw the crimson sunset filling the entire sky, even spreading to the shimmering sea surface. Between the sky and the sea stood a massive Floating Island wreathed in clouds and mist. Through the thin veil of fog, one could vaguely see pavilions and towers, but the most eye-catching sight was a giant Broken Sword stuck into it at an angle. Points of cold light, carrying a stern Sword Intent, pierced through the dreamlike scene dyed in orange-red.

Atian could not tear her gaze away from the Broken Sword. It was so beautiful, yet so terrifying. The terrifying Sword Intent that came crashing down like a mountain almost crushed her, yet the Sword Intent, clear as a breeze and bright as the moon, offered her the gentlest consolation.

She could not remember that she was falling and could be smashed to pieces at any moment, nor could she hear Zhao Kuo's panicked shouting. She only stared intently at that Broken Sword, as if it were the only lover of her life.

"Plop!"

The Mountain-Breaking Sword plunged into the sea with Atian and Zhao Kuo. The high-intensity impact was enough to smash a person to pieces in an instant. Zhao Kuo, who entered the water headfirst, fainted from the impact immediately, and the Mountain-Breaking Sword instantly emitted a faint halo of light to protect its master.

But Atian was not so lucky. She was shaken off the flying sword. Seawater surged in from all directions, completely enveloping her and dragging her into the colder, pitch-black depths. Strings of air bubbles rose from her mouth and nose, but these traces were quickly wiped away by the water current.

No struggle, no self-rescue; Atian's mind was still immersed in that fleeting glimpse from just a moment ago. Her thoughts even traversed time and space, returning to fifteen years ago.

A sea of fire filled the sky, burning everything to ashes. A woman's weeping was like a grievance, like a complaint. She sat in the center of the sea of fire, tongues of flame licking her skin and devouring her clothes, yet she felt not a hint of heat or pain. Instead, a warm emotion swept through her entire body, mixed with a touch of laziness that only comes after catharsis.

A man whose face she could not see came before her. He wore a dark purple long robe, the hem of which had already been burned away, leaving only tattered edges. The man bent down and gently picked her up. Some cold liquid dripped onto her cheek. Atian looked up, but in the end, she only captured a blurry, indistinct shadow of light.

"You must die." The man's tone was very, very light, as if he were afraid of scaring her.

Young Atian giggled, stretching out her hand to hug the man's arm as she always did. The man supported the young girl with his right hand and covered her head with his left, rubbing it gently, then followed the line of Atian's face all the way down, finally stopping at the child's thin, slender neck.

The liquid dripping onto her cheek became more rapid, hitting Atian so she could not open her eyes.

The woman's weeping suddenly grew louder, and at the same time, messy footsteps sounded. Atian saw a figure rushing toward the inside from outside the sea of fire, grappling with the people who were blocking her.

It's useless.

It's useless.

She cannot pass through this sea of fire.

As the woman's resistance grew more violent, the hand on Atian's neck slowly tightened. The suffocation brought on by the lack of oxygen made the young girl begin to struggle, but no matter what, she could not shake off the shackles on her neck. Her vision began to turn black, and her sight became blurry...

Then, she saw that sword.

Roaring flames coiled around the long, narrow sword body. Dark golden inscriptions flickered on the pitch-black blade. Even though it was suspended in the deep sea, it seemed as if it could ignite even the water current.

Atian could not help but walk toward the black sword, her eyes unable to hold anything else. The black sword seemed to sense her presence as well; the sword body turned, and the red-and-black hilt was slightly offered toward Atian.

To grasp or not to grasp?

This was not a multiple-choice question at all.

Although surrounded by flames, the hilt felt warm and smooth to the touch. Even though it was the first time she had seen it, Atian discovered she was not unfamiliar with it: the sword was three feet seven inches long, weighed one catty ten taels, was ground on eight sides, and was indestructible...

Her fingers lightly touched the sword body, and all kinds of information emerged in her mind in a continuous stream. However, there was one most important thing she could not recall at all.

The sword's name...

The sword's name...

What is the sword's name?

"Hoo-ha!"

Suddenly poking her head out of the sea, Atian wiped the water droplets from her face and looked around blankly. Until the end of her trance, she still could not remember the black sword's name. By the time she reacted, her body was already floating upward, as if the sword that had stolen her heart was merely a phantom produced at the moment of Life and Death.

After experiencing such a fall into the sea, the jewelry on her body had completely disappeared, including the hairpin she had wanted to save while the flying sword was falling. That was the coming-of-age gift given to her by Lady Bai, seemingly hinting that she was about to completely sever ties with secular life.

Atian was not a sentimental person; she felt no annoyance at losing the hairpin. Instead, she looked around and began to earnestly search for people.

It was not close to the shore here, and the only thing she could rely on was Zhao Kuo, who had fallen with her, even though the fall into the sea had already proven that this "Immortal Elder" was not reliable at all.

However, soaking in the water for a long time was not a good choice; the water current would constantly drain her body heat. Fortunately, Atian's luck was always good, and it did not take much effort to find Zhao Kuo, who was also floating on the sea surface.

At this moment, this half-baked cultivator was still in a coma, and the Sword Intent emitted by the Mountain-Breaking Sword was wrapping him up just right, looking from afar like an incongruous "egg."

Atian swam to the area around the "eggshell" and reached out to knock on it tentatively.

"Thump! Thump! Thump!"

The "eggshell" made a crisp sound.

She circled the "egg" once, never finding a way to wake Zhao Kuo or enter the Sword Intent, and the loss of body heat had already caused her originally rosy lips to begin to turn white.

Atian frowned; she was a little angry.

"If you don't wake your master up, I will snap you in two," she said to the Mountain-Breaking Sword with an expressionless face.

Perhaps it was an illusion, but the threatened Mountain-Breaking Sword seemed to tremble, then suddenly flew up and stabbed fiercely at the buttocks of the unconscious Zhao Kuo that were exposed above the water!

"Ah!!!"

Even a cultivator could not withstand such an attack. Zhao Kuo let out a pig-like shriek and woke up instantly.

"So, so painful! Mountain-Breaking, what kind of madness are you having!" he complained, clutching his buttocks.

"Immortal Elder Zhao," Atian leaned over, her face full of concern, "are you alright?"

"Miss Bai!" Zhao Kuo called out in surprise. The moment the Mountain-Breaking Sword lost control and fell into the sea, he knew he had caused a huge disaster. No matter how strange Bai Tian acted, it could not change the fact that she was a mortal. If something happened to her in such a fall, let alone Senior Brother, the sect would absolutely not let him off lightly.

Therefore, seeing Bai Tian, who was wet but otherwise unharmed, he was happy from the bottom of his heart.

Seeing that Zhao Kuo was awake, Atian was not in a hurry to go ashore. She reached out and patted the young man's shoulder, pointed to the Floating Island in the distance, and asked softly: "Immortal Elder Zhao, that sword...?"

Zhao Kuo, who had been violently awakened by his Life-bound Sword, was still confused. He rubbed his eyes, "... You mean the Ancestor's sword?"

"The Ancestor's sword?" Atian repeated after him.

"Yes, that is the sword of the founding ancestor of our Beihai Sword Sect," Zhao Kuo nodded. "Legend has it that the Floating Island where the sect is located was refined by the Ancestor after he cut off the head of a dragon vein. When the Ancestor achieved Ascension, he left his own personal sword behind to continue suppressing the dragon vein."

Speaking of this, he scratched his messy back of the head, "I don't know if the legend is true, but when I first saw this sword, I was almost crushed into a faint. All cultivators in this world who study the Sword must un-sword when they come here; this is the Ten Thousand Swords Bowing to the Sect."

"Ten Thousand Swords Bowing to the Sect..." Atian looked at the giant Broken Sword that pierced through the Floating Island and felt dizzy and mesmerized.

Bai Tian's life for the previous eighteen years had been self-abandoning and drifting with the tide. The Bai family raised her, so she stayed; the Beihai Sword Sect summoned her, so she came. Anything was fine, anything didn't matter. She had long since lost any expectations for the future.

But now, looking up at this sect-protecting treasure sword, she discovered that every drop of blood and every piece of bone in her body was trembling with excitement, as if all these years of waiting had been for this very moment.

To hear the Dao in the morning, one can die without regret in the evening.

"Ha."

She could not help but laugh out loud, starting from a muffled chuckle to a completely unrestrained laugh, unable to contain her joy.

Atian's unusual behavior naturally drew Zhao Kuo's sidelong glance; it was the first time he had seen this Miss Bai show such an expression, no longer the reserved smile of a refined young lady, but a truly, genuinely happy laugh.

At this moment, Atian could be described as disheveled, with bangs stuck messily to her forehead and her clothes clinging tightly to her skin, yet her smile was brighter than ever before.

Zhao Kuo's heartbeat quickened by a beat.

"Immortal Elder Zhao, Immortal Elder Zhao," she called out with a beaming smile, "I am so happy."

This heartfelt joy soon infected Zhao Kuo as well, making him happy too; had he been more observant, he would have seen that at the edges of Atian's pitch-black pupils, a ring of fire had quietly appeared.