Chapter 4: Chapter Four

4. Chapter Four

Atian ultimately had no opportunity to prove how capable she was at fighting.

The opponent did not linger after missing their strike, and with Zhao Kuo pushing the Sword-Flying Technique to its limit, flying on a sword, covering a thousand miles in a day—how fast it was. Before Atian had seen enough of the rivers and earth beneath her feet, she discovered that the scenery, originally the size of broad beans, was rapidly enlarging, and the panicked cries of Immortal Elder Zhao reached her ears:

"It's over! I've never flown this fast before! Stop, stop, stop!!"

Before his words had even faded, the heavy sword beneath their feet began to tremble due to the mishandled technique. Hearing this, Atian decisively lay flat, her right hand clutching the sword hilt tightly. She extended her left hand and shouted to Zhao Kuo, who was still struggling with the technique: "Immortal Elder, grab my hand!"

However, Zhao Kuo had poured his heart and soul into controlling the flying sword at this moment. Yet, the "Broken Peak" beneath his feet was truly a Life-bound Spirit Sword that shared his heart and mind; the fact that it dropped the ball at a critical moment could be said to be exactly the same as him.

Seeing the young cultivator still sweating profusely while changing techniques, Atian retracted her hand and, with quick eyes and nimble hands, grabbed the hairpin that had been blown away. Her carefully styled hair bun had already come undone, and the fierce gale brought on by the rapid descent billowed her long hair and robes, bringing with it a familiar yet strange salty, damp scent.

That was the scent of the sea.

Unable to care about 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. And between the sky and the sea was a massive Floating Island shrouded in clouds and mist. Through the thin veil of fog, one could vaguely see pavilions and towers, but what was most eye-catching was a giant Broken Sword slanted into it. Points of cold light, carrying a stern Sword Intent, pierced through the dreamlike scene dyed in orange-red.

Atian could not take her eyes off the Broken Sword. It was so beautiful, yet so terrifying. The overwhelming, mountain-toppling Sword Intent almost crushed her, yet the breeze-like, clear-moon Sword Intent offered her the gentlest consolation.

She could not remember that she was falling and would be smashed to pieces if she were not careful, 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.

"Splash!"

The Broken Peak sword plunged headlong 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 head-first, fainted from the impact instantly, and the Broken Peak sword immediately 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 carrying her toward the colder, pitch-black depths. Strings of bubbles rose from her mouth and nose, but these traces were quickly wiped away by the current.

Without struggle, without self-rescue, Atian's mind was still immersed in that fleeting glimpse from just moments ago. Her thoughts even traversed time and space, returning to fifteen years ago.

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

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 ragged edges. The man bent down and gently picked her up. Something cold and liquid dripped onto her cheek. Atian looked up, but in the end, she only captured a blurry light and shadow.

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

The young Atian giggled and, as usual, reached out to hug the man's arm. The man supported the child 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 resting on 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 person blocking her.

It's useless.

It's useless.

She cannot pass through this sea of fire.

As the woman's resistance became more intense, the hand placed on Atian's neck slowly tightened. The suffocation brought on by the lack of oxygen caused the child 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 gold inscriptions flickered on the pitch-black blade. Clearly 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 could no longer hold anything else. And the black sword seemed to sense her presence; 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. Although 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 and ten taels, was ground on eight sides, and was indestructible...

Her fingers lightly touched the sword body, and all kinds of information emerged continuously in her mind. However, there was one most important thing she could not remember 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 surface, Atian wiped the water droplets from her face and looked around blankly. Until the end of her trance, she had not been able to recall 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 a coming-of-age gift from Lady Bai, seemingly hinting that she was about to be completely severed from secular life.

Atian was not a sentimental person; she felt no annoyance at losing the hairpin. Instead, she looked left and right, earnestly searching for someone.

It was not close to the shore here, and the only person she could rely on was Zhao Kuo, who had fallen with her, even if the incident of falling 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 current would constantly sap 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 Broken Peak 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" emitted a crisp sound.

She circled the "egg" once, but never found a way to wake Zhao Kuo or enter the Sword Intent. The loss of body heat had already caused her originally rosy lips to begin turning pale.

Atian frowned; she was a little angry.

"If you don't wake your master up, I will break you," she said to the Broken Peak sword with an expressionless face.

Perhaps it was an illusion, but the threatened Broken Peak sword seemed to tremble, then suddenly flew up and fiercely stabbed 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-slaughtering scream and woke up instantly.

"So, so painful! Broken Peak, 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 Broken Peak 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 after such a fall, let alone Senior Brother, the sect would absolutely not let him off lightly.

Therefore, seeing Bai Tian, who had become soaked but was 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 youth's shoulder, pointed at the Floating Island in the distance, and asked softly: "Immortal Elder Zhao, that sword...?"

Zhao Kuo, who had been violently woken up by his Life-bound Sword, was still dazed. 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 severed the dragon head of a dragon vein. When the Ancestor ascended, he left his own Sword to continue suppressing the dragon vein."

Speaking of this, he scratched the back of his messy head, "I don't know if the legend is true or not, but when I first saw this sword, I was suppressed to the point of almost fainting. Every cultivator in this world who studies the Sword must un-sword when they come here; this is the Ten Thousand Swords Bowing to the Sect."

"Ten Thousand Swords Bow to the Ancestor..." Atian looked at the massive Broken Sword piercing through the Floating Island, feeling instantly dazzled and mesmerized.

For the first eighteen years of her life, Bai Tian 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, nothing mattered; she had long since ceased to have any expectations for the future.

Yet now, as she looked up at this sect-suppressing 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.

If one hears the Dao in the morning, one can die content in the evening.

"Ha."

She could not help but laugh out loud, from a muffled chuckle at first to a completely unrestrained laugh, overcome with joy.

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

At this moment, Atian could be described as disheveled, with her 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 along with her; if he had been a little more observant, he would have seen that a ring of flames had quietly appeared at the edges of Atian's pitch-black pupils.