First Immortal of the Sword

Chapter 2519 – Supreme Simplicity, Ling Ran, Heavenly Aberrant Mountain

The Qilin Trading Company passed this message on to Su Yi, but they didn’t know who precisely had sent it in the first place.

But that no longer mattered.

What mattered was that Su Yi’s guess was right on the mark. The Dipankara Buddha and Gu Huaxian really did know Lu Qingmei’s whereabouts!

“The Ruins of Supreme Simplicity…” Su Yi murmured, then recalled something.

When he dueled Dao Venerate Lu Shi’s avatar of will in the Tianxiu Sword Shrine, Lu Shi came prepared with four of the Five Supreme Sources!

According to Lu Shi, he’d borrowed these four powers of the Laws from other people.

And the Ruins of Supreme Simplicity were home to one of the Five Great Sources, the Laws of Supreme Simplicity!

Does that mean that the person threatening Lu Qingmei is from the Ruins of Supreme Simplicity? Su Yi pondered briefly, then decided to set off to investigate.

He’d spent the past three years immersed in contemplating the Dao and tempering his heart. His cultivation base had long since reached the threshold of the next stage, and he’d grasped a thread of its fundamental truths.

But he was still far from stepping into this next level. This told Su Yi that he wouldn’t be able to reach the next stage simply through secluded cultivation.

Instead, he could seek out opportunities on this trip to the Ruins of Supreme Simplicity and see if he could realize a breakthrough.

“Your mother is unharmed. I’m going to go see her.” Su Yi found Yi Chen and told him the news, but he didn’t explain to avoid agitating him.

Just as he expected, Yi Chen’s spirits soared. He said excitedly, “There’s word of my mother?”

Su Yi inclined his head. “Just stay calm and cultivate here.”

With that, he turned to leave.

Yi Chen stood there in a daze for a long time before letting out a deep breath. He felt as if a massive weight had lifted from his shoulders, and he completely relaxed.

With Father here, I’m sure nothing will happen to Mother!

……

The Ruins of Supreme Simplicity.

The skies were a misty blue-gray, and the ancient landscape was run-down, withered, and devoid of all life.

Intermittent bolts of stingingly bright, blood-red lightning shot out of the ground, ripping the sky asunder. The air of destruction was utterly shocking.

Here, the Laws of the Grand Dao were completely different than in the outside world. Those who walked here could sense a strange, calamitous aura at all times, as if catastrophe might befall them at any moment.

Whoosh!

A blood-red lightning bolt suddenly exploded out of the ground, piercing the sky and hurtling toward Su Yi, who was passing through.

Su Yi couldn’t even be bothered to glance at it. He continued ahead, entirely unperturbed. When the blood-red lightning slammed into him, it popped like a soap bubble, unable to shake him in the slightest.

He’d long since ceased to take even peak Nine-Tribulation Gods into account. Even if he faced someone who’d touched the threshold of Eternity, he could at least fight back!

The lightning might well have been strong enough to threaten a Nine-Tribulation Master God, but it presented no threat to Su Yi whatsoever.

In truth, in the hour since Su Yi entered the Ruins of Supreme Simplicity, he’d run into numerous variables and catastrophes, but he’d resolved them all with ease. With the help of the Epoch Spark, he could even effortlessly neutralize the Blood Lightning of Supreme Simplicity, the most dangerous of them all.

Boom!

A distant, barren peak suddenly split, and a streak of blue-gray flames shot into the firmament.

Su Yi came to an abrupt halt.

The blue-gray flames were obviously manifested from the Laws of Supreme Simplicity. They were full of an ethereal, mysterious aura.

Against Su Yi’s expectations, the blue-gray flame silently transformed, taking on the shape of a ten-foot-long divine fowl. When its wings beat the air, a waterfall of blue-gray Supreme Simplicity Fire Light came crashing down. It was mystical and extraordinary.

“Forgive me for failing to greet you earlier, Sword Venerate Su.” The bird stopped in the distance, its voice booming throughout heaven and earth.

“Were you the one who threatened a hostage to bring me here?” Su Yi asked calmly.

The divine fowl shook its head. “No. We’re keenly aware that you’ve never feared any kind of threat, Sword Venerate Su. How could we resort to such petty tricks? We’d only make fools of ourselves.”

Su Yi found this quite surprising. “If it wasn’t you, who was it?”

“An old acquaintance of yours,” said the bird. It turned and flew into the distance. “Please come with me.”

Su Yi followed it. He didn’t run into any further cataclysms or troubles along the way. Before long, a grand, majestic mountain shrouded in black mist appeared in the distant landscape.

“Sword Venerate Su, that’s Heavenly Aberrant Mountain. Your old acquaintance is waiting for you on the peak.” The bird came to a halt in midair, then stood there, not advancing any further.

But Su Yi didn’t rush to take action. Instead, he gazed intently at the bird. “Tell me, in your view, are you and I friends or enemies?”

The divine fowl pondered briefly, then said, “If the opportunity arises, I’d naturally want to become your friend, Sword Venerate Su.”

“Oh,” said Su Yi. “Then let me get the unpleasantness out of the way first. If I find out that you and yours were involved in this, we can only be enemies.”

With that, he continued toward the distant Heavenly Aberrant Mountain.

The blue-gray divine fowl didn’t try to stop him, nor did it say anything else.

But as soon as Su Yi had faded into the distance, it laughed coldly, folded its wings, blurred into a streak of blue-gray flames, and vanished.

Meanwhile, deep within the Ruins of Supreme Simplicity, blood-red lightning ran rampant, and blue-gray clouds churned. Countless mysterious and ethereal powers of the Laws floated amidst it all.

An ancient Daoist temple stood on the ground. A handsome man with long, blue-gray hair stood before it. He wore Daoist robes as dark as ink, and he carried a mysterious, unearthly, blood-red jade ruler on his back.

“Mistress, Su Yi has already arrived at Heavenly Aberrant Mountain. Should we take action?” The man in Daoist robes faced the Daoist temple and bowed respectfully.

His voice was identical to that of the blue-gray divine fowl that had led Su Yi to the mountain.

“Do you think it’d be better to make friends with him, or enemies?” A mysterious, ethereal female voice emanated from inside the ancient Daoist temple.

“It’s entirely up to you, Mistress,” the man in Daoist robes said respectfully.

The woman sighed softly from inside the temple. “It’s a pity, but he and Dao Venerate Lu Shi are enemies. Were that not the case, I’d actually have loved this opportunity to create a positive karmic connection.”

The man in Daoist robes exclaimed, “Mistress, don’t tell me that Dao Venerate Lu Shi is involved in this?”

“No. An unparalleled Aberrant God who stepped onto the River of Destiny is behind what’s happening here today,” said that female voice. “And I… just so happen to owe him a favor.”

“So that’s it,” said the man in Daoist robes.

“Qing Chi, go to Heavenly Aberrant Mountain and keep an eye on things,” said the woman. “No matter who wins and who loses, don’t get involved. Just wait and see what happens.”

The man in Daoist robes, Qing Chi, hesitated. “Mistress, Su Yi threatened us earlier. He said that if we got involved, we could only become his enemies. In that case, shouldn’t we prepare?”

“No need,” said the woman. “Even if Su Yi considers us his enemies in the end, it won’t matter. And of course, even that’s on the precondition that he leaves Heavenly Aberrant Mountain alive.”

Qing Chi nodded. “So, you’re already prepared for this, Mistress. In that case, I can rest assured.”

“Go quickly.”

“Understood!” Qing Chi’s figure blurred, and he transformed back into a blue-gray divine fowl and soared into the heavens.

Meanwhile, inside the ancient Daoist temple, a woman in gray sat cross-legged on a prayer mat, repairing a set of worn-out, bloodstained robes.

She was using a needle condensed out of the Laws of Supreme Simplicity to guide threads of the power of the Laws. She deftly mended the worn-out, stained robes, looking determined not to let anything slip past her.

The room was completely empty, with no furniture whatsoever save for the prayer mat the woman was sitting on.

Every time she used up a thread, she’d stretch out her hand, and a strand of the Laws of Supreme Simplicity would descend from the blue-gray clouds churning beneath the dome of heaven and land in her palm. She’d then thread the needle and resume mending.

This woman had reigned over the Age of Supreme Simplicity. Her Daoist title was Ling Ran, and she was honored as the sole sovereign of her era!

Rumor had it that she had tried on three occasions to prove her Dao and achieve Eternity. She’d failed each time, facing lethal danger yet living to tell the tale. Her abilities were mystical and unfathomable.

Even those who’d touched the threshold of the River of Destiny had to treat her with respect. She was honored as a legend!

But although practically no one knew it, even now, countless years later, the legendary woman who’d single-handedly reigned over the Age of Supreme Simplicity was still alive.

And she now sat in an ancient temple, solemnly repairing a blood-stained robe!

……

Heavenly Aberrant Mountain.

Dark mists filled the air, mysterious and strange.

The mountain was towering and grand. Its slopes were craggy and barren; nothing grew there, not even an inch of grass. Shockingly destructive Laws of lightning were hidden in the gaps between boulders.

Not even Nine-Tribulation Master Gods could have withstood that calamitous electric power, let alone ordinary people. All of them would be slain on the spot!

This was one of the greatest forbidden zones in the Ruins of Supreme Simplicity.

Su Yi, meanwhile, was climbing the mountain on foot.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to fly, but that the dark mists enveloping the skies over Heavenly Aberrant Mountain were full of turbulent spacetime power. If he got swept into them, he’d be in for endless trouble.

Crunch! Crack!

Wherever Su Yi passed, streaks of lightning shot out of the cracks between boulders, dazzlingly bright, like incarnations of divine punishment.

This dense, seemingly tangible power of the Laws originated from the Age of Supreme Simplicity’s will of heaven. Thus, it was indeed a form of divine punishment.

These Laws of the Grand Dao were on the same level as Su Yi’s Laws of Supreme Emergence.

But both powers of divine punishment could do nothing to Su Yi, who controlled the power of the Epoch Spark.

Before long, he passed through the lightning and, with one last rumbling boom, reached the peak!

Black mists churned over the mountaintop. The entire peak was surrounded by turbulent spacetime currents.

Even just the sight of it was enough to startle the eyes and shock the heart.

But Su Yi merely glanced at it before returning his attention to the center of the peak. There, he saw a strange altar. It looked as if it had been forged entirely out of bloodstained divine bones.

A woman sat cross-legged on its surface, thoroughly bound in black chains. She was unconscious, and her unparalleled, beautiful face was utterly pallid.

Lu Qingmei!

This was the famous Blue Rose Demon Master, but now, she’d been reduced to a prisoner bound on an altar of bones.

And she looked like a sacrificial offering!

A female voice with a unique, raspy, magnetic quality rang out. “Su Yi, we finally meet again.”

A figure walked out from behind the bone altar accompanying this voice.