First Immortal of the Sword

Chapter 2633 – Where I Clash With My Past Lives

The heart devil within the rusted sheath fell silent.

After a little while, he said, “It would be like yanking on shoots in a bid to make them grow faster. You’ve yet to grasp the profound mysteries of destiny, so your Grand Dao is like unripe fruit. If I plucked it now, I’d ruin nine lifetimes worth of effort!”

He then turned his attention to the Malevolent Sword Venerate. “Take this incarnation of negative karma. His true body isn’t here. Even if I compete with him now, how can I truly end things?”

The Malevolent Sword Venerate snorted coldly. He obviously didn’t appreciate being referred to that way.

Next, the heart devil turned his attention to Xiao Jian. “As for him, he seized profound mysteries of destiny. Your competition won’t be about whose cultivation base is higher, but who can Bring Order to creation and to the past, present, and future. Only then can you really end things.”

When Xiao Jian heard that, his eyebrows rose, but he uncharacteristically refrained from arguing.

There was no doubt about it. The heart devil was right on the mark!

“As for the competition between us?” said the heart devil. “That won’t happen today, nor will it happen on the River of Destiny, and it won’t be a competition of mere strength, either.”

“Where will our competition happen, then?” asked Su Yi.

“In the first of the Divine Chains of the Sword of the Nine Hells,” said the heart devil. “When you fuse with the Dao Imprint I left there, we’ll end things between us once and for all.”

Su Yi couldn’t help but find this surprising. The first Divine Chain represented the Dao Imprint of his first lifetime. When he fused with it, he’d inherit his first incarnation’s everything!

Never mind the rest. When the time came, the heart devil would have no advantage over him in terms of strength.

Yet he’d chosen to wait until then to end things between them. Su Yi naturally found it surprising.

“I said it, didn’t I? I disdain tugging on still-growing shoots or bullying the weak,” said the heart devil, seemingly reading his mind. “Do you know why I exist? It’s because my true body and I starkly diverged in terms of our pursuit of the Grand Dao!

“I want to replace you to prove that the path I staunchly upheld is superior to the one he chose! And you’re walking the very path my true body chose back then. Thus, ours is a competition to see whose path is superior.

“In other words, even if I replace you now, I won’t really have won. On the contrary, doing so would prove that I lack confidence in my chosen path. It would be tantamount to admitting defeat.” The heart devil sighed wistfully. “Do you understand now?”

Su Yi nodded.

Over the past few years, he’d interacted with the heart devil on numerous occasions, and he’d long since grasped his personality. He naturally trusted that the heart devil wouldn’t lie about this.

“Seems to me that he won’t live long enough for that!” the Malevolent Sword Venerate said calmly. “Because I’ll replace him first, then duke it out with you in his place!”

“Tch! Look at you! You’re no more than an incarnation of negative karma, yet you’re so ambitious. It’s truly surprising,” sighed the heart devil.

His repeated use of the title “incarnation of negative karma” made the Malevolent Sword Venerate glower. “If I’m not mistaken, you’re no different from me! All you can do is cling to life in a mere rusted sheath. Who are you to look down on me?”

“A mere rusted sword sheath?” The heart devil laughed coldly. “Ignorant!”

He couldn’t even be bothered to argue. He simply dismissed him.

The Malevolent Sword Venerate said expressionlessly, “Ignorant? If my true body were here, killing you would be no more difficult than turning over my hand.”

“Oh?” said the heart devil. “Should the opportunity arise, let’s play together. Rest assured, though: I promise not to kill you.”

He paused, then added, “But if you can’t kill me with ‘no more difficulty than turning over your hand,’ forgive me for slapping you in the face.”

Su Yi facepalmed, while the corners of Xiao Jian’s lips twitched. Both of them felt strange.

Their first incarnation’s heart devil and their second incarnation’s negative karma were fighting. It was utterly absurd!

When Su Yi saw that the two of them seemed like they were about to go on, he suddenly raised his hand.

Clang!

The Sword of the Nine Hells had been suppressed by the Malevolent Sword Venerate all this time, but now, it suddenly hummed, broke free, and landed in Su YI’s hand.

The Malevolent Sword Venerate’s expression shifted.

Xiao Jian’s expression shifted, too.

Their first incarnation’s heart devil, meanwhile, burst into laughter. “I understand! No wonder you didn’t ask for help even in the face of grave peril earlier. So, you had a backup plan all along!”

The Malevolent Sword Venerate frowned at Su Yi. “So you could have reclaimed the Sword of the Nine Hells at any time, but you deliberately chose not to?”

Su Yi tossed the Sword of the Nine Hells, which returned to his sea of consciousness. Only then did he nod and say, “That’s right. I naturally have to be extra careful when I’m up against you two.”

This was the source of Su Yi’s confidence!

Even if the heart devil hadn’t intervened, Su Yi could have retrieved the Sword of the Nine Hells at any time, catching the Malevolent Sword Venerate off guard to neutralize what might otherwise have been lethal danger!

Xiao Jian couldn’t help but exclaim, too, “Did… Did you already earn the acknowledgment of the Dao Imprint I left behind back then?”

“I wouldn’t call it ‘acknowledgment,’” said Su Yi. “Rather, so long as I will it, I can forcefully awaken it whenever I please.”

Xiao Jian narrowed his eyes in silence before finally responding. “No wonder you were so calm.”

He spoke with a hint of ruefulness. Su Yi’s performance and hidden cards were indeed beyond his expectations.

Upon further thought, this hidden countermeasure was indeed a masterstroke. If the heart devil hadn’t intervened, Su Yi would have been able to use the Sword of the Nine Hells to turn the situation around!

“But if anything had gone at all awry, wouldn’t you have been doomed?” the Malevolent Sword Venerate said coldly. He obviously wasn’t impressed.

“I was prepared for that, too,” Su Yi said calmly.

The Malevolent Sword Venerate was stunned. “Really?”

“Hidden cards are hidden cards precisely because others don’t know about them,” Su Yi said casually. “It doesn’t matter whether you believe me or not.”

“Is that so? Very well. When the Battle for Order Begins, I’ll see your hidden cards for myself!” said the Malevolent Sword Venerate. Then, he looked at the rusted sword sheath. “And you! I’d like to see whether or not you can still save him then!”

He spoke firmly, his voice like the clanging of a sword. When he finished, his figure dissipated, vanishing in place.

“He was wrong, you know,” said the heart devil. “When the Battle for Order begins, I won’t intervene. I naturally won’t step in to save you, either.”

Xiao Jian didn’t understand. “Why?”

The heart devil just laughed. “Guess.”

“…” Xiao Jian disregarded the heart devil, then looked at Su Yi. “You really ought to grow stronger as fast as you can. This time, you relied on external treasures to resolve the crisis at hand, but… there’s no guarantee that’ll work next time.”

Su Yi disregarded this.

It was actually quite absurd.

He’d come to do battle alone, and he’d faced a throng of powerful foes, experts of the two great alliances. Then, the Malevolent Sword Venerate, Old Daoist Crow, Cang Lingzi, and the other old-timers of the River of Destiny showed up, one after another.

They had the advantage in numbers and in cultivation.

But they never once seemed the least bit ashamed of themselves.

For someone to rebuke him for relying on external treasures to win under the circumstances was unquestionably shameless!

But Su Yi actually agreed with Xiao Jian.

During today’s battle, Xiao Jian’s breadth of spirit was far beyond the others.

External items were ultimately just that: external.

They could at most become a portion of one’s power, and it was dangerous to pin your hopes of victory on them.

“When we last met in the Path of the Ancient Gods, you said that you’d kill me the next time we met, no matter my cultivation. Why did you change your mind?” said Su Yi.

After a moment’s silence, Xiao Jian said, “I can’t bear to do it.”

With that, he turned to leave. Before long, his thin frame vanished over the horizon.

He can’t bear to do it? Su Yi raised an eyebrow.

“Between the two of you, I admire Xiao Jian more. He’s from a long-lost epoch, yet he managed to seize a profound mystery of destiny and survive the ruins of the Return Dominion. He… truly changed his fate!” sighed the heart devil. “If he’d disregarded the backlash of the God Domain’s chaos source to attack you, not even I could have stopped him, but in the end, he chose not to do it.

“From this, it’s obvious how extraordinary his breadth of spirit really is.” The heart devil paused, then added, “He really is my third incarnation. He’s done me proud!”

Su Yi ignored that last part completely, but the heart devil was still rambling on, entirely unperturbed. “The Malevolent Sword Venerate is lawless, and he does whatever he pleases without fear. I like him better than you, too. Alas, he’s ultimately just an incarnation of negative karma.”

Su Yi took a sip of wine and said, “Well, you’re just a heart devil. It’s no wonder you’d relate to him.”

‘Just’ a heart devil? And why… would you think I’d relate to an incarnation of negative karma? The heart devil suddenly felt choked. A long time passed before he could speak.

Su Yi, meanwhile, had moved onto another topic. “You said that Xiao Jian seized a profound mystery of destiny to survive. Might you explain that in more detail?”

“Go ask him yourself!” said the heart devil, obviously enraged. After that, he said no more.

Su Yi rubbed his nose awkwardly, put the sheath away, and looked around.

The battle was over.

The Borderless Mountains lay in ruin, the ground covered in the vestiges in battle, a silent testament to the ferocity of the battle he’d just fought.

When Su Yi replayed the battle, he couldn’t help but sigh.

Meanwhile, as the chaos and upheaval gradually died down, the countless cultivators gathered near the Borderless Mountains tentatively approached.

The dense crowd blanketed heaven and earth, and it flowed in like the tide.

When they took in the devastated landscape and saw Su Yi standing alone above it all, everyone was stunned. Then, they couldn’t help but cry out in astonishment.

Heaven and earth lay in ruin. All was withered.

None of Su Yi’s enemies remained.

Only Su Yi stood there, covered in blood, yet tall and upright.

After seeing this, who could fail to realize that Su Yi had emerged as the final victor of the grand battle the whole world was paying attention to?