First Immortal of the Sword

Who is this golden-robed man? Why is he saying that he brought about the Dragon Palace’s demise?

Su Yi’s thoughts raced. “Back then, did you perhaps attempt to control the Book of Karma?”

The man in golden robes paid the question no heed. He looked as if he’d completely lost his mind. He clutched his head in his hands and murmured, “It’s all my fault! Back then, I was too proud, and I had unrealistic ambitions regarding the Book of Karma… It’s… all my fault!”

His face was racked with agony, self-blame, regret, fury, and grief. It seemed he’d completely broken down.

Suddenly, Su Yi’s voice boomed like spring thunder, and it was tinged with a power of the Grand Dao that reached the heart directly.

“WHO ARE YOU?”

Boom!

It was as if the golden-robed man had been struck by lightning. His eyes filled with bewilderment, but he answered instinctively. “My name is Ao Chiting. I was once our ninth crown prince, the prince the elders saw as the most promising!

This seemed to hook the golden-robed man’s memories, and his eyes shone with an altogether different light. “I once suppressed all my competition, wandered the Eastern Sea with pride, and explored the forty-nine provinces of the Immortal Realm alone, defeating all valiant elites beneath the heavens!

“They called me the Red Lightning Dragon King, and I was ranked first on the Immortal King Combat Rankings! I was the strongest Dragon King in history! My father and the elders all thought I was certain to one way become a deity, an all-powerful dragon god! Back then…”

Here, his expression filled with grief, and he collapsed to the ground in tears. “But it was I who brought catastrophe to my people!”

The golden-robed man suddenly seemed utterly grief-stricken and helpless, without any sign of his former majesty. He was like a sinner overcome with penitence and lost in the throes of agony and self-recrimination.

Su Yi was stunned too, and his heart shook. 

Red Lightning, or “Chiting!”

This golden-robed man was the dragon ancestor who’d proven his Dao and become a God! The Red Lightning Dragon God who’d achieved divinity in the early days of the Primeval Era!

Su Yi had slain numerous wraiths along the way, acquiring numerous secrets. Thus, he knew that not long after the Red Lightning Dragon God, Ao Chiting, achieved divinity, the Dragon Palace met with catastrophe. They said that not even the Red Lightning Dragon God had escaped disaster!

Su Yi had asked Xi Ning about this. In the end, he concluded that in the early days of the Immortal Realm’s Primeval Era, its opportunities to achieve divinity were connected to the legendary Epoch Treasures born of its chaos source—the Nine Mysteries of Chaos. The Red Lightning Dragon God had likely achieved divinity with the Book of Karma’s help.

There was no doubt about it: The golden-robed man on the Dragon Ascension Platform was an avatar of will that the ninth crown prince of the Dragon Palace, Ao Chiting, had left there as an Immortal King. 

Now, Su Yi finally understood why this avatar was so strong. In the Primeval Era, Ao Chiting had stood at the top of the Immortal King Combat Rankings, and he was the strongest Immortal King in the dragons' history!

After a moment’s silence, Su Yi said, “All of that is in the past, and you needn’t blame yourself. After all, you’re ultimately just an avatar of will. Your true self perished a long time ago.”

Ao Chiting shook his head and said with self-recrimination, “Even if it’s all in the past, how could I deny my sins? I… am the greatest sinner in the history of the dragon race!!”

Su Yi said, “But to the best of my knowledge, while the Book of Karma was involved in the catastrophe, there were gods involved too.”

“Gods?” Ao Chiting suddenly looked up, his eyes bloodshot.

“That’s right,” said Su Yi. “But I still don’t know which gods specifically were involved, nor how many of them.”

Ao Chiting suddenly recalled something, then said, “Might you do me a favor? Rest assured that I’ll make it worth your time!”

It seemed he’d seized a thread of hope, and he looked at Su Yi eagerly.

Su Yi felt like he could guess what Ao Chiting was after. “Do you want me to get revenge?”

But to his surprise, Ao Chiting shook his head. “Both the Book of Karma and the gods are far too terrifying. I dare not hope for your help in punishing them. No, what I want is a future for the legacies of the Dragon Palace!”

He said with excitement, “Our treasury contains the purest, most ancient, ancestral blood of the dragon progenitor, and the supreme legacies our ancestors left behind!

“Fellow Daoist, so long as you agree to help me find a good seedling, a dragon or someone with the potential to undergo metamorphosis and become a dragon, I can teach you how to open our treasury. Then, all of its treasures will belong to you!”

Su Yi’s heart stirred, and his expression turned a bit strange. A good seedling capable of inheriting and continuing the legacies of the Dragon Palace? What a coincidence! I just so happen to have the perfect candidate with me: the Red Dragon Dao Monarch!

Su Yi thought for a moment, then said, “I can agree to assist you, but so much time has passed. I’m worried that the treasury you speak of has long since been cleaned out.”

Ao Chiting didn’t even pause to think. “I’m sure it’s still there! Our ancestors left it, and without the secret method used to open it, not even a god could possibly find it!”

He then raised his fingertip into the air and condensed a secret seal, which he passed to Su Yi through the air. “Fellow Daoist, this seal contains the secret method used to open our treasury.”

Su Yi accepted it, and the seal’s power transformed into a rain of light and poured into his body. A wondrous and inscrutable secret art floated into Su Yi’s sea of consciousness.

Su Yi took a moment to sense it, and to his astonishment, he realized that this secret art involved transforming space. There was no doubt about it: the treasury of the Dragon Palace almost certainly existed in a separate, unknown plane.

Without this secret method, no one could possibly find it!

“Why did you decide to trust me so quickly?” asked Su Yi.

Ao Chiting said honestly, “Countless years have passed, and you’re the first person to step onto the Dragon Ascension Platform. I have no choice but to trust you, Fellow Daoist.”

He then looked at Su Yi and said, “And an Immortal King capable of defeating my avatar with ease is absolutely unprecedented! Someone of your bearing and breadth of spirit is worthy of my trust!”

After all, way back when, he’d been the strongest Immortal King on the Immortal King Combat Rankings! He’d been capable of crossing realms to fight Great Martial Stage experts!

Yet Su Yi had defeated him with a single gesture. A heaven-defying existence like this was sure to be extraordinary!

Su Yi nodded. It wasn’t exactly that Ao Chiting trusted him, but he trusted his abilities!

That was the crux of the matter.

Su Yi went on to ask several more questions. Alas, the Ao Chiting before him was merely an avatar of will, and his knowledge was all from the early days of the Primeval Era. It was far too fleeting and far-removed from the present.

Even so, Su Yi learned several worthwhile leads.

The early days of the Primeval Era were the earliest era of the Immortal Realm’s history. Back then, the land was inhabited by countless races, and orthodoxies were as numerous as the clouds. The Immortal Realm flourished beyond comparison.

However, the strongest orthodoxies didn’t belong to human cultivators. Rather, they were led by groups like the dragons of the Eastern Sea!

Each of these races had a progenitor born of chaos—the Azure Dragon progenitor of the dragon race among them. Furthermore, these progenitor-level figures had all achieved divinity in the earliest days of the Primeval Era. All of them had since left the Immortal Realm.Nôv(el)B\\jnn

This told Su Yi that in the early days, the chaos of the Immortal Realm had given rise to numerous Epoch Laws. This was what gave those progenitors the opportunity to become gods, one after another.

But there was one thing Su Yi still didn’t understand. 

Even during the early days of the Primeval Era, the path to divinity was like a fleeting legend; those who’d proven their Daos and become gods were all but impossible to find. Yet the world’s top experts all agreed on one thing: anyone who obtained an Epoch Treasure had an opportunity to do exactly that. Thus, the Nine Mysteries of Chaos became the most mysterious, highly coveted treasures in the Immortal Realm.

However, those who’d actually seen them were so few and far between that you could count them on your fingers!

Many of that era’s Great Realm experts left the Immortal Realm to explore the River of Epochs in search of opportunities to break through and become gods. Their methods were rather similar to Wang Ye’s.

That aside, Su Yi also learned a bit about Li Fuyou! 

Ao Chiting didn’t recognize Li Fuyou’s name, but when Su Yi brought up Spiritual Desolation Mountain, Ao Chiting was instantly excited. He said that in the early days of the Primeval Era, Spiritual Desolation Mountain was a mysterious and transcendent otherworldly blessed ground!

Rumors of Spiritual Desolation Mountain had circulated throughout the Immortal Realm.

Even Ao Chiting heard them from some of his clan elders. The dragons were the hegemons of the Eastern Sea, one of the strongest factions around, but they too viewed Spiritual Desolation Mountain with awe!

The reason was simple. According to the elders of the dragon race, the master of Spiritual Desolation Mountain was an existence even the Dragon Progenitor had respected above all others: a highly mysterious sword cultivator!

The tomes the dragons passed on from generation to generation referred to him as Sky Venerate Spiritual Desolation!

The Dao of the Sword is like the heavens. Only I reign supreme!  

The one venerated by all under the sky, the supreme ruler of the heavens. This was the meaning of the title.

In the early days of the Primeval Era, there were too many Great Realm experts to count, but only the master of Spiritual Desolation Mountain was called “Sky Venerate.” In fact, the title was so widely used that almost no one knew the person's true name.

When Su Yi learned this, he couldn’t help but be stunned. This was his first time hearing that in the early days of the Primeval Era, the Immortal Realm had known his fifth incarnation as its most mysterious and transcendent expert. And only now did Su Yi learn that Li Fuyou was once called Sky Venerate Spiritual Desolation, and that even the progenitor of the lineage of the Dragon Palace had deeply admired him!

All of this gave Su Yi a strange sensation. I had no idea my past self was so impressive!

According to Ao Chiting, in the early days of the Primeval Era, Sky Venerate Spiritual Desolation had acquired more than one of the Nine Mysteries of Chaos! At least, those were the rumors. No one knew whether it was true or not.

There were also rumors that said that Sky Venerate Spiritual Desolation was in fact a deity to begin with, and that he wandered the Immortal Realm in search of the Nine Mysteries of Chaos. In summary, there were endless rumors surrounding the Sky Venerate, and most were ridiculous.

All Su Yi could say with certainty was that his fifth incarnation really was and had always been mysterious. Even in the early days of the Primeval Era, practically no one knew his name, much less his origins. Tales of his accomplishments all had a mystical, profound quality about them.

This only made Su Yi all the more eager to witness his fifth incarnation’s magnificence for himself.

After I leave the ruins of the Dragon Palace, I’ve got to find the Fuyou Boat and see the legendary Spiritual Desolation Mountain for myself, thought Su Yi. Perhaps then… I’ll be able to awaken Li Fuyou’s Dao Imprint…