Run, run with all your might. No matter the obstacles surrounding him, he cannot stop running.
Frantically running through the mist, Xu Xuan has lost all sense of direction. After all, everything around him is shrouded in mist, and he can hardly see anything clearly. The senior brothers who initially ran with him have also gradually disappeared into the fog.
Among all this, Xu Xuan hears many voices; someone shouts that the evil has been defeated, urging them to return, but he pays no attention. Some voices of his senior brothers ask him to turn back and help, but he ignores them as well.
He even hears Master Ye’s voice, who has not returned since going down the mountain, urging him to lead the way back up to rescue people, but he also ignores that. There are many similar voices, and Xu Xuan disregards them all.
After all, Xu Xuan’s greatest strength is listening to advice, and having been through the horror stories of his past life, such tricks are child’s play to him. In the horror stories he has read, it’s common for the protagonist to be tricked by voices and illusions of loved ones to turn back, and once they fall for it, it often leads to dire consequences.
With this in mind, Xu Xuan ignores all the voices coming from the mist and keeps running. He watches the blood-red light in the distance continue to advance, even though his body feels immense fatigue, and he experiences a fiery burning sensation in his lungs.
However, the mist seems boundless, and time, in Xu Xuan’s perception, has stretched unbearably long. Eventually, he becomes utterly exhausted and can only drag his tiring body forward step by step.
As he moves laboriously, the red sword light ahead has vanished. He is completely lost in the mist.
“Kid, you’ve failed. No need to keep going. The sword light you were following has disappeared,” a woman’s voice suddenly rings in Xu Xuan’s ears.
“Is this another auditory hallucination? This time it’s someone I don’t know trying to persuade me?” Upon hearing the woman’s voice, Xu Xuan can’t help but smile, “But this voice is quite pleasant.”
“It’s not a hallucination!” The voice comes again.
“Sure, all hallucinations say that. You want me to fall for it? Unless you bring a real beauty in front of me.”
“Just look up and see. Don’t worry, no need to turn back, just look forward.”
“Hmm?” At the words of the voice, Xu Xuan instinctively looks up and sees a beautiful woman before him. She seems to be around seventeen or eighteen years old. Dressed in an enchanting red dress, with her thighs exposed, Xu Xuan can clearly see two ancient symbols seemingly tattooed on her thigh. These symbols are the same ones Xu Xuan had seen just recently on the sword being worshipped in the Sword Hall, labeled ‘Chiyou.’ The woman, however, has iron chains shackled to her hands, feet, and neck, each step producing a clinking sound. At this moment, she is walking backwards while watching Xu Xuan. Strangely, even though there are sounds of chains, Xu Xuan hears no sound of her footsteps touching the ground.
“Wow, a stunning beauty!!” Seeing this scene, Xu Xuan can’t help but exclaim, “But I won’t listen to you. I won’t stop until I get out of this mist.”
“Are you really that afraid of death? But during your time in the sect, didn’t you often waste your time? Why are you suddenly cherishing life so much? Do you know? If you don’t rest soon and keep going like this, your legs will be ruined. You’ve been walking for three days now.” Looking at Xu Xuan, the woman curls her red lips slightly: “Just stop here; maybe you won’t die.”
“I don’t gamble. Besides, I’m not wasting time. Precisely because I value life, I want to enjoy every day with all my might and live well every day, right? I’m not a person with grand ideals; I just want to live freely and well every day.” Looking at the beauty in front of him, Xu Xuan continues to move forward through the mist, speaking in a somewhat helpless tone: “I didn’t expect that after surviving so much, I’d still end up in trouble.”
“Hmph, that dream of yours is not small at all!! To me, such an ideal is as grand as a great enterprise,” the beautiful woman suddenly says seriously.
“Eh? How is that a grand ideal?”
“Do you not understand? Wishing to live freely and well every day without constraints and threats means you need to transcend all the power in this world. Only by transcending all powers can one have the privilege to act willfully.”
“Is that so? Then I must have been naive.”
“Your thinking doesn’t resemble that of the Sword Hall; it’s more akin to that of the Taoists.”
“Speaking of which, I’ve been on the mountain for so many years, but I’ve never experienced what Taoists are like.” As Xu Xuan says this, he walks, reflecting on what he has heard. Suddenly, he stumbles over something. The red-dressed woman obviously sees this scene but fails to warn Xu Xuan; instead, she stands still and watches as he trips and falls into her embrace.
“This touch… Huh? Are you real?” Feeling the sensation from the woman’s skin, Xu Xuan’s face turns slightly red.
“I’m not exactly human, but it depends on how you define a person,” the woman replies as she kneels down, holding Xu Xuan and settling on the ground. She places his head on her thigh: “Alright, now you can rest.”
“No way.”
“You’ve exited the mist.” The woman smiles. At this moment, Xu Xuan notices the mist around him has inexplicably cleared. Simultaneously, a wave of intense fatigue and drowsiness hits him. Lying on the woman’s thigh, Xu Xuan unconsciously drifts into sleep.
“Interesting, an engaging wish and unwavering will, and most importantly, his sword just happened to break. There really is a connection! Kid, let me see how far you can go in the future.” Looking at Xu Xuan sleeping on her thigh, the woman mutters to herself and then reaches for the iron chain tied around her neck, throwing it towards Xu Xuan…
Xu Xuan experiences an uncomfortable sleep, feeling cold and hard, and at the same time, he sees a mountain peak.
It is a mountain completely formed of dark red metal, exhibiting a dark red metallic sheen, yet the entire mountain is bizarrely writhing, as if it is alive.
Countless sharp swords are inserted into the mountain summit, but what terrifies Xu Xuan is that each sword is pierced through a person beneath it. These people have twisted faces, appearing as though they are in the throes of death. But just as Xu Xuan’s gaze falls upon them, these individuals, pierced by the swords, open their eyes, unleashing a chorus of mournful wails. In an instant, the entire dark red mountain resembles the legendary mountain of knives and hell.
However, these are not knives; they are swords. And this mountain appears unmistakably alive.
At this moment, Xu Xuan’s gaze shifts to the mountain peak. Standing at the top is a stunning woman, and he recognizes her as the beautiful woman he had previously seen.
Yet unlike when he first saw her, the beautiful woman’s originally slender legs are now missing her delicate feet, replaced by countless metal tubes inserted into her legs, connecting her to the living metal mountain.
Or perhaps they were always one entity?
At this moment, the woman holds a massive dark red long sword, and beside her lies a half body.
“Master!!” Recognizing the half body, Xu Xuan immediately realizes who it is. But at this moment, he finds himself powerless, forced to watch everything unfold before him. His body is bound by countless chains to a giant sword.
In front of Xu Xuan, the beautiful woman’s long sword descends, piercing the half body of Master Ou. With the blade’s insertion, Master Ou lets out a heart-wrenching scream.
In that instant, as the scream echoes, Xu Xuan abruptly opens his eyes, rubbing his heavy, swollen eyes, he then notices that he is sleeping on the official road at the foot of a mountain.
And what surprises Xu Xuan is that when he gets up, he realizes why he felt so hard underneath him. He had been resting on the blade of a long sword. It seems there’s now a red mark pressed on his face.
“I actually slept on a sword. By the way, what was with that lady and that mountain I saw earlier?” Picking up the long sword from the ground, Xu Xuan’s mind fills with questions. But soon he notices that an iron chain is attached to the sword’s hilt. Following the chain, Xu Xuan is shocked to see its other end has entered his arm. It extends into the flesh of his arm at his wrist. Xu Xuan tries to tug at it a few times, only to discover that the chain has seemingly fused into his body like a plant. As for the specific location within his body, he cannot determine.
Though surprised, Xu Xuan quickly calms down. After truly witnessing the strangeness of this world, he doesn’t find the idea of a chain growing into his arm so alarming. However, what he is grateful for is that the long sword linked to him is indeed the Chiyou Sword they have been venerating.
This means the red light he has been following is the light of the Chiyou Sword.
Inserting the Chiyou Sword into the sheath on his back, he is fortunate that the length of the chain does not seem to affect his life, and now what he needs to do is very simple: go down to Sword Hero Town to eat something good and rest a bit. After all, he is currently on the official road leading to Sword Hero Town at the mountain’s foot.
When he turns back to look at the mountain where the Sword Hall is located, Xu Xuan sees that the entire peak has indeed been completely enveloped in mist……
