The sword flashed as fast as lightning.
Facing the Drunken Immortal, Wen Jiayin didn’t dare hold back at all.
The difference in their strength was obvious—she might not even last a few moves even if she went all out.
If she tried to play dumb and act weak, she’d just end up as the one getting eaten!
“Clang! Clang! Clang!” In just a split second, three sharp sounds of weapons clashing rang out in the air.
On one side was a spiritual treasure forged from all sorts of rare materials, on the other, a slender willow branch snapped off at random.
But that willow branch didn’t even get a scratch—instead, it almost knocked the sword right out of Wen Jiayin’s hand.
“Your speed’s not bad, I’ll give you that.” The Drunken Immortal tilted her head slightly to dodge the sword energy.
But even though she called it “not bad,” in her eyes, it was still slow.
“Still haven’t grasped sword intent?”
Wen Jiayin really wanted to say, sword intent was something countless sword cultivators spent their whole lives chasing and never found, and now the Drunken Immortal was acting like it was nothing special? If she said that out loud, she’d probably get smacked, right, little Martial Uncle Ancestor?
Every attack Wen Jiayin launched was casually flicked away by the Drunken Immortal’s bamboo branch.
Wen Jiayin had no choice but to speed up her technique, fire spiritual energy rapidly gathering inside her.
The fire energy around her even started to take on a faint, visible form.
Wen Jiayin forced herself to focus, putting all her attention on her sword.
It was true—she hadn’t comprehended sword intent.
But after studying her Master’s sword intent every day, she wasn’t completely clueless either.
Calming her mind and resonating with her sword—that was the first step to becoming a true sword cultivator.
Who knew, when Wen Jiayin, who’d spent over twenty years in her last life as a materialist, first heard this, her brain nearly exploded.
This mystical, mysterious stuff—she just couldn’t wrap her head around it.
According to Xinyun, if you couldn’t resonate with your sword, then every swing would just be a dead object, something external and lifeless.
Xinyun wanted to teach her, but just because she was a genius didn’t mean she was good at teaching others.
Xinyun was a natural with the sword—she’d felt something the first time she ever touched one as a child.
That kind of talent was impossible to envy.
When Xinyun tried to explain it to Wen Jiayin, she did her best to be clear, but Wen Jiayin just felt like there was a dimensional wall between her and her Master.
The more she tried to understand, the more confused she got…
Wen Jiayin got pretty discouraged, even started to wonder if she just didn’t have any talent for swordsmanship and should try something else.
Her Master was known as the number one sword cultivator, but as her disciple, she couldn’t even get in the door.
If people found out, it’d be a huge embarrassment for her Master.
Wen Jiayin didn’t care if people laughed at her, but if her Master got dragged down because of her, she’d really feel awful!
Especially when her Master kept comforting her, saying she had talent and didn’t need to rush, Wen Jiayin just felt even more guilty.
Only Xinyun knew that Wen Jiayin’s struggle wasn’t about talent.
She did have talent for the sword.
In her last life, when Wen Jiayin was young, she was mostly left to her own devices.
After Xinyun taught her what she needed to as a Master, she let Wen Jiayin figure things out on her own.
In the end, Wen Jiayin achieved a high level of mastery in the way of the sword.
If she hadn’t died so early, she might have even been able to stand on equal footing with Xinyun.
But how Wen Jiayin managed to comprehend it in her last life, Xinyun had no idea.
So in the end, she could only go with the dumbest method: let Wen Jiayin figure it out in real combat.
If one fight didn’t work, then two.
If two didn’t work, then three… At Wen Jiayin’s stubborn insistence, this sparring match lasted three days and three nights.
Right at the moment when Wen Jiayin’s spiritual energy was about to run dry, her unwilling heart finally resonated with her sword, unleashing a powerful force.
After that day, Wen Jiayin finally gained her own sword momentum.
Unlike her Master’s sword intent, which could freeze everything with a single strike, Wen Jiayin’s sword momentum radiated a scorching heat even before it got close.
“Hey, your technique’s pretty good.” The Drunken Immortal noticed that Wen Jiayin’s spiritual energy wasn’t weakening but actually rising.
Normally, Wen Jiayin should have used up a lot of energy by now—her every move was solid and forceful.
This abnormal situation could only be explained by a special technique.
Regrouping, Wen Jiayin launched another storm of attacks.
What looked like a normal sword swing was actually layered with several strikes.
She still couldn’t do much to the Drunken Immortal, but at least she could annoy her a bit.
The Drunken Immortal’s relaxed aura wavered, and Wen Jiayin’s chance appeared.
The Drunken Immortal swung her bamboo branch again, and this time, there was a faint hint of blade intent, honed by countless killings.
Wen Jiayin immediately gathered her spiritual energy in her feet and leapt into the air to dodge.
But as someone in the Qi Refining stage, Wen Jiayin couldn’t fly.
Being in the air would seriously limit her movements and expose more weaknesses.
The Drunken Immortal knew this well and was ready to teach Wen Jiayin a lesson.
But she’d underestimated the girl in front of her.
The moment the Drunken Immortal looked up, she realized she was surrounded by dozens of illusory sword shadows made of fire.
“Haha, this Myriad Swords Return to Origin is kind of pitifully few, huh.” The Drunken Immortal recognized Wen Jiayin’s move at a glance and laughed.
This sword technique wasn’t popular—splitting your power into so many swords weakened each one, and most people’s spiritual sense couldn’t handle controlling that many at once.
It was considered pretty useless, only good for showing off.
Until that time the demon race attacked, and Xinyun wiped out an entire demon army with one move of Myriad Swords Return to Origin.
Only then did people realize the problem wasn’t the technique, but that most people just couldn’t bring out its true power.
But the Drunken Immortal thought Wen Jiayin was making a mistake here.
All this scattered power was just tickling her—wasting spiritual energy for nothing.
She’d be better off focusing it all into one strike and catching her off guard.
The Drunken Immortal swung her arm, and the burst of spiritual energy should have shattered all the sword shadows.
But the sword shadows vanished without any sense of hitting something real.
Wait—illusions!
She looked up, and sure enough, the person who should have been in the air was gone.
A wave of heat appeared on her left.
Wen Jiayin’s sword was burning with a dark fire.
She silently apologized to the Drunken Immortal—this fire might hurt a bit!
This was her only opening, and Wen Jiayin knew her power couldn’t hurt someone on her Master’s level.
So when she swung her sword, she didn’t hold back at all.
The fire and sword momentum rippled through the air, enough to kill a Foundation Establishment cultivator.
Wen Jiayin thought, at the very least, this should make the Drunken Immortal take a step back, right?
But the Drunken Immortal didn’t dodge or block—she just caught the sword with her left hand.
She grabbed Wen Jiayin’s almost full-powered strike with her bare hand.
Wen Jiayin could only give a wry smile—the gap was just too big.
Then she realized something worse: the Drunken Immortal was holding her sword so tightly she couldn’t pull it back! Martial Uncle Ancestor! Don’t you think that fire’s hot?
A powerful force shoved her, and Wen Jiayin was flung away, sword and all.
The Drunken Immortal stared blankly at the flames still burning on her hand.
This unique, flesh-searing pain—she’d felt it once before.
This fire… this fire! It was that person’s fire.
There was no way she was wrong!
She looked again at Wen Jiayin, who was walking toward her with sword in hand.
Maybe she was going crazy.
No, she was already crazy.
Ever since that person died, she’d lost her mind! Why did this weak little disciple, who she could kill with a flick of her hand, look so much like that person?
The Drunken Immortal didn’t call a stop, so Wen Jiayin could only keep attacking.
But she didn’t notice the Drunken Immortal’s gaze had changed.
In her eyes, Wen Jiayin had been replaced by another figure.
That person—or whatever nameless being it was—had also used a sword burning with terrifying fire to easily knock her away, steal her dao companion’s corpse, and then vanish without a trace.
The scar from that fire still burned on her body to this day.
She’d been lost all these years, but never stopped searching for that person.
She wanted to find her, kill her, and take back her lover’s body!
Yes, kill her!
The slender bamboo branch fell to the ground.
A dark red long blade, as if forged from blood, appeared with a terrifying killing intent.
Wen Jiayin felt like she was seeing mountains of corpses and seas of blood, the stench so strong it made her nauseous.
Wen Jiayin had never experienced a real life-or-death fight.
Under the Drunken Immortal’s almost tangible killing intent, she could barely even lift her sword to resist.
“Clang!” Blade and sword collided.
Half the bamboo forest shattered, the other half turned to ice.
The Drunken Immortal’s madness had pushed Xinyun’s always-fragile rationality to the edge—her killing intent was real.
She actually wanted to kill Ayin right in front of her?
Luckily, before Xinyun could fall into her own madness, someone tugged her sleeve.
Behind her, Wen Jiayin’s trembling voice brought her back to her senses.
“Master? What’s wrong with Martial Uncle Ancestor?”
