The misty clouds of the Xianzhou Cangcheng carried a bone-piercing chill.
The wooden window frame groaned under the grip of clutching hands.
Their flesh began to churn and roil.
Networks of dark, green-black veins spread across their bodies.
Leaf after leaf of golden ginkgo unfurled from within their flesh.
Their minds began to blur and waver.
He remembered, as a child, sitting on the doorstep of the old family home, gazing out at the little alleyway beyond the gate.
His parents had divorced early on.
His mother remarried and never once came back to see him.
The family’s circumstances could hardly be called comfortable.
His father, determined that his son could attend private tutoring—could acquire a little more knowledge and live a life at least slightly less exhausting than his own—had labored far from home year after year.
Their little Realm was a backwater, remote and impoverished.
The meager income to be earned there could never compare to what the bustling, prosperous Realms offered.
Fortunately, he had his grandparents at his side.
His childhood, at least, was not a lonely one.
But every year, when his father returned for the New Year, he could never bring himself to speak to the man.
He would only hide behind his grandmother, clutching tightly at the hem of her clothes, stealing shy glances at this stranger who was somehow, impossibly, his closest kin.
He remembered the faint, lingering sadness in his father’s eyes in those moments.
He wanted to offer comfort—to let the man who shouldered an entire family’s burdens feel, at least when he came home, that he was not alone.
Yet after a thousand words swelled silently in his heart, when they finally reached his lips, they always choked back down unsaid.
It was a mercy, then, that in his youth, his talent for cultivation proved strong.
Upon reaching adulthood, he joined the Cloud Knights.
His grandparents swelled with pride.
His father, however, simply kept a stern face and gave him a light clap on the shoulder.
After that, he spent two hundred years on the battlefield.
As time flowed onward, his grandparents passed away, one after the other.
He himself was eventually forced to withdraw from service—a hidden wound, left by a brush with lupine poison on the battlefield, had never truly healed.
Fortune smiled on him, though.
Over the next two hundred years, he not only married the love of his life but also achieved a fair measure of success in business.
But his father’s lifespan, too, drew to its end.
At his father’s funeral, there were hardly any guests to bid farewell.
It was only then that he understood—his father’s world had been very small.
So small, in fact, that…
only he had remained within it.
Decades later, his wife gave birth to their child—Bai Qiong.
This child was the greatest pride of both their lives.
Though they could not be at his side every moment of his childhood, they always carved out three or four days each month to return home and spend time with him, wholeheartedly.
Later, once he felt the assets they had accumulated were sufficient, he decisively abandoned business ventures that could still have generated more profit.
He planned to return home with his wife and properly accompany their son.
He wanted to give him a complete childhood—at the very least, not one like his own…
But…
their child seemed to be somewhat too gifted.
At a tender age, he had already been taken in as a disciple by the rumored heir of the Sword Champion.
He felt both pride and a deep, aching sorrow.
When their child finally returned home, he had grown silent and withdrawn.
Day after day, he did nothing but swing his sword with the mechanical precision of an automaton.
It pained them to watch!
Only after seeking answers from many sources did they learn—his master and his senior sister had both fallen in battle on the front lines.
Then, at long last, his childhood sweetheart had managed to coax him back to some semblance of warmth.
Everything had been flourishing, slowly returning to brightness.
And now…
now, this calamity had come crashing down upon them…
“Old Bai, are we…?”
He looked at his wife’s panic-stricken eyes, then down at their bodies, already beginning their twisted metamorphosis.
“Mm.” He merely nodded, calm and steady.
Having spent his early years on the battlefield, he knew all too well what this meant.
Mara is the destiny of the long-lived species.
There is no solution.
There is no salvation.
He looked out the window at the blood-red planet hanging in the sky.
His fists clenched tight.
The sound of hurried footsteps suddenly rang out from the courtyard beyond.
Husband and wife exchanged a single glance.
It was as though each saw, in the other’s eyes, the same resignation, the same quiet acceptance.
Those who fall to Mara: the six senses are inverted; all human bonds are annihilated.
Soon, very soon, they would transform into mindless beasts that knew only the hunger for human flesh.
But at the very least—they could not; they must not let their child strike them down with his own hands.
That would be far too cruel to him…
He looked down at his own hands, now sharpened into rending claws through the mutation.
A certain resolution crystallized in his eyes.
They did not hesitate for long.
Their claws pierced through their own abdomens.
Gritting their teeth against the searing agony, they reached toward their Dan Fǔ and crushed it with all their might!
The greatest weakness of a Xianzhou native is their Dan Fǔ.
Yet, the Dan Fǔ is also the hardest part of their entire body.
To destroy one’s own Dan Fǔ is unthinkably difficult.
But if one truly seeks death with all one’s will…
Bai Qiong’s father felt his consciousness begin to fray and scatter—I wonder…
did I do a better job as a father than my own father did?
“Dad!
Mom!
We need to—”
[Your parents leaned against one another.
They gazed quietly in the direction of the doorway, just as you, as a child, used to sit upon the doorstep, staring hopefully toward the alley from which they would return.
Though the vital signs of life had long since faded from their bodies, you could still, it seemed, read the guilt and self-reproach lingering in their unclosed eyes.]
Their shattered Dan Fǔ crumbled into fragments.
Flecks of dark crimson bloodstains scattered across the clean floor.
[You looked at their bodies, already warped by mutation.
It seemed you understood, then, what had transpired.]
[Mara.
Mara, again…] You are reading on novelping.com, the official source.
[Why?
WHY?!
Clearly…
clearly just a little while ago, everything had been fine…
They promised—they promised they would stay with me from now on…
Mom and Dad, liars!!!]
[For a time, you didn’t know what to do.
You didn’t know what step to take next…
No.
No, that’s wrong.
You still have Liuliu and her family!]
[Having stood frozen for what felt like an eternity, you picked up your fallen sword.
You cast one long, deep look at your parents, as though trying to burn their likeness into the very depths of your memory, never to fade.]
[Then, you turned and left.
You arrived at Jingliu’s house—only to find that she and Uncle and Aunt were nowhere to be found.]
[You pressed your lips together.
Without a word, you strode out toward the streets.
If you just killed every last one of those Abominations of Abundance…
you should be able to find them, right…]
Sword Champion’s Residence
The white-robed old man stared at the utterly deserted courtyard manor.
His hunched silhouette seemed steeped in desolation.
In his hand, he held a black whetstone, its surface worn smooth by untold years.
His fingers traced along its edges.
As he gazed out at the courtyard, his eyes carried a faint glimmer of reminiscence.
He lifted his head and looked at the blood-red Activated Planet bearing down from above.
A chill sharp enough to flay bone flashed through his gaze.
“Enough.
Enough…”
He set down the whetstone in his hand and drew the blade that had accompanied him through a lifetime of war.
When fortune smiles, heaven and earth lend their strength; when fortune fades, even heroes are shackled!
He strode slowly into the sky.
With every step he took, Abominations of Abundance by the countless thousands were reduced to ash.
The sword in his hand blazed with a blinding, radiant light.
Across the cosmos, countless blazing stars seemed to answer his call!
Threads of starlight cascaded down from the heavens, as though to crush the Activated Planet beneath their weight!
“Huummmmmm—”
The blood-red Activated Planet seemed to keen in agony.
The churning flesh upon it ruptured and split without end!
“I may be old and withered, but I still have strength to spare!”
Viridian flames erupted across the Sword Champion’s body.
He drew a finger lightly along the edge of his blade.
Blood poured forth in a rushing stream, spreading inch by inch until it had coated the entire length of the sword.