Chapter Eighty-Seven: The Sword Realm

With a cough, the saintess kept soothing her own trembling excitement in her heart.

“Wine... wine...”

Ye Wuya swayed unsteadily, wandering in a daze, and hurled aside the empty bottle in his hand once more. By then, he had already finished three bottles, and the liquor did not seem to be ordinary at all.

“Senior, the wine is here. Please go on drinking. I still have more!”

The saintess trotted over and brought out another bottle of the same wine, even opening it for him herself. Its fragrance burst forth at once. Catching the scent, Ye Wuya shut his eyes and seized the bottle from her hand.

He tipped his head back and drank deeply, then said with a drunken smack of his lips, “Good, good wine! Strong enough! Refreshing!”

His body lurched and swayed as though he might collapse at any moment.

As the screams from within the ruins continued to rise, more and more swords, sensing Ye Wuya’s will, flew out from the ruins and entered his domain.

The saintess watched these changes closely: the oppressive heavens, the desolate earth, the crimson radiance upon Ye Wuya’s body.

Though such feats could be achieved by those powerful beings, none of them could do it as Ye Wuya did, without drawing upon any spiritual power or cultivation as a foundation.

Everything about Ye Wuya was a single intent.

Sword intent.

It was the first time the saintess had ever seen such a thing, and her curiosity knew no bounds, as though a door to a new world had opened before her.

The crimson glow upon Ye Wuya should be his sword intent, and this barren land should be his sword domain.

How sword intent and sword domain were formed from nothing was something the saintess found utterly fascinating.

It seemed to stand apart from spiritual power, apart from the traditional system of cultivation.

At first, the saintess only knew that this must be some kind of intent. It was only later, when their swords no longer obeyed them and began to move in response to Ye Wuya’s will, that she became certain it was sword intent.

No spiritual fluctuation at all, yet all this was possible?

If it had been before, the saintess would never have believed it. But now that she had seen it with her own eyes, she had no choice but to believe.

The red sword intent on Ye Wuya’s body kept drawing in the blood qi that rose from the ruins, and the crimson light grew ever more brilliant. The saintess felt that this red sword intent was incomparably sharp; even with spiritual power protecting her body, merely drawing within five meters of Ye Wuya made her cheeks sting.

That streak of red sword intent stood like a divine pillar pinning the sea in place, thrust straight into the dark, heavy heavens.

The heavens were as black and dense as ink, the earth as bleak as death. The saintess looked up and studied the sky carefully, and all at once her body shuddered. She stared in disbelief at the firmament.

Those dark heavens were actually made from the phantasmal shadows of countless swords, dense beyond counting, their outlines surging and roiling without end.

The sight made the saintess’s scalp tingle. If those sword shadows were truly to solidify and fall, she would likely be pierced full of holes.

Fortunately, those swords showed no sign of descending.

Ye Wuya’s crimson sword intent poured directly into the heavens. The desolate earth, the sky of sword shadows, and the blood-colored sword intent together formed this sword domain.

“The range of this sword domain seems to be only twenty meters. If it were expanded endlessly, if sun, moon, and stars were born within it, if living beings were born within it, if the domain evolved into a world... would that count as creating an alternate world?”

The saintess murmured, her imagination running wild.

If Ye Wuya knew what she was thinking, he would probably admire the breadth of her imagination as well. Such talent was wasted if not put to use.

After all, at this moment Ye Wuya was already certain to be drunk, utterly unaware of what was happening outside.

The screams within the ruins went on and on. Only deep into the night did they begin to fade, and by the time dawn approached, no cries could be heard at all.

It was as though everyone in the ruins had been slaughtered clean by the great formation left behind by the demon race.

At the heart of the ruins, two divine rainbows pierced through the chests of two figures in the sky. Those figures exploded with a thunderous blast, turning into a skyful of blood mist that drifted outward from the ruins.

With the death of the final two, the strongest cultivators in the entire ruins fell silent at last. Not a sound remained. The stillness was terrifying.

Across the ground lay bones and minced flesh, severed limbs and broken torsos. Blood stained the earth and slowly flowed onward. The blood of over ten thousand cultivators had formed a river, neither too small nor too large, inching its way toward the ancient palace of the demon race.

Blood qi floated out from the ruins, and the blood itself was drawn into the demon palace. The entire ruin fell quiet, like a hell on earth.

By then, after absorbing the blood qi from the ruins, the sword domain had become much more solid. Before, it had existed somewhere between reality and illusion, but now it looked like an independent territory.

The heavens were overcast, the land desolate beyond measure, and even Ye Wuya’s red sword intent had grown brighter, dazzling in its brilliance.

Swaying as he walked, Ye Wuya continued outward, taking one step and drinking once, then every three steps turning back to look toward that boundless void with deep reluctance.

Whenever Ye Wuya tossed away a bottle, the saintess obediently handed him a new one.

And so this scene appeared across the primordial wilderness:

A man covered in scars and hideously ugly, swaying as he drank as though he were a drunken fool, walked with a sword domain spanning twenty meters around him. Five meters behind him followed a young woman veiled in white, her bearing transcendent, like an immortal untouched by mortal dust.

Beyond the twenty-meter boundary, twelve more fairy-like women followed as well, the procession grand and imposing.

A roar erupted.

In the forest ahead, a beast with the head of a tiger and the tail of a serpent appeared thirty meters from the group. Its entire body shimmered with silver light, scales covering its flesh so that it gleamed brilliantly. A powerful demonic aura radiated from it.

This tiger-headed, serpent-tailed beast seemed to have already awakened intelligence. Its eyes rolled warily as it glared at the humans about to step into its territory.

It kept roaring toward Ye Wuya in fury, but Ye Wuya seemed not to hear a thing and continued walking forward.

Silver light blazed from the beast’s body, coalescing into a massive spear about seven meters long, which shot straight at Ye Wuya with ferocious momentum.

Boom.

The spear, unstoppable and overwhelming, struck toward Ye Wuya, entering his sword domain without the slightest hindrance. It finally crashed against Ye Wuya’s red sword intent and exploded with a thunderous blast.

The spear was blocked three meters away from Ye Wuya and could advance no farther.

Suddenly, the previously calm red sword intent seemed provoked, becoming restless and violent.

Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle.

The razor-sharp red sword intent wrapped around the seven-meter spear, and at once a harsh crackling sounded as the spear broke apart and was torn into pieces, shredded to fragments by the crimson intent.

In the end, it was swallowed by Ye Wuya’s sword intent.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh...

The several thousand swords that had been quietly flying about were also seemingly stirred, and one by one their tips turned to point at the attacking beast.