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Chapter 12: What Were You About to Say? — Slaying the Nascent Soul

"A Sword Path Blessed Land?"

Many years later, Murong Zhou would occasionally recall the scene of meeting that person for the first time.

"Yes! Senior Brother Chen went to train in a secret realm and brought back a Sword Path Blessed Land. He said that regardless of whether one is an inner or outer sect disciple, all may enter to cultivate!"

The chattering junior sister, the name she kept mentioning today was particularly unfamiliar.

"Senior Brother Chen?"

"Have you forgotten, Senior Brother? He's the one who was taken in as the sect master's head disciple a few years ago! He's been in the inner sect all this time, maybe this time we'll get a chance to meet him!"

A child who had only just joined the sect a few years ago had instead become their senior brother. How laughable.

"He's nothing but someone relying on high natural talent."

Twelve sword path spiritual roots—if he had them too, he would surely surpass that person.

Junior Sister chuckled and said: "Senior Brother, you are the most diligent among us. You will surely enter the inner sect one day!"

That young boy of barely over ten years of age did indeed have remarkable luck—upon first entering the secret realm, he had already obtained a small Blessed Land. A waterfall hung suspended from the sky, plunging into a deep pool below, with every wisp of mist carrying within it the aura of the sword path.

Murong Zhou could tell at a glance that the sword path aura was most concentrated at the base of the waterfall, yet the inner sect disciples who had arrived before him were all cultivating only near the pool's edge, not a single one approaching the waterfall— so he rode his sword straight in.

The next second, he understood why no one had come here.

A single water droplet striking his body felt like a sharp sword piercing clean through his chest. Beneath the waterfall, countless droplets sprayed and splashed—the agony surpassed even ten thousand arrows through the heart, or being flayed alive by a dull blade.

And this pain did not lessen with the passage of time—with every second that passed, it doubled.

Murong Zhou endured for three breaths. The pain nearly had him rolling on the ground. He retreated in a hurry and collapsed sitting on the earth.

The inner sect disciples around him paid him no mind—clearly long accustomed to the sight. Yet heat rose unbidden to his face. He gritted his teeth, sat down cross-legged on the spot, and closed his eyes in meditation.

Afterward, other disciples who attempted to cultivate beneath the waterfall all wore expressions of utter torment, and could only seek out other spots nearby where the mist was plentiful.

Only a small number of inner sect disciples gradually moved to sit in meditation near the pool's edge, and in time, Murong Zhou became one of them.

He arrived before dawn and was nearly always the last to leave. Day after day without fail— even the Blessed Land's gatekeeper praised him for his diligence.

Inwardly, he was unmoved. Those inner sect disciples were none of them as hardworking as he was. And as for that so-called head disciple of the sect master—he had not come here to cultivate even a single day. It was plain to see how idle he was.

Then came the day Murong Zhou received a sect mission and would have to travel far. Before setting out, unwilling to let it go, he asked his master for a Water-Repelling Bead.

The waterfall rushed and roared, churning up clouds of mist, so that from outside the pool one could barely see the base. With the Water-Repelling Bead blocking out the mist—and the sword path aura along with it—he was able to make his way step by step to the waterfall's base.

Murong Zhou had originally still been hesitating over whether to put away the Water-Repelling Bead once he stood here—but when he truly arrived at this place, it was as though ice water had been poured over him, and a chill spread through his entire body.

He saw a white-robed young man, his dark hair soaked through, sitting in stillness at the base of the waterfall, allowing the thousand-foot torrent to cascade over him. How long he had been cultivating there was impossible to know.

The young man was serene, his eyes closed. The mist had seeped into his features—pure, refined, and understated—making him resemble an immortal carved from jade. A small teardrop mole rested at the corner of his eye, like a soft blurred mark of ink on xuan paper.

In that moment, Murong Zhou could barely breathe.

When he finally came back to his senses, a pair of dark eyes—black and lustrous as glass—were gazing at him quietly through the veil of mist.

Murong Zhou lurched back a sudden step, only to see the young man break into a faint smile, his teardrop-mole eyes blinking once, gently.

He said: "Are you my senior brother?"

A cold wind cut through the grey and darkened valley. Murong Zhou caught the scent of that bloodstained sleeve, and before his eyes there was still, as in years past, the white-robed young man with soaked black hair beneath the waterfall.

"Senior Brother! Are you alright?"

"I'm fine. Fortunate that you had that teleportation treasure, junior brother… that person truly deserved death! To strike with such vicious cruelty!"

The cursing stopped dead. Xie Feng discovered in alarm that a white-robed sword cultivator had appeared before them.

That immortal from the upper prefecture cast a cold, sidelong glance at them and dropped the words: "What happened here."

Xie Feng immediately launched into an embellished retelling of the cave incident from moments before, assuming the immortal would stand up for him, and fawned as lavishly as he could. Then, noticing that the immortal's sword hilt was tied with a strip of bloodstained torn cloth, he reached into his storage pouch without a second thought and produced a jade pendant strung on a silk knot.

"Immortal, your sword tassel has gotten dirty. I happen to have a fine-grade jade pendant right here…"

As he spoke, he extended his hand respectfully, his fingertips brushing that tattered bloodstained sleeve.

The next instant, a chill touched the center of his brow. Cold seeped from his head down to his feet, and his pupils froze still.

It was a sword intent.

"A lowly ant from the lower prefecture, and you dare touch my things."

Xie Feng's junior brother was struck as if by lightning, standing dazed in place—only to stumble and drop to his knees several seconds later, clutching Xie Feng's body, which had already lost all signs of life.

A mere ant, what did it matter if one was snuffed out?

—In the depths of the secret realm, right up until the moment he leveled his sword at that Foundation Building talisman cultivator, this was how Murong Zhou had always thought.

Across from him, that utterly unremarkable Foundation Building talisman cultivator suddenly broke into a soft smile— and from that one smile alone, Murong Zhou felt a brief and fleeting daze.

Like him… yet not like him.

Murong Zhou's expression darkened sharply: "And you think yourself worthy of imitating him!"

【He's rambling on, saying something unpleasant】

Cang Shun fixed his gaze on the bloodstained sleeve fluttering in the wind from Murong Zhou's sword hilt, his eyes like still water submerged in cold, and stepped forward—faint arcs of lightning flickering beneath his feet.

Chen Moqing: "You need not act."

Cang Shun turned: 【And if I find him

disagreeable and insist on acting?】

Chen Moqing met those demon eyes with calm composure: "Then I won't speak to you anymore."

【……】

The beautiful demon beast, its fur radiating a silvery frost-like sheen, lay down against the stone wall without a word.

Two seconds passed, and it let out a "hmph".

This lord was not threatened in the slightest.

Chen Moqing drew a casual stroke through the air—countless runes drawing on the light of stars, forming a sealed barrier.

Murong Zhou let that barrier completely cut off their position from the outside world, and merely sneered: "Spinning a cocoon around yourself."

He had originally truly intended to spare this insignificant talisman cultivator's life—but now, he wanted him dead.

Chen Moqing's slender fingers opened slightly: "Come."

From the depths of the pitch-black cave, a cold gleam tore through the gloom, falling straight as a long shooting star.

Nascent Soul sword intent!

A frost-white longsword hovered steadily in the black-robed cultivator's palm. A razor-sharp sliver of sword light rolled along the blade and condensed to a single point at its tip, honing the edge thin as ice—reflecting back a pair of clear, still, untroubled eyes.

This sight was mirrored in Murong Zhou's eyes, and his expression changed suddenly.

"Who are you… just who are you!"

"To panic on the eve of battle, is this the state of your sword heart?" After so many days apart, Chen Moqing raised his sword once more, its tip aimed from afar at an old companion and fellow sect member, "Come."

Murong Zhou lurched sharply backward.

"Senior Brother, might I ask you to instruct me in swordsmanship?"

That day, he had for the first time worked up the courage to step forward and call out to that person.

Muffled snickers drifted from all around—inner sect disciples laughing at an outer sect disciple's delusions. Just as heat was rising to his face, he saw that person's figure come to a halt, descending lightly from among the clouds, robes trailing like crane feathers skimming through mist.

Dark hair swept across the wind, revealing a pair of strikingly pure features.

"Come."

"…Impossible. Absolutely impossible!"

The hand Murong Zhou gripped his sword with trembled faintly. He lowered his gaze—his contracted pupils reflected that bloodstained sleeve, and upon it, the pattern of crane feathers amid clouds, wings poised as if about to take flight.

"A mere ant dares to disturb my Dao heart— die!"

Countless sword blades took flight at once, vast in momentum and dazzling in brilliance.

Cang Shun yawned with boredom, his head resting on his crossed paws.

All these years, and this lot of sword cultivators still favored that flashy, showy, all-style-no-substance laughingstock swordsmanship.

He lazily shifted his gaze to one side.

The young talisman cultivator's hair ends drifted in the air as he stood holding his sword—one sword alone, its light like the frost moon rising at the onset of a long night.

This one was still the better looking.

Murong Zhou's several thousand sword blades fell like meteors through the sky, spreading out into a net from which there was no escape. Chen Moqing stood unmoved and delivered a single thrust.

The sword light was cold and clear. Space seemed like xuan paper split open by an ice blade—a frost-colored crack tore from top to bottom!

One sword breaking ten thousand techniques!

Countless sword blades shattered in an instant. Murong Zhou's figure flew back in rapid retreat, slammed into the stone wall, and coughed up a great mouthful of blood.

How could this be?!

Even sword intent of mid-Nascent Soul level, when not wielded by the Nascent Soul cultivator in person, would inevitably suffer a great loss in power—how could he possibly be losing!

Fingers with veins bulging pressed into the stone wall, prying loose a chunk of rock by sheer force. Murong Zhou wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, raised his sword upright before him, and let his fingertip slowly trace along the blade.

The blade became a thousand, then ten thousand—as far as the eye could see, a sea of razor-sharp sword blades, slicing apart every inch of space.

This was his signature ultimate technique, named Vast Sea Rising Tide. One day it would surpass that person's Myriad Phenomena of All Heavens Formation!

Murong Zhou pointed his sword skyward, his voice cutting through the sea of blades and landing with weight: "To have held out until this move, you can at least be said to have died worthily. Remember, the one who kills you is Tianshu's Murong Zhou!"

Chen Moqing heard a burst of laughter ring out abruptly beside his ear—utterly merciless laughter. He turned his head in silence and met the mocking gaze of a certain Demon Emperor.

【This is someone from your sect? Don't tell me you used to also… hahaha!】

Chen Moqing: "The dried fish are gone."

The laughter stopped dead, as though it had never happened.

A certain Demon Emperor sat in place without a word, slowly swaying his tail.

The sea of sword blades had already come crashing down before them. Chen Moqing neither dodged nor evaded—and brought his sword down in one slash.

The sword light fell, and ten thousand swords perished!

Murong Zhou's spiritual sense shook violently. Grievously wounded, he could not stop coughing up mouthfuls of blood. Within his churning, storm-tossed spirit sea, only a single clear, low, and indifferent voice rang out:

"All form, no intent. Your sword path has not advanced in the slightest."

His palm was sticky, the longsword nearly slipping from his grasp. Murong Zhou paid the words no mind at all—he heard only his own heartbeat, pounding like a war drum.

That sword intent… in that person's hands it had actually exerted its full power to the last tenth! As though he himself were the true master of that sword intent!

No, that couldn't be right… how had he been driven to this point by a mere Foundation Building cultivator?!

He wrenched up a contorted face: "You are nothing but someone relying on Nascent Soul sword intent. Without that sword intent, you are nothing!"

Against his snarling, Chen Moqing's voice was like frost settling into still water, clear and undisturbed: "Did your sect never teach you that in a battle of life and death, one must make use of every available means?"

"Such as, for instance– this moment, and this place."

The longsword slipped free from his hand and hovered at his side. Slender fingers traced another talisman in the air.

Talisman path aura, bestowed upon the body! At this moment within the secret realm, heaven and earth lent their strength as one!

Thunder descended from the sky, its might resounding and immense!

Blazing and unrestrained, the lightning tore across the entire field of vision, transforming into a vast sea of thunder light that bore down upon all beings across every realm.

Murong Zhou's pupils trembled. The lights of the sect on that one night shone just as dazzling and searing as this sky full of lightning.

"When he returns, lead him through the mountain gate. At that time the sect's grand formation will be activated, you may also wound him in advance to diminish his combat strength."

"…Elder?"

"Once it is done, you will be recorded into the inner sect disciple evaluation."

"I will obey the sect's decree!"

"You cannot kill me! The moment I die, the sect's soul lamp will shatter. My sect will never let you go! There will be no place for you in all Nine Thousand Prefectures, my sect will grind your bones to dust and scatter them to the winds!"

Chen Moqing let out a quiet laugh, and in an instant Murong Zhou's face went ashen as death: "What do you think this barrier was for?"

He had pored over countless talisman scripts in the Qianxuan Pavilion, and received guidance from Senior Xingyun, and from it had finally achieved a talisman that could sever heaven and earth and shield all signs of life. Death within the barrier would be like a mayfly sinking into the boundless sea— without trace, without mark.

To die in solitude, with no signal returning to the sect's soul lamp.

Murong Zhou turned and fled at once, unleashing the greatest speed he had ever reached in his life.

Fear pressed down upon his heart, and ragged breaths came one on top of another. The blade of death hung suspended above his neck, driving every hair on his body to stand on end, his hands and feet gone ice-cold and numb.

Without any warning, he suddenly recalled that there had once been a day, some years ago—

He had been surrounded by a horde of demons, standing at the threshold of death, fleeing in all directions like a headless fly, yet unable to find his way to safety—until a fierce sword light came slashing down from beyond the heavens.

Someone had torn open a gap in the demon horde with a single sword, coming to stand lightly before him. Beneath the blood-soaked curtain of encircling demons, that figure stood sharp and upright, robes billowing and sweeping, the hem embroidered with layered flowing patterns of crane feathers—like a solitary, pure, and magnificent white crane spreading its wings.

And at that time, he had cried out:

"Senior Brother, save me!!"

A sword pierced clean through his heart. His pupils froze still, filled to the last with despair that had not yet faded.

Early Nascent Soul, slain!

...

The remains were consumed by the thunder light, leaving not a trace of bone or flesh. Even the storage pouch was destroyed along with it, every last mark wiped clean.

Cang Shun toyed with the strip of bloodstained sleeve, and saw the young sword cultivator standing quietly in place—neither grieving nor glad, his eyes like a deep and shadowed pool, not a sliver of light to be glimpsed within.

The frost-white longsword dissolved between his fingers into a small blade and flew swiftly away into the distance.

This was nothing more than a sword intent condensed into the form of a sword—not a true sword.

Even now, though he could hold a sword, he was unable to wield one against an enemy.

A long, slender tail swept around from behind and lightly touched his wrist. Chen Moqing turned, his expression as composed as ever, and extended his hand toward Cang Shun, who was striding over to stand before him.

Cang Shun tilted his head.

【What is it?】

Chen Moqing reached directly into the gaps between his claws and retrieved his strip of sleeve—bit by bit by bit—then burned it without a second thought.

Cang Shun: "……"

A certain Demon Emperor began once again to butt his fluffy head against him in silence, eyes drifting with studied carelessness to his hanging wide sleeve, occasionally reaching out a paw to bat at it.

Chen Moqing patted the fuzzy head that had nuzzled up to his chest: "Let's go."

A moment later.

In the dead-silent cave, a semi-transparent spirit form struggled and clawed its way upright.

Murong Zhou's face was contorted, and he forced out a cold sneer.

A lower prefecture ant after all—ignorant that a Nascent Soul cultivator long since transcends the physical body, and that even when the flesh perishes, so long as the soul remains, one may be reborn!

The Chen Moqing of former days had had his soul obliterated by the sect master's four swords, leaving no trace of him anywhere between heaven and earth—but he, as he was now, could start over from the very beginning!

The translucent spirit form surged outward at full speed. As long as he got out, he would send word to his sect!

Let them all die! Shattered in body and soul along with that person, never to enter reincarnation!

Murong Zhou's soundless snarl had not yet reached its fullest stretch when it suddenly froze.

Before him, a pair of dark and untroubled eyes lit up within the dim cave, gazing down at him in quiet stillness.

Having been awaiting him for quite some time.

Within Murong Zhou's trembling pupils, a demon beast shadow—vast as a mountain range—emerged from behind the young cultivator, its blazing demon eyes burning like twin torches.

"…No! No!!"

The voice of despair stretched long, reverberating through the darkened cave, and quickly sank into true and utter silence.

A small stone shifted lightly in the breeze, rustling out of the cave and tumbling down into the deep ravine.

A gentle wind passed through the grey valley. Chen Moqing raised his eyes and gazed at the light of the sky, then tilted his head to one side—the Demon Emperor beside him was chewing, and chewing, and chewing.

"Is it really that good?"

【Ordinary.】

【Not particularly fond of it either.】

Continued chewing, and chewing, and chewing.

Chen Moqing stepped forward. The enormous demon beast shrank back into a puff of a small fluffy ball, and with practiced ease fluttered up to perch atop his head, nestling down into his dark hair, which carried a faint and gentle fragrance.

Chen Moqing felt the soft little fluffy ball shifting and shuffling about on top of his head, as though selecting a comfortable position, and said evenly: "Don't eat up there."

The snow-white little beast glanced at the half-strip of dried fish still remaining in its paw, swallowed it in one gulp, then cast a cleansing spell on itself, becoming perfectly clean, and lay down flat—curling into a soft, fluffy little disc.

Then he heard that pleasant and unhurried voice: "By the way, what were you about to say to me earlier?"

When Murong Zhou had appeared, this Demon Emperor  had seemed to have something left unfinished to say.

Cang Shun: 【……】

The fluffy little ball looked left and right, and with an air of complete indifference gave its fur a little shake.

Chen Moqing raised his hand up to his head and poked the soft little lump of white fluff.

Two seconds passed.

The snow-white little beast, with an air of complete indifference, produced a small cloth pouch containing osmanthus cakes.

And buried its fuzzy little head straight inside.

Chen Moqing: "……?"

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