CHAPTER 2
A Peak Master personally overseeing the selection of outer disciples was something that had never happened before.
Among those participating in today’s trial, that question lingered like a fine needle beneath the skin, pricking no matter where it touched. Yet Yang Feng did not dwell on it. He knew only one thing. She possessed the highest attainment in the sword within the Heavenly Sword Sect.
And for sword cultivators, as in any sect devoted to martial cultivation, ornate words held no weight. Only the sword. Only strength. The sword trial for new recruits was the true test.
The formation activated without warning. A chill swept across the plaza, and before anyone could cry out, every new recruit was dragged into another world. Space twisted. Light bent. The ground beneath their feet dissolved as though it had never existed. There came the sensation of falling into an abyss, silent and without end.
The Trial of the Heart.
The first examination. To confront the deepest fear hidden within oneself.
Yang Feng opened his eyes.
Before him stretched a darkness so thick it seemed almost tangible, heavy as ink. There was no wind. No sound. Only a single figure standing several steps away, blurred as though swallowed by night mist.
“Who…?”
“Where am I…?”
The shadow moved.
It took a step forward, slow and deliberate. A hoarse laugh scraped through the darkness, harsh like metal grinding against stone.
“Hahaha…”
“Little brat… you’re awake?”
Yang Feng froze.
The figure before him was gaunt, shriveled like a corpse long drained of life. His robes hung in tatters, stiff with dried blood. Hair fell over half his face, yet it could not conceal the stench of death that clung to him.
And with a single glance,
Yang Feng knew.
His face went pale. Cold sweat slid down his spine.
He was afraid. Truly.
A face carved deep into his memory.
A name he would never forget.
A wound that had never healed.
His body trembled. Strength drained from his limbs. His lips moved, voice breaking apart as it escaped.
“Gao… Lin… Ba…”
“That’s impossible… you…”
“You’re dead… how…?”
The figure lunged.
Bony fingers shot forward, veins bulging, nails long and sharp as blades, tearing through the air toward his throat.
A sharp hiss split the darkness.
Shrrt..!
Yang Feng did not react in time.
He fell backward, not out of calculation, but because fear had stolen his balance.
And yet that fall saved him.
The first strike missed.
“Yang… Feng…”
“You…”
“Owe…”
“Me…”
“Your life…”
Thud.
Thud.
His heart felt as though it were being crushed inside his chest. His breathing fractured into ragged pulls.
That voice…
He had tried to forget it. But he never could.
Six years ago, he had been ten.
He knew nothing of cultivation then. Nothing of spiritual roots, realms, or the path of the sword. Those words belonged to a distant world. His own world had been small and uncomplicated.
In the mornings, he would wander down to the river with a bamboo rod slung over his shoulder.
In the evenings, he would return home with wet shoes and muddy cuffs, where his mother would scold him before setting food on the table.
Life had been plain. Gentle. Warm.
That afternoon, the sky hung low and grey. A damp wind drifted along the riverbank, carrying the scent of water and silt.
Yang Feng sat by the shore, his fishing rod planted into the slow current. The float bobbed lightly with the rhythm of the stream. Now and then he picked up small stones and flicked them into the water, watching the ripples spread and fade, wondering what his mother might cook for dinner.
He never heard the footsteps.
Until a voice sounded behind him.
“Boy.”
Low. Hoarse. Close.
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He turned.
A middle-aged man stood a few paces away. Thin. Unremarkable. Dressed in dull grey robes like any traveler passing through a quiet village.
Only his eyes were different.
Cold. Still. Watching.
A chill crawled up the spine of the ten-year-old child before he understood why.
“S-Sir… were you calling me?”
The man did not answer at once. He studied him, head slightly tilted, as though assessing livestock in a market.
Then the corner of his mouth curved upward.
“It’s quiet here.”
That was all he said.
And yet Yang Feng’s heart began to pound so loudly he could hear it in his ears.
He did not even have time to stand.
There was no warning. No surge of wind. No gathering of power.
Just a single motion.
The world collapsed.
His entire body felt as though a mountain had fallen onto him. Bones splintered. Organs ruptured. Breath fled his lungs in a silent burst.
His small frame was flung across the gravel shore and came to rest among the river stones.
Pain followed.
So much pain that it no longer had shape. So much pain that it swallowed sound itself. He tried to scream, but no voice came.
His vision dimmed, sinking into a heavy red haze.
The man approached slowly and looked down at him.
There was delight in his eyes. A twisted, patient delight.
“I enjoy watching prey struggle.”
His tone was almost conversational.
“Don’t worry,” he added, unhurried. “I won’t let you die too quickly.”
His name was Gao Linba.
A demonic cultivator.
One who hunted mortals and weak cultivators for pleasure rather than necessity.
He raised his hand.
A blade of light formed.
It was not violent. Not spectacular.
Just a clean arc, pale and precise, like a crescent moon drawn across the dim sky.
It passed through the air.
Gao Linba did not even have time to turn his head.
He did not split apart.
He did not fall.
He simply ceased to exist.
As though the world had decided to remove him.
The river wind moved again.
The reeds swayed.
The sky remained overcast.
Silence settled, as if nothing had disturbed it at all.
Through fading vision, Yang Feng saw only a woman in white standing by the riverbank.
The sword in her hand bore no trace of blood.
Her sleeves stirred gently in the evening wind.
He tried to see her face.
He wanted to.
But his eyelids were too heavy.
Before darkness claimed him, he remembered only two things.
Her back.
And that single strike.
The memory dissolved like mist scattered by wind.
Yang Feng stood there for a long moment, chest rising and falling, breath tight as though something still gripped his throat.
He drew in a slow breath and forced himself back from the nightmare.
His hand trembled slightly as he reached for the sword at his waist, the blade he had carried for years.
Not for self-defense.
Not to threaten anyone.
But to remind himself of one simple truth.
The one who saved him had been a sword cultivator.
If he wished to live,
he had to take up the sword.
He closed his eyes.
In the darkness behind his eyelids, the voice from years ago surfaced again, clear as if it had never faded.
“If one day you open your spiritual meridians…”
“Come to the Heavenly Sword Sect.”
“That is where I learned the sword.”
He had never studied sword techniques.
He had never killed.
He had never trained under a master.
He possessed only one thing.
A straight slash.
No flourish.
No variation.
No technique.
Only a single line.
The illusion surged toward him once more.
The same palm strike descended, carrying the presence of a hunter closing in, like a tiger springing upon its prey. The air warped around it. The ground beneath his feet trembled faintly, as if warning him.
If you do not cut,
you will die.
Yang Feng opened his eyes.
In that instant, he was no longer the child with shattered bones by the river.
No longer the boy who trembled before death.
No longer someone bound by the past.
He knew only one thing.
He would not die.
Thud.
Thud.
His heartbeat pounded like war drums in his chest.
He raised the sword.
Spiritual Power surged into his arm.
Veins stood out.
Muscles tightened until they burned.
One strike.
Only one.
All his strength.
All his will.
All his fear.
All his desire to live.
Gathered into a single, straight line.
Sword Qi flashed, ripping through the darkness like lightning tearing open the night.
The illusion split apart.
No scream.
No blood.
It scattered and vanished, as though cut away by something that had never been meant to exist.
Silence.
The sword slipped from his fingers and struck the ground with a clear, metallic sound.
For the first time in his life, he had cut something that fought back.
Even if it was only an illusion.
The feeling was real.
He remained where he was, breathing hard, cold sweat sliding down his spine as the last traces of the illusion dissolved into nothing.
He had confronted the deepest fear buried in his heart, the past he had tried and failed to forget, and for the first time since that day by the river, he had not stepped back.
The formation dissolved.
Space seemed to tighten for the briefest moment, as though an unseen hand had gently pressed inward, and then released.
True light returned to the plaza, yet in the eyes of many, darkness still lingered, thick and unshaken.
Breathing filled the air. Ragged. Uneven. Interwoven with muffled sobs.
Some cried out openly, as though they had just clawed their way back from a nightmare that had lasted an entire lifetime.
Some collapsed to their knees, palms braced against the stone, shoulders trembling without control.
Others clutched at their heads, bodies curled inward, unable to distinguish illusion from reality, past from present.
The scent of sweat, fear, and despair mingled together, heavy as night mist that refused to disperse.
Not everyone could overcome their fear.
And sometimes, fear itself was more terrifying than any enemy standing before them.
One by one, they emerged from the illusion.
Time passed quietly.
More than two watches slipped by before the plaza finally began to settle.
After that, some left quietly, their footsteps light against the stone as though even sound itself felt unnecessary.
No one tried to stop them, and no one mocked them, because they already understood that if they forced themselves to remain, it would not be their bodies that broke first, but their Dao Heart.
Yang Feng let his gaze sweep slowly across the plaza.
What had once been crowded with restless anticipation now felt strangely hollow, the wide expanse of blue stone stretching farther than before beneath the open sky, as though the space itself had expanded with every person who turned away.
Less than seventy remained.
The wind passed through the square without obstruction, carrying away the last traces of breath and fear, leaving behind a quiet that was not peaceful, only thin.
At the summit of the Ninefold Qi Refining Tower, Leng Wuqing stood in silence.
The mountain wind lifted her white robes, yet her gaze remained sharp, like a blade that had never left its sheath. She looked down upon the unsettled plaza, her eyes passing over each pale face in turn before coming to rest on a young man dressed in black, still breathing hard among the others.
Yang Feng.
He stood there with his hand trembling faintly and his breath not yet steady, yet in his eyes there was no trace of collapse, no fracture of spirit.
Only one thing remained.
Will.
He had never formally studied the sword.
He had never trained under guidance.
And yet the strike he had just delivered had been straight, without hesitation, without retreat, a cut born from someone who had seen death and chosen to step forward rather than step back.
Leng Wuqing withdrew her gaze.
Her voice carried down from above, cold and clear.
“The second trial.”
She lifted her hand.
“Sever the Stone.”
A heavy rumble followed as something was pushed into the center of the plaza. A sphere of black stone rolled to a stop upon the blue surface, unadorned, without inscriptions, without formations, without the slightest fluctuation of Spiritual Qi.
It was only stone.
Dense. Solid. Unyielding.
A test as plain and indifferent as the path of the sword itself.
“Split it in two,” she said.
“Remain.”
“Fail.”
“Leave the Heavenly Sword Sect.”
The mountain wind swept across the plaza once more, carrying the chill from the heights of Heavenly Sword Mountain. The remnants of illusion still clung faintly to many faces, but the next trial now stood before them in undeniable form.
This time, there would be no dream.
Only the sword.
The true test had begun.
