IS Chapter 77

In reality, Li Yuan stopping the Fire Gazing Token was merely a subconscious action.

Once Ling Ming spoke of its origins, that it was a deadly move aimed at Ye Zhuo, what he thought about was how to resolve this token.

But this was not Ye Zhuo’s choice.

Li Yuan felt this was a beautiful scene.

The crescent moon occupying half the sky was like tonight’s backdrop. Nineteen assassin figures flickered like ghosts, their blade lights bursting forth like lightning when they attacked, and disappearing without a trace when they hid.

If it were a hundred years ago, any one of them calling out their name would surely have been a killing god that made people’s souls scatter in fear.

However, it was now a hundred years later.

Each generation has its mountains and rivers, and each generation has its own Big Dipper.

That intensely rich red figure was the only core in his vision. Wherever he was, killing intent burst forth, like dazzling fireworks exploding at the moment of life and death.

He could not reveal a single flaw, he could not misjudge even the slightest movement of anyone. The assassins’ blades could miss every single time, but his sword could not. He could be injured, but he could not retreat. From the moment the Fire Gazing Token entered his body, he only had two endings.

He dies. Or these nineteen people, all fall to his sword.

Like a zheng being played at its most intense, the world’s most rapid and cloud-piercing zither music, reaching this point, the player’s heart and soul have been poured into the strings. No one can imagine how this sound can continue afterward, fearing that the next finger will only break the strings, and a dead friend will know the music.

This was Ye Zhuo’s choice.

Li Yuan realized that he actually admired this person. He found that when he looked at that breathtaking figure, he had been smiling since who knows when.

It should be so.

Walking on the road, with a blade pointed at his face, everyone would go around it, but Ye Zhuo would prefer the blade to be a little sharper.

Living in the world, with a net of traps ahead, those who can’t see them will fall in, and those who can will turn back.

Ye Zhuo could see them. He saw them, and then, he would walk straight in.

A sword can be broken but not retreated, the moon can be missing but not obscured. His Dao was like this, and his actions were also like this.

If it were not so, he would not be Ye Zhuo.

If it were not so, he would be unworthy of being a sword cultivator.

When Ye Zhuo was done fighting, perhaps he should learn from Xiao Su and also offer half the respect of a teacher.

Under the moon, the nineteen assassin figures disappeared and reappeared, brewing a supreme strike, their killing intent surrounding him from all directions. In an instant, that person was on the brink of life and death, hanging on the edge of despair.

Even Lin Zhu exclaimed in surprise.

— A look for help was cast towards Li Yuan.

Li Yuan’s figure remained unmoved.

With the people of the Dan Ding Sect, he could still politely call them “Dao friends,” but he had never heard Ye Zhuo call him “Dao friend.” Since they weren’t even Dao friends, why would he help?

Besides, the previous matters had not yet been settled; they were clearly enemies.

But he knew Ye Zhuo would not die.

The Path to Heaven, how difficult it was to walk. He knew Ye Zhuo would walk down it, just as he would if he were in his place.

He only needed to wait.

Wait for Ye Zhuo to pick off the people blocking his way one by one, wait for that sword to be tempered to its sharpest, coldest, and most brilliantly radiant state.

At that time, Ye Zhuo would point the sword at him, and he would naturally draw his sword to fight him.

This was what it meant to be lifelong enemies.

Ten thousand years later, it would be told as a story to those colorful and noisy little dragons.

Therefore, he never offered assistance from beginning to end.

He merely returned to his old ways, slowly scanning the forest with his divine sense, intercepting some messages, and stopping irrelevant people who came to investigate the commotion.

Of course, his eyes would still be on Ye Zhuo.

Watching that desperate situation suddenly burst through everything under the night with a radiant sword light, seeing that figure like a blazing golden crow suddenly spreading its wings in the midst of a storm, returning a hundredfold all the killing intent and malice directed at him.

— Li Yuan knew it.

This sword severed an assassin’s heart meridian. It forcibly cut open a crack in the perfect and flawless killing array composed of these nineteen world-shocking assassins.

But he was also injured.

Li Yuan saw Ye Zhuo’s blood on the tip of the assassin’s blade.

He also saw drops of blood from others sliding off Ye Zhuo’s blade.

Li Yuan knew Ye Zhuo was not afraid.

Because he was Ye Zhuo, he was not afraid of being injured, nor did he mind dying. He was even less concerned about sending others to their deaths.

What joy was there in life, what fear was there in death, everything eventually dissipated in the wind.

Just like the body of that assassin falling into the forest.

Ling Ming silently walked to the assassin’s side. She bent down, reaching into his blood-soaked clothes, and finally, took out a blood-soaked token.

Written on it were three words: Willow Earth Zhang.

She looked sadly into his eyes, but Willow Earth Zhang’s muddy gaze did not reflect any image of her.

He still had a trace of breath left, but this trace of breath also came to an abrupt end after a few hurried breaths.

Ling Ming gently closed his eyes with her hand, held the token in her hand, got up, and stood side by side with Li Yuan under the tree, looking up at the sky.

In fact, the outcome had already been decided, starting from the fall of the first assassin.

Under the encirclement of nineteen people, Ye Zhuo did not die, but instead killed one of the nineteen.

So what could the remaining eighteen do? Unless, they could use their lives, one by one, to exhaust him to death.

That was if they weren’t here!

Where there was one, there would be a second, and the second corpse fell from the night sky. This time, it was one of the four Human Immortals of the Fire Gazing Cave who died.

Ye Zhuo’s injuries were more serious.

But his sword momentum was also getting stronger, that kind of soaring and overbearing edge, almost impossible to look directly at.

The corpse of the assassin in the Human Immortal realm fell heavily on the stone platform, a pool of blood. His weapon was a sword that was scarlet and almost demonic. He died, and his sword also dimmed, turning into a misty gray-red.

“He is the master of the South Division among the four divisions, Vermilion Bird. His sword is called ‘Ling Star’.” Ling Ming suddenly said softly.

“Ling Star is an ominous star in the sky, but the ‘fire’ of Fire Gazing Cave is the fire of watching a fire from across the shore. Human grievances are endless, and only by watching the fire from across the shore can one maintain inner calm. An assassin wants to kill, first he must have a heart without waves.” She said, “Therefore, the assassins of Fire Gazing Cave will not get involved in the grievances of the world.”

“Because once an assassin gets involved in the disputes of the world, his career is already ruined. His sword will become a knife in the hands of others, and everything they have done will eventually be done for others.”

Li Yuan: “Didn’t you say, take people’s money and help them avoid disaster?”

“But the Fire Gazing Cave is long gone. The inheritance has been cut off, the disciples have all died, and the four masters of the divisions have disappeared overnight. Who took the money, and where did it go?” Ling Ming looked at the blade lights and bloody shadows in the night sky, her voice already light and hoarse, “A hundred years have passed, what exactly happened, let Ah Zhou’s sword ask clearly.”

Where a Human Immortal falls, where there is one, there is a second, and where there is a second, there must be a third.

The watching disciples had never seen such a bloody and fierce death fight. Tribulation Transcendence was like paper, Human Immortals were like grass, their bodies died and their Dao was destroyed, with no chance of turning back.

And this world, unknowingly, was surrounded by a calm spiritual power like the vast ocean of the Northern Sea, like an insurmountable high wall, blocking out all possible noise and disturbance.

Tracing its source, it was that black-clothed and splendidly dressed visitor, who held his sword and leaned against the tree, remotely watching this scroll of life and death on the line, the painting of fleeting human lives.

Those were eyes that had seen flowers bloom and fall.

When the bloody aura permeated the entire world, the sound of swords colliding became ethereal.

Under the crescent moon, the only ones still fighting were two light and elegant figures rising and falling.

The only black-clothed assassin still alive was like a ghost that was everywhere in the night sky. His blade was fast, but Ye Zhuo suppressed his rhythm. As if he had changed his fighting style against different people, that red figure also became ghostly like smoke and clouds.

There were not many people who could stand against Ye Zhuo for so long in a head-on confrontation.

“Who is he?” Li Yuan said.

“The master of the North Division, Black Tortoise.”

“What about you?” he asked.

“North Division, Dangerous Moon Swallow.” Ling Ming said.

Li Yuan’s voice was still calm and smiling, but his fingers were already on the hilt of his sword: “Then next, should Dangerous Moon Lord reveal his true colors and suddenly attack Ye, the Second Palace Master, to complete the Fire Gazing Token’s mission?”

“What are you thinking?” Ling Ming gave Li Yuan a strange look, “I am a discarded disciple of the Fire Gazing Cave, and I have long been expelled from the sect.”

Li Yuan: “…Oh.”