Broken Sword Mountain Range, Lifeless Sword Tomb.
In a wasteland with a circumference of nearly a hundred miles, dark red mounds that looked like steamed buns dotted the landscape, each stabbed with thousands of flying swords. These were tombs.
Each flying sword had a different form and aura from another - some were as thin as cicada wings, some were as big as door panels, some were wrapped with lightning, some were almost transparent, and some were still dripping blood.
All of these flying swords had achieved the status of being spirit treasures and yet, no one had ever possessed a single one of them, not even a Peak-Stage Primordial Realm expert.
The tombs might look ordinary, but each had a mysterious sword array to not only restrain the flying swords but also protect them.
Each sword stuck in the tombs seemed alive, vibrating and humming to its own tune. The volume of swords caused their collective sword Qi to shoot up towards the sky and converge into a vast ocean of sword intent around the tombs.
Li Qingzhou hovered upright in the middle of the ocean of sword intent. His white robe had already been torn into pieces but his body emitted a sharp aura that seemed to have merged with the surrounding Lifeless Sword Intent. Now, he looked like a sharp sword that had just been unsheathed.
Fortunately, all of these were only possible because Li Qingzhou had brought enough pellets with him to recover from the injuries incurred by Jian Wuchen's sneak attack.
Suddenly, Ye Chen's voice came through the puppet attached to Li Qingzhou. "I have received a challenge from someone and it is due in a month. Would you be able to fight in my stead?"
Dealing with Liao Wuhen, a Late-Stage Vision Realm expert, was not a big deal for Ye Chen. However, he was still unwilling to fight personally. If he could, he wanted to remain in the background.
Ye Chen could have easily asked Zi Menghan to suppress Liao Wuhen. However, she had an Innate Crippled Body. If she was sent out to battle, especially with her current cultivation level, she would just attract too much attention.
Li Qingzhou, on the other hand, was a more suitable candidate to stand in for Ye Chen.
He might have been remembered as the person who had lost his Supreme Sword Bone, crippling his Sword Spirit Body, but the fact that he had this previous glory meant that he had always been Heaven's favorite. Although the reappearance of his Supreme Sword Bone was unexpected, it was not unreasonable. The most that would happen was that others would simply envy Li Qingzhou's heaven-defying turnaround after becoming Ye Chen's disciple. None would suspect Ye Chen to be related to it at all.
"I will be there!" Two dazzling sword lights appeared in Li Qingzhou's eyes.
Within minutes, the Supreme Sword Bone on Li Qingzhou's chest shone with a similar dazzling light that behaved similarly to a black hole as it forcefully drew the boundless Lifeless Sword Intent into itself.
In a few breaths' time, the boundless Lifeless Sword Intent had completely been absorbed by the Supreme Sword Bone on Li Qingzhou's chest.
With a loud shout, Li Qingzhou slapped his palm onto the sword tomb below him, and one flying sword after another unsheathed themselves from the tombs before exploding mid-air and converging into pure sword essence that filled the sky. Finally, the spread of pure sword essence condensed into a three-foot-long sword with a divine aura that landed in Li Qingzhou's hand.
"From now on, you shall be called the Lifeless Sword!" Li Qingzhou softly proclaimed.
The Lifeless Sword responded with a clear ring - it seemed to understand what Li Qingzhou was saying as it merged with his Supreme Sword Bone.
Without the thousands of spirit treasure-level flying swords, the Lifeless Sword Tomb collapsed and Li Qingzhou reappeared in Broken Sword Mountain Range.
Suddenly, there was a flash of sword light and Li Qingzhou felt an oncoming attack toward his back.
Clang!
The Lifeless Sword instinctively left the Supreme Sword Bone to intercept the attack. Li Qingzhou turned around and looked coldly at the attacker. "Jian Wuchen, is that all you've got?"
A white-clothed young man appeared, riding on a purple-gold sword in the air. He looked to be in his early twenties, standing tall and straight while his eyes shone like two stars. Jian Wuchen confronted Li Qingzhou like an unsheathed sword.
"You finally came out!"
"You were waiting for me during the three whole years I was in there?! D*mn!"
"I won't let you escape this time. This time, I will take your life!"
With an angry shout, a sea of sword shadows appeared behind Jian Wuchen. The real yet illusory vision behind him entered the ancient sword under his feet, turning the weapon into a streak of light that slashed toward Li Qingzhou.
The Lifeless Sword let out a clear hum and its boundless Lifeless Sword Essence exploded instantly.
Jian Wuchen's Thunder Sword collapsed and his head flew off with eyes still wide open in disbelief.
The moment Jian Wuchen's corpse fell to the ground, Li Qingzhou stretched out his hand and a fireball appeared in it. With a slight toss, Jian Wuchen's corpse and head caught on fire, instantly incinerating into ashes.
'Master had instructed that the body must be destroyed after the enemy has been killed!'
At this moment, a strand of divine consciousness appeared from Jian Wuchen's burning head. It turned into a middle-aged man in the air with a strong sword aura.
The middle-aged man stared at Li Qingzhou and angrily asked, "Who are you? How dare you kill a disciple of Divine Sword School? Tell me your name!"
"I am Chen Beixuan from Ten Thousand Sword Holy Land!" Li Qingzhou replied arrogantly.
This was one of the aliases Ye Chen had prepared for him and Zi Menghan in preparation for these kinds of situations.
"Someone from Ten Thousand Sword Holy Land? No wonder you were able to kill our disciple! Chen Beixuan, I will remember you! Your death will be upon you soon!" The middle-aged man shouted.
Li Qingzhou disdainfully said, "The Holy Lands don't usually care about fights between the younger generation. But if the seniors want to start getting involved, Ten Thousand Holy Land will not take this lying down!"
"We may not be a Holy Land, but we are still a great school. We are not afraid of Ten Thousand Sword Holy Land!
"Moreover, who said we will deal with you personally?
"All I need to do is issue a wanted notice for you with a high reward and plenty of people will be willing to take your life!"
The middle-aged man snorted coldly before his figure dissipated.
Li Qingzhou lightly shook his head, ransacked the treasures that Jian Wuchen had left behind, and left on the Lifeless Sword under his feet, surfing back to Xuantian Holy Land on the stream of light.
Half a month later, Li Qingzhou arrived back at Qingyun Peak and reported his return to Ye Chen. Then, he focused on his cultivation and quietly waited for Liao Wuhen to challenge him.
Meanwhile, Divine Sword Sect had proceeded to do what the middle-aged man Li Qingzhou had encountered promised to do.
Since the Divine Sword Sect's disciple had been killed by Chen Beixuan of Ten Thousand Sword Holy Land, they specially offered a soul treasure for Chen Beixuan's head.
The reason Divine Sword School didn't mind attracting so much attention was that they wanted to use this opportunity to tell the world that anyone who dared to provoke them would have to pay a bloody price!
Soul treasures were treasures that could only be refined by powerful experts and Dao Lords. These treasures were so powerful and precious that most Peak-Stage Primordial Realm experts didn't even have one!
Thus, when the reward was revealed for the wanted notice on Chen Beixuan, many Primordial Realm experts in Eastern Wastelands did not hesitate to start their hunt. Even those from Ten Thousand Sword Holy Land joined in.
However, after hunting for a while, those involved were shocked to find out that Chen Beixuan did not exist in Ten Thousand Sword Holy Land!
The death of the successor of Divine Sword School was at the hands of an identified murderer. Divine Sword School ended up becoming a laughing stock in Eastern Wastelands.
Time flew by and a month was almost up.