Cohabitation with Sword Spirit

Chapter 512 - 13: Begging for the Uncut Version

Upon seeing the Golden Cloud Peak again, Wang Jiu seemed to once more glimpse that celestial light spilling from the infinite distant horizon.

Though in essence just a strand as thin as a silk thread, it was dazzling and more radiant than the sun, its scattered beams covering the entire sky, dyeing the myriad white clouds with the golden light of the Immortal Realm.

That was the single thread of celestial light from the Golden Cloud Peak, from which it derived its name.

With the Moving Mountains and Filling Seas divine technique performed by numerous Great Cultivators, a sky-piercing tower was crafted at the very center of the Central Province, breaking through the Nine Heavens Gang Wind Layer, and penetrating the Chaotic Void, stretching humanity’s reach to its ultimate height, to grasp a strand of light from the Immortal Realm.

This was the original intent behind the establishment of the Golden Cloud Peak.

After millennia of human effort, the Golden Cloud Peak was finally completed, allowing one to stand atop and gaze in every direction, seeing with one’s vision penetrating the heavy layers of cloud, each corner of the Jiuzhou Continent. Standing on the Golden Cloud Peak felt like having dominion over the world, with everything within one’s grasp. Looking up, one could further see a strand of endowment from the Immortal Realm, a beacon for one’s cultivation direction.

However, precisely because this privilege of treading upon Jiuzhou and cradling celestial light was too powerful, the illustrious Myriad Immortals Alliance eventually decayed and degenerated into a group of incompetent wretches preferring to hide within their shell.

Yet undeniably, the Golden Cloud Peak was indeed the most renowned wondrous sight during the Jiuzhou Continent era. After the Jiu Immortal Venerables overthrew the former Myriad Immortals Alliance’s rule, they couldn’t bear to destroy the Golden Cloud Peak, opting instead to preserve it, hoping to transform it into an Immortal Dao Ark to ferry all beings jointly towards the ideal Immortal Realm.

Alas, tens of thousands of years later, what remained of that planned Immortal Dao Ark was but remnants of dark gold-colored ruins.

No longer was there celestial light overhead, only dull clouds ceaselessly rolling like writhing innards, and the light leaking through gaps was muddied, leaving one with a queasy feeling. The luster on the ground was a corrupt dark gold, and that once vast plateau above now shrunk to less than a hundred feet across.

The rest had shattered during the final battles, including the Myriad Immortals Hall, Celestial Revelation Hall, Ancient Melting Furnace... all had turned to naught, leaving only a meager hundred-foot platform.

Nonetheless, seeing the golden imprint beneath his feet, that light-touched and retained for millennia, the Sect Leader of the Saint Sect couldn’t help but be moved.

"... So you mean, in the Jiuzhou Era, there truly was an Immortal Realm?"

"There wasn’t." Wang Jiu replied unequivocally.

"If there truly was an Immortal Realm, a True Immortal should have descended when the Demon Race invaded, but from start to finish, I was the only one who could claim to have descended. And I never came from any so-called lofty Immortal Realm."

The Sect Leader, puzzled, asked, "If there’s no Immortal Realm, then where did the celestial light of the Golden Cloud Peak come from? According to historical records from other relic regions, the celestial light atop the Golden Cloud Peak should have always existed there. It was only after humanity painstakingly broke through the Nine Heavens Gang Wind Layer that they finally witnessed the genuine celestial light of the Immortal Realm."

"I and my friends conducted research on this matter in the past, and we came to the conclusion that it was all humanity’s self-deception." Wang Jiu explained, "The first breakthrough of the Nine Heavens Gang Wind Layer to see the celestial light is indeed true, but that merely indicates the light’s existence was not prior to humanity’s breakthrough and doesn’t prove the light has an ancient history. On the contrary, considering the use of the Optical Drill during the breakthrough, it’s highly likely that a golden glow was left in the vacuum layer at the very last breakthrough. Furthermore, though the celestial light endured, humanity couldn’t follow it to find its source, as the Golden Cloud itself has repelling forces near like a chasm, and Inference Methods always yielded nothing. Lastly, when I fought the Demon Emperor, I shattered the Immortal Cloud Layer, and when I peered beyond it, there was nothing."

"You could have just said the last part straight away!"

Yet Wang Jiu’s conclusion left the Sect Leader feeling a bit disillusioned.

Cultivators pursue the Immortal Dao for various reasons—for longevity, wealth, power—but ultimately, a transcendent ideal always resides within their hearts: ascending to the Immortal Realm.

Be it Jiuzhou or Xiangzhou, legends about the Immortal Realm are largely similar. It is said to be immensely resource-rich, with extremely lenient Laws of Heaven and Earth, granting those cultivators who ascend to immortals with unparalleled happiness, enabling them to enjoy an eternal, carefree cultivation journey.

In addition to this, there exist various derivative versions of tales, such as the existence of native residents in the Immortal Realm who are inherently more powerful than ascended humans, or claims that the Immortal Realm is the center of the Myriad Realms, granting effortless dominion over them through it...

However, learning of the absence of immortals descending during the Immortal and Demon battles, and hearing Wang Jiu himself declare there’s nothing behind the Immortal Cloud Layer, any rational thinker reaches the same conclusion.

There never was any Immortal Realm.

"If it were to exist, it would probably take someone breaking through the final barrier to establish a dwelling, gradually pioneering anew. Yet, those possessing the resources and capability might as well focus on making the Jiuzhou Continent a proper Immortal Realm; why start over?" Wang Jiu remarked while reminiscing about an old friend’s words from back then.

"Once we defeat the Great Demon God Emperor, let’s work together to make the Jiuzhou Continent a genuine Immortal Realm."

"Indeed, defeat the Demon Emperor, then tour the Myriad Realms using his Divine Hall Battleship, turning all of them into colonies of the Immortal Realm!"

"Hmm, we also need to establish a tax collector system. At that time, we’ll take on the role as the tax collectors ourselves without hesitation!"

"...Are you really supposed to be the protagonists!?"

——

Carrying memories, Wang Jiu looked up at the permanently destroyed Golden Cloud, its ugly appearance like writhing intestines, helping him recover many lost memories once again.

The sky of Golden Cloud Peak was polluted by demonic qi, then pierced by the Celestial Divine Sword. Only afterwards did Wang Jiu realize that there truly was no so-called Immortal Realm.

This discovery was also thanks to the assistance of the Demon Emperor. The cloud layer of Golden Cloud Peak marked the boundaries of the Jiuzhou Continent, with an extreme intensity that allowed the Myriad Immortals Alliance to ponder over for a hundred years without avail. Even with the power of the Celestial Divine Sword, breaking through the Golden Cloud demanded significant effort. Ultimately, it was the Demon Emperor and the Divine Sword joining forces that instantly shattered the boundary, revealing the void behind the Golden Cloud.

Looking back now, although that grand battle was immensely destructive, shattering the entirety of Jiuzhou into pieces, it undeniably harbored great creativity within.

For example, the Corpse-Transforming Insect used by the Demon Emperor to pollute the cloud layer was a toxic parasitic organism mutated through the intense environmental changes during the fierce battle. Once it invaded a biological organism, it could rapidly transform it into a corpse while maintaining a certain level of vitality, paired with a super high contagion capability, akin to the zombie crisis depicted in many artistic works.

Such a toxic organism had never been birthed during the prior prolonged era of Immortal Demon warfare — although the Demon Race had intended to develop such mass destructive weapons, they never managed to create a poison suitable for Jiuzhou’s environment. However, during the battle with the Celestial Divine Sword, the Demon Emperor, witnessing the Divine Sword drawing power from the Jiuzhou Dao, gained a deeper understanding of the Laws of Heaven and Earth of Jiuzhou. He promptly catalyzed the creation of the Corpse-Transforming Insect targeting the Jiuzhou Continent and implanted it in Golden Cloud Peak, intending to disseminate it across Jiuzhou, creating an unprecedented biochemical crisis.

"Then, at that moment, I had no choice but to wield my sword and sever Jiuzhou’s backbone, causing Jiuzhou to crumble and keeping the damage confined to Central Province. However, afterward, as the laws of the entire world fell into chaos, the Demon Emperor’s Corpse-Transforming Insect quickly went extinct due to environmental adaptation issues..."

Revisiting the old location, the memories of the battle became increasingly vivid.

With the constant revival of memories, a question also surfaced.

A chilling question.

Was the outcome of that battle really as I expected? Did the all-powerful Great Demon God Emperor really die?

Theoretically, of course, he should be dead. If the Demon Emperor were still alive, the Celestial Divine Sword could not possibly have reawakened. Moreover, judging by the reaction of the Demon Essence residing in chaos, the Demon Race has continually been leaderless... but these can only serve as indirect evidence, used for inference, speculation, and conjecture.

Direct evidence has never appeared.

Looking at the ruins of Golden Cloud Peak, Wang Jiu could recall many key moments from that decisive battle.

After the Jiu Immortal Venerables fell one by one, I deduced the demon race’s structure within the Sword World, almost completely reproducing the entire demon race’s ecosystem from top to bottom, even simulating a contour of the Demon Emperor himself. Thereafter, the Celestial Divine Sword, leveraging the demon race’s blueprint within the Sword World, dominated the early stages of the battle, continuously wounding the Great Demon God Emperor, leaving the indestructible demon body battered. Eventually, the Celestial Divine Sword even replicated the Demon Emperor Seal, freely commandeering the demon race’s power under the guise of the Demon Emperor, fighting poison with poison.

As the battle reached its mid-point, the Great Demon God Emperor finally launched a counterattack, using the Nine Forms Demon-Defying Sword as the opening act, directly smashing the Celestial Divine Sword’s Demon Emperor Seal and subsequently invading the interior of the Sword World, nearly achieving a complete turnaround.

Following that was the internal and external battleground division. The Great Demon God Emperor rampaged wildly within the Sword World, attempting to obliterate the Divine Sword before his demise. The Divine Sword disregarded internal turmoil, wielding all its force to inflict harm, willing to perish together to eradicate the Demon Emperor... and those overwhelmingly powerful Immortal and Demonic Skills that split continents and distorted time and space mostly hailed from the mid-battle period, where both sides were at their most frantic and fierce.

Then, the battle did not, therefore, end gloriously with an ultimate strike. Such a plot of unleashing the strongest sword with all power combined did not occur in reality.

Recalling the final phase of war while watching that writhing organ overhead, Wang Jiu remembered the latter events.

In the war’s final stages, the accumulating injuries made it hard for both parties to fight with full strength, pushing the fight into a prolonged attrition phase, where they battled in the mud until one party completely fell; essentially both were just rolling in the mud.

This period’s memory happens to be the most blurred, with Wang Jiu unable to recall the extended torment during that grueling battle, or even how he managed to grind it out with the Demon Emperor till the very end. All he could remember upon awakening was a girl’s crisp, pleasant voice, along with the radiant sunlight of Xiangzhou.

Thinking back now, it’s bone-chilling.

The most crucial, most necessary scenes never appeared in the mind!