39: Chapter 39: A sword builds a Great Wall, ten thousand bones suppress the Milky Way!

"This still didn't kill him?!"

Everyone's hearts trembled in unison. They were all too familiar with this gentle yet vicissitudinous voice—it clearly belonged to the swordsman who had just been swallowed by the dragon breath.

Su Ming suddenly turned his head to see the ripples in the void move slightly. The swordsman had quietly reappeared at the exact spot where he had vanished, goodness knows when.

As if seeing through the shock and suspicion in their eyes, Ling Zhangge gently shook his head, his tone calm and relieved, "Don't panic, I already died within that dragon breath just now. I've appeared this time to hand over your rewards."

Reminded by him, Su Ming finally snapped back to reality.

Previously, whenever a challenger was defeated in any stage, a source light orb would instantly drop. Yet when Ling Zhangge dissipated just now, the void was completely empty, and no reward light orb had appeared from beginning to end.

So it turned out that these rewards were distributed by the swordsman himself.

Ling Zhangge raised his hand and made a grasping motion in the air. Two light orbs slowly materialized in his palm, and within one of them, faint, lingering sword hums echoed.

"These are the rewards for passing the fourth-layer trial: one orb seals my lifelong insights into the Sword Dao, and the other seals the memories of my lifelong battles."

Hearing this, Su Ming's gaze suddenly lit up.

After their bout just now, he had personally experienced the other's strength.

It could only be described as monstrous.

Ling Zhangge's gaze turned to Ganie, "Your Sword Dao talent is far greater than mine. I hope my Sword Dao can help you."

With that, Ling Zhangge sent the light orb sealing the Sword Dao inheritance right in front of Ganie.

Looking at the inheritance before him, Ganie solemnly bowed to Ling Zhangge, "Ganie will certainly not let down your Sword Dao!"

"Good, good, good!" Upon hearing Ganie's words, Ling Zhangge's face was filled with joy.

He pointed toward the void, and a stream of light pierced through the clouds and mist as a long sword slowly cut through the air toward them.

The sword body was as clear as autumn frost, and its edge flickered with a chilling, biting light. Its sword Qi was restrained without leaking, carrying an inherent aura of immemorial desolation.

He gazed fixedly at this long sword, boundless reluctance surging deep within his eyes, his emotions complex and hard to distinguish. A moment later, his gaze shifted and solemnly landed on Ganie.

"This sword is named Changhong."

"Throughout my life, it accompanied me to battle the sea of stars, and it was originally an Earth Divine Artifact.

Back during the battle where the Human Race resisted the foreign calamity, my origin shattered, and it too suffered heavy damage, dropping in grade to become a Divine Artifact.

Today, I bestow it upon you. In the days to come, I hope you will treat this sword well, and not fail the sword heart nor your original aspiration."

As if understanding its master's parting injunction, the body of the Changhong sword trembled gently, slowly circling and fluttering around Ling Zhangge. Its sword hums were desolate, delicate, and full of lingering reluctance.

Ling Zhangge extended his fingertip, gently stroking the icy sword edge, his eyes filled with tenderness as he let out a soft sigh, "Go."

The Changhong sword fluttered down and landed before Ganie.

At the same time, a pearly white micro-light began to emanate around Ling Zhangge, his body turning ethereal and dissolving inch by inch starting from his fingertips.

Seeing this, Su Ming's heart tightened, and he hurriedly asked in a loud voice, "Senior! You haven't told us your name yet!"

The figure that was about to collapse suddenly paused, and the ethereal spots of light filling the sky temporarily slowed their movement. Ling Zhangge raised his eyes to look at the vast firmament as the long wind fluttered his dark hair. He laughed out loud, his voice shaking the void and echoing through eternity:

"In white robes and carrying a sword, I head to the azure vault,"

"An inch of frosty blade guards the eight desolate wastes."

"Bones buried in the river of stars repay all races,"

"Even when this body is utterly spent, there is no grief."

"My name is Ling Zhangge."

As the final word fell, his residual image completely disintegrated.

With his master dissipated and gone, Changhong hung suspended in mid-air. Its sword body trembled violently, emitting a low, sorrowful sword hum—a chorus of tearful accusations bidding farewell to its sword master.

Ganie raised his hand, his fingertips gently brushing across the slightly cool, frosty sword body. The texture was piercingly crisp to the bone, filling his heart with a myriad of mixed emotions and bittersweet feelings.

Lowering his eyes, he promised softly in an extremely solemn tone, "Rest assured, I will definitely treat you well and carry on the senior's legacy."

As his voice fell, the Changhong sword rang out with a clear, resonant hum. A melodious and pleasant sword cry suddenly sounded, and a gentle sword light wrapped around Ganie's wrist, circling submissively—it had already completely acknowledged him as its master and surrendered its heart.

Su Ming quietly watched the scene before him, an uncontrollable joy welling up in his heart.

This was a genuine Divine Artifact!

Shifting his gaze to the Changhong sword and noticing that its body was likewise entwined with a layer of sealing power, he was slightly taken aback. He turned his head to look at Ganie and asked aloud, "Ganie, could your yuanhong also be a Divine Artifact?"

Ganie nodded gently, his tone carrying a trace of helplessness, "yuanhong is indeed a Divine Artifact, but it's a pity that my cultivation is still too shallow right now. If they hadn't been sealed, I'm afraid I wouldn't even have the qualifications to wield them."

Hearing this, Su Ming's eyes lit up, and Ada and the others nearby cast envious glances as well—for one person to hold two Divine Artifacts was truly rare.

"What cultivation level is needed to unseal them?" Su Ming pursued the question.

After a brief thought, Ganie slowly replied, "yuanhong is my natal sword; I only need to break through to the ninth grade of Transcendence to lift the seal. As for this Changhong sword, the threshold is even higher—at least reaching the Demigod Realm gives one the possibility of attempting to unseal it."

Hearing these words, a trace of disappointment involuntarily flashed across the bottom of Su Ming's heart.

He quickly reined in his emotions and smiled as he looked at Ganie, urging him, "Don't dawdle, quickly absorb that inheritance light orb."

As soon as his voice fell, the inheritance light orb suspended in mid-air flashed with streamers of light, completely merging into Ganie's body.

Watching Ganie begin to absorb the inheritance, Su Ming's gaze also turned toward the other light orb still floating in the void, which contained Ling Zhangge's lifelong memories.

He beckoned with his hand to grab that light orb, and then concentrated with closed eyes, slowly driving his divine soul to absorb it.

Streamers of light covered his eyes, all things lost their color, and his vision suddenly turned pitch black.

"This is!" Seeing the unfamiliar scene before him, Su Ming couldn't help but be slightly startled.

Su Ming quickly realized that he had now entered Ling Zhangge's memories.

Fierce winds whipped up the all-encompassing yellow sand, ravaging the great wilderness and leaving it scarred everywhere.

A tattered-clothed, thin, and fragile young child, barefooted, tightly clutched a withered tree branch ground to a sharp edge in his palm, standing desolately amidst the blowing sand filling the sky.

The yellow sand blew through his withered yellow hair, filling his eyes with desolation and an uncertain path ahead. This child was none other than a young Ling Zhangge before he had stepped into cultivation.

The memory scenes slowly rotated, gradually unfolding Ling Zhangge's magnificent yet profoundly sorrowful life.

At that time, the Federation had not yet been established. The Human Race had just stepped out of its mother planet, struggling to connect with the universe while surrounded by foreign races, with living beings in critical peril.

Ling Zhangge came from an impoverished mortal background, and his parents were both frontline soldiers. In the year he turned five, they died in battle on the Outer Realm border, leaving him alone to eke out a living in the ruins of a troubled world.

The Human Race lacked resources, cultivation methods were withered, and the path of cultivation was extremely arduous.

Yet Ling Zhangge was born with a lucid sword heart and was self-taught. Holding a withered branch was enough to stir the sword breath of heaven and earth—he was a once-in-ten-thousand-years born sword seed.

With no one to impart the Dao, he observed drifting clouds to comprehend the sword, and listened to wind and thunder to forge his edge. He stepped across the shattered mountains and rivers of the Human Race, comprehending sword intent in barren mountains and condensing his sword heart in seas of blood.

Lacking cultivation resources, he absorbed the pure essence of moonlight and crushed the bones and blood of Outer Realm fierce beasts to temper his body. He entered no sects and bowed to no immortal masters, relying solely on a single wooden sword to slaughter all the barbaric exotic beasts that plundered the Human Race.

At fifteen, he stepped out of his mother planet and traveled far to the Outer Realm Battlefield, officially donning the battle robe of the Human Race.

At twenty, with a single sword he broke ten thousand laws, horizontally executing three foreign demigods and making a name for himself at the border.

At thirty, he forged his natal divine weapon, the Changhong sword, receiving a gift from the Human Race's origin will to refine it into an Earth Divine Artifact. Whenever the sword was unsheathed, clouds gathered and mists scattered, its sharpness cleaving down the moonlight of the starry river.

At that time, Ling Zhangge was dressed in white robes surpassing snow, carrying his long sword with high spirits and unbridled vigor. By his own strength alone, he suppressed several surrounding foreign races, making them dare not invade the Human Race's territory.

The world bestowed upon him the title—Sword Monarch of Longge.

Years flowed within his memories, and time swiftly passed by tens of thousands of years.

A war broke out between the Human Race and the Mechanical Race.

Torrents of steel crossed the sea of stars, and alloy warships obscured the firmament.

A boundless Mechanical Race army surged toward the Human Race, and molten main cannons incinerated stars.

The Mechanical Race feared neither injury nor pain, slaughtering countless living beings.

Consecutively breaching seven outer-realm star regions of the Human Race, the human defense line collapsed entirely in less than a million years, suffering hundreds of millions of casualties and leaving mountains and rivers shattered.

Those were the darkest years of the Human Race. Children were not allowed to grow up, and cultivators were not allowed to age; whenever one awakened transcendent power, they all rushed headlong to the battlefield.

The Human Race shook, all cultivators grieved, and countless mighty figures fell.

Seeing that the foundation of the Human Race was about to be obliterated beneath the mechanical artillery fire,

Ling Zhangge stepped forward.

He traveled across major star regions, summoning all swordsmen in the world to rush to the battlefield.

Through Ling Zhangge's efforts, a total of hundreds of millions of human swordsmen abandoned the mortal world, severed earthly ties, and gathered together at the frontline Star-Shattering Pass.

Outside the Star-Shattering Pass, the endless mecha arrays of the Mechanical Race lined up, artillery lights traversed the sea of stars, and the biting cold extinguished all vitality.

Inside the pass, hundreds of millions of swordsmen stood holding their swords, defying the monstrous black tide.

The great war broke out and lasted for hundreds of thousands of years.

Human mighty figures fell one after another, stars exploded, and the sea of stars was stained with blood.

Holding the Changhong sword, Ling Zhangge successively executed twelve high-tier true gods of the Mechanical Race.

But this was not without a price: the edge of the Changhong sword cracked, its divine patterns shattered, and it was forcefully dropped from an Earth Divine Artifact to a Divine Artifact.

He himself was also covered in wounds, his sword heart shattered, most of his sword bones broken, his spiritual power exhausted, and his divine soul filled with cracks, yet he still stood holding his sword at the very forefront of the defense line.

But the Mechanical Race was inexhaustible, with losses nearly infinite, and the defense line ultimately teetered on the brink of collapse.

Seeing the final star region barrier shatter and the mechanical main cannon finish charging, requiring only a single strike to blast apart the defense line,

Above the sea of stars, Ling Zhangge withdrew his sword and laughed long and loud, his laughter sorrowful and resolute, resounding across the entire battlefield:

"We swordsmen wield our swords to defend the Dao—not for longevity, not for deification, but solely so that the Human Race does not perish and the mountains and rivers remain forever at peace!"

"Fellow sword friends, are you willing to follow me in casting a sword with our bodies, turning our bones into edges to build a million-li Great Wall of sword Qi?!"

"We are willing to follow the Sword Monarch! Even in death, we have no regrets!"

Tens of millions of swordsmen responded in unison, their voices shaking the universe. Not a single person retreated, and not a single person feared death.

The next moment, Ling Zhangge raised the tattered Changhong sword high, igniting his own tens of thousands of years of cultivation, divine soul origin, and entire flesh and bones, taking the lead to transform into pearly white sword filaments filling the sky.

Immediately following him, tens of millions of swordsmen successively self-ignited their Dao foundations, shattering their souls, breaking their bones, and melting their bodies. Thousands of sword intents fused together, and countless lives became one.

White light soared into the sky, traversing tens of billions of starry rivers!

A boundless, eternal Great Wall of sword Qi rose from the ground, spanning across the entire Star-Shattering Pass.

The sword wall's cold light was biting, carved with the remnant souls of countless swordsmen and carrying hundreds of millions of martyred obsessions, blocking off the Mechanical Race army with grim determination and sealing the entire star region passage.

Steel artillery fire bombarded the city wall, ten-thousand-zhang flames exploded, and the Great Wall of sword Qi remained completely motionless.

The mechanical divine tide charged frantically, sword hums shook the sea of stars, and the barrier remained unscathed by even a fraction.

A single sword builds the Great Wall, ten thousand bones suppress the river of stars!

Ling Zhangge perished and his Dao vanished, leaving behind only a trace of incomplete consciousness that wrapped around the remnants of the Changhong sword and plunged into a spacetime rift.

And that Great Wall of sword Qi forcefully guarded the star region for one hundred thousand years.

It bought a breathing space for the Human Race, allowing the Human Race to recuperate and recover.

At this point in the scene, the memories filling the sky shattered, endless white light converged, and Su Ming's consciousness sharply rebounded.

He suddenly opened his eyes, cold sweat soaking his back, his chest heaving violently, his eyes filled with soreness and shock.

Beside his ears, that tragic and resolute long song of the sword from hundreds of millions of years ago still seemed to echo.

However, with the massive influx of memories, he felt like his head was about to explode.

He swallowed the divine soul liquid without the slightest hesitation.

Following the ingestion of the divine soul liquid, Su Ming's furrowed brows finally relaxed a little.

At this moment, Ada and the others stood beside Su Ming, guarding the Dao for both him and Ganie.