521: Chapter 521 The Emperor's Weapon of the Subdued Dragon

The Ancestral Sword Spirit's voice faded away.

It was like the purest snowflake falling into silent, boiling magma.

There was no sound, no trace—only a void left after the collision of extreme gentleness and extreme cruelty.

His body began to solidify.

At the rift in his chest, the ice-blue light did not gush outward but instead seeped inward, spreading inch by inch.

This was not freezing, nor was it a Seal; it was a deeper, more essential "return."

His spirit body was collapsing, condensing—irretrievably regressing from a life form with infinite possibilities toward that initial, most fundamental form—

A sword.

Born from a weapon, he had gained sentience, taken human form, endured tribulations, attained the Dao, possessed emotions, learned to cherish and protect, and even nurtured a dream of transcending his original form.

Through the long eons, he had accompanied Lu Changzhi to conquer the Universe, growing from a dust-covered piece of spiritual iron into the Ancestral Sword Spirit that shook the heavens.

He had once thought that he could finally walk the remaining path in the posture of a "human," as a Disciple, to see Lu Changzhi off on his final journey and catch a glimpse of the scenery he had never seen before.

But fate, in the end, is fate.

It never gives one room for choice—it only bares its cold, primal fangs when you are closest to hope.

"Click..."

A soft sound, as faint as the groan of the first crack when an ice river thaws in early spring.

The Ancestral Sword Spirit's body began to shatter from the edges of its silhouette.

There was no spray of flesh and blood, no scattering of spiritual light—only shattering into billions of tiny ice-blue glimmers.

These points of light did not scatter; as if drawn by an invisible altar, they surged and collapsed frantically toward the center, toward his only remaining right hand, which was undergoing a violent transformation.

The five fingers of this right hand were already blurred, taking on the shape of a sword hilt.

Ice-blue, intricate, and ancient sword patterns, like living vines, grew backward from his fingertips, wrapping around the back of his hand and etching themselves into his wrist bones.

Every time a pattern lit up, it was like a memory burning away, a heartbeat extinguishing.

His lips seemed to move slightly.

"Sword Master..."

No sound emerged, only a ripple of intent, carrying a sense of relief as if the dust had settled, and even a faint, satisfied smile, brushing gently across the Void Realm.

"I... is this sword... still usable?"

The final ripple subsided.

In the same instant, billions of ice-blue light points, like a hundred rivers returning to the sea, submerged entirely into the hilt.

A light of extreme brilliance erupted, then in an instant, it contracted, took shape, and solidified—

In the Void Realm, only a single sword remained.

The sword was three feet and seven inches long, ice-blue throughout, clear as if carved from ancient mysterious ice.

The sword body's lines were long and smooth, with flowing light faintly turning within.

At the crossguard, a hexagonal ice crystal was quietly embedded, as if it contained a Seal of an entire winter's starry sky.

It was startlingly brand new, its sharpness exposed, exuding a chilling aura—as if it had just been tempered by a master craftsman and was about to reveal its peerless edge.

But Lu Changzhi knew—

This sword had long been "shattered."

It shattered eons ago, in that final battle that buried an entire era.

Beneath every inch of the seemingly perfect ice-blue on the sword were cracks that the Ancestral Sword Spirit had filled, mended, and nurtured inch by inch with his own immortal spirit body.

This flawless perfection at this moment was its final and most heroic burning—

A sword spirit had burned away all of his existence, consciousness, and emotions, just to trade for this sword, before the final battle arrived, to fulfill its mission as a "sword" in the most complete and proudest posture.

Lu Changzhi stared at the floating ice-blue longsword.

Deep within his blood-stained eyes, which seemed to carry endless slaughter and destruction, something was churning violently.

This was not sadness—sadness was too light.

Nor was it anger—anger was too shallow.

This was something deeper, heavier, and more somber—like the dead silence before a star collapses into a singularity, like the silted dust left after an entire era has overturned, heavy enough to crush space and time.

He did not reach out to grasp the sword.

He only slowly raised his head.

His gaze, like a blood-stained spear, pierced through the layers of chaotic Void Realm and nailed itself onto the collapsing Heaven and Earth Sword Mountain.

This ancient Holy Land for Sword Cultivators had its mountains collapsing and its Spiritual Veins severed.

Huge cracks covered the mountain, the once glorious sword patterns were dim like dead snakes, and the dense Spiritual Qi was turning into pale wisps of smoke, continuously dissipating.

It was like a dying giant beast, floating in the Void Realm, surrounded by countless metal fragments that had broken off from it, like a funeral ring of stars.

But Lu Changzhi's gaze penetrated this facade of decay, reaching straight to the deepest part of the Sword Mountain.

There, among the rocks and beside the crevices, countless longswords were still inserted.

Some were broken in half, some were covered in rust, some had lost all their spirituality, leaving only cold, broken metal shells...

But they still maintained the same posture—

The sword body slightly tilted, the tip pointing upward.

That was a posture ready to be unsheathed at any moment, ready to face death at any moment.

Through the loneliness of eons, the erosion of wind and rain, and the extinction of spirituality.

They had not left a single step.

Because they were waiting.

Waiting for that person's return, waiting for that command to ring out—waiting for the oath and promise carved into the depths of every inch of their sword souls eons ago to receive its final response at this very moment.

Lu Changzhi closed his eyes.

When he opened them again—

The gray-white light patterns on his transparent body, representing ominousness and nirvana, suddenly lit up!

This was not the madness of burning life, but some kind of more ancient, more solemn ritual—a kind of summoning that transcended the level of power, surpassed the Law, and even attempted to shake the Foundation of space and time...

Summoning!

If the sword exists, the person exists; if the sword dies, the person dies.

This was not a cold contractual shackle, but absolute trust, connected by Bloodline and entrusting life and death to one another.

This was the most primal, most fundamental resonance of The Sword Lineage, flowing in their bones, blood, and souls.

He opened his arms, as if to embrace the entire shattered world—what burst from the depths of his throat was no longer words, but a proclamation, a war drum, a thunderclap tearing through the curtain of fate:

"Dragon-subduing! Imperial! Weapon!"

The four characters were like an ancient sacred mountain exploding, the rolling sound waves crushing through the Void Realm, causing the Law to wail and the stars to tremble—

Silence fell over everything.

"Are you willing—"

His blood-colored eyes burned intensely, every word heavy as a thousand jun, smashing toward the silent Sword Mountain:

"To follow me—"

"And fight one more time?!?"

"Boom————!!!"

The moment the voice fell—

The dead silent Heaven and Earth Sword Mountain suddenly "came alive"!

It was not the mountain shaking—but the countless broken, rusted, seemingly long-dead longswords on the mountain, all in the same instant, erupted with light!

Golden light!

This was not the warmth of the sun, not the luxury of gold—but a kind of unruly, tyrannical, golden sword radiance that looked down upon the world!

It was the sharpest fangs of The Sword Lineage from the primordial era, which conquered the heavens and made all worlds tremble!

It was the dragon-subduing imperial weapon, the unfading glory and sharpness engraved in the long river of time!

"Clang—!"

The first sword cry came from the mountain peak.

A broken sword broke free from the shackles of the rock and rose slowly.

It only had one-third of its sword body left, and the Dragon patterns on the hilt were worn to the point of being almost unrecognizable.

However—the moment it appeared, all the golden light rising from various parts of the Sword Mountain, like subjects paying homage to an emperor, whistled and surged toward it frantically!

The broken sword became the core of all light and will.

"Roar—!!!"

The Dragon roar shook the heavens!

This time—it was by no means a metaphor!

The vast golden light frantically condensed, intertwined, and expanded in the Void Realm, finally turning into a behemoth spanning the Universe—

A five-clawed golden Dragon covered in billions of golden scales, eyes shooting out divine lightning light, five claws tearing the sky and splitting the earth!

Its length was unknown, spanning tens of millions of zhang; as it coiled, its Dragon body crushed through the Void Realm, leaving behind pitch-black cracks that could not heal for a long time.

With a light lift of its Dragon claw, the nearby drifting star debris turned silently into powder!

This golden Dragon was formed by the obsession of countless sword souls—bearing the repression of eons, the blood feud of genocide, and the monstrous unwillingness after a glorious era was forcibly buried!

It coiled proudly in the Void Realm, its Dragon head slowly lowering—those giant eyes burning with golden flames locked tightly onto Lord Zangxing and Lord Jixing in the distance.

Its Dragon mouth slowly opened, and deep in its throat, golden light rapidly compressed and boiled, brewing a roar capable of roaring down stars and destroying worlds.

Then—

"Roar————!!!"

The Dragon roar rose again!

The golden sound waves that turned into substance, like the first shockwave of the Universe's creation, swept across all directions with a posture of destroying everything!

Lord Zangxing's face turned pale; with a muffled groan, he was actually staggered half a step backward by this roar of pure will!

Lord Jixing's black eyes, which seemed eternally calm, finally narrowed slightly by a sliver.

The robes on his body danced wildly in the golden sound waves, like a flag in a storm—but his feet, however, seemed rooted in the deepest part of the Void Realm, not moving a single bit.

Only in the depths of his profound eyes did a faint, almost grave glimmer flash by.

The ice-blue longsword hung quietly by Lu Changzhi's side, cold light flowing.

The ten-thousand-zhang golden Dragon coiled above the Sword Mountain, its prestige pressing upon the Universe.

One was extremely condensed, returning to the truth through nirvana; the other was extremely flamboyant, reviving with tyranny.