Chapter 1008 — The Sword Realm of Thirty-Three Heavens

He would match the height of heaven and remake this world of unfairness!

This sword clarified the heart and illumined the will, lifting the two fighters into the sky like twin peaks rising out of the earth, higher and higher still—soaring to the heavens, through the clouds, beyond the firmament!

And at that moment, Yan Rinuang, the Sun Warden of the second heaven of the Worry-Free Land, could no longer restrain himself.

Hot tears burst from his eyes and turned into two fire-dragons that flew out of his sockets.

He had no tears to weep.

He was the Sun Warden, his whole body refined into pure yang sacred flame; even when moved to the point of tears flooding his eyes, moved beyond all bearing, what flowed from him was still raging fire.

What this sword awakened was not Kaihuang—it was him.

It awakened them—all who had once fought shoulder to shoulder with Kaihuang, sworn to change this world of unfairness!

In those days they had been young and green, burning with inexhaustible vigor, chests full of burning blood, loyal-hearted and true—not one atom of worry in the lot of them!

Not like today, when they grumbled all day long, cursed heaven and blamed earth, their bellies stuffed with complaints!

Amid those scathing, fiery tears, sword cries rang out from the sword case on his back: the Great Sun Divine Swords sang out one after another, clangorous and bright, their hilts vibrating endlessly—rust flaking away, keenness restored.

At the summit of the heavens, the sword light burst apart, transforming into the third-heaven sword path: the Qingming Heart-Reckoning Sword, the sword of self-reflection, mirroring the mind's true foundation and bidding one never forget the original purpose.

By then, Kaihuang had earned some renown in the shattered Primal World.

Flush with success, he forgot himself and suffered a shattering defeat; of the many comrades who had followed him, some died and some were wounded.

Green hills buried loyal bones; broken swords carried off the souls of the righteous.

This was a sword of self-admonition.

Its light shone down out of the sky, as clear and translucent as a cloudless bright day, illuminating the upturned faces of everyone within Kaihuang's heavenly court.

Many people saw themselves in that mirror of sword light: one saw his own dejection, one his own rancor, one his own unwillingness, one his own corruption. In that moment, they looked straight into their hearts and beheld Dao hearts covered in wounds and ruin.

It seemed that what was colliding was not Shen Mu and Kaihuang at all, but their Dao hearts—colliding, and learning to know themselves.

Junior Guardian Fang Youji wiped at his old tears, but no matter how he wiped, he could never dry the tears that flowed from his eyes. Shen Mu and Kaihuang brought forth the fourth-heaven sword path, the Xuantai Heaven-Suppressing Sword—the sword of rebirth from catastrophe, the sword by which, after losses too bitter to bear, they had reordered their ranks, regathered their banners, and rebuilt their Dao hearts!

The martyrs and vanguards of the Kaihuang Era had rekindled their fighting spirit after that, contending with heaven, wrestling with gods and demons, refusing to accept defeat—reborn from the mysterious womb, they fought another battle.

Many of the elder generation of Kaihuang's heavenly court, seeing that sword light in the sky, that sword path, that spirit, felt as though they had returned to that very age; the heroism in their hearts, turning through a thousand windings and a hundred bendings, came surging back through their breasts.

It had been so very, very long since they had felt anything of the sort.

Twenty thousand years of their perseverance, twenty thousand years of their faith, twenty thousand years of their striving—all of it had turned to dreams, bubbles, and shadows the day they withdrew to the Worry-Free Land, and in twenty thousand years more, it had crumbled into yellowed memories, ever more blurred. And now, everything was reawakened!

The fifth-heaven sword path burst forth—the Yuanming Culture-Raising Sword exploded from the hands of Shen Mu and Kaihuang.

This was the sword art Kaihuang created after his return from the early Longhan years, when he swept away the old and forged the new, set his heart upon reform, and meant to open an age for the people of later times, for the younger generation—an age of a hundred schools contending and a hundred blossoms vying in bloom. In those days, they had walked out upon a road of reform.

To "raise culture" was not to cultivate letters, but to cultivate the heart through culture.

To raise heaven with culture, to bear fortune with culture, to convey the Dao with culture—to establish a heart for heaven and earth, to ordain a destiny for the common folk, to transmit the lost traditions of learning, and to blaze trails for learning yet unborn! In the sky, the battle between Shen Mu and Kaihuang raged on, ever more savage and fierce; move after move, each and every sword technique carried forth the spirit of the Kaihuang Era—a spirit the old ministers of Kaihuang's heavenly court had lived through, the very spirit they had once owned, the emblem of that age burning bright as blazing fire.

Now, watching Shen Mu and Kaihuang cast such sword arts, it was as if they were reliving those years anew: the dust-sealed memories roused, the scattered valor summoned home, the blood that had gone cold set boiling once more.

The Kaihuang Era had never been the era of Kaihuang alone; it had been the era of all who had enacted the reforms of that time. Nor had the spirit of that age ever been Kaihuang's alone; it had belonged to every reformer of that age.

Since when had they bound this age to a single man?

Since when had they bound its spirit to a single man?

Since when had they laid the crime of the heavenly court's removal to the Worry-Free Land at one man's feet?

And since when—while Kaihuang was still the selfsame Kaihuang—had they themselves ceased to be the men they once were? In the sky, the battle grew more ferocious with every exchange, more intense with every clash, until they had reached the thirty-third-heaven sword path: the Grand Pure Realm Dao Sword.

With this sword, Kaihuang had formed a sword-path domain, attaining a sword path unsurpassed in all the world. Yet it was precisely when he created the Grand Pure Realm Dao Sword that the Kaihuang Calamity erupted; every event in the long chain that followed came after the forging of this sword.

In the sky, the collision of the two sword domains was so terrible as to be almost unviewable, and still Shen Mu and Kaihuang remained locked in combat, evenly matched, unable to decide the victor.

When the power of the Grand Pure Realm Dao Sword was spent, both of their sword lights paused for a brief instant—and at that very moment, Kaihuang's Worry-Free Sword rose again, and Shen Mu felt a chill crawl up his spine.

After the Grand Pure Realm Dao Sword, there was yet a thirty-fourth heaven!