Chapter 1571 — Sword Dao Ascends to the Heaven Beyond Heaven
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
It was a sword born of Kaihuang's purest sword dao, and a sword transmuted from his heart of the Dao once he had washed away all worldly adornment and washed away the guilt that lay within it.
The Sword of No Sorrow stood for the Land of No Sorrow: with his own sword dao as the blueprint, he had forged the Thirty-Three Heavens of the Land of No Sorrow, hidden the Land of No Sorrow within the Sword of No Sorrow, and carried it into the Void of the Far Shore. To forge the Land of No Sorrow and to move the Kaihuang Heavenly Court into it had been the most important decision of his life, and a right decision, but it was likewise the decision most decried by others.
Now the Sword of No Sorrow had shattered, yet this was no denial of himself on Kaihuang's part. He had never believed that he had done wrong; he believed only that he had not done well enough, that his deeds had failed the people of the Kaihuang era.
In that moment his sword dao sublimated.
The guilt born of his past deeds had been an obstacle holding back his heart of the Dao and his dao realm from advancing further, a thing that had become his inner demon, preventing him from taking the final step.
In outward appearance he was adamant, giving all who beheld him the sense of a heart of the Dao unshakably firm.
He was Kaihuang, whom no one could change, whom no one could break.
He was the god of the Land of No Sorrow.
So long as he stood, the Kaihuang era stood; so long as he lived, the Kaihuang era would never close.
Yet in truth he had never been a god.
He was only a man.
He too had his weakness, his hesitancy and his doubt; he too had pain upon his heart of the Dao, wounds upon his heart of the Dao, demons upon his heart of the Dao.
When Shen Mu stripped away his adamant exterior with the God-Slaying Platform and the God-Slaying Mystic Blade, peeled open his heart of the Dao, laid it bare layer after layer until his original heart was exposed, that was when the pain and the demons of his heart of the Dao were at their most violent, and when he was easiest to break.
Yet it was likewise the hour when his heart of the Dao ascended. To keep the tragedy from repeating itself, he had to wash away the pain and the demons of his heart of the Dao, wash away the guilt upon it, so that in the years to come there would be no more such guilt and no more such regret. The Sword of No Sorrow in his hand shattered; his heart of the Dao ascended; he took his original heart as his sword.
The instant that sword was complete, all his sword dao fused into one.
Upon the God-Slaying Platform, the hues of blood and the light of the blade were drowned and shattered by the radiance of that dao-sword; within the bloody glare the God-Slaying Mystic Blade in Shen Mu's hand broke inch by inch, forcing him to retreat and fight with all his strength, and yet that sword-light was like the sword dao itself, leaving no gap unentered, so that in an instant he was covered in countless wounds. Shen Mu had no choice but to withdraw from the God-Slaying Platform, and yet the sword radiance upon it only grew fiercer and vaster, layer upon layer of sword dao swelling, sweeping across the heaven and earth of the Land of No Sorrow, battering the Void of the Far Shore until even that void could no longer conceal such piercing keenness.
A sword-light suddenly appeared in the void, bright and glittering, its blade shining over the great chiliocosm.
The glory of that sword dao shone upon all the heavens and the myriad worlds, so that every cultivator of the sword suddenly sensed that within the universe the sword dao had become incomparably clear, incomparably dazzling, and every cultivator of the sword suddenly beheld a figure of incomparable grandeur, a sword-light of incomparable brilliance. The sword dao was rising, sublimating, branding itself upon layer after layer of void, reaching down to the deepest place of the void, to its ultimate place. Jingping, the Wenda Academy.