Chapter 61: Sword Master of the Long River

Sensing that the female ghost was about to recover from her "grief," Zhao Yu panicked. Clutching his firewood chopper and spreading his wings, he transformed into a stream of light and vanished instantly.

Faintly, the chatter of the firewood chopper drifted on the wind.

"Zhao Yu, Zhao Yu, I think that fellow was dead, but death is a necessary prerequisite for becoming a ghost."

"Could it be that I failed to beat him to death completely?"

"Only the dead turn into ghosts, you see. You hacked him completely to death, which is precisely why he turned into a ghost."

"What you say seems to make sense..."

The vague conversation faded away.

After quite a while longer, the female ghost finally regained her composure.

She stared blankly at her surroundings.

Very quickly, her gaze fell upon the patch of ground in front of her where not even a speck of dust remained.

Just moments before, Liu Kang had been hacked to death right here—obliterated so thoroughly that neither bones nor soul were left behind.

After a long while, the female ghost offered a bitter smile: "Perhaps this is simply the bizarre sense of humor of an expert."

She had previously thought everything would return to the status quo, never expecting that Zhao Yu, mid-conversation, would suddenly hack a man to death under the guise of "fulfillment."

Now, upon reflection...

Yuchan suddenly realized that Zhao Yu had seemingly never done anything truly harmful to her.

Although he had killed her once before, he had done so out of sheer ignorance. Once he sensed something was amiss, he stopped hurting her altogether and instead helped sever her shackles.

And now, having slain Liu Kang—coupled with the destruction of her previous statue—she could finally consider herself truly free.

She only wondered whether she still retained the ability to resurrect even if her soul were to be scattered to the winds.

Standing in place and spacing out for a long time, Yuchan turned and drifted away.

She wanted to go home and take a look.

At the entrance of the town.

Zhao Yu stood at the threshold, his face full of suspicion: "Your origin is right here?"

After leaving the Liu family earlier, he had followed the direction pointed out by the firewood chopper and arrived at the entrance of the town.

Other than the large gate frame marking the town's entrance, there was nothing here.

The origin had turned into a gate frame?

The firewood chopper crawled up onto Zhao Yu's shoulder: "The gate frame is not my origin. My origin is hidden in the interlayer right in the middle of the gate frame."

Subconsciously, Zhao Yu readied himself to dismantle the gate frame.

The firewood chopper hurriedly stopped him, fixing its gaze upon the gate frame: "I'm not tricking you! I can genuinely sense you. Come out!"

"Clang..."

A faint sound of a sword ringing echoed through the air.

The gate frame shattered into pieces, and a rusted sword drifted into mid-air.

The firewood chopper couldn't help but chuckle foolishly: "It really is my origin."

A cold voice resounded from within the long sword: "With that foolish look of yours, do you actually think you are worthy of my return?"

Then, the long sword glanced at Zhao Yu. Just as it was about to hurl a disdainful insult, as if recalling something, it abruptly swallowed its words.

Instead, it sneered: "Since I cannot avoid you... tell me, what gives you the right to chase after me!"

The rusted sword flashed, instantly blooming with nine-colored radiance. With another flash, it transformed into a streak of sword light that pierced the firmament.

Zhao Yu was startled: "Firewood Chopper, your origin... it flies so fast...."

His firewood chopper was utterly useless without him, yet this rusted sword—wasn't it running a bit too fast?

The firewood chopper couldn't help but complain: "Hurry up and chase it then! As long as we can catch up to it, I can devour it."

Zhao Yu was utterly speechless: "Then why didn't you just devour it right away?!"

"I was annoyed that it was hiding from me, so I wanted to mock it a little. I honestly didn't expect it to run this fast..." The firewood chopper grew embarrassed.

It certainly knew its origin could run, but it truly hadn't expected it to bolt with such astonishing speed.

Zhao Yu couldn't help but press a hand to his forehead.

Given the firewood chopper's silly demeanor, it was no wonder the rusted sword was unwilling to come back... As expected, without him, Zhao Yu, holding down the fort at home, things would fall apart sooner or later.

However, since the firewood chopper was still his good friend, he silently spread his unorthodox wings once again to give chase.

After pursuing for a while, Zhao Yu was utterly bewildered: "Firewood Chopper, we have a problem. We aren't as fast as it flies."

The further they chased, the further away the streak of sword light on the horizon became.

Was this appropriate?

Was this reasonable?

The firewood chopper was equally dumbfounded.

It had finally managed to track down its origin, only for the cooked duck to literally grow wings and fly away?

Having no other choice, the firewood chopper could only hurl abuse at the top of its lungs: "My origin! If you have the guts to mock us, why don't you have the guts to come back?!"

"Idiots! How could I possibly have a master as foolish as you?" An indistinct, cold voice echoed back.

The firewood chopper instantly grew indignant: "Zhao Yu, Zhao Yu, it's insulting you."

Zhao Yu couldn't help curling his lip: "Don't take me for a fool. The rusted sword is clearly insulting you, alright."

The firewood chopper resumed its verbal assault: "My origin! If you have the guts to curse at me, why don't you have the guts to face me head-on?"

"In another quarter of an hour, I will be able to slip into a human prefecture city. Let's see if you can find me then! And just how many more times you'll be able to track me down!" The cold voice turned into a taunting laugh.

The firewood chopper's eyes widened in dismay: "Finding just one portion of my origin is already this difficult. If I intend to retrieve all my origins, won't I never stand a chance in this lifetime?"

Zhao Yu's mouth twitched: "Useless blade, just how many pieces of origin do you even have?"

"There should still be quite a few, I suppose." The firewood chopper's gaze drifted evasively.

Zhao Yu glanced at the distant streak of sword light and muttered silently: "If we can't catch it, I'm not helping you look for your origins anymore."

Searching everywhere only to come away empty-handed was entirely too much of a loss.

The firewood chopper's expression shifted, turning into fierce determination: "Today, I am going to make it see precisely why *I* am the main body!"

Zhao Yu stared curiously at the firewood chopper, but failed to notice anything unusual.

A few breaths later.

"Damn it! What have you done?!" The rusted sword hurtled back through the air, its voice filled with fury.

The firewood chopper offered no explanation, merely speaking in a rare, deep tone: "I know you are reluctant to part with your independent consciousness, but you are, after all, merely a fraction of my origin. Whether now or in the future, there will come a day when your self-awareness will inevitably fade and you will merge back into me... I can promise you that once everything is over, I will split my origin anew and let you go out and play."

The rusted sword's brilliance flared violently, soaring straight into the clouds as it roared: "I am the pinnacle of swords! By what right do you devour me?!"

"You want me back? Then why isn't it *you* whose consciousness fades?"

"Beneath the long river, I am the king!"

"Clang! Clang..."

Boundless sword rings resounded across the vast expanse of the sky for ten thousand miles.

Though it had been the dead of night just moments before, under this sudden peal of sword resonance, a scorching sun hung high in the firmament in the blink of an eye.

Millions, perhaps tens of millions of sword lights manifested, transforming into a boundless river of swords.

An instant later, the countless sword qi transformed into a river of swords that surged overwhelmingly toward Zhao Yu.

Zhao Yu felt his scalp go completely numb: "Useless blade, why is your origin so terrifyingly powerful?!"

Was this truly the origin of his useless blade? Or was it actually his useless blade that was merely an offshoot of the rusted sword?

The firewood chopper offered no reply, instead cursing furiously: "That is my origin! Stop wasting it blindly! Do you have any idea how reluctant I am to use my own origin?!"

The rusted sword made no retort. Instead, heaven and earth shifted dramatically: at the very peak of the endless firmament, a gigantic sword spanning at least ten thousand zhang slowly descended.

The commotion was simply too massive.

Countless powerful cultivators were alarmed. Those with weaker cultivation instinctively retreated, wishing to avoid stumbling into the battlefield of mighty beings.

Those with formidable strength grew instantly vigilant.

As for the truly terrifying powerhouses... they surged forward instantly, driven by boundless greed.

Somewhere.

A group of high-level experts materialized out of thin air atop a mountain peak.

One of them stared at the horrifying river of swords and gasped, "True Monarch, given such a commotion, what kind of mighty beings are fighting?"

True Monarch, True Monarch... those at the Deity Transformation realm were addressed as True Monarchs.

The leader of the group, True Monarch Cangyan, stared at the sword river for a long time before finally speaking: "Those are not mighty beings exchanging blows. That is... the legendary Lord of the Sword River."