In the circular hall.
After Qin Wuya's figure vanished.
A cold and detached figure slowly walked toward the stone platform in the center.
It was Gu Qingxuan!
She still had that placid expression, like an old well without a single ripple. It was as if even Qin Wuya's earth-shattering performance had failed to stir the slightest wave in her frozen Sword Heart!
She walked to the center of the circular platform and stopped, then slowly closed her eyes.
Her entire being seemed to transform into an Ancient Sword sheathed in its scabbard, its sharpness concealed, completely isolating her from the surrounding Space.
"What is she doing?"
"Why isn't she moving? Don't tell me she can't figure out a way to pass either?"
Just as the crowd was wondering, something unexpected happened!
CLANG—
A clear, resounding sword cry erupted from within Gu Qingxuan's body without any warning!
Immediately after, a beam of white Sword Intent, so pure it was visible to the naked eye, shot up from the top of her head!
The Sword Intent was as condensed as a physical object. It formed an illusory longsword in the air, radiating a piercing aura that could sever anything and shatter all illusions!
VMM! VMM! VMM!
On the walls of the circular hall, the hundreds upon thousands of small figures in the murals began to tremble violently under the illumination of this pure Sword Intent, emitting a humming sound as if in submission!
At that moment, all the figures lit up with an unprecedented, brilliant glow!
"What... what is this now?!"
"She... she didn't do anything!"
"Breaking the technique with intent! She actually used her own powerful Sword Intent to directly trigger a resonance in the Array, forcefully breaking through this trial!"
The remaining people in the hall were completely dumbfounded!
If Jiang Che had used "wits" and Qin Wuya had used "brute force"...
Then Gu Qingxuan was the true embodiment of "the greatest truths are the simplest"!
She didn't even deign to understand or learn these "Mortal" Martial Arts.
Instead, she directly used her own supremely pure and powerful Sword Dao will to tell the master of this grotto-heaven...
'Before my sword, all complex techniques are but illusions!'
RUMBLE!
A golden pillar of light once again descended from the sky, enveloping Gu Qingxuan's cold figure!
The next moment, Gu Qingxuan's figure also vanished from everyone's sight.
...
After passing through the golden pillar of light, Gu Qingxuan found herself in a place completely different from what she had imagined.
There was no gloomy mist, no terrifying phantoms.
Before her was a bustling, clamorous Mortal market.
Warm sunlight spilled onto the bluestone-paved streets.
The air was filled with the aroma of steamed buns, the sweetness of sugar-roasted chestnuts, and...
...the complex yet vibrant aura of countless Mortals.
An old man selling candied haws was hawking his wares with gusto.
A few children with topknots chased each other through the crowd, their laughter like the tinkling of silver bells.
A plainly dressed woman was haggling with a vegetable seller, red-faced, over the price of a few cents worth of vegetables...
Their faces were filled with all sorts of emotions that Gu Qingxuan had never paid any mind to.
Joy, anger, anxiety, greed, tender love...
All of it felt incredibly foreign to her, even a little unsettling.
What made her heart sink even more was the discovery that the vast, ocean-like Strength within her and that Unbreakable Sword Intent...
...had vanished without a trace!
She had become an ordinary young woman, without even the strength to truss a chicken!
And the personal sword she cherished as much as her own life had turned into a...
...perfectly ordinary fire poker, covered in soot!
'Is this... the third trial?'
She tried to rediscover the feeling of the "sword."
In a deserted corner, she mimicked the movements from her memory, swinging the fire poker in her hand.
However, they were just laughable, clumsy movements that drew roars of laughter from passing children.
She tried to understand the emotions of the Mortals around her, to feel their joys and sorrows.
But she found that she was completely unable to empathize.
The quarrels that seemed meaningless to her, the smiles over some paltry profit, the joys and sorrows brought by birth, aging, sickness, and death...
She was like a black-and-white silhouette that had stumbled into a vibrant, colorful world, excluded from all genuine emotion.
In the Illusion Realm, time began to pass at a rapid pace.
A day, a month, a year... ten years... fifty years...
She watched as, unable to integrate into this world "without a sword," her youthful face was slowly etched with wrinkles by the erosion of time, her lustrous black hair turning gray.
She remained alone, slowly growing old amidst endless loneliness and confusion.
Finally, on a cold winter's day, she lay on a worn-out bed, feeling her Life Energy ebbing away.
The last thing she saw before she died, through her window, was her neighbors' home. They were poor.
Yet they were surrounded by children and grandchildren, a family gathered happily around a stove.
Those Mortals... their lives were so short, so fragile, yet because they possessed love and hate, joy and sorrow, because they had bonds with one another, they lived so authentically, so... warmly.
Just as her consciousness was about to fade, a flash of enlightenment, like a bolt of lightning, shattered her long-frozen Sword Heart.
'So... this was the real test for me...'
She finally understood.
The test was aimed at her Sword Heart, which was so pure that it lacked any "humanity"!
The True Intent left by True Master Bai Yi was using this cruelest of methods to tell her:
The true Peak of the Sword Dao is not just about the sharpness to sever all things, but also the warmth to protect all things!
Without understanding the mortal world, without understanding the seven passions and six desires, without understanding the meaning of protection...
...her sword was ultimately like a rootless tree, like duckweed on water, incapable of touching the true Dao of True Mastery!
In an instant, her soul felt as if it had been torn in two!
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