The Blade-Wielding Legend

The howling gale raged. As the last syllable of the Spell fell, a speck of almost imperceptible spiritual light drifted out from the crown of Li Yan’s head.

It was his yin soul.

In the state of yin soul, Li Yan’s senses became preternaturally keen, yet his body felt as light as if it didn’t exist.

Silently circulating the heart method of the North Emperor Mysterious Water Escape, his whole being seemed to dissolve into an invisible, intangible current of water, darting at high speed and easily passing through the broken bricks and twisted beams at the edge of the Monk Soldier Hall ruins, as well as the talismans of hidden alarms.

Inside the ruins, it was even more desolate and oppressive than he had imagined, permeated by a rancid stench of stale Sandalwood Incense mixed with corpse wax.

Using his Escape Skill to conceal himself, he stealthily crept forward.

Very soon, he saw the source of the formidable aura he had encountered earlier:

Not living people, but one "corpse" after another, seated cross-legged beneath the shadows of enormous stone pillars or within wall niches.

Their forms varied. Some wore tattered monk robes, withered like pine bark, hands locked in Buddha Seal; others were clad in faded hunting clothes of Onmyoji, white hair hanging like dead grass, faces still bearing vermillion Shinto Runes, long since dried and blackened.

These dried corpses were not entirely lifeless. In their chests was an exceedingly faint, almost motionless rise and fall, like serpents and insects in winter hibernation.

From them emanated a kind of deathly "vitality."

As if... candle flames drawn down to the absolute limit!

Li Yan understood at once: this was the core power guarding this place.

A flock of old monsters who had employed some unknown Secret Technique to almost freeze their own life force, relying solely on residual thought to control Shikigami or Array.

Their very existence was a mighty barrier.

Li Yan held his breath and focused his mind, driving the Escape Skill to its utmost. His yin soul, like a thread of cool night wind, skimmed along the icy ground, slipped around the thick stone pillars, and glided quietly through the gaps in perception of those dried-corpse sentries.

He could feel the frigid will coiled within those desiccated shells.

One misstep, and he would rouse these slumbering vipers.

Every step was like treading on thin ice.

At last, in the deepest part of the ruins, within a strata fissure that seemed torn open by some immense force and collapsed downward, he found his target.

Here exuded an ancient, Barbaric aura utterly different from the rest of the ruins.

Rough strange stones lay scattered across the ground, their shapes twisted, like the bones of primordial giant beasts. Many boulders were wrapped in Shimenawa that had long since faded to gray, and on the ropes were tied white Imperial Coins inscribed with archaic Shinto Runes, gently swaying in the windless crevice.

The stone walls were covered in mottled murals.

The lines were rough and primitive, depicting Jomon people draped in animal hides, conducting mysterious rites; they prostrated themselves toward the sky or toward fissures in the earth, worshipping with utmost reverence, and within those fissures shone visions of bizarre worlds:

Warped stars, outlines of colossal beings, overlapping phantom mountain ranges...

Li Yan grasped the meaning in his heart. This was precisely the "Divine Realm" entrance that the Jomon ancestors of Japan had inadvertently discovered and worshipped. The so‑called High Heaven of later generations was in truth a unique spatial interlayer of the Daluo Law Realm formed here, which had solidified and become visible due to the special Earth Vein and the convergence of collective human consciousness.

At the entrance, a thin, ever‑shifting mist drifted, like an oil film upon water.

Without hesitation, Li Yan slipped in as a fish enters the water; with a light ripple, he vanished into that luminous haze.

At the very instant Li Yan’s yin soul disappeared, in the deepest darkness of the Monk Soldier Hall ruins, a moss‑covered shattered stone wall began to ripple as though water.

A figure in a black Daoist robe, withered of face yet eyes sharp as a hawk, slowly "floated" out from the stone wall, soundless.

The aura around him was obscure and turbid, almost merging with the surrounding shadows.

The old man’s gaze flashed like lightning, sweeping over the entrance where Li Yan’s yin soul had vanished, then cutting toward the direction where Wang Daoxuan and the others were concealed. A cold sneer tugged at the corner of his mouth.

"Hmph, Mysterious Water Escape? There’s some skill to it."

His voice was dry and rasping, like sandpaper scraping wood. "Unfortunately, still too green. With the yin soul gone from the body, that magic platform of flesh is the greatest flaw! Pass the order—search for me! Turn over every inch, find that protector’s altar field and that brat’s mortal shell!"

Though his voice was low, it carried an unquestionable authority. From the darkness came several almost inaudible affirmations.

Several shadows slipped away like specters toward the periphery of the ruins.

This old man was none other than the Jianmu Earth Immortal Tribute secretly dispatched by Zhao Changsheng, come specifically to hunt down Li Yan—Xuanyinzi.

......

Li Yan’s yin soul passed through the entrance, as if plunging into a viscous, freezing dream.

What lay before him was not the Immortal’s paradise he had imagined, but a realm of grotesque lights, saturated with oppression and distortion.

The sky was a dull leaden gray, without Sun or Moon or stars, only clusters of light burning sickly green or ghostly blue, their shapes undefined, slowly writhing like giant jellyfish drifting in murky seawater...

The ground was cracked black hardpan, utterly barren; from the fissures seeped threads of yellow‑green mist carrying a sulfur stench, said in Japan’s myths to be Yellow Springs miasma...

In the distance loomed immense, uncanny "mountain ranges."

On closer look, they were piled from countless tangled, twisted bones. Upon the Skeleton Mountains, one could faintly make out crude "temples" built of gigantic Beast Bone, radiating ominous red light.

The air was thick with a low, meaningless muttering, as if innumerable voices were whispering beside his ears, or else like wind sighing through hollow bone cavities.

Some semi‑transparent, shapeless "Spiritual Bodies" drifted at low altitude.

Some resembled figures clad in ancient robes, yet their features were blurred; others were wholly non‑human forms, like warped beasts or strange plants, uttering soundless screams.

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!