“Do you like blades?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I think blades… are beautiful.”

“Beautiful?”

“Yes. The curve of the blade is beautiful, and the line it draws through the air is beautiful too.”

“Here, let me see how you handle a blade.”

When he was seven years old, Xie Buxie met Xie Qidao, the foremost blade master of the Xie Clan. Though Xie Qidao held a high position, he never involved himself in clan affairs, being solely devoted to the art of the blade. Xie Buxie had lost his parents at age six, and in the Xie Clan, they were both forgotten existences.

It was the blade that brought them together.

“You’ve never touched a blade before. What right do you have to judge its beauty?” Xie Qidao handed his long blade to Xie Buxie. At that time, Xie Buxie was barely taller than the blade itself, but he raised it without fear and made a gentle swing.

Xie Qidao’s eyes instantly lit up.

Because that single strike was truly beautiful.

As he looked down at the forest of swords below him, Xie Buxie’s mind flashed back to that day when he first met his master Xie Qidao, the day he truly held a blade for the first time. That strike had no technique, no thought behind it – it was purely instinctive.

But it was beautiful precisely because of its purity.

At that moment, Xie Buxie suddenly understood. He had practiced the blade for ten years and mastered the seven supreme blade techniques that Xie Qidao had taught him, yet like his master, he could never comprehend the eighth blade – because the eighth blade had never existed. Looking back, the finest strike was still that first, purest one.

“Let me recall the day I first held a blade…” Xie Buxie closed his eyes and slowly executed a strike.

The forest of swords collapsed in that instant.

The eighteen blades scattered into the air.

Even Mu Xuewui in the distance was forced back three steps. She exclaimed, “This strike…”

“Admirable!” Su Muyu suddenly withdrew his left hand, and the eighteen blades flew into the air, then rained down again like a shower of swords toward Xie Buxie. But Xie Buxie could no longer see this rain of swords. Having unleashed the eighth blade, his subsequent strikes flowed naturally, without any restraint. His long blade moved with lightning speed, knocking away the eighteen swords one after another.

Su Muyu grasped the umbrella handle that had been planted in the ground and drew from it an extremely thin iron sword. He leaped forward, charging at Xie Buxie with his blade.

As the rain of swords ended, Xie Buxie turned to see that cold glint of steel. He gave a cold smile. This was how it should be – if the Eighteen Sword Formation was only what he had seen before, it wouldn’t have been satisfying enough. He raised his blade to meet that cold gleam. His blade passed by Su Muyu’s temple, cutting away a strand of hair.

But Su Muyu’s sword pierced straight through Xie Buxie’s shoulder, blood spraying instantly.

The outcome was decided.

Xie Buxie’s expression grew wooden, the excitement and joy from his breakthrough in blade work slowly freezing on his face. He slowly raised his head to look at Su Muyu and asked very seriously, “Why?”

Su Muyu withdrew his sword and stepped back three paces. “There was nothing wrong with your blade work. In terms of pure weapon skill, you didn’t lose to me today.”

“But you still won. Master said if I comprehended the eighth blade, I would be the strongest of this generation in Dark River. It seems he lied to me,” Xie Buxie said expressionlessly.

“Because you’re obsessed with the blade, intoxicated by it. Everything you fight for is for the blade. But a blade is just a dead thing. You need to find something truly worth fighting and dying for,” Su Muyu said slowly.

Xie Buxie thought for a moment but shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

“I had to defeat you because I couldn’t afford to lose. If I lost, all those behind me would die, those who follow me would die.” Su Muyu spoke halfway, then shook his head. “Everyone seeks different meanings. Your meaning is something you must find for yourself.”

“I don’t understand what you’re saying, but I will try to find what you speak of, to defeat you.” Xie Buxie suddenly turned away.

Mu Xuewui started. “You’re leaving?”

“I said from the beginning, I didn’t come here to kill anyone.” Xie Buxie leaped away, heading back the way he came. “Su Muyu, I hope we’ll have another chance to cross blades.”

From that day forward, Dark River lost a Xie Clan disciple with a strange name. Though few knew it, this Xie disciple’s blade work had already surpassed anyone else in the Xie Clan, even his master Xie Qidao. But this strangely-named swordsman would become renowned in the martial world years later, even traveling south of Nanjue to have a legendary battle with the Blade Immortal.

Su Muyu turned around, wiping blood from his left cheek – Xie Buxie’s final strike had wounded him after all. He looked at Mu Xuewui and smiled faintly. “Xuewui, are you next to face me?”

“Face your head! You’re bleeding.” Mu Xuewui took out a medicine bottle from her robes and tossed it to Su Muyu. “Hurry and apply this.”

“I dare not use your medicine.” Su Muyu looked helplessly at the bottle in his hand. “I have a little Divine Physician behind me now. I can’t use your medicine that could kill a cow.”

“Divine Physician?” Mu Xuewui raised an eyebrow.

At that moment, the little Divine Physician lay in the inner chamber, trapped in the Dark River Patriarch’s dream, her brows furrowed in pain. In the dream, she walked through one battlefield after another, seeing the corpses strewn about and spurting blood until she grew numb to it.

What kind of past did that occasionally kind-looking old man have? Bai Hetai wondered silently, but as she turned her head, she saw the old man standing behind her. His chest was covered in blood, and he barely supported himself with the Sleeping Dragon Sword planted in the ground. The old man smiled bitterly. “Tonight, I fear I will die here.”

Die here? Bai Hetai was startled – wasn’t Su Muyu outside?

“Stop talking about dying, old man. After I finish this smoke, I’ll go out and kill them all for you?” Came awkward Mandarin from behind.

Bai Hetai suddenly understood – the Patriarch in the dream couldn’t see her; he was talking to others in the dream. It seemed that before this deadly situation, the Patriarch had faced similar circumstances many years ago, also finding himself in desperate straits. Bai Hetai turned around and saw a tall, thin man sitting in the corner, leisurely smoking. Beside him lay a Buddhist staff, its golden rings jingling softly.