Heavenly Sword Saint
The ancient palace was silent.
Blood stained the golden floor, pooling between countless broken swords. Cracks ran across the walls and pillars, remnants of the battle that had nearly destroyed the entire palace.
At the center of the ruins, Jian Chen leaned against a shattered altar.
His white robes were soaked in blood.
His breathing was faint.
His meridians had collapsed, his dantian had been shattered, and the poison coursing through his body had already consumed most of his vitality. Even his soul had suffered severe damage.
Jian Chen knew exactly what his condition meant.
There was no escape.
He was dying.
Yet there was no fear in his eyes.
He had walked through countless life-and-death battles. He had fought opponents stronger than himself and stepped into forbidden places where death could come without warning.
If his life had to end, he had always imagined meeting death with his sword in hand.
But now, his sword lay several meters away.
Broken.
Footsteps suddenly echoed through the palace.
Jian Chen slowly raised his head.
A man walked through the ruined entrance.
Golden robes.
Calm steps.
A faint smile.
Long Tian.
The crown prince stopped several meters away and looked at Jian Chen.
There was no longer any caution in his eyes.
Only victory.
"So this is how the greatest genius of the Divine Realm ends."
Jian Chen said nothing.
Long Tian looked around the ruined palace before returning his gaze to him.
"You once stood above countless geniuses. The greatest genius the Jian Clan had produced in countless years."
His smile deepened.
"And now you're nothing more than a dying man."
Jian Chen remained silent.
Long Tian frowned slightly.
"Why aren't you begging?"
Jian Chen raised his eyes.
His voice was weak, but his words were steady.
"A sword..."
He paused for a breath.
"...would rather break than bend."
Long Tian stared at him.
Then he laughed.
"Even now, you still cling to that arrogance."
His gaze fell upon the broken sword.
He walked over and picked it up.
"This sword once made countless geniuses of the Divine Realm tremble."
He examined its fractured edge.
"A pity."
His eyes returned to Jian Chen.
"You no longer deserve to wield it."
Jian Chen's gaze sharpened.
"Put it down."
Long Tian smiled.
He placed the sword against his knee.
Crack!
The blade snapped.
The sound echoed through the palace.
The broken pieces fell onto the golden floor.
Jian Chen stared at them.
His fingers slowly tightened against the altar.
But he remained silent.
Long Tian tossed the broken sword aside.
"Does it hurt?"
Jian Chen didn't answer.
His gaze had already moved beyond him.
It landed on the woman standing several steps behind.
Lin Xue'er.
His childhood sweetheart.
His fiancée.
For twenty years, she had been the person closest to him.
They had grown up together.
Trained together.
Laughed together.
Promised each other a future.
Jian Chen had once believed that no matter what happened, her heart would always be beside his.
But now she stood behind Long Tian.
Her expression was cold.
Jian Chen stared at her.
Then he spoke.
"Xue'er."
She met his gaze.
"In these twenty years..."
His voice was quiet.
"Was there ever a moment when your feelings for me were real?"
Lin Xue'er didn't hesitate.
"No."
The answer struck harder than any attack.
Jian Chen's pupils trembled almost imperceptibly.
She continued.
"Everything was for today."
She took a step forward.
"I stayed beside you because I needed your trust. I laughed with you because it made you lower your guard. I trained beside you because it allowed me to remain close enough to understand you."
Her expression remained emotionless.
"Every time you believed I cared, I succeeded."
Jian Chen listened without interrupting.
"When you were happy, I smiled."
"When you were troubled, I comforted you."
"When you doubted yourself, I encouraged you."
A faint coldness entered her voice.
"It was all an act."
Jian Chen's heart tightened.
Even their engagement...
"Even our engagement was part of the plan."
For the first time, the calmness in Jian Chen's eyes cracked.
Twenty years.
Memories flooded through his mind.
The first time they met.
The years they spent together.
The promises.
The laughter.
The moments he had believed were genuine.
One by one, they became meaningless.
Lin Xue'er looked directly into his eyes.
"Every smile, every promise, every memory you treasured..."
She paused.
"...was a lie."
Silence filled the palace.
Jian Chen closed his eyes.
For a moment, he allowed himself to remember.
Then he opened them.
The pain remained.
But something else had disappeared.
Hope.
"I understand."
Long Tian watched him with a faint smile.
"That's enough."
He raised his hand.
Golden spiritual energy gathered around his palm.
Jian Chen immediately recognized the killing intent.
He tried to move.
His body refused to respond.
There was nothing left.
Long Tian's expression became cold.
"Die."
Boom!
The golden energy struck Jian Chen between the brows.
His sea of consciousness shattered.
His soul trembled violently.
The world began to blur.
The sounds around him faded into the distance.
Jian Chen could no longer feel his body.
Darkness slowly surrounded his consciousness.
So this was death.
He had once imagined that his final moment would be accompanied by the sound of his sword.
Instead, there was only silence.
His consciousness sank deeper.
Yet one thought remained.
A single regret.
Not losing.
Not dying.
Not even being betrayed.
It was the twenty years he had given his heart to someone who had never given him hers.
His consciousness weakened.
But his will did not.
A sword could be broken.
A sword could be shattered.
But the will within it could never bend.
Jian Chen's final thought became a vow.
If there was another life...
He would no longer give his heart to another person.
He would give it to the Sword.
"If there is another life..."
His consciousness faded further.
"I shall devote my heart..."
Darkness swallowed everything.
"...only to the Sword."
His eyes closed.
Jian Chen died.
For several breaths, the ruins remained motionless.
Then
Hum!
A broken sword trembled.
Long Tian's expression changed.
Another sword trembled.
Then another.
Within moments, countless swords buried beneath the rubble began vibrating.
The entire palace seemed to resonate.
Long Tian looked around sharply.
"What..."
The trembling suddenly stopped.
Only one sword continued to move.
Deep beneath the ruins, an ancient sword slowly rose from the darkness.
Dust slid from its surface.
There was no terrifying aura.
No overwhelming pressure.
It simply floated upward.
The ancient sword turned.
Its tip pointed toward the place where Jian Chen had fallen.
It remained there.
Motionless.
As though waiting.
Then it slowly descended and vanished beneath the rubble.
The palace became silent again.
No one understood what had happened.
And far away, within the ancestral grounds of the Jian Clan
Hum!
An ancient sword suddenly trembled.
Several elders immediately turned toward it.
Their expressions changed.
That sword had not moved for ten thousand years.
"What's happening?"
Before anyone could approach
Crack!
A fracture appeared on the Jian Clan's Destiny Tablet.
The ancient tablet was covered with countless flames.
Each flame represented the destiny of a Jian Clan member.
One flame began flickering violently.
An elder stared at it.
His face drained of color.
"Jian Chen..."
The flame trembled.
Once.
Twice.
Then
It went out.
The elder froze.
"No..."
His voice was barely audible.
Then he suddenly shouted.
"NO!"
The ancestral grounds erupted.
Elders rushed toward the Destiny Tablet.
"Jian Chen's destiny flame disappeared!"
"Impossible!"
"He's dead?"
"How could this happen?"
"He's the greatest genius our clan has produced in countless years!"
"He was less than thirty!"
"He was the hope of the younger generation!"
"He had a chance to reach the Emperor Realm!"
The elders stared at the extinguished flame in disbelief.
Jian Chen's death wasn't merely the death of a young genius.
It was the loss of the future they had believed would carry the Jian Clan even higher.
Yet amid the chaos, one detail went unnoticed.
The ancient sword that had trembled for the first time in ten thousand years...
Stopped moving at the exact moment Jian Chen's destiny flame disappeared.
Somewhere beyond life and death
There was only darkness.
Jian Chen's consciousness drifted through an endless void.
He had no body.
No hands.
No eyes.
No sense of time.
He couldn't tell whether he had been there for a moment or an eternity.
Then
Thump.
A heartbeat.
Jian Chen's consciousness stirred.
Thump.
Another heartbeat.
Stronger.
Closer.
Something was drawing him toward it.
He didn't understand what it was.
He knew he had died.
Yet he could still feel something.
Warmth.
Life.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
The heartbeat grew louder.
Jian Chen instinctively moved toward it.
The darkness suddenly cracked.
A thread of light appeared.
His consciousness trembled.
He felt something alive.
Something small.
Something new.
Then his final vow echoed through the darkness.
"If there is another life..."
The light grew brighter.
"I shall devote my heart..."
The heartbeat became deafening.
"...only to the Sword."
Boom!
The darkness shattered.
White light swallowed everything.
Far away in the Divine Realm, the greatest genius the Jian Clan had produced had fallen.
His destiny flame had vanished.
His sword had been broken.
His name was destined to become a memory.
But the Destiny Tablet had only recorded his death.
It had not recorded what came after.
Beyond the boundary between life and death, a new destiny had already begun.
A heartbeat.
A new life.
And a destiny that had yet to be written.