Heavenly Sword Saint
Sunlight slipped through the cracks of the old wooden window, casting thin golden lines across the dusty floor.
Jian Chen slowly opened his eyes.
For several breaths, he remained still, staring at the unfamiliar ceiling above him.
His body felt heavy.
A dull ache spread through his chest, back, and limbs. Even breathing deeply caused pain in his ribs, while every attempt to move reminded him just how weak this body was.
Jian Chen frowned.
This wasn't the ancient palace.
His last memory had been the cold sensation of a sword piercing through his back.
Lin Xue'er's sword.
Her voice.
The smile on her face.
Long Tian's mocking laughter.
The countless ancient swords suspended above the palace.
Then came the collapse of his soul.
Jian Chen's gaze gradually turned cold.
"So I'm not dead."
His voice sounded hoarse and unfamiliar even to himself.
He slowly raised his hand.
A slender, pale hand entered his vision.
Jian Chen stared at it.
It was far smaller than the hand he remembered.
He pushed himself upright and examined his body more carefully.
There were no scars left behind by years of battle. His hands lacked the thick calluses formed from holding a sword every day. His muscles were weak, his bones were fragile, and even his breathing lacked the strength he had once taken for granted.
This body was incredibly weak.
Jian Chen turned toward a bronze basin resting on a nearby wooden table.
The water inside was still enough to reflect his appearance.
He walked over.
When he saw the reflection, his footsteps stopped.
A young face stared back at him.
Sixteen years old.
His features were delicate yet sharp, his eyes clear, his brows straight, his nose well-defined, and his complexion almost flawless.
Jian Chen stared at his reflection for several breaths.
Then he couldn't help muttering,
"I thought I was already quite handsome in my previous life."
He tilted his head slightly and examined the young face again.
"But this boy..."
A faint smile appeared on his lips.
"He's on an entirely different level."
Jian Chen shook his head with a quiet laugh.
"At least the heavens haven't treated me too badly."
The amusement soon faded.
A handsome face was meaningless in the cultivation world.
No matter how flawless one's appearance was, it could not stop an enemy's sword.
Strength could.
That was something Jian Chen understood better than anyone.
In his previous life, he had been born into the Jian Clan, one of the powerful clans of the Divine Realm. From childhood, he had been surrounded by geniuses, ancient cultivators, supreme treasures, and experts whose strength could shake entire regions.
He had climbed from a talented young cultivator to the greatest genius his clan had produced in countless generations.
He had seen too many people rely on talent, background, treasures, or connections, only to fall when they encountered someone stronger.
He had also learned that the cultivation world had no shortage of people willing to become your friend while you were useful and your enemy the moment you possessed something they wanted.
He had experienced that lesson personally.
He would not make the same mistake twice.
Jian Chen closed his eyes.
At that moment, unfamiliar memories suddenly flooded into his mind.
Moonriver City.
The Jian Clan.
A sixteen-year-old boy named Jian Chen.
The boy was also a young master of the Jian Clan, yet unlike the Jian Chen he remembered, he had never been able to cultivate.
His meridians had been blocked since birth.
Because of that, he had become the laughingstock of the clan.
His father had disappeared many years ago, leaving Liu Ruyan to raise him alone. She had spent countless treasures searching for methods to heal his meridians, but every attempt had failed.
Then, yesterday, Jian Hu and several other Jian Clan disciples had cornered him.
They had mocked him for being useless.
They had insulted him.
Then they had beaten him until he lost consciousness.
His already frail body had been unable to endure the injuries.
And that was where the original owner's life had ended.
Jian Chen slowly opened his eyes.
"So that's how it is."
He had not survived.
He had been reborn.
And strangely enough, this body carried the same name.
Jian Chen remained silent as he processed the information.
Rebirth was not unheard of in the cultivation world. In his previous life, he had encountered ancient records describing cultivators who had escaped death through mysterious means.
But legends were one thing.
Personally experiencing reincarnation was another.
His soul had been destroyed.
He remembered it clearly.
The sword had pierced his body, but that had not been what truly killed him.
His soul had shattered afterward.
There should have been nothing left.
Yet he was here.
Jian Chen lowered his gaze.
Something had happened between his death and his awakening.
He needed to understand what.
His mind began sorting through the memories of this new body.
Moonriver City.
The Jian Clan.
The surrounding territories.
The cultivation system.
The current distribution of powerful forces.
The names of ancient figures preserved in historical records.
The more he examined them, the more certain he became that something was wrong.
At first, Jian Chen considered the possibility that only several decades had passed.
That was the simplest explanation.
But it didn't fit.
He then considered a century.
Still impossible.
The changes were too extensive.
Several forces that had once dominated entire regions were no longer mentioned. Territories had changed hands. Certain cultivation techniques that had once been widely known had become ancient remnants. Even the names of some famous figures had disappeared from the history that survived in this era.
Jian Chen didn't rely on a single clue.
He began piecing together the passage of time.
He compared the ages of historical figures with the lifespans associated with their cultivation realms. He examined the recorded cycles of secret realms and the rise and fall of ancient forces. He compared the current territories with those he remembered from the Divine Realm.
One year.
Ten years.
A hundred years.
His expression gradually became more serious.
The numbers continued to move forward in his mind.
Five hundred years.
Eight hundred.
Nine hundred.
Then everything aligned.
Jian Chen's eyes narrowed.
"A thousand years..."
His voice was barely above a whisper.
"A thousand years have passed."
He was completely still.
A thousand years.
The realization carried more weight than he expected.
He couldn't imagine what had happened during this thousand year that he was dead
How was the Jian Clan, what has happened in the divine realm.
The world had continued moving forward without him.
Jian Chen slowly exhaled.
Yet he didn't allow himself to become overwhelmed by grief.
He understood the cultivation world.
Ordinary people lived ordinary lives.
Cultivators were different.
The stronger one became, the longer one's lifespan could be.
Those standing at the highest realms could survive for centuries or even thousands of years.
Therefore, there was one possibility he could not ignore.
Lin Xue'er.
Long Tian.
If the two of them had continued cultivating after his death, a thousand years might not have been enough to erase them from the world.
The thought caused his eyes to turn cold.
Memories he had deliberately pushed aside returned with perfect clarity.
The ancient palace.
The sword entering his back.
Lin Xue'er's face.
Her words.
She had never loved him.
She loved Long Tian.
And Long Tian had stood nearby, laughing as Jian Chen struggled against death.
They had believed that the ancient palace contained an extraordinary opportunity.
Something worth killing him for.
Yet after Jian Chen's death, they had searched.
They had searched his body.
His spatial ring.
The altar.
The ruins.
Everywhere they could think of.
But they had found nothing.
No supreme treasure.
No ancient manual.
No divine artifact.
No clue explaining what had truly happened.
Jian Chen had died without ever discovering the reason for his betrayal.
His hands slowly tightened.
"So a thousand years have passed..."
There was no fury in his voice.
Only cold determination.
"Then I suppose the heavens have given me another chance."
He looked toward the window.
"I don't care how much the world has changed."
His gaze sharpened.
"I don't care whether the Jian Clan still remembers my name."
He paused.
"I don't care how powerful Lin Xue'er and Long Tian have become."
His fingers slowly curled into a fist.
"I will find them."
"And I will make them pay."
Silence filled the room.
Jian Chen's expression remained calm.
"If they are still alive..."
His eyes became cold enough to freeze the air.
"I will personally collect the debt they owe me."
He raised his hand and stared at his palm.
"I swear upon my Sword Dao."
"I will avenge my death."
The vow settled deep within his heart.
But Jian Chen knew better than to let hatred cloud his judgment.
Revenge could wait.
First, he needed strength.
Hatred could give someone the courage to swing a sword.
It could not make that sword strong enough to kill an enemy.
Jian Chen understood the difference between cultivation realms better than most people.
He had once stood at the summit of his generation.
He knew exactly how terrifying the difference between minor realms could become.
He also knew that the barrier between major realms was not something determination alone could overcome.
His former cultivation was gone.
His former body was gone.
His former status was gone.
Right now, he was nothing more than a sixteen-year-old boy whose cultivation had not even begun.
If he wanted revenge, he would have to climb from the very bottom once again.
There was no shortcut.
At least, there shouldn't have been.
Jian Chen suddenly remembered something.
The jade scroll.
His expression immediately became serious.
Just before Lin Xue'er's sword had pierced his body, the ancient jade scroll he had discovered within the ruined altar had suddenly changed.
It had dissolved into countless streams of golden light.
Those streams had entered his body.
Then his soul had shattered.
Jian Chen's eyes narrowed.
"Could it be..."
He immediately sat down on the bed.
Closing his eyes, he directed his consciousness inward.
Darkness surrounded him.
There was no sky.
No earth.
Only an endless black sea stretching into nothingness.
At its center floated a golden scroll.
Jian Chen's pupils contracted.
The ancient scroll looked almost exactly as he remembered it.
Yet something had changed.
Countless mysterious markings covered its surface.
They were shaped like swords.
Every rune was different.
Some resembled flowing sword light.
Others looked like ancient sword inscriptions.
Jian Chen stared at them carefully.
He couldn't understand their meaning.
But as a swordsman who had devoted his entire previous life to the Sword Dao, he could sense something extraordinary hidden within them.
These weren't ordinary words.
They seemed to be manifestations of the Sword Dao itself.
Yet the scroll did not release any terrifying pressure.
There was no overwhelming aura.
No divine light.
No destructive force.
It simply floated silently in the darkness.
That silence made Jian Chen even more cautious.
Anything capable of carrying his soul across death and a thousand years could not be ordinary.
His gaze became solemn.
"The Heavenly Sword Scripture..."
He stared at the golden scroll.
"So it really followed me."
Jian Chen slowly approached it.
"Was it you?"
He extended his spiritual sense.
The instant his spiritual sense touched the golden scroll
Knock! Knock!
A sudden sound came from outside.
Jian Chen immediately opened his eyes.
The golden scroll vanished from his perception.
He turned toward the door.
"Chen'er?"
A woman's anxious voice came from outside.
Before Jian Chen could respond, the door opened.
A graceful woman in her early thirties hurried inside.
She wore simple clothes, and her elegant features were softened by the exhaustion visible in her eyes.
The moment she saw Jian Chen sitting upright on the bed, tears immediately filled her eyes.
"You're finally awake."
She rushed to his side and grabbed his shoulders.
"You frightened Mother to death."
Jian Chen remained silent for a moment.
Mother.
The word struck him strangely.
It felt unfamiliar.
Yet at the same time, it carried a warmth he had not expected.
The woman carefully examined his injuries.
"Does anything hurt?"
"I'm fine."
"How can you be fine?"
Her voice trembled.
"You were beaten so badly. The guards told me you fell accidentally, but I don't believe them."
Her expression hardened.
"Whoever did this must answer for it."
Another figure appeared behind her.
A young girl around fourteen years old stood in the doorway, holding a steaming bowl of medicine.
Her eyes were red from crying.
"Young Master..."
Her voice trembled.
"You finally woke up. I..."
She lowered her head and quickly wiped her eyes.
"I thought..."
The words refused to leave her mouth.
Jian Chen looked at her carefully.
Her name was Xiao Yue.
She had lost her parents when she was young, and Liu Ruyan had taken her into the family.
Although she was officially a maid, Liu Ruyan had never treated her like one.
To Jian Chen, she was closer to a younger sister.
He looked at the two figures standing before him.
Something inside his chest quietly softened.
In his previous life, his parents had loved him.
He knew that.
But he had entered the ancestral grounds at a young age and devoted almost everything to the Sword Dao.
As his talent became known throughout the Divine Realm, countless people admired him.
Countless people feared him.
Countless people wanted to associate themselves with him.
But very few cared about Jian Chen himself.
Not the genius.
Not the young master.
Not the future Emperor.
Just Jian Chen.
And eventually, two of the people he trusted most had betrayed him.
Yet now, after awakening in an unfamiliar world, the first people he saw were crying because they were afraid they had lost him.
It was a feeling he had almost forgotten.
Jian Chen looked at Liu Ruyan.
"Mother..."
Liu Ruyan froze.
Jian Chen gave her a faint smile.
"I'm fine."
His voice softened.
"I've made you worry."
Liu Ruyan immediately pulled him into her arms.
"You fool."
She held him tightly.
"Do you know how frightened I was?"
Jian Chen didn't answer.
He simply remained there.
For a moment, he closed his eyes.
The warmth was real.
And strangely, it felt precious.
A thousand years had passed.
The world he knew was gone.
The people he had loved were most likely buried beneath the passage of time.
His enemies might still be alive.
The truth behind his death remained hidden.
And somewhere deep within his consciousness rested a mysterious golden scripture that might have carried his soul across the boundary between life and death.
There were countless questions waiting for him.
But for the first time since awakening, Jian Chen realized that his second life did not have to revolve entirely around revenge.
Perhaps this time, he could experience the things he had neglected in his previous life.
Family.
Companionship.
A life that truly belonged to him.
That did not mean he would abandon his path.
He would cultivate.
He would regain the strength he had once possessed.
He would uncover the truth behind his death.
And if Lin Xue'er and Long Tian were still alive after a thousand years...
He would find them.
The golden scroll remained silent within the depths of his consciousness.
Waiting.
Jian Chen slowly opened his eyes and looked through the window at the unfamiliar world outside.
He didn't know what awaited him.
He didn't know how much the world had changed.
He didn't know what secrets were hidden within the Heavenly Sword Scripture.
But he knew one thing.
A thousand years had passed.
The world had changed.
But his vow had not.
This time, he would write his own destiny.
And whoever stood in his path would have to face the sword of Jian Chen.