Chapter 236: The Mystery Unravels
"Immortal Art: Tianji!"
A terrifying eruption of True Qi, dense with raw, crushing physical force, blasted outward. The impact caught Jiang Wanxi entirely off guard. She was violently thrown backward, her body skipping across the unforgiving ground like a broken doll. She collapsed in a tangled heap, a sharp cough tearing from her throat as dark blood spilled over her lips.
Her cultivation was nowhere near Ma Feima's level, making her hopelessly outmatched against someone as monstrously powerful as Rovel.
The grip she held on her weapon faltered. The Wind-Clear Willow slipped from her trembling fingers, clattering harshly against the stone. In a flash of fading light, the weapon shed its unique guise, reverting to the heavy, unadorned golden form of a dormant Xuanyuan Sword.
"Rovel, you..." Jingwei's breath hitched. Seeing him strike down Jiang Wanxi so ruthlessly and without a single word of warning left the immortal deeply shaken.
If she hadn't seen with her own eyes that his body was completely free of the telltale purple veins of corruption, she would have instantly assumed he had fallen to the madness.
Rovel calmly stepped forward, his boots crunching against the debris. He reached down, effortlessly lifting the heavy Xuanyuan Sword, and offered the golden blade to his former teacher.
"Master. Take it," he said, his voice steady and devoid of malice.
Jingwei fell silent. Her azure eyes searched his face for a long moment, looking for any trace of the boy she once knew, before she slowly extended her hand and accepted the legendary blade.
"Senior Brother..." Jiang Wanxi gasped, struggling to push herself up on her elbows. A fresh trail of crimson tracked down her pale chin as she stared at Rovel in utter disbelief. "Senior Brother... why... why are you still alive?"
Her mind spun in chaotic circles. Jingwei had explicitly told them that Rovel had fallen to corruption and had been executed by her own hand.
Rovel didn't even spare her a glance. His attention remained entirely fixed on Jingwei, for this was a mystery he was equally desperate to unravel.
"Master," he began, his tone softening just a fraction. "Back then, in the freezing wastes of the Northern Barrens... why didn't you execute me after I became corrupted?"
Jingwei closed her eyes. For several agonizing seconds, she stood perfectly still, sifting through the fractured, burning remnants of her memories, searching the ashes of her past for the truth. When her eyes finally fluttered open, a deep weariness lingered in their depths.
"I did find you in the Northern Barrens that day," she murmured, her voice barely carrying over the wind. "You had already fallen to the corruption. The Divine Sound... the voice echoing endlessly in my mind... it screamed at me to strike you down. To fulfill my duty."
She paused, her grip tightening on the Xuanyuan Sword. "But then... I saw it. As you instinctively channeled the Liangyi Immortal Art in your delirium, the purple veins of corruption spreading across your flesh weren't advancing. They were receding. The process was agonizingly slow, but it was happening."
"That tiny sliver of hope was all I needed. I used it as an excuse to defy the voice in my head. I drew upon the power of the Xuanyuan Sword to encase you in a temporary crystal seal, preserving your life."
"To ensure you wouldn't shatter the ice if the corruption suddenly overwhelmed you, I made a vow to visit the Northern Barrens once every year to monitor your condition," Jingwei finished, her voice dropping to a melancholic whisper.
Rovel's chest tightened. She spoke of it so plainly, as if it were a simple choice, but he knew the terrifying truth. Resisting the absolute mandate of the Divine Sound was akin to having one's soul repeatedly torn apart. The agony she must have endured to spare his life was unimaginable.
"So, that day..." Rovel pieced the final fragments together, his eyes widening slightly. "When you left Taixu Mountain shortly before the disciples turned on you... you were traveling to the Northern Barrens to check on me?" He took a slow breath. "Master... you were hoping to use my recovery as a blueprint to save Jiang Wanru, weren't you?"
The realization hit him like a physical blow. If his desperate fusion of True Qi and physical force could genuinely reverse the irreversible process of corruption, then the ancient, ironclad law of Taixu—the corrupted must be executed—would be broken forever. Jiang Wanru, who had been teetering on the edge of corruption, would have a genuine chance at salvation.
Under Jiang Wanxi's wide, incredulous gaze, Jingwei slowly, solemnly nodded.
That single, quiet nod struck Jiang Wanxi with the force of a thunderbolt. A deafening, high-pitched ringing erupted in her ears, drowning out the ambient sounds of the world. And within that piercing static, she heard the unmistakable, catastrophic sound of her entire worldview shattering into a million jagged pieces.
Jingwei had absolutely no reason to lie. Deception served no purpose for the immortal now.
The horrific irony of it all clawed at her throat. Her master had descended the mountain, braving the bitter cold of the Northern Barrens to find a miracle cure for her sister. Yet she, driven by a desperate, blinding need to protect that very same sister, had swallowed Su Mei's poisonous lies. She had driven her blade into her master's back.
The absolute truth had finally been laid bare, but it was far, far too late. The blood had been spilled. The sin had been committed. There was no turning back the clock.
A single, heavy tear spilled from the corner of Jiang Wanxi's eye. It traced a clean line through the blood and dirt on her cheek before falling, striking the stone floor and shattering like the crystal seal that had once held Rovel.
"This is exactly why you never truly understood Master," Rovel said, his voice cold and cutting. "She adhered to the absolute law that the corrupted must be executed because she had to. But the deep gentleness in her heart? That never faded."
With a sharp, metallic ring, Rovel unsheathed his own Xuanyuan Sword. The golden blade hummed with lethal intent.
"Even after you all conspired to murder her, her only thought upon returning was to reclaim the Xuanyuan Swords. These divine weapons were entrusted to you to protect the common people from the Honkai." Rovel's eyes narrowed, his aura flaring dangerously. "But now... you are no longer worthy of holding one!"
He raised the gleaming blade high above his head, the edge catching the ambient light. Jiang Wanxi didn't flinch. She simply closed her eyes, letting her body go limp as she stopped struggling. If this was to be her execution, then so be it. Perhaps this was the divine retribution she had earned.
'Master... I'm so sorry...' she thought, awaiting the final strike.
Suddenly, a bizarre, melodious vibration hummed through the air. The strange frequency struck Rovel's senses like a physical blow. The world violently pitched sideways, his equilibrium completely shattered. He staggered, nearly tumbling to the ground as his vision swam in dizzying circles.
It was the unique ability of the Xuanyuan Sword, Luo Wuzhe! The insidious power instantly stripped its target of their spatial awareness, turning their own senses against them.
"Sister!" A familiar, desperate voice pierced the disorientation.
Jiang Wanxi snapped her eyes open. Seizing the momentary distraction, she scrambled to her feet and sprinted frantically back toward the safety of the inner courtyard.
By the time Rovel managed to steady his footing and shake off the nauseating vertigo, Li Sushang and the rest of their group had finally caught up, rushing onto the scene.
Jingwei turned her gaze toward the approaching footsteps. The moment her eyes locked onto the distinct, elegant hilt of the Xuanyuan Sword strapped to Li Sushang's back, the immortal froze, completely stunned.
"Adept Jingwei," Li Sushang began, her chest heaving slightly as she stepped forward. "Please, answer one question for me." She stared directly into the immortal's eyes, her expression a turbulent mix of grief and determination. "My mother, Qin Suyi... was she killed by your hand?!"
Despite trusting Rovel's judgment implicitly, Sushang needed absolute closure. She needed to hear the unvarnished truth directly from the legendary martial myth herself.
"Are you... Suyi's daughter?" Jingwei asked softly, her gaze drifting back to the weapon. "Then that sword on your back..."
"It is the Xuanyuan Sword my mother passed down to me," Sushang replied, her eyes burning with fierce intensity as she waited for the verdict that would define her vengeance.
"...I did not kill Suyi," Jingwei stated, her tone perfectly calm and resolute. "Nor did she ever reveal the whereabouts of her sword, Ink-Dyed Fragrance, to me. I only know that shortly after I departed from Yijian Villa, a raging fire mysteriously consumed the estate."
"..." Sushang fell silent. The tension in her shoulders remained rigid for a long, agonizing moment before she took a deep, shuddering breath. She forced her racing heart to calm, processing the immortal's words. Finally, she gave a firm nod.
"I believe you, Grandmaster Jingwei."
"Grandmaster?" Jingwei blinked, genuinely taken aback by the respectful, familial title.
"She is my direct disciple. So naturally, she addresses you as Grandmaster, or Great Master," a cool, detached voice chimed in from the side.
Jingwei shifted her gaze, her eyes widening slightly as they landed on the speaker. "You are... Lingshuang?" The immortal stared in disbelief. Cheng Lingshuang's once-dark hair had turned completely, starkly white. If not for the familiar, icy resonance of her Qi, Jingwei might not have recognized her most talented pupil.
"Yes..." Lingshuang replied, her expression unreadable. "Back then, I deeply resented you for executing Senior Brother. It was because of that lingering anger that I chose to stand aside and do nothing when the others attacked you. But..." Her brow furrowed in genuine confusion. "Why didn't you just tell me he wasn't dead?"
"...Because I had no way of knowing if he would actually survive," Jingwei answered softly. "I didn't know how many years it would take Rovel to perfect that theoretical technique. It could have taken ten years, twenty years, or perhaps even a century..."
"And if he ultimately failed to reverse the corruption," the immortal added, her voice hardening with ancient resolve, "I would have returned to the Northern Barrens and executed him myself. Without hesitation."
"What Master means," Rovel interjected, finally steadying his breathing and stepping up beside them, "is that she didn't want to give you false hope. If she had told you I was alive, only for me to succumb to the corruption years later, the resulting despair would have shattered you completely. The emotional blow would have been far worse."
He sighed inwardly. Even after experiencing death and resurrection, his master was still hopelessly prone to speaking in half-truths and riddles, carrying the emotional burdens of the world entirely on her own shoulders.
"So... you actually succeeded?" Jingwei turned her full attention back to Rovel. She scanned his physique carefully, confirming once again that there was absolutely no trace of Honkai erosion left in his system.
"I did," Rovel smiled faintly, "though to be honest, I'm still a bit fuzzy on the exact mechanics of how I survived. I managed to perfectly fuse the raw physical force and the True Qi within my meridians into a singular, balanced power. I only woke from the ice a few days ago."
It was a staggering feat. Even with Rovel's monstrous talent and system-assisted comprehension, it had taken him nearly thirty years of agonizing, unconscious cultivation to complete the internal transformation.
For an ordinary martial artist, merely mastering the bodily limits of physical force would require over a decade of bone-breaking labor. Comprehending the deep depths of the Liangyi Immortal Art would easily demand another thirty years of isolated meditation. As for attempting to forcefully fuse the two opposing energies together? It was a suicidal endeavor that could take lifetimes to even conceptualize.
Rovel had managed to grasp the Liangyi Immortal Art in just a few short years. By comparison, Ma Feima—whose martial talent was widely considered second only to Cheng Lingshuang's—had spent decades cultivating, yet he hadn't even managed to scratch the absolute surface of the technique.
In the end, the frustrated prodigy had been forced to abandon it entirely, resigning himself to exclusively studying the standard Taixu Sword Qi.
And the fusion process itself was a waking nightmare. For Rovel, every single second spent merging the energies felt like walking barefoot across a razor-thin tightrope suspended over an abyss.
The balance required absolute perfection. If he allowed even a fraction too much physical force to dominate, the volatile energy would violently spiral out of control, rupturing his meridians and skewering his internal organs from the inside out.
Conversely, if his True Qi flared too brightly, the dense Honkai energy laced within it would instantly erode his mortal flesh, permanently mutating him into a mindless Death Soldier.
Thus, while Rovel had miraculously succeeded in carving out a path to salvation, it was a hyper-lethal, one-in-a-million gamble. It was a miracle that would be practically impossible for anyone else to replicate.
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