Immortal of the Ages

"He actually consumed two Rank 10 Azure Kites!" The disbelief permeated through the crowd, hovering amidst the exasperated yells that clashed with the tranquil mist of the Sea of Swords. "He eradicated two future prodigies!"

Along the Azure Kite Street, throats scorched with anger unleashed thunderous roars, tonsils trembling amidst vehement outbursts.

"Only two?" Yun Xiao chuckled beneath his breath, smirking amidst the fervor of the enraged crowd. Their irate yells pierced through the air, reaching him even in the deepest abyss of the Sea of Swords, marking the chaos he'd invoked.

Swiftness was key! Promptly, he found himself atop a third Rank 10 Azure Kite, his sword gleaming, thrusting forward—a potent, swift stab!

The collective "Ahhhhh!" echoed as if Yun Xiao’s sword had impaled the masses themselves, their anguished screams intertwining with the Azure Kite's final cry, a symphony that made the clouds above the sea quiver.

The third Rank 10 Azure Kite was rapidly absorbed into his sword.

A sea of despondent voices washed over the scene. "Just one Rank 10 Azure Kite left! The Sea of Swords is devoid of hope now..."

With fierce pursuit, Yun Xiao tracked down the final Rank 10 Azure Kite, his sword dancing through the air once more.

"Sorry, folks, but it’s gone now!" Yun Xiao laughed, an unrestrained mirth mingling with an air of nonchalant malice.

As his voice melted into the thick air, the last Rank 10 Azure Kite screamed its demise, swallowed whole by the Heaven Burial Sword Soul!

Dissatisfaction bubbled within Yun Xiao! Within the confines of the Sea of Swords, aside from Ye Guying and Holy Son Chu, he hadn’t really wronged anyone. Why did they stand against him? Why were Flying Swords, devoid of mercy, assailing him at every step? Although others hadn’t outright bared their swords, their eyes couldn't have been more frigid?

"I might have upset the Forbidden Tower, but what’s that to you? Why this rush to kiss ass?" His words, an open challenge, hovered defiantly amidst the tumultuous sea.

A preemptive strike in the Sea of Swords?

Merely a smokescreen! He understood, scrutinizing the crowd of Sword Heaven folks. "Would they truly commence war with the Forbidden Tower just for me?" It was transparent—they only cared all about their own gain!

So. absorbing all four Rank 10 Azure Kites before this multitude, Yun Xiao's heart swelled with triumphant pleasure! Witnessing the despair that enveloped the faces of countless spectators, his satisfaction burgeoned further.

"Kissing ass to the Forbidden Tower, are we? Fine! I've plundered what was meant for your descendants!" Yun Xiao smirked.

Now, the central region of the Azure Kite Sea lay barren and forsaken.

Yun Xiao, casting his eyes downward, proclaimed, "Eighty layers of Sword Aura! Standing supreme atop the Sea of Swords!"

The quality of his Heaven Burial Sword Soul was superior, emanating a formidable eighty layers of azure Sword Aura, sharp and fearsomely robust. To the masses, Yun Xiao was likened to a child, albeit wielding a large, frighteningly sharp cleaver.

"From this moment forward," Yun Xiao declared with a chillingly calm smile, "whoever dares to cross swords with me, welcomes death!"

His eighty layers of Sword Aura whirled through Azure Kite Avenue like a fierce storm, repeatedly caressing the realm with a deadly embrace.

The crowd stood, petrified in stupefied silence!

Aloft the Spirit Treasure Walk, notables such as Ning Que, Patriarch Fan, and the Lin sibling duo were stricken, their faces blackened in defeat, an unnerving stillness entombing their luxurious chambers, hands beneath sleeves still trembling in unrestrained fury.

"What a freak!" Ning Yan finally exhaled, her words lost amidst the haunting silence.

The ruckus along Azure Kite Street was nothing shy of an uproar, stemming from the aftermath of a most unusual feast. Yun Xiao, refining four Rank 10 Azure Kites in a heartbeat. When Ye Guying had once secured a single one of these mythical creatures, the Sea of Swords had been alight with celebrations, drenched in euphoria. But now, with Yun Xiao's daring consumption, it bathed instead in a cascading waterfall of tears. No longer would young talents of the Sea of Swords slumber sweetly with dreams of Rank 10 Azure Kites.

A voice lingered over the stirred crowd, an audible whisper barely cutting through the disconcerted murmurs. "If he walks out of that Azure Kite Sea now and someone kills him, isn't that still a huge loss for us anyway?”

Another chimed in, tinged with reluctant awe, "That Sword Aura of his... it's soared over even the Forbidden Tower Lord by a solid twenty layers...”

A palpable, stifling silence blanketed the gathering, the hearts of many silently traversing a peculiar transformation. Yun Xiao, in their eyes, had morphed into a walking treasury—valuable yet dangerously volatile. He aroused irritation just by being, yet snuffing him out would be an act marred by regret.

Lin Lin's eyes spilled over, her voice scarcely above a whisper, quivering with grief. "Isn’t there some way, any way, to make him cough those Azure Kites back up?”

Lin Chen’s eyes, wild with a feral glow, shot back, “They’re gone, Lin Lin!” His dreams, tightly wound around those Rank 10 Azure Kites for years on end, now lay shattered, dissipated into nothingness. Whirling around, his intention to plunge into the ensuing chaos was stark.

Lin Chen, his voice a gritty whisper, resolve emanating from every word, confided, "He violated the sanctity of the Azure Kites. Rather than have him butchered by a disorderly, nameless mob, I shall obliterate him myself, to salvage the honor of Sword Heaven!”

Ning Que's grip tightened on his arm, his voice firm yet veiled with understanding, “No, Lin Chen. Your father, his wrath would be unbridled. You are his son; you cannot slap his face in disgrace.”

Lin Chen, desperate, urged, “Uncle Ning, let me go. He’s emerging from the Azure Kite Sea this very moment!”

But Ning Yan, a gentle smile gracing his features, calmly corrected, “No, no, Lin Chen. He hasn’t yet emerged.” A leisurely finger pointed towards the perplexing scene.

Lin Chen, along with everyone else, stood frozen, an array of stunned faces painting the scene. Why hadn’t he emerged yet? What, in the realms of heaven and earth, was the boy up to?

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In an entirely different turmoil, within the Rank Six Azure Kite zone, Fan Jian was on the verge of his own historical moment.

“It’s nearly a success!” he growled, a ferocious joy seeping through his words, every beat of his heart throbbing with unbridled exhilaration. Ninety-nine percent!

That Rank Six Azure Kite was almost completely enveloped by his Sword Soul, leaving just a fragment of a tail feather flirting outside its dominion.

Fan Jian, his voice a vibrant timbre of anticipation and restrained excitement, mused, “Ah, with this Rank Six Azure Kite in hand, my Sword Soul might very well evolve into Mid Planet grade! Coupled with this breakthrough to the Perfect Origin Core Realm, Ning Que will surely agree towards the union of Ning Jing and myself!”

His heart roared with elation as he thought of it. He had lingered in this waiting, for what felt an eternity! “Today, today shall mark my ascension!” He clenched his Sword Soul, eyes shutting in concentration, attuning himself to the Azure Kite within, ready to meld it thoroughly with his being. And then, it happened!

“Ah? Wait, what? WHAT! Why is this kite wandering off outwardly?” Fan Jian stood, a statue painted with perplexed shock. His eyes snapped open, a shimmer of shock scintillating in their depths.

There, a youth, shrouded in pallid robes, stood with a tranquil smile caressing his visage, his gaze affixed on Fan Jian. The latter’s eyes, laden with disbelief and confusion, traveled downward only to stiffen upon witnessing the Sword Soul—a tangible extension of one's martial spirit—tenderly, almost mockingly, perched upon a lone feather of the formidable Azure Kite.

Fan Jian blinked, his mind teetering on the verge of incomprehension.

“What in the—?”

How dare Yun Xiao stand before him, unabashed and poised for mischief? What was his game?

"Thanks, Dumbass! Dumb Fan? Fantard? I really like the ring of that!” Yun Xiao’s voice, amused and taunting, pierced the tense air.

“What the f—!” Fan Jian’s eyes flickered, refocusing with abrupt urgency. To his horror, the Rank Six Azure Kite, which had been almost entirely assimilated, was smoothly extracted by Yun Xiao’s azure Sword Soul.

Even the Rank Six Azure Kite paused, taken aback, before a melancholy cry escaped it, and it was engulfed by the Heaven Burial Sword Soul.

“Ah?” Fan Jian barely eked out, his voice a mere wisp of breath, as the surreal scene pummeled his understanding of reality.

“My Azure Kite… where?” His voice, a tremulous whisper, quivered as he gazed, eyes vacant yet edged with burgeoning madness, at his now barren sword.

“Too bad, so sad. I ate it.” Yun Xiao's words dripped with sardonic sorrow.

“You—” Rage, twisted and acidic, surged within Fan Jian, his veins pulsating with repressed fury.

With a casual chuckle, Yun Xiao’s Sword Soul swayed and then, with an exhilarating slash, it swept through the stagnant air—

KLANG!

“Oh, Gods! The pain!” A searing agony engulfed Fan Jian as his Sword Soul, now marred with intertwining fractures, shuddered violently.

“My Sword Soul!” His mind descended into a vacuous abyss, barely registering Yun Xiao’s Sword Soul, shrouded with its densely woven, lethal Sword Aura. Even with insufficient magic power, the mere graze of such Sword Aura against his own Sword Soul would spell his doom.

“AHH!” Screaming, Fan Jian plummeted through the encompassing mist, his anguished wails swallowed by the dark waters into which he cascaded.

The Azure Kite was no more, and his Sword Soul was shattered. Submerged in the abyssal depths, Fan Jian, eyes seething with a frenzied rage, writhed amidst impotent fury.

“Here’s hoping your Forbidden Tower stocks Sword Tempering Pills, hm?” Yun Xiao’s voice, now a distant echo, seemed almost an afterthought as his attention was usurped by another Heaven Chosen of the Forbidden Tower: Xiao Xing'er, the betrothed of Lin Chen.

Similar to Xiao Yu, she seemed a pillar of grace and magnanimity but beneath that veneer lurked a snide and haughty specter, ever-present and ever-poised to strike. Her Rank Six Azure Kite too was almost ninety percent assimilated.

When the woman’s eyes fell upon Yun Xiao, an unwavering, icy resolve crystallized in her gaze. “Listen here,” she declared, her words slicing through the air like a winter chill, “interfering with someone’s absorption of the Azure Kite breaches the stern laws of the Forbidden Tower. The penalty is death!”

Yun Xiao chuckled, his demeanor unfazed and eerily serene. “Are you touched in the head? A Death Decree from the Forbidden Tower already hangs over me. Do you think your laws scare me?”

A pause hitched Xiao Xing'er's breath, suspended in a brief trance of incredulity. Indeed, everyone feared the iron rules of the Forbidden Tower. Everyone but Yun Xiao.

“You—!” Xiao Xing'er cried out.

But before the words fully left her mouth, Yun Xiao, his laugh cool and disdainful, mocked, “Seeking to inherit the Azure Kite, are we? Wishful thinking!” He extended his Sword Soul, piercing the remaining external segment of the Rank Six Azure Kite.

“What on earth—” Xiao Xing'er’s eyes, wide in baffled disbelief, tracked her nearly-secured Rank Six Azure Kite as Yun Xiao ruthlessly yanked it from her, absorbing it whole.

A klang echoed through the space as Yun Xiao, with a sleek, reverse slash, struck her sword. Xiao Xing'er, pallid and emitting a spray of blood, collapsed into the water with a splash, swallowing mouthfuls of the liquid in her stupefaction.

“Xing'er!” Lin Chen, atop the Spirit Treasure Walk, felt the bloody threads in his eyes expand threefold.

“Sister Xing'er...” Lin Lin, retreating three steps, missed her chair and crumpled to the ground, her heart enshrouded in despair.

“This is madness!” Patriach Fan, hurling his cup with a vehement motion, his eyes sparking with golden ire, commanded, “To the entrance of the Azure Kite Sea!”

With the clouds above cascading a potent drama, who possessed the leisure to bear witness? His son's fate was veiled in obscurity!

“That weakling trash with his low cultivation… He's taking advantage of the Sword Aura layers he gained from absorbing the Azure Kites to ambush others! How despicable…!" Lin Lin, her voice serrated with fury, couldn’t fathom the existence of such a villain.

Just as her words wilted in the charged air, shrieks of alarm erupted from Azure Kite Street.

“What’s he doing?”

Chaos ensued!

“Only thirty Rank Six Azure Kites remain. Does he intend to consume them all?”

Terrified screams punctured the tense atmosphere.

“My Rank Six Azure Kite?” Lin Lin felt thunderstruck, her future endeavors hanging by a thread. Scrambling to her feet, she gazed, wide-eyed, as Yun Xiao careened through the Azure Kite Sea, one sword stroke per Rank Six Azure Kite, a gluttonous beast in human form, his avarice touching zeniths!

He spared not a single one. This was a maelstrom of greed, wrath, and foolishness! In the shell of the Creator Immortal, there resided the wrathful spirit of a mortal emperor.

If a semblance of fairness lingered in the Sea of Swords, Yun Xiao might have harbored restraint.

Everyone was discontented?

“Let’s make it utterly so!”

Even Ning Yan, witnessing this spectacle, was rendered slack-jawed. “Yun Xiao, don’t!”

Alas, her plea sailed into the void, forever out of Yun Xiao’s reach.

Ning Yan wasn't worried about Yun Xiao's safety, despite the absence of the Sword Lord, who undoubtedly lingered nearby. Her concern was tethered to those Rank Six Azure Kites. If Yun Xiao devoured them all, what hope remained for her descendants?

Wait a moment. "I only have one heir, and she's in Azure Spirit..." A flicker of apathy crossed her thoughts. "Damn, this has nothing to do with me."

Yun Xiao continued to devour. Each slash, each exquisite creature, dissolved into nothingness by Yun Xiao’s Sword. The tragic demise of the Rank Six Azure Kites invoked a melancholy that overshadowed the elusive Rank 10 Azure Kites; because the dreams of many a man were tethered to the tangible, not the unattainable. He swallowed their dreams, each one gliding smoothly down his voracious maw.

“Yun Xiao, heaven will not share its sky with you!” One man bellowed, hands outstretched, desperation etching lines across his face.

“Ah, for mercy’s sake! Leave just one,” pleaded another, his voice a ragged whisper woven with a string of despondency.

Yun Xiao, relentless, left none of their dreams intact, save for one kite that fluttered perilously on Ning Jing’s sword, ninety-five percent of its essence already consumed.

Her eyes, having witnessed the decimation of hopes, beheld Yun Xiao with a surrendering despair as he turned his eyes on her prize.

"Alas…” Ning Jing exhaled, her voice a quiet resignation.

"You're a good sort," Yun Xiao remarked, “silent, offering me fairness.” And then, oddly, he drifted past her, veering toward the Rank Three Azure Kites.

Ning Jing lingered, frozen in puzzled relief.

"I've ninety layers of Sword Aura," Yun Xiao mused aloud. "My sword is unmatched in hardness and sharpness now. Shall we stop absorbing, perhaps?"

"If you absorbed them all, you might crack a hundred," Blue Star chuckled, a wicked glint flickering across his eyes. “Why stop now?”

Yun Xiao's gaze lifted. The entrance to the Azure Kite Sea swarmed with furious Sword Cultivators, restrained only by a formidable array set by the Heavenly Realm. Absent this celestial intervention, Yun Xiao’s fate would have been sealed, his form dissected by a thousand swords.

"Come, Yun Xiao! Meet your demise!” The voices echoed, anger billowing in their wake.

“A waste! A heavenly waste!” Another voice cried, lamenting the devoured divine creatures.

The Azure Kites, gifts of the Heavenly Realm, were indeed celestial.

Upon witnessing the wrathful standstill, Yun Xiao's lips curved into a frosty, sardonic smile. “Well then, don’t fault me for what comes next!”

He stepped lightly upon the surface of the sea, sword propelling him into the Rank Three Azure Kites, those that numbered just under a hundred.

Yun Xiao absorbed them with a harrowing efficiency, his power draining each heavenly being, one by one, as he traversed through them.

"Yun Xiao!" Patriarch Fan, surrounded by individuals from the Forbidden Tower, bellowed from beyond the barrier, a ferocious timbre in his voice. "Defile the Azure Kites further, and you will perish without a grave to mark your passing!"

“Ah! Such scrumptious birds!” Yun Xiao called, a playful malignancy in his voice. "Fancy a bite? Oh, too late, ha!"

The outside erupted in chaos.

The Sword Cultivators, fury incarnate, unleashed their sword souls upon the array, repulsed with violent rebounds, blood painting their forms in defeat.

Yun Xiao, with his poised defiance, drew the ire of the masses in the Sea of Swords. Lin Chen and Ning Que, along with a cadre of Sword Heaven’s Sword Cultivators, warned in an icy tone, “Yun Xiao, the Azure Kites are a divine gift from the heavens to the myriad generations of the Sea of Swords! By seizing the fortune meant for the descendants of the Sea of Swords, your transgressions are unforgivable! Not even the Sword Lord can shield you from retribution!”

But Yun Xiao, garbed in his unblemished white robes, laughed off their fury. “Wrong! The heavens never declared that these Azure Kites couldn’t be inherited by a single person, did they? Can I not match ten thousand generations of the Sea of Swords’ progeny alone?” In the face of tens of thousands of enraged, frustrated gazes, he absorbed all of the Rank Three Azure Kites entirely, unabashed and audacious in his mockery.

Screams of agony pierced through the Sea of Swords. Every individual felt as though their insides were being torn apart.

“There are no more high rank Azure Kites in the Sea of Swords! Future prodigies will never compare to those of the present!” Wails of despair filled the air.

Rank Three Azure Kites and above were considered high rank—a privilege only for the gifted. The Rank One Azure Kites, albeit numbering ten thousand or so and being a top-tier commoner's asset, now seemed a petty comfort.

It was a day of collective mourning for all the Sword Cultivators as they gazed, stunned and bloodshot, at the young man in white.

Lin Lin slapped herself, anguish painted on her face. “I've just absorbed a Rank One Azure Kite, and haven’t even started on a Rank Three Azure Kite! Now there’s nothing left...” Even though she’d mocked repeatedly, in reality, this young man had driven her to the brink.

“Yun Xiao, come forth and meet your death!” The roar of tens of thousands filled the air.

Yun Xiao retorted, "Already angered? Don’t rush; there’s more to come!”

A collective shiver ran down the spines of the tens of thousands present. More? What else did he intend to do? And then, realization dawned upon them.

“NO!!!” In the instant when countless screams erupted, Yun Xiao’s Flying Sword aimed at the last ten thousand Rank One Azure Kites. Upon his approach, these azure birds, as if meeting the harbinger of death, screeched and scattered in frantic escape.

“Damn it! If you dare allow Creator to enter, from today forth, there will be no more Azure Kite Sea in this world!” Blue Star cackled wildly.

“When Creator marches, not a single blade of grass shall grow!” Red Moon exclaimed in exhilaration.

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