From a loser to an immortal sage

Chapter 499 Summoning and Trial

The sword sheath shook so much that the table was rattling. My outstretched hand was burned and I pulled it back, and red marks immediately appeared on my fingertips.

Just as Wen Chen's sword energy was about to envelop the golden light, I hurriedly tugged at his sleeve: "Don't stop me." When he turned to look at me, the red veins at the corners of his eyes spread out like a spider web—he hadn't closed his eyes since the strange movement in my sea of ​​consciousness last night.

"Your palm is bleeding." His voice was hoarse as he gently brushed his thumb against my injured fingertip, but dared not press too hard. "Ah Yao, the fluctuations in this light feel like they could overturn the entire Demon-Slaying Peak."

I gazed at the sword sheath hanging in front of the window; in the golden light, I could vaguely see the runes flowing, like living golden snakes.

The light that leaked from the crack in the jade tablet last night suddenly became clear in my memory—it turned out I wasn't mistaken; the color of that light was exactly the same as the golden light on the sword sheath at this moment.

“It’s calling me.” I licked my dry lips, a sweet, metallic taste suddenly rising in my throat. “It’s like…like the jade tablet in my mind is calling it, or it’s calling the jade tablet.”

Wen Chen's Adam's apple bobbed, and his grip on my wrist tightened and loosened, before he simply wrapped his outer robe around my hand: "Use this as a pad." His fingertips were still frosty, probably to keep me from getting burned again.

The moment the sword sheath floated out of the window, the entire Zhuxie Peak exploded.

"Look! The golden light at the summit!"

"It's Fairy Xiao's sword sheath! Could it be the legendary...?"

"Shh—can't you see Immortal Venerable Wen is here too?"

The murmurs surged like a tide. I gripped the scabbard through Wen Chen's outer robe. This time, the heat penetrated the fabric, but it wasn't as scorching as before. It felt more like I was confirming something.

Wen Chen placed his hand on the back of my neck, slowly channeling his spiritual energy into me to suppress my surging spiritual energy: "Follow it."

As we walked through the corridor, Zi Ling ran from around the corner, holding a medicine bottle, the amethyst on her hairpin jingling: "Fairy Xiao!"

"I heard from my disciple that you..." She caught her eye at the outer robe in my palm, her words abruptly halting. Her gaze swept over Wen Chen's taut jawline before quickly lowering again. "Should I call Elder Qingfeng?"

“No need.” Wen Chen answered for me. His sleeve was lifted by the wind, revealing a bluish wrist—he must have used up too much spiritual energy protecting me last night.

I gripped his hand tightly and could feel the thin calluses on his palm, the result of a thousand years of wielding a sword, but now they were slightly damp with tension.

The golden light led us to the back of the mountain, and the forest grew deeper and deeper until we finally stopped in front of a mountain wall covered with vines.

The scabbard hummed softly, and the vines suddenly parted, revealing a hole just wide enough for one person to pass through.

"A-Yao." Wen Chen stepped in front of me, the sword in his sleeve clanging softly. "I'll go first—"

“No need.” I pressed my hand against his back, feeling his muscles tense like bowstrings. “It won’t hurt me.”

It was darker inside the cave than outside, but the light from the sword sheath was enough to illuminate the way ahead.

The runes on the stone wall lit up with our footsteps, their bluish-green fluorescence like stars falling into the stone.

There was a smell of pine resin mixed with rust in the air. I remembered when I went to the pharmacy in the mortal realm to get medicine, the old shopkeeper said that this was the smell of thousand-year-old cold iron.

"Here..." My words were shattered by the echo, and suddenly I heard the soft sound of a bamboo cane tapping the ground.

The ethereal immortal emerged from the depths of the cave, dew clinging to the bamboo leaves of his staff, gleaming like jade in the golden light. "This old servant has waited three hundred years, and finally this day has come." His gaze swept over the scabbard in my hand, then settled on my brow—a place burning hot, as if a jade tablet were pulsating within my consciousness. "Does Fairy Xiao find these runes familiar?"

I instinctively touched my brow, and Wen Chen immediately grabbed my hand: "Your sea of ​​consciousness is shaking." His spiritual energy surged in like a warm spring, and I realized that my forehead was covered in cold sweat.

"This is the trigger for the sealing array." The ethereal immortal tapped the cave wall with his bamboo staff, and the runes suddenly coalesced, drawing a rotating halo above his head. "The scabbard isn't looking for anything else; it's looking for where it should be."

As I gazed at the runes flowing within the halo, I suddenly recalled the light that had leaked from the crack in the jade tablet last night—it turned out that it wasn't light, but the jade tablet responding to the call of the scabbard.

Wen Chen's hand never let go; his body temperature emanated from my palm, giving me a sense of inexplicable peace.

"This place seems to be..." The ethereal immortal's bamboo staff stopped before a stone wall engraved with star maps, and his white eyebrows twitched. "This old servant needs to confirm a few more things."

The scabbard suddenly slipped from my hand and "clinked" into a groove in the stone wall.

Golden light cascaded down like a waterfall. I was held in Wen Chen's arms, yet I could still see the star map on the stone wall being reassembled, as if an unseen hand was piecing together an ancient painting.

The sweet, metallic taste in my throat rose again. I leaned on Wen Chen's shoulder and heard his heart pounding like a drum.

But this time it wasn't fear, it was anticipation—like the answer we'd been waiting for for so long was finally about to surface.

When the star map on the stone wall finally stopped turning, I was gripping Wen Chen's sleeve, my knuckles turning white from the force.

The ethereal immortal's bamboo staff touched the edge of the star map, and dewdrops on the bamboo leaves fell to the ground with a "plop," splashing tiny watermarks on the bluestone slab. "This place... is indeed the true sealing place of the divine artifact." He raised his white eyebrows slightly, his gaze sweeping over the groove embedded in the scabbard. "Three hundred years ago, this old servant was ordered by his master to guard this place. I thought I would have to guard it until I turned to ashes, but in the end, the opportunity has arrived."

My mind began to vibrate again, as if someone were using a fine needle to pick at the cracks in the jade tablet.

Wen Chen's hand covered the back of my neck, his spiritual energy flowing into my meridians like a hot spring, stabilizing my surging blood and qi. "A Yao, you look terrible." His voice was frosty, but softened when he touched the cold sweat on my forehead. "If you feel you can't hold on, we'll retreat."

“I won’t retreat.” I licked my bitter lips and stared at the starlight swirling on the stone wall. “The jade tablet is burning hot; it wants me to look.” The golden light that had leaked from the crack in the jade tablet last night suddenly flashed before my eyes—it wasn’t an illusion after all; it was sensing the location of the sword sheath, it was leading me here.

I stared at the flowing runes on the scabbard, suppressing the sweet, metallic taste in my throat. "Wen Chen, do you remember the ancient scroll on that sunken ship in the Boundless Sea?"

“I remember.” He gently stroked the red string on my wrist with his thumb—the one I tore from the corner of his clothes. “The ancient scroll says that a divine artifact must undergo three tribulations to recognize its master: a tribulation of the heart, a tribulation of the body, and a tribulation of life.” Suddenly, the sword in his sleeve hummed, its sound carrying a chilling killing intent. “But now…”

"What was bound to happen has finally arrived." The ethereal immortal's bamboo staff suddenly pointed to the cave ceiling, where a cloud of black mist had condensed. "This old servant smells this putrid stench; it's just like the malevolent aura of the remnants of the Blood Demon Sect from back then."

Before the words were finished, the sound of boot soles scraping against the bluestone slabs came from deep within the cave.

"Yin Sha Qi?" A hoarse male voice mixed with a cold laugh crashed into my ears. "Old Kong has a good memory. Back when you broke three of my ribs, you did indeed use the Yin Sha Technique."

I looked up in the direction of the sound and saw a man in a dark cloak standing at the corner.

He had black feathers tangled in his hair, a cinnabar dot at the corner of his eye, and a scar on his left cheek running from his brow bone to his jaw. He was grinning, revealing teeth stained with black ink: "Fairy Xiao, Immortal Wen, how have you been?"

Wen Chen's back instantly tensed. He pulled me half a step back, and his sword flashed three inches from its sheath with a "clang": "Mo Yu." He uttered those two words as if chewing on poisoned ice. "Didn't you die in the Blood Demon Cave's Ten Thousand Bones Array?"

"Death?" Mo Yu raised a hand and brushed the black feathers from his hair, his fingernails gleaming with a bluish-black hue. "Does Immortal Venerable Wen know that the Blood Demon Sect's 'Nine Lives Gu' loves to devour the spiritual essence of immortal cultivators?" His gaze swept over the sword sheath in my palm, his pupils suddenly shrinking to pinpoints. "So that's how it is... You want to awaken that thing."

Suddenly, I felt a sharp pain in my mind, and a ray of golden light seeped out from the crack in the jade tablet, burning my forehead.

The scabbard trembled in the groove of the stone wall, and the golden light made Mo Yu's cloak tinge with blood: "You think you can get the full power of the divine artifact like this?"

"How naive!" He raised his hand and made a hand seal, and the black mist from the cave ceiling "whooshed" down, a stench-laden wind rushing towards my face. "A secret that even the Blood Demon Ancestor couldn't decipher back then, and you, a mere Foundation Establishment brat, dare to presume to understand it?"

Wen Chen's sword rushed forward first, its icy blue sword energy tearing through the black mist and slicing a half-inch deep gash in Mo Yu's chest.

But as soon as blood began to seep from the wound, it was enveloped by the black mist and healed completely in the blink of an eye.

He licked the blood from his lips and laughed even more fiercely: "Immortal Wen, why are you protecting her?"

When the artifact recognizes its master, her soul will be torn to pieces. Do you want to watch...?

"Shut up!" I interrupted him, and the scabbard in my palm suddenly became hot, so hot that my fingertips went numb.

The jade tablet vibrated violently in my mind's eye, and I heard it emit a soft buzzing sound, as if responding to my surging emotions.

Finally, I couldn't suppress the sweet, metallic taste in my throat any longer. I turned my head and coughed twice. Blood beads seeped from between my fingers and fell onto the bluestone slab, splashing up tiny golden sparks.

Wen Chen's swordplay intensified. He grabbed my wrist and channeled his spiritual energy into my meridians: "Ayao, bite me." He brought his thumb and forefinger to my lips. "Bite if it hurts, don't hold it in."

Mo Yu's figure suddenly blurred, reappearing before the stone wall, the Mo Yu feathers on his cloak fluttering even without wind: "Xiao Yao, do you know why this divine artifact recognizes you?" He tilted his head, his scar contorting with his expression, "Because the jade tablet in your sea of ​​consciousness was created by the Blood Demon Ancestor using a million living souls!"

My blood rushed to my head with a "boom".

The images on the jade tablet suddenly exploded in my mind—those blood mists, wails, and severed limbs that I thought were hallucinations were actually its memories.

I stumbled and bumped into Wen Chen's arms.

His heartbeat made my eardrums ache, but his voice was as steady as a mountain: "A-Yao, I know who you are better than anyone." He lowered his head and kissed the top of my head. "You are Xiao Yao, the Xiao Yao who climbed here step by step from the mortal realm, the Xiao Yao I love."

The golden light from the scabbard suddenly surged, forcing Mo Yu's black mist back three feet.

As I gazed at the star map on the stone wall, I suddenly remembered the ray of light that had leaked out of the crack in the jade tablet last night—it wasn't light after all, it was the stone crying.

It cried for three hundred years and waited for three hundred years, finally finding someone to wipe away its tears.

“No matter how you try to stop me,” I looked up, staring at Mo Yu’s blackened teeth, “I will not give up.”

The scabbard emitted a clear, resonant sound, and the star map on the stone wall began its second reconstruction.

Mo Yu's expression finally changed. He took a half step back, his hands clenched so tightly under his cloak that they turned white.

Wen Chen's sword was still pointed at his throat, but I knew that what he truly feared at this moment was not our swords, but—

From deep within the stone wall came the long, drawn-out sigh of the divine artifact, finally awakened.