Chapter 353: The Final Battle (Part 1)

It was plain that the system-enhanced edition had mended many a flaw of the original masterpiece, bringing to vivid life through these few clashes of sorcery the impetuous, prideful nature of Danchenzi, alongside the steadfast composure of Xuan Tianzong, whose stoic facade buried a profound, suffocating yearning for his departed master.

Meanwhile, the spectacle of two young geniuses of the nascent generation sustaining and honoring one another in the crucible of peril, entwined with the eternal, past-life destiny shared between Xuan Tianzong and Li Yingqi—the reincarnation of Grandmaster Guyue—left the gathering of cultivators and martial artists utterly enraptured.

All manner of artifacts, potent to the point of terror, and a succession of supreme experts whose might bordered on the celestial; there were sacred peaks imbued with a vast, righteous aura that floated suspended in mid-air, contrasted against treacherous, sinister abysses like the Chiyou Blood Cave that struck dread into the hearts of onlookers; a grand, sweeping world of immortal chivalry, magnificent and boundless, unfurled slowly before the eyes of the gathered cultivators.

Only at this juncture did they awaken to a startling realization: could a cultivator truly attain such heights? That mere mortal power could actually rival the very majesty of Heaven!

As the chief disciple of Mount Emei, Danchenzi stood sentinel outside the Blood Cave under solemn decree.

On the other side, White Eyebrow gathered the remaining forces of Shushan to preserve their strength; a peril as formidable as the Blood Cave was clearly worth the exhaustive machinations Youquan had employed to enter it, standing before them all like an insurmountable celestial chasm, so that even knowing Youquan was grievously wounded, none dared act rashly, lest he harness the cave's malice to strike back, and their own demises should only serve to swell the fiend's might.

The tide of fortune inverted in the mere blink of an eye.

And now, as the chronicle advanced and they felt the staggering pressure Youquan exerted upon the various grand sects of the Shushan Order, the collective cultivators were granted sight after sight of Emei’s profound and ancient heritage.

The Heaven and Thunder dual swords—known as the Purple and Green dual swords in the lore—stood alongside the Haotian Mirror as the ultimate guardians of Mount Emei, possessed of a devastating majesty; inherently divided into Yin and Yang, they engendered and restrained one another like incompatible torrents of water and fire, such that any premature touch would spark a celestial conflagration, ending in mutual annihilation, yet they had to achieve a perfect union to blend Yin and Yang, unleashing an even more terrifying, transcendent power!

"To think that Emei possesses such a monumental treasure?!" The disciples and elders of the cultivator sects from the Morning Star Sea found their eyes fixed in sheer, unblinking amazement.

Above the clustered peaks, a sea of clouds churned violently as Emei exerted its utmost will to forge the union of the Heaven and Thunder blades, sending a green and a purple column of sword-light piercing straight into the firmament, their martial majesty engulfing the heavens.

Beholding these sublime treasures within arm's reach, every soul present harbored a desperate, fleeting urge to snatch the two blades and flee!

"Just how on earth were such artifacts forged?" Mo Xian and his companions murmured in stunned disbelief.

"These dual swords harbor an incredibly immense power within them, one Yin, one Yang, one supple, one unyielding, but the most peculiar aspect is... there seem to be no formations or runes engraved upon these treasures at all." Jun Yangzi, whose studies into the art of artifact forging ran exceptionally deep, wore an expression of grave solemnity. "Even the Haotian Mirror used by White Eyebrow earlier bore no traced formations; instead, those auspicious symbols of dragons and birds seemed to possess immense power inherently, as though..."

At this point, Jun Yangzi seemed to falter, for the vocabulary of the mortal realm offered precious few words capable of describing such a wonder.

"As though they were demons born and nurtured by Heaven and Earth themselves," Ning Bi observed with rapt concentration. "Their titles are the laws of reality, and their forms are the manifestations of the occult."

"This lady speaks with absolute precision!" Jun Yangzi offered a fervent thumbs-up. "If we could replicate even a single spark of this, the benefits to our own artifact forging would be beyond imagination! However... these treasures possessed immense spiritual energy within themselves even before they were forged; some are even primordial entities born of the universe in ancient legends, rare wonders that can only be encountered by fate, never sought by force!"

Yet when they next witnessed the failure of the Heaven and Thunder swords to unite, resulting in the utter destruction of Changkong Wuji’s mortal shell, and saw White Eyebrow employ Emei's Three Primordial Palace to recreate a living being from the soul of Changkong Wuji preserved within the Thunder Sword—

"...Are these truly deities?! Even this is possible?!" Needless to say of Song Qingfeng and his peers, who began to shout wildly on the spot, even the habitually serene Nalan Mingxue bore a countenance etched with panicked astonishment.

The youthful companions from Lingyun Academy, Shengjing Academy, and Xiyi Academy were visibly transfixed, for this did not merely transcend their understanding; it shattered the very boundaries of their imagination!

"When one's cultivation reaches such a domain, one truly can act as one pleases!" Nalan Hongwu sighed in admiration, before swiftly offering a sharp reminder, "Do not lose your focus, everyone; whether it is this process of creation or the meticulous architecture of the human meridians and blood vessels, watching attentively will yield boundless benefit!"

"Hey, why cut it off before we're done?!" Ruan Ning cried out in protest, having been utterly engrossed in studying the structural anatomy of the human form when the vision suddenly vanished.

By then, the spectacle before them had already shifted to the threshold of the Blood Cave.

"Still want to watch?" Owner Fang replied without the slightest shred of leniency. "You can always find a random passerby, strip them bare, and stare all you want."

"Ahhh! Drop dead, will you!" Ruan Ning glared fiercely at Owner Fang, her face flushed with a murderous mix of shame and rage.

A good number of the women present could not help but feel a sudden crimson flush steal over their pretty faces, uttering a collective, "Bah!"

They glared at Owner Fang with indignant bashfulness, clearly lacking the nerve to broach the matter further.

"Look, look! Why has a lesser demon suddenly appeared?" Before the Blood Cave, a collective cold sweat broke out across the crowd as they watched Danchenzi, swayed by a momentary softness of heart, release the delicate, alluring female demon clad in scarlet, only to be possessed by the fiend born of the Crimson Corpse.

"How can such a horror exist?!" To have one's very soul controlled along with the body in a moment of carelessness, stripped of all free will, was an utterly terrifying prospect; evidently, the perils saturating this world struck trepidation into the hearts of all cultivators, seeing that even Danchenzi, chief disciple of Emei with centuries of cultivation, had fallen prey to the trap.

On the other front, White Eyebrow was already preparing his secondary measure against Youquan—the Trinity Tri-Unity.

Witnessing the Grandmaster White Eyebrow transcend his mortal coil and ascend beyond the heavens to seek a weapon capable of vanquishing Youquan, the crowd finally came to an astonished realization amidst their gasps: "So Grandmaster White Eyebrow is actually a quasi-immortal who has already achieved the realm of celestial ascension!?"

No wonder his cultivation was so peerlessly high and his power so terrifying.

And at this very moment, the final, climactic conflict was palpably on the verge of erupting.

Naturally, everyone harbored immense expectations for the power of the Trinity Tri-Unity described by White Eyebrow, which promised to be a force transcending the mortal dust, while on the other hand, they remained both wary and horrified by the sky-engulfing demonic majesty of the Blood Demon Youquan; even cultivators like the Black Demon betrayed a hint of reverence in their eyes, for achieving such a state through cultivation was nothing short of miraculous!

This Shushan chronicle could be said to differ from all past serials and moving pictures; refined by the system, its cadence was remarkably tight, rendering nearly every scene and every location a heart-pounding, exhilarating spectacle, while the past-life karma between the master and disciple of the Kunlun Mountains kept everyone on tenterhooks, wondering if memories would ultimately return for the two to recognize each other once more.

The audience kept their eyes wide throughout, as though loath to miss a single detail, until the moment the Blood Demon was poised to break his seal, and the fallen Danchenzi launched an assault upon Emei, the ensuing magical duel between the Emei disciples and the corrupted Danchenzi stoking their blood to a fever pitch, rendering them entirely unable to look away.

Everyone watched helplessly as Emei descended from prosperity into ruination, its disciples scattering in flight, their spirits sinking in tandem into the depths of despair.

Yet when a celestial blue light pierced the heavens, signaling White Eyebrow's counterattack from beyond the firmament, and Xuan Tianzong finally comprehended the Trinity Tri-Unity to claim the Nanming Li Fire Sword, they followed the triumph with eyes brimming with emotional tears.

And now, the final confrontation was at hand.