Chapter 489: People from the Foreign Realm

"Oh?" the young girl Jiang Xiaoyue muttered, casting a peculiar glance at these items that had the audacity to style themselves as 'ancient divine swords.'

Clink! She flicked the spine of a blade with the tip of her little finger and tilted her head in curiosity. "Could this fellow actually have a way?"

"Of course I know." The sword named Qingming swayed upon the hanging bamboo branch, threads of dark, sinister energy swirling around its form until they condensed into a pair of arms. It crossed them, casting a cold, haughty glare down at Jiang Xiaoyue, and rumbled in a deep voice, "Does a little girl like you not know that before seeking guidance from a senior, one must first show their sincerity...?"

"Uh..." In the blink of an eye, the face before them transformed into that of Boss Fang.

A wave of awkwardness ensued, prompting a hurried cough. "Ahem... well, since they are a master capable of bestowing defeat upon me in the art of the sword... this divine blade shall reluctantly deign to disclose a mere fraction of the truth."

Boss Fang could only offer silence.

"Speaking of which, that was an age long since passed." The ancient, weathered longsword extended its spectral hands, adopting a posture of deep reminiscence.

The space behind darkened as Zong Wu, Jiang Xuan, and a crowd of others who had just been engrossed in their games leaned forward, their ears straining and their faces alive with anticipation.

Boss Fang glanced back at the dense, dark press of people and felt lines of exasperation crease his brow. "What are you all doing?"

Silence followed.

"That was back in the epoch when I fought side by side with the master who forged me. In those days, there existed far more than mere cultivators like yourselves..." Its voice was heavy and archaic, as though it were recounting a passage from some remote, epic saga.

Boss Fang wiped away his sweat. "Stop boasting... just get to the point."

Around him, Zong Wu and the others looked as if they wished they could stretch their necks across the room.

"That place... it was..." The rust-bitten black ancient sword seemed to falter, struggling to assemble its words.

It choked for a long while, growing so anxious that it nearly broke into a sweat, before finally bursting out, "It was a place that even this divine sword cannot fully describe!"

"!!??"

"What the hell! I waited all this time just for you to tell me that?!" Boss Fang's face darkened, his hands itching to deliver a thrashing.

Yet the black sword managed to squeeze out a few more words, like paste from a tube. "This divine sword once had the honor of descending upon a certain sea within that realm. For months on end, neither sun, moon, nor stars could be seen. Even cultivators who had brought the arts of divination to their absolute zenith could not discern north from south."

Zong Wu, the City Master of Yuanqi City, gasped in admiration. "To think someone actually entered that place?"

Boss Fang blinked. "Oh? Is it that rare?"

Silence fell once more.

Then, they finally heard it append two more lines: "The storms there are such that even the astral gales above the nine heavens cannot match them. Walls of water thousands of meters high can be seen upon the ocean's surface, and there were even times when unprecedented abysses opened at the bottom of the sea. There were monsters the likes of which have never been seen before; you absolutely cannot imagine how grueling the battles were that we endured."

"Hmm?" Boss Fang looked left and right at the crowd who had craned their necks so close.

"To think..." Zong Wu lamented. "To think it was so perilous!"

"The senior actually entered such a treacherous place..." As an elder of the Haotian Academy, Elder Yu had clearly heard whispers of such legends. "I never imagined it would be so... beyond conception."

"Do you all think..." Boss Fang spoke up, "that this fellow is just spinning yarns?"

"That seems unlikely. The region north of the Abyssal Sea has always been rumored to be a land of ill omen. The few recorded instances of crossing that area were almost all achieved through spatial shifting, utilizing teleportation arrays left behind from the ancient era."

Elder Yu added, "No one would ever willingly choose to journey through that territory."

The other elders of the Haotian Academy nodded in agreement. "Which means, to ensure the smooth realization of this netizen gathering, it would be best to employ a teleportation method to connect the two regions."

"Can we not just... go in and forge a path?" Boss Fang offered a small suggestion. "Surely that would be the most hassle-free method?"

Everyone's face turned pale at the thought. "Let us... stick to repairing the teleportation array."

Boss Fang stroked his chin. "Well then, does anyone know how to construct a teleportation array?"

"As for that..." Elder Yu began, "there used to be an ancient array over by Senior Zixiao's domain. Regrettably, after Senior Zixiao vanished, that ancient array was destroyed by a natural disaster. Trying to restore it now would likely require no small amount of manpower and resources."

Boss Fang instinctively patted his coin purse. "Is it a vast amount?"

"Uh..." Zong Wu and the others exchanged glances. "If the major clans were to contribute simultaneously, it would be a mere drop in the ocean."

"That is well, then..." He had been just about to say that if it cost too much, this netizen gathering would have to be reconsidered over the long term.

...

Meanwhile, in the skies outside Yuanqi City.

From the distant heavens, a sudden chorus of roars and growls from exotic beasts erupted, as though some mighty, ferocious creatures were poking their heads through the shroud of clouds.

On the broad sea of clouds plaza at the periphery of Yuanqi City, many cultivators stared into the distant sky, pointing and whispering. Before long, a massive, predatory head emerged from the cloud layer.

A single roar reverberated through the clouds.

Immediately following, a menagerie of varied exotic beasts trailed behind, swooping down toward the cloud sea plaza like a raging gale.

"Over there... what is that?!"

Leading the pack was a colossal beast clad entirely in pitch-black scales. It bore twin horns, its dark wings were unfurled wide, and its countenance resembled that of a lizard. As its massive wings flapped, they instantly stirred up a violent wind.

"It looks like the horned drakes of the Western Barbarians!" a cultivator shouted aloft.

The behemoth's massive frame touched down upon the cloud sea plaza, its thick, powerful talons gouging deep furrows into the stone as if it were tearing through bean curd before it finally ground to a halt.

"It is the Western Barbarians?!"

"The Western Barbarians?!"

The cultivators retreated in quick succession, while those standing around widened their eyes to steal a fierce glance. Though they had heard tales of the barbarian tribes in the northwest, many of these cultivators had never truly laid eyes upon them.

The figure at the head of the group was a mature man who appeared to be in his thirties or forties. His face possessed a sculpted, linear beauty akin to marble, and his golden hair shone brilliantly beneath the sunlight, lending him an aura of exceptional martial heroism.

With a sharp whistle, a young man of about twenty with reddish-brown hair descended from the sky riding a horned drake. His appearance carried a distinctly exotic flair, tinged with a touch of frivolity and wickedness. "Look at that, big brother. Are these Easterners the ones you described as... ancient and elegant? Why is it that the moment they see us, they look like mice encountering a cat, in such a wretched state?"

"What is the matter, Sister Xiya? Are you perhaps a bit disappointed by our abrupt journey?"

Beside him, a horned drake of truly wondrous appearance slowly descended, its body covered in crimson scales, bearing three horns and glowing with golden pupils. Seated upon its back was a woman clad in silver-white and red-skirted armor, wearing a horned helm, with an exaggeratedly styled greatsword slung slanting across her waist.

Removing her helmet, she revealed a face of sharp contours and immense exotic beauty.

In the next instant, they bore witness to a scene they could scarcely believe.

"Look!"

One after another, streaks of silver-white sword light soared out from within the city. The sword light formed a canopy, weaving a brilliant tapestry of light and shadow across the sky. Moving at speeds that nearly surpassed the limits of human vision, the blades trailed long, silver-white wakes through the heavens, tracing arcs of supreme elegance before converging once more upon the platform. They revealed themselves to be a dozen or so cultivators of Yuanqi City, dressed in silver-white uniform martial armor and cultivator robes.

Each stood upon a flying sword that gleamed with spiritual light, the picture of absolute elegance.

"...Big brother." The red-haired youth froze. "These guards... are they martial artists or cultivators...?"

Beside him, the golden-haired man wore an expression of sheer bewilderment.

Why did it feel as though the opposition's...

Instinctively, he looked down at the horned drake beneath him.

The horned drake pulled back its feet, staring at its own massive talons, as if pondering whether it, too, might be capable of flying in such a manner.