The Death of Tuo Ba Xiaoyao — All Signs Point the Way
The Death of Tuo Ba Xiaoyao — All Signs Point the Way
“There’s no need to keep him alive anymore.”
Gu Changge shook his head lightly. With a wave of his hand, a hazy radiance descended, jolting the unconscious Tuo Ba Xiaoyao awake with a shudder, his eyes snapping open.
His mind still seemed muddled. Unaware of what had happened, he looked around in confusion.
But the next moment, when Tuo Ba Xiaoyao’s gaze landed on Gu Changge, his entire body stiffened, unable to conceal his terror and hatred.
“Gu Changge, why are you here?!”
Tuo Ba Xiaoyao demanded sharply, his eyes shot through with blood vessels.
He only remembered passing out while Gu Changge fought that blood-red eye, as if some mysterious force had carried him away. Everything that happened afterward was a blank.
“You don’t need to know.” Gu Changge shook his head lightly, his gaze utterly without ripple.
Tuo Ba Xiaoyao felt Gu Changge’s killing intent. Overwhelmed with unwillingness, he gritted his teeth. “You plan to kill me?”
Gu Changge smiled. “You’re not entirely stupid. Keeping you alive until today could already be considered my utmost benevolence.”
“If not for you, I couldn’t have obtained the Sword of World Domination so easily. If you have a next life, remember this well — never make an enemy of me. Don’t even let the thought cross your mind.”
He spoke casually, a faint smile even playing at the corners of his mouth.
Yet hearing these words, Tuo Ba Xiaoyao’s eyes widened in disbelief.
It was as if his greatest secret had been laid bare before the world. Terrifying cold swept through his entire body.
His very soul and throat felt as though they were being crushed in the grip of an invisible, icy hand.
He understood what Gu Changge’s words meant!
Gu Changge knew his greatest secret — his reincarnation! Otherwise, Gu Changge would never have said something like “if you have a next life.”
“So... you knew all along...” Tuo Ba Xiaoyao’s face turned deathly pale, steeped in despair.
Had Gu Changge not spoken of it today, he would have gone to his grave never believing that the greatest secret of his rebirth had long since been seen through.
Which meant that all his supposedly flawless schemes had probably looked like the antics of a clown in Gu Changge’s eyes.
He alone had been played in the palm of Gu Changge’s hand without ever realizing it!
“Actually, it wasn’t all that early.”
Gu Changge smiled casually. “Any last words you’d like to leave behind? If not, I’ll be killing you now.”
“You—” Tuo Ba Xiaoyao’s face was ashen, his very soul trembling. The shadow of death descended, his whole body enveloped by a terrifying aura, unable to move so much as an inch.
He still wanted to say something, but once Gu Changge finished speaking, he clearly had no intention of listening to any more nonsense.
His palm descended, and a cluster of silver divine flames swept forth, instantly engulfing Tuo Ba Xiaoyao.
In a mere instant, he was reduced to ash — he didn’t even have time to scream.
Afterward, only a golden Heavenly Gift Treasure Chest popped out where he had stood, which Gu Changge swept into his sleeve and put away.
“Let’s go. Time to see where this so-called Mirror Lake actually is.”
Gu Changge had no intention of opening the Heavenly Gift Treasure Chest just yet. His gaze turned toward the distance as he spoke casually to Ah Da behind him. With a single step, he instantly departed the Boundless Immortal Valley.
After the Shu Sect’s destruction, he was temporarily residing in the Southern Light Empire. The many Earth Sword Immortals held him in deep reverence, and during this time they had been sending people everywhere to search for the whereabouts of the World’s Will.
But now that he understood this secret, Gu Changge naturally felt there was no need to blunder about like a headless fly as before, searching place by place.
The location of Mirror Lake was clearly where the World’s Will was sealed. To learn the whereabouts of the World Source, he would first have to find Mirror Lake.
However, according to the memories of that fragment of the World’s Will, Mirror Lake’s true existence had long since faded into legend — even it was uncertain of its exact location.
Because Mirror Lake was not fixed in any one region; it drifted and migrated as time passed.
“It seems I’ll need to spread word that Mirror Lake is their hope.”
With this thought, Gu Changge formed a rough plan. He then ordered his people to forge a tattered ancient text, branding the Principles of Reincarnation into it to make the forgery indistinguishable from the real thing.
Soon, two days later, a piece of news quietly spread through the Southern Light Empire.
Leaked “carelessly” by an old eunuch at the Southern Light Emperor’s side, it came straight from the Emperor’s mouth — and it shook all Thirteen States.
Rumor had it that Mirror Lake, said to contain supreme sword-forging materials, very likely held the Profound Sword World’s last sliver of hope for survival.
It was recorded in a tattered ancient text that Princess Xuan Die of the Southern Light Empire had chanced upon while browsing the imperial library.
Though the text was badly damaged, its few sparse lines recorded certain matters concerning Mirror Lake.
The instant this news spread, the entire Profound Sword World erupted. Countless cultivators and living beings began searching for the lost Mirror Lake.
Even the Earth Sword Immortals couldn’t sit still, poring over every manner of ancient text in an attempt to find the slightest clue related to Mirror Lake.
Aboard the many Ancient Battleships of the Beyond hovering beyond the Profound Sword World’s skies, numerous cultivators also learned of this news.
Some True Daoists of the ancient clans issued orders as well, dispatching great armies to search for Mirror Lake’s location.
Their goal had always been the Profound Sword World’s World Source.
Some time ago, the manifestation of the Profound Sword World’s Will had filled the True Daoists with dread, forcing them to shelve their intentions of descending to the world below.
But none of them had expected that this World’s Will would be torn apart by Gu Changge’s raised palm, scattering into nothing.
It left them trembling in shock.
Lacking Gu Changge’s overwhelmingly terrifying strength, they could only turtle up where they were, waiting for an opportunity.
“Xiaoyao... how could his Life Talisman have shattered...”
“What on earth happened?!”
Aboard the Great Yu Celestial Dynasty’s Ancient Battleship, Eldest Princess Yu Feiya’s face had gone slightly pale. Her clenched fists turned white at the knuckles as she stared in disbelief at the shattered Life Talisman before her.
The Life Talismans kept here had been left behind by the Great Yu Celestial Dynasty’s many Young Prodigies, each containing a wisp of their divine souls.
Should anything happen to them within the Profound Sword World, the experts standing guard here could sense it immediately.
The moment she learned that Tuo Ba Xiaoyao’s Life Talisman had shattered, she had rushed back from the Profound Sword World to confirm whether it was true.
She never imagined it actually would be.
Tuo Ba Xiaoyao had truly perished within the Profound Sword World!
“What did he encounter in there, that even with his strength he couldn’t preserve his life?” Yu Feiya’s face bore unconcealable grief.
Her friendship with Tuo Ba Xiaoyao ran deep — it even held a trace of some indescribable affection. Learning that he had been buried in the Profound Sword World was truly hard for her to accept.
Over the following days, the Profound Sword World knew no peace. Every day, more ruins were unearthed.
Wave after wave of cultivators flooded in, only to come away empty-handed — never mind Mirror Lake, they couldn’t even find the trace of a lake.
This led many to doubt the rumor’s authenticity. Did Mirror Lake truly exist at all?
“Judging from the ancient texts, Mirror Lake’s existence should be real. And Sword City once appeared beside Mirror Lake — many of the Shu Sect’s Divine Swords actually originated from Sword City.”
Though the Shu Sect had been destroyed, its Sect Master, the Abundance Sword Immortal, and the others were still alive.
They had lived far longer than other cultivators, and so their understanding of Mirror Lake ran deep.
The several guardian Divine Swords from the Shu Sect’s founding were all inextricably tied to Sword City.
Thus, they firmly believed Mirror Lake existed — they simply hadn’t found its exact location yet.
“If Mirror Lake is real, then Sword City must have truly existed as well. Perhaps we can use the residual aura of Sword City to deduce Mirror Lake’s location.” The Snow Sword Immortal’s gaze turned thoughtful. As the Cliff Master of Sword Cliff, she naturally knew certain secrets — in truth, Sword Cliff’s own Divine Swords were also connected to Sword City.
They had even been forged within Sword City back then. Because of this connection, they could use these Divine Swords to try to pinpoint the location of the Sword City sunken within Mirror Lake.
“That’s a viable approach.” The Shu Sect Master and the others’ eyes lit up at her words, sudden realization dawning on them.
Several days later, after bringing out the Divine Swords of the various great powers and using divination arts to trace their auras, the Shu Sect Master and the others finally reaped results, wild with joy.
Every sign from the divinations pointed in unison toward the Ancient Arcane Ruins — the once-mighty Ancient Arcane Empire was actually connected to Mirror Lake!
Even as they rejoiced, they were deeply puzzled.
The Ancient Arcane Empire was the greatest dynasty in the Profound Sword World’s recorded history, bar none. It had once unified eight of the Thirteen States, its territory so vast that the current Southern Light Empire couldn’t compare.
Even the Ancient Arcane Ruins covered an enormous area — strictly speaking, all eight of those states had once been part of its domain.
Back then, the Southern Light and other empires didn’t yet exist, nor did powers like the Shu Sect or Kong Mountain. Its borders had been truly boundless.
The mysterious Ancient Arcane Ancestral Temple sat at the heart of the Profound Sword World’s Dragon Vein, monopolizing the fortune of heaven and earth, seizing every profound mystery.
It should have been a heaven-defying sacred ground. Yet tens of millions of years ago, for reasons unknown, this incomparably prosperous and powerful Ancient Arcane Empire collapsed overnight — even its final emperor went mad.
It was later said that they had touched a Forbidden Domain that should never have been touched, and suffered heavenly retribution.
“The Ancient Arcane Ruins...”
Gu Changge fell into brief contemplation, then didn’t hesitate further. Taking Ah Da with him, he set off directly for the site.
He had been borrowing the hands of the Shu Sect Master and the others to find this place all along. Now that every sign pointed to a connection between the Ancient Arcane Ruins and Mirror Lake, he naturally had to go take a look.
As for whether his intentions would be discovered when the time came — Gu Changge couldn’t care less.
Elsewhere, the Abundance Sword Immortal, the Snow Sword Immortal, and the many other Earth Sword Immortals likewise led their people toward the Ancient Arcane Ruins without stopping to rest. To prevent the news from leaking, they had to arrive before the whole world found out.
The Ancient Arcane Ancestral Temple had once been the most flourishing place in the Profound Sword World, where all the spiritual energy of heaven and earth converged.
But now it was nothing but broken walls and rubble, shrouded day and night in black mist, littered with shattered mountains and terrifying fissures.
The careless could be torn apart by the astral winds that burst from those cracks. An aura of ill omen permeated the place.
Crows and vultures peered about in dense, countless numbers, their blood-red eyes gleaming with malice as they perched on withered treetops, watching the many cultivators hurrying toward this place.