Volume One: Azure Cloud

Prologue

　　“XX, still practicing swordsmanship? The cafeteria has been open for a while, if you don’t come soon there’ll be no meat left... No matter how hard you try, the inner sect disciple spots are all predetermined anyway.”

　　“XX, it’s good that you work so hard at sword practice, but the pressure on the inner sect brothers is really too much. You should also consider others.”

　　“XX, you’re already the chief true disciple now, why push yourself so hard, neglecting food and sleep? For a mid-tier sect like ours, no matter how hard we try, we can’t compare to the top sects.”

　　“Master XX, though your heart is devoted to the sword, and you took first place in the World Sword Tournament, becoming a model for all young sword cultivators, Lily Bennett confessed her feelings to you—such a rare opportunity, yet you cast it aside like worn-out shoes. Isn’t that going too far...”

　　In a haze, “he” suddenly recalled those long-buried days of the past.

　　The time when he was still human.

　　In just fifty years, from a naive child to the number one in the world.

　　From human, to non-human.

　　Truly a dreamlike, illusory time.

　　His parents were nameless sword cultivators, who abandoned him at the Sword Pool at birth. By a twist of fate, the sword aura crisscrossing the pool did not kill him, but instead nourished him. When he opened his eyes, the first light he saw was the refining sword light within the pool.

　　From that moment, he never considered himself human. Fifty years of cultivation, all to break free from the shackles of the human body. When he finally reached the pinnacle of cultivation, even his name was forgotten. People only knew him as the world’s number one Nameless Sword God.

　　Yet to him, the title of Sword God was meaningless. Whether as a true master, a sword immortal, or even a sword god, these were all just human titles, and he had long ceased to be satisfied with being human. Unfortunately, it seemed his path of cultivation had reached its end.

　　Fortunately, that was an age of miracles.

　　Of course, some said it was the worst of times.

　　……

　　When a corner of the nine heavens collapsed, and blood and lava poured down, the immortal civilization of the Nine Provinces was nearly wiped out.

　　They were called the Demons, who descended upon the Nine Provinces on a night of blood and fire, opening the prelude to the Age of Darkness.

　　For a hundred years, the Demons ravaged the land, bringing devastation. One after another, glorious sects were reduced to ashes; one after another, mighty cultivators fell to the demons’ claws. The The Bennett Alliance retreated from west to east, from Yunzhou to Zhongzhou, then from Zhongzhou to Dongzhou. In a hundred years, more than half of the Nine Provinces fell, three of the seven supreme sects were destroyed, and the once radiant floating sanctuary of the The Bennett Alliance was now tottering and dim.

　　In the face of despair, peerless heroes shouldered the crumbling Nine Provinces. William Thompson, Brian Sullivan, Jason Parker, Eric Carter, Olivia Harris, Dylan Cooper, Grace Bennett, Ethan Cooper, Logan Cooper—the Nine Immortal Lords, the mightiest cultivators under the heavens, launched a counterattack against the arrogant Demons.

　　They dug the ice of the Southern Polar Abyss, borrowed the fire of the Northern Crimson Mountain, broke off divine branches from the ancient woods of the Eastern Forest, gathered the flowing winds of the Western Desert, and used the heart’s blood of immortals as a guide. They smelted the Sword Pool of Fengzhou, and after a hundred days of blood sacrifice, summoned a peerless divine sword from the Tower of Heaven in Zhongzhou. With this sword, the Nine Immortal Lords slew demon generals, broke demon armies, and advanced in triumph. The Demons were powerful, their armies strong, but they could not withstand the edge of the divine sword. It was as if, overnight, the tide of the immortal-demon war was completely reversed—a miracle.

　　Yet, there are no true miracles in this world. That divine sword summoned from “beyond the heavens” was once a living person. The Nine Immortal Lords, gathering the essence of the Nine Provinces, performed a hundred-day blood sacrifice at the Sword Pool of Fengzhou, refining the then world’s number one Nameless Sword God. Only by sacrificing a living person could they forge the so-called “Heavenly Sword from Beyond.”

　　Such methods were, of course, far from righteous—utterly heretical. And the sacrificial offering was a model for all cultivators: the Nameless Sword God, who rose from obscurity to the peak of cultivation in just fifty years. Even in the desperate times of the immortal-demon war, it was a tragic event too sorrowful to mention.

　　But for the one involved, it was the greatest fortune in the world.

　　With the help of the world’s strongest, gathering the power of the Nine Provinces, he was finally freed from the shackles of humanity, transforming from Sword God to Divine Sword.

　　At the moment his immortal body became the sword’s form, and his soul ascended to become the sword spirit, it was as if he was reborn.

　　From then on, his memories became clear—not scattered, gray fragments, but continuous, vivid scenes.

　　As the Heavenly Sword from Beyond, he possessed power surpassing any human form. In the years that followed, accompanied by the Nine Immortal Lords, he fought countless battles, winning every time.

　　At last, a corner of the grand and imposing Demon Palace collapsed.

　　The Supreme Demon Tower, symbol of the Demons’ imperial power, broke in the middle and crashed down.

　　The supreme leader of the Demons, the invincible Great Demon God Emperor, looked indifferently at the ruins beneath his feet. His two pairs of golden-red eyes slowly swept over the nine audacious human cultivators before him.