First Immortal of the Sword

Chapter 1432 - The Tyrant Wang Ye!

Within Su Yi’s room.

The Divine Replenishment Furnace rumbled and boomed. Purple immortal light poured out of it like a waterfall as it refined the spoils of the battle of Lake Bluemist.

This time, his harvest was unimaginably enormous!

The quantity wasn’t overly impressive, but everything from the spiritual materials and divine medicinal ingredients to the magic treasures was a treasure of the Immortal Dao.

And there were over a hundred of them!

The Divine Replenishment Furnace found this highly motivating too.

Su Yi sat cross-legged to the side, unmoving.

When his soul avatar appeared within his sea of consciousness, his sixth incarnation seemed to predict what was about to happen.

Wang Ye said with dignified indifference, “Do you have any unrealized desires? If so, tell me now. I’ll resolve them in your place one day.”

Su Yi didn’t know what to say to that. Shouldn’t I be the one to say that to you?

“Of course, even if you don’t tell me, once I’ve replaced you, I’ll naturally sever the karma fettering you. Consider it me doing you a good turn,” said Wang Ye. He was obviously behaving differently from usual. He was talking more, and he seemed... excited and eager!

After a moment’s silence, Su Yi said, “I’m about to inherit your memories, knowledge, and experience cultivating the Grand Dao. Your everything will soon become mine. In a sense, I’ll be you. However...” He smiled faintly. “I can be any of my past lives, but none of my past lives... can replace me! And that goes for our first life too!”

With that, he raised his hand.

Boom!

The Sword of the Nine Hells trembled.

The sixth divine chain rattled, then broke, inch by inch. The pieces transformed into a resplendent rain of light, which poured into Su Yi’s sea of consciousness.

Su Yi instantly sank into what felt like an extended dream.

In his dream, his name was Wang Ye, and he underwent a complete lifetime of cultivation.

Strange visions flitted past, yet all of them seemed real.

Everything he saw, felt, and learned... all of it became a part of him.

......

“That’s a demon halfbreed! Why haven’t we killed him?”

“That halfbreed’s father is a true Xiantian demon! He brutally slaughtered over ten thousand of our brothers-in-arms. Those of other races all deserve to die!”

“Kill him!”

“Kill him!”

...All manner of infuriated roars and curses rose and fell in waves.

The seven-year-old Wang Ye was trapped in a cage, his face filthy and his hair disheveled. He was covered in wounds, and his little face was pale and bloodless.

He could see the countless immortals around him, their faces contorted and hideous with rage. He knew they wanted nothing more than to rip him into ten thousand pieces and scatter his ashes to the wind.

His terror and confusion were more than he could express in words.

Clang!

A middle-aged man in warrior robes drew a snow-white saber and strode up to the cage. His gaze was icy and full of hatred, and his saber buzzed in his grip, as if longing to feast on blood.

Wang Ye almost couldn’t breathe. He was certain that he was about to be slaughtered like livestock beneath a single slash of the middle-aged man’s saber.

But it was then that a thin figure stood protectively before the boy locked in a cage.

“His mother, Wang Xuansu, watched over the Sixth Celestial Gate with us for three thousand nine hundred years. She’s slain well over ten thousand demons and saved countless comrades on the battlefield!” the thin man said gravely. “She’s made enormous contributions to the entire Northriver Immortal Province. What right do any of you have to kill her child?”

The curses, rebukes, and hate-filled voices died down.

The crowd fell silent.

But then, the middle-aged man in warrior robes shouted, “Boss, his father is a Xiantian demon! That dog’s blood flows through his veins. Letting him live would be like raising a tiger; it’ll only sow the seeds of future disaster!”

Whap!

The thin figure slapped the middle-aged man in warrior robes. “That’s your little sister’s child! Your sister’s blood flows through his veins! And you... are his uncle!!”

The middle-aged man lowered his head, the rims of his eyes red.

The thin figure swept his gaze across the area. “Seven years ago, Wang Xuansu fought atop a blood-soaked battlefield. Unfortunately, our enemies captured her alive, and that despicable fiend sullied her, resulting in this child!

“For seven years, she endured the immense weight of this humiliation and overcame great adversity to bring her child home with her final breath. In the last moments before her death, her only request was that we let her son grow up in peace and safety. So why... can’t you leave him a path to life?”

The entire area fell still. The crowd sank deeper into silence.

The thin man turned around, raised his hand, and broke the cage.

Then, he gazed at the seven-year-old Wang Ye. “Child, I’ll give you a chance to choose.”

“Your first option is to remain here in the Sixth Gate of Heaven. I’ll teach you to cultivate, and after you grow up, you can get revenge for your mother. Kill every last one of those yao and demons and prove to everyone that you... aren’t the spawn of a demon, but rather, the son of General Wang Xuansu of the Sixth Gate of Heaven!

“Alternatively, I can cripple your spirit root and talent, then wipe your memories and send you away to live as an ordinary mortal. You’ll live out your life in peace and safety. That, too, would fulfill your mother’s last wish.

“Now, you can make your choice.”

As soon as the thin man finished speaking, Wang Ye said without even pausing to think, “I want to avenge my mother!”

After a moment’s silence, the thin man scooped Wang Ye into his arms. “Good boy!”

Wang Ye henceforth took up residence in the Sixth Gate of Heaven.

And he finally learned that the stick-thin man was called Li Nandu. He was the Garrison Master of the Sixth Gate of Heaven!

He was the most influential figure in Wang Ye’s life!

The middle-aged man who’d drawn his saber and tried to execute him was his maternal uncle, Wang Xuanting.

During his days in the Sixth Gate of Heaven, Wang Ye displayed extraordinary aptitude, especially for the Dao of the Sword. His talent was unrivaled and terrifying.

At just seventeen years of age, he was already the strongest member of the Sixth Gate of Heaven’s younger generation, and he’d overcome numerous fierce battles both great and small. He’d taken the heads of enough yao and demons to build a ten-thousand-foot pagoda with the skulls!

By twenty-three years of age, he was already the ninth-ranked general of the Sixth Gate of Heaven, and his prestige was such that even armies of yao and demons lost their courage at the mention of his name.

Both his strength and his conduct won the approval of the Sixth Gate of Heaven’s experts.

Even his uncle, Wang Xuanting, took pride in their relationship.

And Garrison Master Li Nandu saw him as his successor. He said that with Wang Ye there to protect it, the Sixth Gate of Heaven would never fall!

......

And twenty-seven years of age, Wang Ye fought his way deep into their enemies’ camp, fighting bathed in blood for thirty days straight. He overcame all manner of life-or-death perils, and when he returned, it was with a thousand still-bleeding heads of his enemies in tow.

Alas, he was greeted with shocking, terrible news upon his return.

The Sixth Gate of Heaven had fallen!

Garrison Master Li Nandu’s head hung from the city walls. Wang Ye’s uncle, Wang Xuanting, had been skinned alive and subjected to death by a thousand cuts. His brothers-in-arms were now nothing but bones scattered across the ground.

The killer was his biological father, a prominent member of the demon army!

Wang Ye would never forget that day.

Li Nandu’s head hung suspended from a high wall, swaying in the wind.

His uncle had been reduced to a pile of flesh.

Both inside and out, the Sixth Gate of Heaven was covered in corpses, and the stench of blood filled the air.

The sight drove him mad. He completely broke down!

It was also on that day that his father descended from the walls of the Sixth Gate of Heaven, looked him directly in the eye, and said expressionlessly, “Your mom was a bitch, and you’re an unfilial little bastard!”

He also said, “I won’t kill you this time. Instead, I’ll have you see how the world you’ve been protecting all this time treats you going forward. When you can’t take it anymore, come find me. If you kneel before me and repent, I’ll give you a place to stay!”

Leaving nothing but those disdainful, humiliating words behind, that man led his army of yao and demons away.

Wang Ye spent the rest of the day kneeling there, facing the Sixth Gate of Heaven and weeping tears of blood.

He never cried for anyone ever again.

Word soon spread that the Sixth Gate of Heaven had fallen. The Northriver Immortal Province instantly decided that the only survivor, Wang Ye, had to be a traitor!

Some said he’d colluded with yao and demons, aiding them from the inside, and that it was he who’d led to his fellows’ demise.

Others said that he was halfbreed scum to begin with, and that he was untrustworthy by his very nature. They said he benefited from the Sixth Gate of Heaven, but he’d never been loyal to them!

All types of furious, hateful accusations were pointed at Wang Ye. Everyone reviled him and cursed his name.

He was once the Sixth Gate of Heaven’s most dazzling genius of the Dao of the Sword, the ninth Combat General of the Northriver Immortal Province, a household name. He was a legend of the younger generation!

But now, they considered him a traitor. His reputation was completely ruined!

...

Over the course of the next ten years, Wang Ye’s disposition changed completely. His awareness was muddled, and he was beset by madness.

Sometimes, he wandered the streets, filthy and unkempt, fighting over food with stray dogs.

Sometimes, he slept out in the wilderness, with no companionship save for that of wild beasts.

He experienced the fickle nature of human affairs, and lost himself completely.

Until one day, someone recognized him and imprisoned him in the Sixth Gate of Heaven. There, they placed him on death row, and he was due to be executed!

That day, the Sixth Gate of Heaven was covered in a bobbing sea of heads. Countless people cursed the “traitor’s” name, their faces full of hatred and enmity.

The curtain of dusk was as red as blood, bathing the towering walls of the Sixth Gate of Heaven a bright, stinging red.

When they bound Wang Ye to a pole, he saw the walls dyed blood red and felt as if he were reliving the moment he saw Li Nandu’s severed head suspended for all to see.

He recalled something the old man said to him when he was a seven-year-old locked in a cage.

"You... aren’t the spawn of a demon, but rather, the son of General Wang Xuansu of the Sixth Gate of Heaven!"

It was on that day that, moments before his execution, Wang Ye finally recovered his rationality, broke free of his fetters, and flew away.

It was on that same day that he swore to rid the lands outside the Sixth Gate of Heaven of all yao and demons!

Not to cleanse his humiliations or be rid of others’ curses.

All he wanted was revenge!

......

Nine years later.

Outside the Sixth Gate of Heaven, Wang Ye single-handedly emptied out the territories of thirteen factions of demons and yao.

He left a mountain of corpses and an ocean of blood in his wake!

He recalled his meeting with his father, and the astonishment and disbelief he’d seen in his father’s face.

He recalled the way his father had cursed him out before he died, calling him a patricide and an unfilial bastard.

But......

Wang Ye didn’t care.

When word returned to the Northriver Immortal Province, everyone was in uproar. Countless people were ashamed of the way they’d treated Wang Ye.

Wang Ye didn’t care about that either.

He left the Northriver Immortal Province that very day in search of greater heights of the Dao of the Sword.

...

In the years that followed.

The world lost a Wang Ye and gained the man they called the Tyrant, an expert of the sword so terrifying that others paled at the mere mention of his name.

He was a sovereign of the Dao of the Sword. Not even almighty experts dared speak his name lightly.

A long time passed. Eventually, almost no one in the Immortal Realm knew the name Wang Ye.

But despite the passage of countless years, the title of Tyrant was his and his alone.