For a moment, both Yuwen Chengqing standing before the shrine and the blind old man within it were completely silent.
Yuwen Chengqing's expression shifted rapidly. He had naturally taken in the whole scene of Sikong Xuan and the others facing Li Musheng.
He now also truly knew Li Musheng's identity, that this was the very person who had cut down the grandmaster and all four honored elders.
And from what Sikong Xuan and the others had said, it had all been done by the other party alone.
One person wiping out the five most powerful existences in Falling God Peak, what that meant was not something Yuwen Chengqing failed to understand.
He immediately turned toward the blind old man inside the shrine, hesitated a moment, then spoke quietly, "Elder, perhaps we should also surrender and join the Great Li Tianjin Guards?"
Even as he said it, Yuwen Chengqing had already made up his mind. He was only asking out of courtesy, given the blind old man's debt of guidance and instruction toward him, and felt he should at least nominally seek the elder's opinion.
Inside the shrine, the blind old man stood gripping the azure long sword, and the expression on his aged face was far from calm.
He had never imagined that the person who had triumphed over the Falling God Peak grandmaster and all four honored elders could be so young.
The blind old man struggled to accept this for a moment, but the vast and ocean-deep aura the other party had just revealed left him with no choice but to believe it.
After a long silence, he turned his face toward Li Musheng outside the shrine and spoke slowly, "If the young master insists on this old one joining the Great Li Tianjin Guards, this old one would not dare to refuse."
"However, before this old one agrees, there is one presumptuous request. This old one hopes the young master will grant it."
At those words, Li Musheng raised an eyebrow and looked at the blind old man, "You are actually going to make conditions?"
But then his tone shifted, "That said, my mood is rather good at the moment. You may say what it is."
The blind old man's dull, gray eyes turned directly toward Li Musheng's direction, as though he were trying to "observe" him.
After a moment, he lowered his aged head, one hand moving slowly over the flawlessly sharp azure long sword in his grip, and then he spoke, "This old one wishes to strike one more sword at the young master."
Immediately after, the hand gripping the sword rose slowly, pointing directly at Li Musheng outside the shrine, "This old one hopes the young master will grant this request."
Li Musheng's brow furrowed slightly at those words, "I thought it was going to be something difficult. That is all?"
He waved a hand without much concern, "Then let you strike one more sword."
The moment those words left his mouth, Yuwen Chengqing immediately stepped several paces to the side.
Whether it was the blind old man or Li Musheng, both possessed martial cultivation far beyond his own.
Standing between the two of them, he had no ability whatsoever to withstand a strike from either, and even the aftershock of their exchange was not something he wanted any part of.
At the same time, the moment Li Musheng gave his word, the blind old man said nothing further.
He would admit it. Li Musheng's aura was something that made him feel awe and fear at a glance.
But this time was different. This time, he was the one striking the sword.
He had practiced the sword from childhood to this day, a span of more than seventy years. His natural gifts had originally been wretched. In his youth, ten years of sword training had not matched what another disciple could achieve in a single month.
For the first thirty years he had achieved nothing of note, serving as nothing more than an errand disciple responsible for sweeping and cleaning at Falling God Peak. And even that meager position had only been his because of goodwill accumulated by his ancestors in the sect's service.
And yet, no matter how poor his natural gifts, no matter how his fellow disciples looked down on him and dismissed him, he had never once given up on martial cultivation, and had been particularly, almost obsessively devoted to the sword.
In order to advance further along the path of the sword, he had put in many times more effort than anyone else, many dozens of times more. Beyond completing whatever tasks were assigned to him each day, he spent nearly every remaining hour in sword practice.
Day and night without rest, through heat and cold and the turning of the seasons, and making use of his access while sweeping the archive pavilion, he had read through nearly every sword manual and sword scripture in Falling God Peak's collection, everything he could lay eyes on outside the top-tier techniques.
And yet another twenty years passed this way, and by the time he was approaching his sixtieth year, his martial cultivation had barely reached the innate realm, and the sword path remained as unremarkable as ever.
That was how things stood, until one day, after finishing a round of sword practice, he sat on the stone steps before this very small shrine and watched the sun sink below the horizon.
A helpless and despairing feeling came over him, and he thought that perhaps this was how his entire life would pass, and that he would eventually grow old and die here.
A young woman in green robes had passed by the shrine at some point without him noticing. Their eyes met for just a moment.
She said nothing, but reached into the bundle she was carrying, produced a fragment of a damaged sword scripture, and tossed it to him.
After that, the woman in green simply glanced at the shrine once, and then vanished from before his eyes.
After receiving that fragment of sword scripture, it was as though something had suddenly opened within him, and from that day forward his progress in the sword advanced by leaps and bounds.
However, because the scripture was incomplete, he eventually hit a wall, and began searching everywhere for the missing portions.
In the course of that search, he discovered that the sword scripture the woman in green had given him was one created a thousand years ago by a sword practitioner of mediocre talent who happened also to be blind, someone who had even left behind the title of "Blind Sword Saint" in the martial world.
He learned where it had come from, but no matter how he searched, he could not find the remaining portions.
And yet in his pursuit of the sword path, he resolved to follow in the footsteps of that Blind Sword Saint, and deliberately destroyed his own eyes, intending to complete the missing portions of the scripture through his own effort.
In the end, those who persevere are rewarded by heaven. Even one as naturally ungifted as he had been, he had done it.
Hum!
Inside the small shrine, the blind old man gave his wrist a gentle flick. The azure long sword rang out with a sound like silk tearing or gold breaking, and the moment it moved, wind and thunder stirred in silence.
The azure long sword that had been pointing directly at Li Musheng suddenly vanished into thin air.
"No eyes. No self. No sword."
The blind old man murmured quietly to himself.
In the next instant, it was as though an invisible sword had broken through the darkness and driven straight to the heavens, piercing through the entire expanse of sky above the shrine.
At the same time, a hundred zhang above the Falling God Peak main peak, a spiral of clouds collapsed inward, and a formless sword scar descended from the heavens. Wherever it passed, the dark night sky split apart like cracking glass, and in an instant it arrived above Li Musheng's head.
In the moment before the blade arrived, the gale and the cold light rained down like a sudden storm.
In the next, that sword became something that no longer seemed to belong to the world of men. Its power did not rely on human strength. It was as though the killing force of heaven and earth itself had taken tangible form.
Once the sword was loosed, nothing could stand against it, and all returned to void.
At the same time, Sikong Xuan, the other three, and Yuwen Chengqing all witnessed the sword the blind old man had struck.
Not one of the four failed to be stricken utterly where they stood, each of them dazed and blank, their souls shaken with terror, their bodies trembling.
Though the blind old man's sword was aimed only at Li Musheng and did not reach toward the four of them, they could still sense with perfect clarity just how terrifying it was.
It felt as though beneath this sword, nothing could withstand it, nothing could resist it. Everything would be cut away and annihilated.
For them, there was no question of blocking it. The mere instant the sword fell, they would likely be obliterated by the sword intent before they could even react.
In that moment, all four of them looked toward Li Musheng in extreme and breathless dread.
And yet, even with a sword this overwhelming aimed straight at him, Li Musheng stood in place from beginning to end without moving, and did not draw on so much as a trace of martial True Qi.
Before the eyes of all four of them, Li Musheng simply raised his hand slowly, and with two fingers lightly pinched the empty air above his head.
In the very next instant, all of heaven and earth fell quiet. The gale stopped. The splitting night sky went still.
The surging sword energy and the unstoppable blade, both vanished in an instant as though wiped away by an invisible hand.
Then, from between Li Musheng's fingertips, the flawlessly sharp azure long sword materialized and emerged into view, the body of the blade suspended in midair three cun from Li Musheng's fingers.
The sword that had seemed to gather all the killing force of heaven and earth into itself, a sword that would reduce everything in its path to nothing, now hung quietly between Li Musheng's fingertips.
And in that state, the azure long sword looked no different from an ordinary sword, only somewhat sharper than most.
"There. Sword returned."
Li Musheng flicked a finger, and the azure long sword shot back in reverse, falling toward the blind old man inside the small shrine.
"Remember, you are a member of the Tianjin Guards from now on."
"Though at your age you probably will not last many more years of active duty, you are still expected to put in the effort. Do not think about taking it easy."
With that, Li Musheng dusted off his hands and looked away from the blind old man.
At the same time, the blind old man caught the flying azure long sword in a daze, Li Musheng's words still ringing in his ears.
He had not yet fully accepted it. Seventy years of sword practice, two eyes paid as the price, a peerless sword path built from nothing, and the most powerful strike he believed he had ever made in his life.
And it had not raised so much as a ripple in Li Musheng's hands?
Where had the power of that sword gone?
He could not even sense Li Musheng acting. His most powerful strike had simply been erased by the other party as though it were nothing.
The blind old man gripped the long sword in one hand, his fingers moving instinctively along the edge of the flawless blade.
And then, in the very next moment, it was as though lightning had struck him.
He could feel it, there on the azure long sword in his hand, the faint lingering traces of a sword intent, gradually dissipating.
That sword intent was domineering and moderate and murderous and fierce and gentle and elusive all at once.
A single trace of sword intent, and yet it carried within it dozens of distinct varieties.
"How is this possible? How could one person comprehend so many sword techniques?"
The blind old man was absolutely certain that the sword intent on the azure long sword had been left there by Li Musheng.
But he simply could not believe that the other party commanded so many varieties of sword intent, as though buying them wholesale from a merchant's stall.
He himself was someone who had read through countless sword scriptures and sword techniques. And it seemed that every variety of sword intent he had ever encountered, Li Musheng appeared to possess.
In an instant, the blind old man jerked his head up and turned his face toward where Li Musheng stood.
It was only in this moment that it seemed to dawn on him, belatedly, that Li Musheng's achievements in the way of the sword had already reached an almost unimaginable level.
At the very least, compared to him, the distance was vast.
And yet even understanding this, seeing how young Li Musheng was, and knowing how many varieties of sword intent he wielded, he still could not bring himself to believe it.
Not even twenty years old. Even if the boy had started practicing the sword from within the womb, to have comprehended that many varieties of the sword path, what level of natural talent in the sword could possibly make it achievable?
At the same time, after returning the sword to the blind old man, Li Musheng paid no further attention to him.
The man had indeed gone quite far along the path of the sword, and his strength was commendable. But compared to Li Musheng, he was still several levels short.
Of course, in truth Li Musheng had not actually read many sword scriptures or sword techniques at all. The only ones he had ever studied were a small handful of basic sword forms from the Yu family martial school.
He had not even sneaked a look at Old Yu's family heirloom sword technique.
Even so, through those basic forms alone, Li Musheng had comprehended a sword path by the principle that mastering one law is mastering all laws, drawing somewhat from the concept of the Solitary Nine Swords in the old martial arts stories of his world.
But his sword path was entirely unlike the Solitary Nine Swords. Rather, it encompassed all things and changed without end, with something of the sense that one gives rise to two, two gives rise to three, and three gives rise to the boundless.
The blind old man simply did not understand this, which was why he believed Li Musheng had comprehended so many sword scriptures and techniques.
Of course, this self-created sword path Li Musheng had forged through his own unorthodox methods was, in truth, something even more extraordinary than what the blind old man imagined.
Li Musheng drew his attention back from the blind old man, and turned to look at Yuwen Chengqing standing to one side of the shrine.
After watching the blind old man's sword, and then watching Li Musheng stop that terrifying strike with casual ease, both Yuwen Chengqing and Sikong Xuan's group had gradually recovered their senses.
And having suddenly found Li Musheng's gaze turn toward him, there was no longer any way for Yuwen Chengqing not to understand what the other party meant.
He quickly composed the shock in his heart, took several steps forward, and clasped his hands in a bow, "This commoner greets Your Eighth Highness. This commoner is willing to abandon the darkness and serve the light, joining the Great Li Tianjin Guards, and pledges to devote his life entirely to Your Highness's service, giving everything until his very last breath!"
As he said this, he followed Sikong Xuan's example and knelt down, bowing his head to the ground in a deep kowtow.
It could be said that this performance of his drew together the best of both Ouyang Mingqi and Sikong Xuan, a wholehearted and sincere surrender to the Great Li Tianjin Guards.
Li Musheng took in his performance, and gave a reasonably satisfied nod.
Even so, after studying Yuwen Chengqing for a moment, he suddenly rubbed his chin, as though something had just come to him.
"I seem to recall that when I was at the Hundred Fragrance Pavilion, I killed a Falling God Peak disciple with the surname Yuwen, who appeared to be your son."
Li Musheng raised an eyebrow slightly and looked at Yuwen Chengqing, "The murder of a son is a debt not shared under the same sky. By all reasoning, should you not avenge your dead son?"
At those words, a chill ran straight down Yuwen Chengqing's spine. He immediately pressed his head to the ground again in a deep kowtow, hastily replying, "That scoundrel of a son committed endless wrongs and his death was deserved. By the laws of Great Li, the law shows no favoritism to family, and his death was no more than his just end. It has nothing to do with this commoner, and this commoner has absolutely no intention of seeking revenge for him."
At those words, Li Musheng shook his head slightly, narrowing his eyes, "From the way you say it, perhaps you have other children, and that is why you care so little about that particular son?"
Yuwen Chengqing's expression changed in an instant, but he did not dare hide anything from Li Musheng, and pressed his forehead to the ground as he replied, "Your Highness, because this commoner was so devoted to martial cultivation, Yuwen Feng was his only son..."
He then quickly added, "However, this commoner is still hale and vigorous and quite capable of producing more. There is no need for concern about leaving no heir, and this commoner harbors not the slightest thought of revenge over that scoundrel."
At those words, Li Musheng glanced at Yuwen Chengqing, with his white hair, deeply wrinkled face, and considerable age, and his brow furrowed immediately.