The wind was colder here.
Yan Xuanlanbin stood at the base of Hollow Peak, the last known location of the Supreme Sword's bearer from a thousand years ago. The mountain had long been abandoned. No birds. No beasts. Just silence thick enough to crush your lungs.
He tightened the strap on his half-torn cloak and looked up. The path twisted between jagged rocks and dead trees, climbing endlessly into the clouds. No one sane came here. Rumor said the mountain fed on souls.
But Yan Xuanlanbin wasn't here for rumors.
He stepped forward. His boots crunched over dry leaves and shattered bones. Human bones.
He didn't flinch.
Somewhere, far above, the sword was waiting. Or something was pretending to be it.
The climb was slow. The higher he went, the less light touched the path. At some point, even the wind stopped howling. There were no birds, no insects. The trees grew twisted, blackened by something older than decay.
After an hour of climbing, he paused. There was a scar on the mountain wall. A single slash across solid stone. Smooth. Perfect. Deep.
His breath caught.
That wasn't made by a normal blade.
He reached out, brushing the groove with two fingers. The stone was still warm. Not from sunlight — from something else. Something living.
Or something that used to be.
A branch snapped behind him.
He didn't turn.
"Come out," he said.
The silence answered.
Then another sound — slow footsteps dragging through dust. A low growl, more in his mind than his ears.
Still, he didn't move. Only his left hand dropped to the sword at his hip — the broken one he carried everywhere. A sword that hadn't tasted blood in two years.
He waited.
A figure stepped into view. Not a man. Not a beast. Something between.
It had the body of a monk, the skin of dried leather, and empty sockets where eyes should've been. A yellow talisman fluttered from its neck — old, faded, but still pulsing with cursed qi.
"Guardian," Yan muttered.
The creature didn't speak. Just raised a rusted halberd with both hands and charged.
Yan stepped left. Fast. Clean. The blade missed his face by inches.
He twisted, dropped to a knee, and slashed upward — his broken sword catching the guardian under the ribs. Bone cracked. Black mist hissed out like breath from a dying animal.
The creature reeled.
But it didn't fall.
Instead, it laughed. A dry, wheezing sound, like air rattling in a throat that had forgotten how to live.
Yan frowned. "You're already dead. What are you protecting?"
The thing didn't answer. It attacked again.
This time, Yan didn't dodge.
He met it head-on.
The impact was violent — steel clashing against bone and rotten metal. Sparks flew. The broken sword screamed in his grip, but it held. Barely.
He turned with the momentum, spinning low, slicing the guardian's knee. The thing staggered.
Yan surged forward, planting one hand on its chest, and drove the broken blade into its throat.
A flash of red.
The body stiffened. Then crumbled into ash.
Yan stepped back, panting. The sword in his hand was steaming.
Behind him, the wind returned.
And with it, voices.
Dozens. Maybe hundreds. Whispering.
"The bearer… the bearer…"
He turned.
The mountain wall behind him shimmered.
It wasn't stone anymore.
It was a door.
A door made of blood-black jade, covered in ancient runes that pulsed faintly, like a heartbeat.
He hadn't opened anything.
But the mountain had recognized him.
Or the sword.
Yan stared at the broken weapon in his grip. It shouldn't have that kind of power. Not anymore.
Unless…
He stepped forward and placed his palm on the jade.
Nothing happened.
Then the whispers stopped.
Silence.
One heartbeat.
Two.
Then the door split in half with a sound like thunder.
Inside — only darkness.
He walked in.
The chamber was massive. A hollow cavern, smooth as glass, wide as a palace. At its center stood a pedestal. And floating above it — a sword.
Whole. Untouched. Suspended in mid-air like time itself had bowed to it.
It wasn't large. It didn't glow. No flames, no wind, no divine music.
But Yan felt his knees weaken just looking at it.
This was it.
The Supreme Sword.
The one forged before the first realm split into nine. The one that chose its master once every thousand years. The one that ended wars… and started them.
He took a step closer.
The air around the sword warped. Not violently. Not in warning. It was waiting.
For him.
Yan hesitated. Something deep in his chest twisted. Not fear. Not doubt. Something older.
It felt like… guilt.
He looked at his broken blade. The one he'd carried since his master died. Since the old sect burned. Since the betrayal.
He didn't deserve a sword like this.
He never had.
But the Supreme Sword didn't care about what he felt.
It chose.
And it had already decided.
He stepped up to the pedestal and reached out.
The instant his fingers touched the hilt, everything changed.
The world cracked.
Not outside. Inside.
Flashes of memory — but not his.
Burning skies. Giants falling. Swords clashing above oceans of flame. Nine kings kneeling to one man holding this very sword.
Then silence.
The sword pulsed once.
Then again.
And then it shattered.
Not into pieces — into light.
The blade dissolved into pure qi, rushing into Yan's body like a tidal wave. He staggered, gasping, every vein in his body lighting up like lightning bolts.
He screamed.
Pain. Power. Rage. Peace. All of it — all at once.
He dropped to his knees.
When he looked up, the sword was gone.
But something had taken its place.
His broken blade — still in his hand — was glowing. Whole again. Different. Marked by the nine runes of the ancient realms.
The Supreme Sword hadn't given him a new weapon.
It had chosen to awaken the old one.
The whispers returned.
But this time, they spoke clearly.
"The Nine Realms are watching, bearer. The trials begin."
Yan stood.
And for the first time in two years, he smiled.
Not because he felt strong.
But because he finally knew what he was meant to do.
And he wasn't afraid anymore.