The Spirit Farr felt even more regret when he looked at his damaged broadsword, because he had never been able to use it effectively when it was whole due to its unique properties.
Celestial Fang was unique in the fact that it could hamper one’s Spirit spellcasting. But because it was a broadsword, it needed a special martial art or Spirit technique to bring out its true potential. And Aksai had still not managed to find a broadsword technique related to any path that might suit him.
In the end, Celestial Fang was damaged before he could truly master it.
The feeling was like buying a sports car and keeping it in the garage for months on end but never getting the chance to drive it to its full potential before it was scrapped in an unforeseen accident.
The Celestial Echo was even worse.
Half of it was gone completely—blown apart into countless pieces by an Aurous Artist’s golden Qi attack.
Out of fifty Celestial Shard knives, only fifteen remained sowhat intact. The rest were either bent, dulled, or shattered.
Even the Celestial Stinger, the dagger he now held in his hand, had lost its shine. Its edge was dull, and small cracks ran along its length.
Aksai looked at the dagger for a long mont, his reflection barely visible on its surface. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
His body was fine—better than fine, actually. The small cuts and burns he had suffered earlier were already healed thanks to his druidic bloodline powers, leaving only dried blood on his skin and clothes. His blood-soaked robes had a few tears and burn marks, but they still held together.
He tilted his head up and looked around the battlefield again. Corpses everywhere. Silence. The faint scent of smoke and residual elental Qi hung in the air.
Aksai’s lips curved into a tired but satisfied smile. "So this is it," he whispered to himself. "The Grand Martial Hall didn’t disappoint ."
He knelt down and picked up the broken Lian Flying Sword, running his thumb along its cracked blade. "You’ve served well," he said quietly, his voice calm and almost gentle.
The Lian Flying Sword was Aksai’s first true weapon as a Spirit cultivator. Although it had needed upgrades before, it had never been damaged this badly. At this point, it was better to craft a new weapon from scratch than try to fix his first sword.
Then he looked at the rest of his damaged weapons and felt another small ache in his chest. These blades had been with him for years. Each one carried mories of countless battles and victories. Losing them here, in Sharang of all places, wasn’t sothing he had planned.
"I guess I’ll need to forge a new set once I beco a Core Formation Lord," he murmured.
He waved his hand, and one by one, the damaged weapons disappeared into his storage ring in faint flashes of light.
For a few seconds, he just stood there—alone among the dead, the wind brushing against his bloodstained clothes. Then he turned away from the field of corpses and started walking, his steps slow but steady.
Step. Step. Step.
He was walking toward the only survivors of the Devil’s Den.
Splash. Gooh. Pa-chaak!
The Spirit farr’s feet splashed in shallow puddles of blood from ti to ti as he walked through various small and big masses of dead bodies.
Out of more than three hundred martial artists the Grand Martial Hall had sent tonight, very few were still alive.
Reymon had done his best — he had not underestimated Aksai. He had sent a significant force: two hundred late-stage Bronze Artists, a hundred Argent Artists, and seven Aurous Artists as backup. On paper, that should have been more than enough to subdue any Spirit cultivator below Core Formation.
But reality was cruel.
Two hundred late-stage Bronze Artists had been slaughtered within an hour. Although they had acted as cannon fodders in this event, they actually had big statuses where they lived. After all, becoming even a late-stage Bronze Body realm was no easy feat in the current era.
Seventy out of hundred Argent Artists had fallen after them — not one of their bodies left whole.
Their remains were scattered across the ground: bones split open, organs twisted into vines, faces frozen in horror. So of them had been turned into tree-like monsters, their bodies consud by the Devil Vines that fed on their Qi before being discarded like broken puppets.
The few that remained alive could only stare in numb disbelief.
Aksai stopped a few ters away from them. The moonlight revealed three martial artists from the Grand Martial Hall who had survived — Jin, Wen, and Lin. Their eyes were open wide, filled with pain, fear, and disbelief.
Lastly, alongside the rest of the survivors, hung the seven Aurous Artists Reymon had sent.
All ten were bound a few centiters above the ground, trapped by thick brown and green vines covered in sharp thorns. The vines had pierced their skin and wrapped tightly around their limbs, making them look like insects caught in a spider’s web.
From the vines that covered their bodies, large yellow flowers had blood. The petals pulsed faintly, glowing with a strange light. These were no ordinary flowers — they were born from the Devil’s Den itself, feeding on Qi and stamina. Each breath the survivors took made the flowers bloom brighter while their strength faded further.
The vines had tightened so much that their veins stood out beneath their skin. Their arms and legs were stretched apart, forming an X-like shape in the air.
The Essence Equation runes sealed their mouths, and glowing talismans were placed across their foreheads, suppressing both their Qi and movent completely. Because of this, the survivors couldn’t even voice their willingness to submit to Aksai.
All they could do was stare ahead with wide, fear-filled eyes as they watched Aksai walking toward them. They couldn’t even close their eyes in protest, since the talismans had sealed the movent of their eyelids as well.
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