The light from the first trial faded, and darkness returned like a tide drawn over the land. Lin Mu stood still, both swords lowered at his sides, waiting. His breathing was calm, unaffected. He had passed the first test. The sword had acknowledged him.
But the second test… would not be of steel.
The world around him began to shimr.
A haze rolled in, color blooming across the darkness like ink bleeding into water. Shapes ford. Walls, doors, furniture.
A house.
Lin Mu recognized it at once.
His childhood ho.
The worn wooden floors, the creaking ceiling beams, the sll of millet porridge in the air. The sounds of a fire crackling in the hearth. And at the center of it—
Two familiar figures sat quietly.
His father hunched at the table, eyes tired and dim. His mother, once so warm, now pale and thin, folded clothes silently in a corner.
Lin Mu didn't move. He simply watched.
Then they turned to face him.
Their expressions twisted.
His mother's face scrunched in disdain. His father's eyes grew cold.
"You call yourself an immortal?"
"You beca strong, yet here we are. Still dead."
"What was the point of it all?"
"You couldn't even protect us from a plague."
Their words grew harsher, crueler.
"What good is all your cultivation if you let us die like dogs?"
"You weren't strong. You were too slow. Too weak."
"You're still that useless little boy who watched helplessly."
Their voices echoed louder, like knives across stone.
But Lin Mu did not react.
His eyes didn't tremble. His hands didn't twitch. He watched it all, silent and unmoved. Expressionless.
He saw the faces. The house. The ghosts of his grief.
And then—
He laughed.
A quiet chuckle at first. Then louder. Not manic, not cruel. But genuine.
A laugh full of clarity.
The illusions paused, stunned. Their mocking gazes now tinged with anger.
"Are you mocking us?" they hissed in unison. "Do you think this is funny?"
"You're laughing at your parents?"
Lin Mu stepped forward slowly, raising his eyes. His voice rang sharp, cold and precise.
"No. I'm laughing because this is pathetic."
The illusions trembled.
"You think I'd bla myself?" he continued, his voice like a blade unsheathing. "For your deaths? Deaths that happened before I even stepped onto the path of cultivation?"
He scoffed.
"The dead are the dead. I grieved for you. I buried you. But I will not chain myself to corpses, no matter how precious they once were."
"I cannot save the dead—only honor them by moving forward."
The illusions' faces twisted into rage.
Swords appeared in their hands—phantasmal weapons fueled by hatred, guilt, sorrow. They rushed toward him, the world twisting into a maelstrom of sound and fury.
But Lin Mu stood tall.
He raised a hand and extended a single finger.
Then, in a calm, firm voice, he chanted:
"Sharpen thy will as a blade—"
"Slay your mortal bindings—"
"And beco unyielding in the face of worldly tribulations."
The words of the Severing Heart Sutra of the Sword Path echoed like temple bells throughout the realm.
And with each word—
The illusions fractured.
Their blades froze mid-air. Their bodies split like cracked mirrors. The ho shattered into a storm of glass and light.
The grief, the guilt, the sorrow—
All dissolved into nothing.
The world turned silent once more.
Lin Mu stood amidst a void of floating shards, each fragnt glinting with mories he had already co to terms with long ago.
He exhaled slowly.
"That was disappointingly weak," he muttered, sheathing his swords again. "Almost nonsensical too." He didn't know what kind of cultivator would fall to sothing this pathetic.
What he didn't know was that the contents of what the illusions spoke didn't matter. The real test was facing those that had died. Most cultivators would have frozen seeing their parents alive again. But Lin Mu had already moved past it.
His heart was unshakable.
He turned his gaze upward, sensing the next trial slowly forming above him in a halo of light.
"If this is the extent of the Path… I'll be through it sooner than expected."
And then, the third trial began.
The fragnts of the emotional trial finally faded, drifting away like dust in a sunbeam. The void beca still once more, but Lin Mu could feel it—a quiet shifting in the fabric of the world.
The stillness wasn't peace.
It was anticipation.
A circle of soft silver light appeared beneath his feet, anchoring him to the endless dark. Slowly, another circle ignited opposite him, several ters away. A figure ford within it—tall, motionless, and utterly featureless.
It had no face.
No armor.No sword.Not even eyes.
Just a silhouette. Like soone had carved a swordsman's outline from the very fabric of shadow.
And yet—
Lin Mu felt a shiver run through the void.
The figure didn't move, but the mont it appeared, a sharp intent filled the air. It wasn't oppressive, nor aggressive. It was focused. Pure. Still.
"A phantom of the path," Lin Mu murmured, eyes narrowing. "A remnant of soone who walked this road before… maybe even soone who reached the end."
He reached for his swords—and froze.
His fingers touched empty air.
Both Afternoon Pine and Ocean Raker were gone.
"What—?"
He extended his senses—and staggered slightly.
His cultivation base was gone.His body strength sealed.His bloodline dormant.Even his Boundless Dominator Physique felt quiet, slumbering.
Only two things remained:
His body.And his sword intent.
A single weapon materialized in his hand: a plain, old training sword. Unadorned. Weighted. Unassuming.
Yet familiar.
"Ah… I see," Lin Mu exhaled, understanding blooming. "A trial of pure swordsmanship."
He gripped the hilt with both hands.
Across from him, the phantom moved.
It didn't draw a blade. It beca a blade.
Sword intent exploded from its figure, dancing and flaring without shape—like fire caught in a storm. Lin Mu instinctively braced himself.
"No aura. No qi. But that feeling—"
His brows drew tight.
"That's… Sword Heart."
He grinned faintly.
"Now we're talking."
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