Chapter 1

In the eleventh year of Emperor Wu of the Great Qin Dynasty, a rare torrential rainstorm swept through the entire Changling. The leaden clouds, accompanied by terrifying thunder, made the capital of the Great Qin Dynasty seem to have fallen into a demonic realm.

Outside the city, at the Wei River port, countless officials and soldiers in black official robes stood densely, unmoving despite the fierce wind and rain. Their bodies were like iron nails, firmly planted on the ground, motionless.

Amidst the surging waves, a massive iron-clad ship suddenly appeared!

A bolt of lightning that spanned the sky fell at this moment, illuminating the dark iron-clad ship in a snow-white light.

All the officials and soldiers standing at the edge of the port were shocked.

The bow of this iron-clad ship was actually a real Ao Dragon head!

Even though the beast's head, larger than a carriage, had been severed at the neck, its crimson eyes still flickered with a疯狂的杀意. The overwhelming aura was even more terrifying than the surging waves.

Before the ship could reach the shore, three officials directly leaped over dozens of meters of river surface, landing on the ship's deck like three heavy hammers.

What shocked these three officials even more was that the ship was covered with terrifying dents and debris, as if it had experienced countless fierce battles. Yet, the only person they could see was an old servant-like figure standing at the corner of the ship's railing, wearing a straw cloak, and there was no sign of the person they had been waiting for.

"Sir Han, where is the Chief of the Night Guard?"

The three officials bowed together, barely suppressing their shock as they asked.

"There's no need for formalities. The Chief of the Night Guard has already gone to the hiding place of the remnants of the Sword Furnace." The old servant-like figure bowed slightly in return. In the heavy rain, his face was unclear, but his eyes were exceptionally deep and cold, exuding a commanding aura that was intimidating.

"The Chief of the Night Guard has already gone?" The three officials were simultaneously startled and couldn't help but look back at the city.

The entire Changling was shrouded in rain and twilight, with only the shadows of the tall corner towers faintly visible.

At the same time, on a river in the southern part of Changling, a black umbrella suddenly appeared.

The person holding the black umbrella walked on the turbulent river as if it were flat ground, heading towards a humble alley by the riverbank.

Six officials in black robes, each holding a black umbrella of the same kind, stood quietly by the riverbank, waiting for this person.

After this person landed, the six officials did not make any extra movements or utter a sound; they silently dispersed and followed behind.

In the humble alley, there was an ordinary square courtyard, which gradually became the center of the black umbrellas that began to emit a solemn aura.

The sound of dripping water mixed with the sound of chewing.

A middle-aged man in a coarse black robe, with his sleeves rolled up, was eating his dinner under the eaves of the square courtyard.

This man's black robe was old and worn, his messy hair tied up with a piece of grass, the soles of his cloth shoes nearly worn through, and his fingernails were dirty. His face was ordinary, and he looked no different from a common laborer in the area.

His dinner was very simple: a bowl of coarse rice, a dish of green vegetables, and a dish of tofu. However, the middle-aged man ate it with great relish, chewing each mouthful dozens of times before slowly swallowing it.

After finishing the last mouthful of rice, the middle-aged man reached for a wooden ladle hanging from the eaves, scooped a ladle of clear water from the water tank, drank it all, and then let out a satisfied belch.

As his belch echoed, the first black umbrella stopped at the gate of his small courtyard.

A snow-white official boot extended from under one of the black umbrellas, standing out strikingly against the dark background.

Following the boot was a snow-white long skirt, flowing black hair, thin lips, and eyebrows as light as distant mountains in the rain.

The person who walked across the turbulent river as if it were a leisurely stroll was a graceful and scholarly woman with a particularly alluring figure.

She walked out from under the black umbrella, letting the autumn rain wet her black hair, and lightly entered the middle-aged man's square courtyard. She then bowed gracefully and said softly, "Night Cai Leng greets Mr. Zhao Qi."

The middle-aged man raised an eyebrow, and with this gesture, his face seemed to come alive, and he began to exude an indescribable charm.

"I have been in Changling for three years, and this is the first time I have met the Chief of the Night Guard."

He did not return the bow but smiled slightly, his gaze sweeping past the woman and looking into the distant streets and alleys in the autumn rain.

"Changling can be quite boring after a while, just like the swords and personalities of your Qin people—straightforward and rigid, with no sense of beauty. The streets and walls are either gray or black. Seeing the Chief of the Night Guard today, however, has been a refreshing sight, which seems quite out of place in Changling."

His tone was light and casual, as if he were chatting with someone after a meal, but as soon as these words were spoken, the faces of all the people under the black umbrellas outside the courtyard turned cold.

"Bold! O Zhan, remnant of the Sword Furnace! The Chief of the Night Guard is here, and you still dare to speak such heartless words!"

A cold and fierce voice suddenly rang out from under one of the black umbrellas in the distance.

Clearly, the person who spoke wanted the middle-aged man and the woman in the white dress to see his face, so he raised his umbrella. It was a young man with an exceptionally handsome face, red lips, white teeth, and skin like jade, his eyes flashing like cold lightning.

"Oh?"

A light exclamation sounded.

The middle-aged man's furrowed brows relaxed, and he looked relieved. "No wonder your aura is much weaker than the others... You are not one of the six great contributors of the Heavenly Surveillance Bureau. So, you must be an official of the Imperial Surveillance Bureau."

The handsome young official's hands, which had been trembling imperceptibly, seemed to have used up a lot of courage with his previous action. When he heard the middle-aged man say his aura was much weaker than the others, his eyes flared with anger, and his breathing became more rapid.

The middle-aged man's gaze, however, had already moved from his body to the woman in the white dress. He smiled at her and said, "To have already reached the half-step of the fourth realm at this age, he should be considered a rare talent in your dynasty."

The woman in the white dress smiled, revealing two shallow dimples on her cheeks. "Mr. Zhao is right."

"He probably just admires you and wants to leave an impression." The middle-aged man looked at the woman meaningfully. "Isn't that a bit of a waste?"

"You... What do you mean?" The handsome young official's face turned deathly pale, his heavy robes drenched in cold sweat, and a bad feeling rose in his heart.

The woman in the white dress turned to look at him and smiled, giving the impression that she had no ill feelings towards the handsome young man. However, a raindrop that landed next to her suddenly stopped.

Then the raindrop began to accelerate, reaching a terrifying speed, stretching into a thin, small sword during the acceleration.

A soft "swoosh" sound.

The inside of the black umbrella was splattered with blood, and the handsome young official's head separated from his neck, landing on the ground with the flying black umbrella. His eyes were wide open, still unable to believe what had happened.

"Great courage!"

The middle-aged man clapped his hands in approval. "To kill a surveillance official of the Imperial Surveillance Bureau who was monitoring your actions with a single sword strike, the Chief of the Night Guard indeed has great courage. However, to kill one of your rare cultivators just because of a few words, the Chief of the Night Guard seems to lack magnanimity."

The woman in the white dress said mockingly, "What does a woman need magnanimity for? Having a chest is enough."

The middle-aged man was slightly taken aback; he had not expected her to say such a thing.

"True."

He laughed self-deprecatingly. "A person like the Chief of the Night Guard doesn't need to care too much about what others think, no matter what they do or say."

The woman in the white dress's eyelashes trembled, and her lips parted, but at that moment, she sensed something and frowned, falling silent.

The middle-aged man's smile faded at that moment. The fine wrinkles at the corners of his eyes were smoothed out by a strange glow, and his body and skin began to shine with a jade-like luster. A wave of hot air made the raindrops falling from the sky turn into white steam, and a strong aura of killing intent filled the small courtyard.

"Although the main cultivation methods differ, all cultivators in the world are divided into nine realms, each with three grades. What realm has your emperor reached?" The woman in the white dress had bowed to him earlier, but he had not returned the bow. Now, he bowed deeply and asked seriously.

"I have no magnanimity, so I won't answer such a question without any benefit." The woman in the white dress looked at him calmly and said firmly, "One question per person."

The middle-aged man pondered for a moment and then looked up. "Agreed."

The woman in the white dress did not negotiate the order and asked directly, "The disciples of the Sword Furnace cultivate life-risking swords, not even valuing their own lives. But during these three years of hiding, you neither assassinated our dynasty's cultivators nor secretly formed alliances or tried to steal our cultivation texts. What do you really want to do?"

The middle-aged man looked at her and sighed. "Even if your cultivation places' secret treasuries are strong, can they be as strong as what that person left behind?"

His counter-question was brief, and he didn't even mention the name of "that person," but these two words were like a taboo. The five officials under the black umbrellas outside the courtyard, who had shown no emotion during the previous bloody scene, now had their black umbrellas tremble, and water droplets like willow catkins were shaken off the umbrellas.

The woman in the white dress was immediately displeased and said coldly, "So many years have passed, and you still haven't given up. You still want to see if that person left anything behind?"

The middle-aged man did not say anything but looked into her eyes with interest, waiting for her next answer.

The woman in the white dress looked at the increasingly charming middle-aged man and suddenly felt some sympathy for him. She said softly, "The Holy Emperor reached the upper grade of the seventh realm five years ago. He has not acted in the past five years. Is this answer satisfactory?"

"Five years ago, he reached the upper grade of the seventh realm. Five years should be enough to break through to the next realm. So, he might have really reached the eighth realm?" A deep sense of disappointment and sorrow appeared in the middle-aged man's eyes, but in the next moment, it all turned into sharp sword intent!

His entire body began to glow, like a world-renowned sword that had been hidden in its sheath for many years, suddenly unsheathed!

All the withered and growing grass on the walls and roofs of the small courtyard was cut into pieces by the sharp aura and flew outward.

"Please!"

The middle-aged man took a deep breath. In his eyes, the world seemed to consist only of the woman in the white dress.

"O Zhan, the seventh disciple of the Sword Furnace, will experience the Autumn Water Sword of the Chief of the Night Guard!"

As his voice echoed, the woman in the white dress remained silent, showing no reaction. However, the five black-robed officials outside the courtyard all let out a low moan, their figures suddenly scattering to the five corners outside the courtyard, and their black umbrellas began to spin violently.

The black umbrellas, like round shields, did not sprinkle raindrops but shot out countless streams of energy.

Boom!

The entire small courtyard seemed to bulge outward like paper, instantly exploding into countless burning fragments.

Muffled groans sounded under the umbrellas. The burning fragments, containing astonishing power, made the soles of the five umbrella-holding officials' shoes and the wet stone pavement emit a sharp friction sound.

The dense energy formed an impenetrable wall, and few burning fragments pierced through. The rolling hot air and burning sparks were forced to vent upward into the sky, creating a huge furnace that seemed to rise between heaven and earth.

At the center of the furnace, the middle-aged man, O Zhan, had a small red sword in his hand.

The sword was no more than two feet long, but the raging true fire emanating from the blade and tip formed a fireball several meters long!

The woman in the white dress, whom he called the Chief of the Night Guard, had already disappeared, leaving only thousands of fine rain threads like countless small swords converging on him.

...

The moment the five black-umbrella-holding officials made their move, dozens of sword masters, each carrying various long swords, ghost-like entered the humble alley.

These sword masters had the same aura as the five black-umbrella-holding officials. In the wind and rain, the raindrops around them flew away as if they had a life of their own, and an invisible transparent energy sphere surrounded each of them, like an independent world.

This scene could only mean that they, like the five black-umbrella-holding officials, were rare cultivators with unimaginable abilities.

However, as they listened to the continuous rumbling from the small courtyard and saw the water splashing from the puddles due to the ground shaking, they could not even sense the rough details of the battle inside. Their faces turned paler, and their hands became increasingly sweaty.

They had already known what the Sword Furnace of the State of Zhao was, but today they finally realized that their estimation of the Sword Furnace was still too low.

The time was actually very short, so short that the nearby residents only thought it was thunder and did not realize what had happened. The black umbrella curtain surrounding the small courtyard suddenly emitted an unusual cracking sound.

One black umbrella could not withstand the pressure and flew nearly a hundred meters to the side.

The black-robed officials scattered around the small courtyard, each carrying a sheathless iron sword, were all startled. The four black-robed sword masters behind the black umbrellas immediately let out a fierce cry and drew their swords in front of them.

Four heavy clanging sounds echoed, and the four long swords of different colors bent into half-circles. The four black-robed sword masters tried to hold their ground, but in the next moment, they all spat out a mouthful of blood and fell back like broken-winged birds.

The wave of energy that burst from the crack in the black umbrella curtain had not dissipated. It passed through a vegetable garden, destroyed two fences, crossed a wide street, and surged towards a sesame oil shop on the opposite side of the street.

A loud explosion sounded.

The door panels leaning against the entrance of the sesame oil shop shattered into countless pieces, and half of the shop was violently shaken to collapse. Tiles fell to the ground, and a large cloud of dust rose.

"Which damn fool is driving a cart in the rain without eyes, and so fast! You destroyed my shop!"

A shrill scream echoed from the half-collapsed shop, and a middle-aged woman holding an oil ladle rushed out, furious and ready to attack. But the moment she saw the scene in front of her, the oil ladle in her hand fell to the ground, and she let out an even shriller scream.

"The Heavenly Surveillance Bureau is investigating a case!"

A black-robed sword master, who had been thrown to the ground and was spitting blood, heard the middle-aged woman's scream. He gritted his teeth, supported himself with his bent sword, and stood up, his fierce killing intent making the middle-aged woman tremble and stop screaming.

At this moment, what made the black-robed sword master, who looked fierce, even more surprised was that a young boy, no more than thirteen or fourteen years old, walked out of the half-collapsed sesame oil shop, holding an oil bottle. Despite his dust-covered face, he showed no fear.

He was just curious, his eyes bright as he looked at the black-robed sword master, then his gaze moved past the black-robed sword master to the back of the two destroyed fences.

In his line of sight, a graceful woman in a white dress was walking out from the crack in the black umbrella curtain.

"Give him a proper burial."

The woman in the white dress was drenched, and she seemed extremely exhausted. When the black umbrellas gathered to shield her from the falling rain, she only said these three words softly.