The moment Shen Xian signaled his assent, the deep wrinkles on Han Shan’s face folded into a wide, beaming smile. He gestured with a flourish, pulling Shen Xian toward the gathered throng of cultivators with practiced warmth.

“Fellow Daoists, lend me your ears! This is Fellow Daoist Wang Yu,” Han Shan announced, his voice booming across the clearing. He gave his silver beard a lingering stroke, his eyes twinkling with a calculated light. “A late-stage Golden Core expert!”

He leaned into the words late-stage Golden Core, ensuring the weight of the rank hung in the air. Heads turned instantly. In the cutthroat atmosphere of the God Burial Valley, a late-stage Golden Core was a heavy piece on the board—not so powerful as to be a primary threat to the great sects, but more than enough to act as a pillar for a group of rogues.

Shen Xian offered a stiff, polite nod, his expression a mask of calm. Under the alias Wang Yu, he had pulled his aura inward, suppressing the vast ocean of his true cultivation until it mirrored the steady, rhythmic pulse of a late-stage Golden Core. In a place where “dragons and snakes mix,” as the old saying went, showing one’s full hand was a fool’s errand.

“With Fellow Daoist Wang among us, our excursion to the Sword Asking Pavilion shall yield twice the result with half the effort!” A man clad in scholarly blue robes laughed, stepping forward.

This was Mo Hanchuan, a sword cultivator at the peak of Golden Core Perfection. His gaze was sharp, lingering on Shen Xian for a heartbeat longer than necessary. While the others murmured their superficial welcomes, Shen Xian caught the subtle, weighted glances exchanged between a few members of the inner circle. This wasn’t just a haphazard collection of “disorganized crows”; a core group had clearly been refining their plans long before he arrived.

“Sword Asking Pavilion?” Shen Xian asked, pitching his voice to sound curious but guarded.

Han Shan cleared his throat, leaning in closer until the scent of old parchment and herbal tea wafted over. “Fellow Daoist Wang is perhaps new to the deeper lore of this region. This tomb is no mere burial mound—it is the ancient mountain gate of the Tiangang Sword Sect.”

He pointed a trembling finger toward the horizon, where a phantasmal giant sword hovered above the tomb’s apex. “That phantom is the coalesced lifebound intent of thirty-six Sword Venerables. It has endured for millennia.”

Shen Xian’s eyes narrowed. Han Shan was a fountain of information; it was clear why he had been able to rally so many disparate rogues.

“So that explains the interest from the great sects,” Shen Xian murmured, feigning a sudden realization.

“Indeed,” Han Shan nodded, his chest swelling with the pride of a man holding secrets. “Ancient records claim that during the Divine-Demon War, the Tiangang Sword Sect stood at the very epicenter of the slaughter. The thirty-six Sword Venerables offered their own bodies as living sacrifices, anchoring a peerless sword formation that ground thirty-six thousand demon elites into dust. The ‘Ten Thousand Corpses’ people whisper of aren’t human, Fellow Daoist—they are the husks of those suppressed demons.”

Shen Xian fell silent, his mind racing. The God Burial Valley was a fragment of a much larger Divine-Demon battlefield, a splinter of space-time that had drifted into the Southern Territories by chance. This was a windfall for the cultivators of Qingzhou, an opportunity that should have rightfully belonged to the northern border.

“The legend goes even deeper,” Han Shan whispered, seizing Shen Xian’s contemplative silence to press his advantage. “They say the tomb itself is a world-shaking supreme treasure. But,” he added with a self-deprecating chuckle, “for those of our humble station, such thoughts are mere delusions. We must be pragmatic.”

“And your pragmatic goal is…?” Shen Xian prompted.

“The Sword Asking Pavilion on the first level,” Han Shan’s eyes flashed. “It was the gate to their outer sect. Even the scraps left behind after an eternity of decay are enough to sustain a rogue cultivator for a lifetime. However, the demonic miasma hasn’t fully cleared. The remnant souls of those demon elites still haunt the halls—twisted, bizarre, and hungry. We travel as one to ensure we don’t become their next meal.”

Shen Xian nodded. Han Shan was a classic old fox—mixing enough truth to buy trust while burying the crucial details that would likely lead to a betrayal later.

Suddenly, the world groaned.

The Ten Thousand Corpses Tomb shuddered violently. Countless fissures spiderwebbed across the earth, each crack erupting with a blinding, frigid sword light. The illusory giant sword atop the mound roared, its form turning from mist to solid, gleaming metal as a deafening hum shook the marrow of everyone’s bones.

“It’s opening!” Mo Hanchuan shrieked, his composure shattering into raw excitement.

Thirty-six streaks of brilliance split from the giant sword, lashing across the sky like falling stars. They wove together into a shimmering net of light that blotted out the sun. Within the radiance, the silhouettes of the Sword Venerables manifested—figures of absolute authority, standing with hands behind their backs or blades leveled at the heavens. Even as ghosts of the past, their aura was suffocating.

“The majesty of a Divine Venerable…” a young cultivator nearby whimpered, his knees buckling.

In his storage ring, Shen Xian felt his own [Wuchen Sword] begin to thrash, its blade vibrating in a feverish resonance with the ancient intent in the air.

“Look at the trajectories!” Han Shan’s voice was choked with emotion. “Those are the inheritance paths of the Tiangang Sword Sect! Every line is etched in the blood of the righteous!”

The sky began to play back the echoes of the ancient war. Shen Xian saw the thirty-six masters standing back-to-back atop a literal mountain of demon corpses. He saw a white-haired elder roar at the heavens, his sword shattering into a million shards, yet he continued the strike with the jagged hilt, pouring his very soul into a final, world-rending blow.

“If not for them,” an old Golden Core cultivator rasped, tears carving paths through the dust on his face, “we would be nothing but fodder for those monsters.”

Even the arrogant Xiao Jin of the Sacred Fire Sect extinguished his flames, bowing his head in solemn respect. Shen Xian’s brother, Shen Xing, pressed a hand to his heart—the highest salute of the Shen Clan. For a moment, the greed and the scheming died away, replaced by a heavy, reverent silence. It was a reminder that while they fought for gold and glory today, the ground they stood on was bought with the lives of those who fought for the survival of the race at the Fallen Immortal Great Wall.

Boom!

The earth in front of the tomb collapsed, revealing a grand staircase of nine white-jade steps. Each step was intricately carved with cyan-glowing sword runes. At the summit, a massive bronze door groaned open, spilling out a river of silver sword radiance.

“The gate is open!”

The spell of silence broke instantly. The elite prodigies moved first, turning into streaks of multicolored light as they shot toward the jade steps.

Inside Shen Xian’s spirit beast bag, the Mysterious Turtle went into a frantic state, its shell spinning like a top. The [Wuchen Sword] was no longer just vibrating; it was screaming for the interior of the tomb.

“Fellow Daoists, the time is now!” Han Shan barked.

With a collective roar, the tide of rogue cultivators surged forward, disappearing into the silver light of the Sword Asking Pavilion.