A Will Eternal

“He’s gonna get himself killed!”

“The Spirit Stream Sect people are all so arrogant! That’s a mid-level banebeast, not a low-level banebeast. Is he looking to die?!” The Blood Stream Sect disciples chuckled coldly as they imagined the banebeast ripping the Spirit Stream Sect disciple to shreds.

However, even as the cold smiles appeared on their faces, they suddenly trembled, and their eyes went wide with disbelief and shock.

What they saw was Bai Xiaochun, his hair in complete disarray, grabbing onto the bear, which let out a terrifying roar. It then bared its teeth as if to rip Bai Xiaochun’s arm off of his body and shred it to pieces.

However, as soon Bai Xiaochun’s hand latched down onto it, the bear acted as though a mountain of pressure had just crushed down onto it. Rumbling sounds echoed out as Bai Xiaochun pushed the bear down into the ground.

The ground trembled, and the four Blood Stream Sect disciples all gasped, hardly able to believe their eyes.

“This….”

“How is this possible?!?!”

“Such incredible strength!”

The four of them swallowed hard, and yet, weren’t willing to simply leave. Even as they eyed Bai Xiaochun, he once again did something that left them trembling.

Immersed as he was in his research, he completely ignored the Blood Stream Sect disciples. A flying sword appeared in his left hand, and in front of the eyes of all of the Blood Stream Sect disciples, he began to slice open the banebeast’s arm.

Blood sprayed everywhere, along with earthstring energy. The banebeast howled, and Bai Xiaochun, apparently annoyed by the sound, slit its throat. The Blood Stream Sect disciples’ eyes went wide, and they began to tremble and back up, eyes radiating reverence toward Bai Xiaochun.

Bai Xiaochun didn’t notice. After enough time passed for half an incense stick to burn, he managed to completely dissect the banebeast. Although the pieces were already starting to fade away, the mere sight of the sliced up bear left the Blood Stream Sect disciples feeling as though their heads were about to explode.

“Did he… did he have a grudge with that particular banebeast? Or does he always do that to them? Heavens! That’s the most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen, even in the Blood Stream Sect!”

“It must be some twisted hobby of his….”

One of the disciples pulled out a jade slip, checked it, and then said, “That’s… that’s Bai Xiaochun!!”

The other three disciples gasped at the mention of the name. Without even the slightest hesitation, they began to back up, doing everything possible to get as far away as they could.

Some time later, Bai Xiaochun’s eyes were shining with excitement. Taking a deep breath, he rose to his feet and began to pace back and forth, occasionally gesticulating with one hand or the other.

“I get it now. The banebeasts look like ordinary beasts, but there’s something different about them. Spiritual energy is as useful to them as earthstring energy is to cultivators trying to reach Foundation Establishment! That’s why any disciples who get eaten by them instantly disappear into nothing. They get totally absorbed….

“Hahaha! I can definitely concoct the pill I need!” He threw his head back and laughed uproariously, then looked around, somewhat surprised to find that everyone had left.

Shaking his head, he blurred into motion, heading off into the distance to find a cave. Once he found a suitable location, he produced some earthflame crystals and began to concoct. He had the pill formula in mind, which he followed based on his understanding of the banebeasts.

In addition to the medicinal plants, he added in some of his own blood. Worried that that might not be enough, he called upon the principles of mutual augmentation and suppression to adjust things perfectly.

He spent four hours concocting, after which the pill furnace began to rumble. When the sound died down, a medicinal pill appeared. Bai Xiaochun grabbed it and set off to look for banebeasts. After finding one, he threw out the medicinal pill, but was disappointed to find that it didn’t have any effect whatsoever.

“This can’t be right! What went wrong!?” The next few days, he spent more time researching the banebeasts. By that time, it had been twenty days since the opening of the Fallen Sword Abyss.

Most of the disciples of the four sects had reached the depths of the world, and were in different areas fighting and killing banebeasts.

The Blood Stream Sect was truly strong, and incredibly vicious. The Profound Stream Sect and the Spirit Stream Sect were about evenly matched, with the Pill Stream Sect being the weakest of them all.

There were even fights that broke out between some of the top Chosen from the various sects. The most noteworthy fight was when Ghostfang fought Nine-Isles from the Profound Stream Sect. It lasted an entire day, and shook everything in the area. In the end, Nine-Isles was seriously injured and fled. Having come out victorious, Ghostfang came to be known as the one person who was qualified to fight Song Que.

Gongsun Wan’er and Zhao Rou fought a few times, and although there were always clear winners and losers, neither managed to kill the other.

Shangguan Tianyou put on quite a show. In the middle of killing a banebeast, he saw Fang Lin, the number one Chosen from the Pill Stream Sect, and the two of them fought a fierce battle. In the end, it was hard to say who came out on top.

Song Que from the Blood Stream Sect was like a shadowy specter. He never attacked anyone, and few people even saw him.

As for the other person listed in the information about the Blood Stream Sect, Xu Xiaoshan, he also began to make a name for himself. People bristled with anger at the sheer amount of magical items he had at his disposal. When he unleashed them in battle, any opponent he fought was left shocked.

One disciple who quickly came to be known as a dark horse in the competition was… Beihan Lie from the Spirit Stream Sect. Not much information about him had been made available to the other three sects, and therefore, people took him to be an ordinary Chosen. Who could ever have imagined that when he encountered Lei Shan from the Profound Stream Sect, a massive battle would ensue?

In the end, Beihan Lie seemed to be on the same level as Lei Shan, which was shocking considering that other than Nine-Isles, he was considered to be the top Chosen of his generation in the Profound Stream Sect. Very few people could hold their own in a fight against him.

Before, he was simply a Chosen from the Spirit Stream Sect. For him to be able to do such a thing left many people shocked.

In addition to the friction and fighting between the famous Chosen, there were many fierce battles between the other disciples. People died on a daily basis, and some unlucky people were eaten by the banebeasts.

As for the disciples who survived all of the fighting, their collections of earthstring energy grew. Soon, it was getting harder and harder to find the banebeasts, which meant that the fighting between disciples started to grow fiercer!

People ganged up on others. People set traps. Some people simply overwhelmed others with direct force. All sorts of tactics were unleashed, until the Fallen Sword Abyss began to devolve into chaos.

Eyes were bloodshot as people fought back and forth in the struggles for earthstring energy. Nobody wanted to be the last person to collect the energy they needed, and everyone wanted to be first!

Bai Xiaochun was aware of the murderous atmosphere around him. However, he didn’t go out much. He spent most of his time doing research or concocting medicine. Even still, he ran into the corpses of seventeen Spirit Stream Sect disciples.

Whenever he did, he would carefully store the corpses in his bag of holding to take them back to the sect.

When he went out looking for banebeasts, he went about his work as quickly as possible. He would strike like lightning, grab the banebeast, and then take it away to study. Afterward, he would go back to concocting.

Before he even realized it, his Dao bottle of gray liquid was about a third full. However, he didn’t pay much attention to that. He focused mostly on concocting.

By this point, he had failed dozens of times. On a few occasions, he failed five or six times in one day. However, he didn’t give up. As he grew more familiar with the anatomy of the banebeasts, he slowly slipped into a frenzy. At one point, he even personally went to observe how a banebeast would go about killing a cultivator.

At that point, he realized that the attacks weren’t physical, but rather, an absorption of life force. Suddenly, all of his experiences and research up to that point coalesced into an epiphany. He quickly selected a remote mountain cave and set about concocting, his eyes completely bloodshot.

This session lasted for five days, during which time he didn’t set a single foot outside. He failed dozens of times. However, on evening of the fifth day, as the sky grew dark and fighting filled the lands around him, intense rumbling sounds began to emanate from his pill furnace, spreading out to fill half of the entire Fallen Sword World.

BOOOOOOOOOM!

It was like heaven-rending, earth-crushing thunder that spread out in all directions. Shockingly, black clouds appeared above the cave, which pulsed with strands of white energy!

All of the disciples of the four sects who were in that part of the Fallen Sword World looked in the direction where Bai Xiaochun was concocting medicine. Everyone was completely shocked.

Ghostfang had been in the middle of speeding along on a task when he suddenly heard the rumbling sound, and his eyes glittered.

In another location, Song Que was in front of a nondescript stone wall, studying it carefully. When he heard the sound, his eyes widened. “What’s that sound?”

Xu Xiaoshan from the Blood Stream Sect felt his heart began to pound. “Is a precious treasure appearing in the world?!?!”

Eyes widening, he picked up speed, heading in the direction of the sound.

Lei Shan from the Profound Stream Sect was relatively close to the source of the sounds, and was just as intrigued as Xu Xiaoshan. Eyes shining with excitement and curiosity, he sped off toward the sound.

The bizarre thunderous rumbling didn’t just attract the attention of the cultivators. It also attracted… banebeasts!

And also… in some mysterious location within the Fallen Sword World, it caught the attention of… banesouls!!

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I forgot to take the chapter title off the sneak peek chapter, but had intended to keep it as a ‘spoiler’ title. My bad. My gum swelled up last night, leading to a splitting headache, plus BDB woke up at about 5:00 a.m. and wouldn’t go back to sleep. This is going to be a long day…. Well, off to BDB’s art class!