Chapter 736: Before And After

On the airship.

Zhao Kuan was completely stunned, leaning on the side of the ship.

“Not going to defend yourself?” Gu Qing Shan asked.

Zhao Kuan remained silent.

“How unfortunate” Gu Qing Shan regretfully spoke, “then I’ll have to do it myself”

Gu Qing Shan reached his hand out, touching Zhao Kuan’s forehead.

[Soul Reading], activate!

A flash of light appeared on Zhao Kuan’s forehead, knocking Gu Qing Shan’s hand away.

A mystical golden rune appeared on Zhao Kuan’s forehead, giving off a faint sense of solemnity.

This was a Divine Script!

Zhao Kuan spat out some more blood and laughed: “Shen Yang, you intend to search my soul? Dream on!”

Gu Qing Shan’s expression changed as his tone turned serious: “You surrendered yourself to the Divinities! You were already the number one disciple of the sect, the next sect master, why did you do this!?”

Zhao Kuan spoke full of hatred: “What dogshit sect master!? Master wanted me to help pass on the torch for the sect, he wanted me to work myself to death for the sect!”

His shout became even more frenzied: “He didn’t even teach me the way to become a Sword Saint! Not even the way to become a Sword Saint!”

“Shen Yang, can you imagine how I feel!? Whenever I see other Sword Saints control their flying swords in battle, while I have to hold it with my own hands! Yet as the direct disciple of the sect master, I have to maintain an amiable façade whenever anyone looks at me. You can never understand that feeling!”

Gu Qing Shan froze, then slowly explained: “To become a Sword Saint, you have to find your own path. No one can ever teach you how to become one, because that is the path of another. Do you not understand even this simple thing?”

Zhao Kuan snapped: “I know that! Of course, I know that. But it’s been 30 years, Shen Yang, it’s been 30 years! My cultivation keeps increasing, eclipsing that of my peers, but I still couldn’t become a Sword Saint, do you understand what that feels like!?”

“I understand” Gu Qing Shan replied.

Zhao Kuan howled: “YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND!”

“Everyone always says that Zhao Kuan is too busy taking care of the sect that my cultivation suffers, but they don’t know just how much effort I actually put into my cultivation!”

“But nothing! Nothing happened! I’ve tried so many times, but no matter what I do, I can’t manipulate the sword with my mind. I’ve even resorted to breaking my original sword to exchange for another, but it was still impossible!”

“You broke your own sword…”

Hearing that, Gu Qing Shan scowled.

Zhao Kuan continued: “Shen Yang, I’m a sword cultivator. The path of a sword cultivator rejects that of any other path, so I have no way to practice anything else, do you know how many times I’ve wanted to die because of this?”

He suddenly grinned, causing the wounds on his face to bleed, making his grin incredibly terrifying and frenzied.

“Unable to keep living like that, I ran to ask for help from a Divinity, and guess that happened!?”

“Everything was so simple, so unimaginably simple, I managed to learn [Sword Manipulation] right away!”

Gu Qing Shan cut him off: “And that’s why you surrendered yourself to the Divinities”

“That’s right! What sect, what Master, I don’t care anymore! I now serve the Gods. And today, they will destroy everything of the Barren Cloud Heavenly Palace, including the disciples from before, Huang Zhan, you, as well as the Master’s daughter, none of you will escape!”

Gu Qing Shan’s heart tensed up and quickly asked: “The disciples from before? What did you do!?”

Zhao Kuan appeared boastful: “I’m the first brother of the sect, the one is in charge of most things, take a guess how I handled them”

As Gu Qing Shan glared at him, he felt a bit sorrowful.

The cultivation world in the future was so vastly weaker than before that they didn’t even know how to travel between the realms, they didn’t even know that there was more than one world. So when it came time to face against the demons and demon beasts, they were always being pushed back.

If even one of the disciples from the Heaven realm had been able to survive this ordeal, the cultivation world in the future wouldn’t have been that way.

It seems that during this actual event, even if the real Shen Yang had been able to survive, he didn’t have too long to live either.

Otherwise, his martial arts would definitely have been passed on.

Zhao Kuan purposefully riled him up: “Just wait, the Divinities have sent a lot of subordinates to pursue those disciples, not even one of them will be able to escape”

“Shen Yang, I have already presented the Earth sword to the Divinities. They were so pleased that they granted me their divine protection, even if I die right here, my soul will return to the Divinities. I really must say, everything you’ve done so far is meaningless”

Looking at him, Gu Qing Shan felt his emotions welling up.

“Not at all”

Gu Qing Shan calmly said.

He took a scepter out from the void of space.

It was the Devil King Warden Rod.

He raised the scepter.

Then stabbed it downwards.

Zhao Kuan was pierced by the scepter, trembling from the pain.

Gu Qing Shan tightly held the scepter down.

Blood began to flow all around the floor.

Gu Qing Shan’s tone became cold as he asked in a low voice: “How do you feel right now? Betraying the struggles of everyone”

“Spare me the moral lesson” Zhao Kuan breathed heavily, “after I revive, I will ask the Divinities to leave me with your soul, I’ll make sure to torture you for eternity!”

Gu Qing Shan went silent.

He sighed: “Zhao Kuan, since you’re about to die, I’ll take the time to tell you something”

“In truth, your true aim was never swordsmanship, but rather the authority and fame that the power of your sword can bring you after becoming a Sword Saint”

“If you truly were aiming to walk the path of the sword, you would never have tried breaking your sword or beg for power from the Divinities”

“A sword cultivator would never seek power from outside”

“The power of the sword must come from yourself, only your will can truly light its flames”

Hearing that, Zhao Kuan coughed up some blood, breathed heavily and spoke: “And you think your words are worth a damn?”

He shook his head in contempt.

Gu Qing Shan simply looked at him without moving.

Two flying swords slowly appeared behind from the void of space.

Flying swords!?

Zhao Kuan opened his eyes wide, completely stunned, unable to accept what was happening right in front of his eyes.

“Zhao Kuan, don’t learn swordsmanship again in your next life” Gu Qing Shan said.

He tightened his grip on the Devil King Warden Rod and stabbed again.

Zhao Kuan spat up the last of his blood and lost his life with extreme unwillingness.

All of a sudden, golden light erupted from his body.

Countless golden Divine Scripts appeared around his body to form a mystical pattern.

The golden light shined brightly and lifted the body.

As Zhao Kuan’s body was about to disappear from the ship.

Gu Qing Shan heavily pressed the Devil King Warden Rod downwards and activated [Soul Dispersion]

[Scepter Secret Art: Soul Dispersion]

[Description: The Devil King can use the power of the scepter to permanently erase any disobedient dead, the erased dead’s soul will completely disappear, turning into the scepter’s sustenance]

Oom!

A black light came from the scepter and entered Zhao Kuan’s body.

At the same time, the golden light shined greatly.

The two powers competed against one another.

But obviously, the golden light was no match for its opposition and was quickly being swallowed by the black light.

Gu Qing Shan’s eyebrows twitched.

The Samsara really is the epitome of the Old Gods’ creations, the Devil King Warden Rod alone was able to completely overpower the power of Divine Script.

A few moments later.

With a faint flash, the golden light was completely gone.

The scepter received the right of judgement for the corpse!

A faint figure appeared in front of Gu Qing Shan.

Zhao Kuan.

He had a horrified and desperate expression on his face, staring with eyes wide open at the scepter in Gu Qing Shan’s hand, completely speechless.

“I’m sorry, I made a mistake, you don’t need to consider what you will cultivate in the next life at all”

Gu Qing Shan tapped the scepter on Zhao Kuan’s soul.

“Because you won’t have a ‘next life'”

The soul let out a shrill howl before being completely shattered and absorbed by the scepter.

A faint but very real sound came from the Devil King Warden Rod as if it was slowly chewing.

Gu Qing Shan ignored it and put it away.

Zhao Kuan was dead.

Gu Qing Shan searched him but didn’t find anything resembling an Inventory Bag.

Only a jade disk and a formation plate that was carefully hidden by Zhao Kuan on his body.

The formation plate looked exactly the same as the Primordial Heaven Realm warp formation plate that Gu Qing Shan had.

Gu Qing Shan looked at the jade disk.

Seems like this is the Heavenly Palace sect master’s jade disk.

So this was how Shen Yang obtained the jade disk and the warp formation plate all those years ago.

But he must’ve gone through a much harder battle.

While Gu Qing Shan was thinking about that, a roar came from the faraway space vortex.

Glorious golden light illuminated the void, gradually coming closer from the faraway space vortex.

That was a Divinity’s pressure!

Gu Qing Shan glanced at Zhao Kuan’s body.

Zhao Kuan’s corpse must have something to do with the Divinities’ pursuit.

When Gu Qing Shan was about to throw the corpse away into the space vortex, he saw a sword fly in from the void, landing on the ground.

The Earth sword.

「 Shen Yang, well done, hurry and grab me, I’ll take you away! 」

The Earth sword’s heavy mountainous voice came.

Gu Qing Shan couldn’t help but grab the Earth sword.

A second later, everything faded.