The people below felt as if the sky itself was falling.
It was not an illusion, but reality.
Every sword trailed a long streak of light, their blades tearing through the air with piercing shrieks. The sounds were so dense they merged together, ultimately transforming into an eerie, sorrowful wail.
Everyone present felt an indescribable sense of sorrow.
At the same time, they felt as though the entire world had been filled by endless sword light in that very moment. As far as the eye could see, there was nothing else.
The apocalyptic pressure was so overwhelming that they could not muster even a single thought of resistance.
There was nowhere to hide.
There was nowhere to run.
"No—!"
The people present raised their weapons and pushed their cultivation to the absolute limit, desperately trying to carve out a sliver of survival beneath that cascading waterfall of light.
But before a rain of swords capable of leveling mountains and rivers, any resistance was pale and futile, like a mantis trying to stop a chariot.
Li Xingyun instinctively closed his eyes.
He was heavily injured and his internal energy was completely depleted. At this moment, he was powerless to fight back.
However, the agonizing pain of his body being torn apart never came.
Instead, only the continuous, soft sounds of blades piercing flesh echoed in his ears.
Time seemed to stretch out in that moment, yet it also felt as if only a single second had passed.
When the oppressive ringing of swords and the sickening sounds of tearing flesh completely faded, Li Xingyun slowly opened his heavy eyelids.
He was utterly stunned by the sight before him.
He and his companions—Zhang Zifan, Lu Linxuan, and everyone he cared about—were completely unharmed.
But on the ground surrounding them, everything had changed.
All the enemies, whether they were the fake Li Xingyun's subordinates or the Witch King's men, numbering in the hundreds, were all pinned to the ground by a massive number of longswords.
Some swords had pierced straight down through the tops of their skulls.
Some had driven right through their hearts.
Some had even been nailed directly through their eyes.
Every single strike had precisely severed their life force. Not a single corpse twitched, and not a single unnecessary scream was heard.
Everyone had died the very instant the sword rain fell.
There were only two exceptions.
One was Youchuan of Miaojiang.
The other was a subordinate of the fake Li Xingyun, who seemed to have been intentionally spared.
A sword had merely pinned the corners of Youchuan's and the other man's clothes, yet it firmly anchored them in place, restricting their movements.
In just a few short breaths, the entire battlefield had been transformed into a sword graveyard.
Under the dazed gazes of everyone present, a massive flying sword drifted over leisurely from the distance.
On the blade, a man dressed in robes as white as snow lay on his side.
His posture was carefree, with one hand resting behind his head and the other casually holding a wine gourd.
He simply lay there quietly, as if what rested beneath him wasn't a giant sword capable of cleaving mountains and parting seas, but rather a lounge chair in his own backyard.
Beside him, Li Bai's soul was already watching in absolute dumbfoundment.
'This... this is exactly what I imagined! This is me!'
'Did everyone see that? That's my body and my sword!'
The giant sword slowly descended.
It finally hovered in the center of the battlefield, three feet off the ground, remaining perfectly still.
The eyes of everyone present were dead set on the man in white.
Their gazes were a mixture of awe, fear, and an uncontrollable trace of curiosity.
Ian leaped down from the giant sword, his feet landing lightly without stirring up a single speck of dust. At the same time, the giant sword in the air rapidly shrank and darted into his sleeve.
Ian didn't even glance at the corpses littering the ground around him, nor did he pay any mind to the wary stares of Li Xingyun and the other survivors.
He walked straight over to Youchuan.
Reaching out, he grasped the longsword pinning Youchuan's clothes and gave it a gentle pull.
A soft clang rang out.
As the sword was drawn, the tens of thousands of longswords embedded across the entire battlefield instantly dissolved into specks of flowing light at the exact same moment.
Thousands of phantoms, like weary birds returning to the forest, all merged into the single sword in his hand.
In the blink of an eye, the only weapon left on the corpse-strewn battlefield was the quaint longsword in Ian's grasp.
Enduring the agonizing pain in his chest and abdomen, Li Xingyun struggled to his feet, shielding Lu Linxuan and the others behind him.
He gripped the Longquan Sword tightly, his body tense with caution.
"Thank you for your assistance, Your Excellency!"
His voice was slightly hoarse from his injuries, yet it remained steady.
"May I ask... who you might be?"
Ian did not answer.
He casually tossed the longsword in his hand, and it transformed into a streak of light, shooting into the horizon and vanishing from sight.
Only after doing all this did he unhurriedly raise the wine gourd, tilt his head back, and take a large gulp.
It was as if nothing in this world was more worthy of his attention than this mouthful of fine wine.
His transcendent aura and faint indifference left Li Xingyun momentarily at a loss for how to respond.
Next, after taking a few swigs, Ian turned the wine gourd upside down.
A stream of clear wine flowed out like a fresh mountain spring.
Ian extended his left hand, letting the wine pool in his palm.
Then, he casually waved his hand forward.
"The East Wind Stirs All Things, Grass and Trees Yearn to Speak."
As he waved his hand, a spring breeze carrying a rich aroma of wine materialized out of thin air, brushing past everyone present.
The wind was so warm, so gentle.
Li Xingyun felt a warm current surge into his body. The hideous sword wounds on his chest and abdomen actually began to heal at a visible rate, and his exhausted internal energy started to replenish.
In just a few short breaths, his injuries were completely healed, and his internal energy had returned to its peak state.
The exhaustion and pain plaguing Zhang Zifan, Lu Linxuan, and the others were similarly swept away by the breeze.
The dissipating energy seeped into the earth. The blood-soaked grass on the ground began to grow wildly, blooming into a scattering of wildflowers in an instant.
Only Li Bai's soul faintly noticed something amiss.
"Immortal, I think I just saw a giant green cylindrical phantom flash by. It looked like it had the words 'East Wind Express' written on it."
"Brother Li, you must be seeing things," Ian replied.
Ian wiped a drop of cold sweat from his forehead. He had accidentally used the wrong technique just now, but he was never going to admit it.
Suddenly, the other person Ian had intentionally left alive—the fake Li Xingyun's subordinate—roared at Ian's back in a terrified tone.
"Who the hell are you?!"
"I am a member of the Tongwen Manor!"
"Our Sage Lord is the Prince of Jin, Li Siyuan! We were sent here to intercept and kill this imposter by the order of the true dragon emperor of the Great Tang, His Majesty himself!"
(This person was actually a spy from another faction, hoping to use Ian's power to eliminate the Tongwen Manor.)
Ian's brow furrowed ever so slightly.
As if finding the man too noisy, he casually flicked his finger.
An invisible, imperceptible burst of energy shot from his fingertip.
The Tongwen Manor assassin's roar came to an abrupt halt.
A bloody hole, piercing straight through from front to back, silently appeared in the center of his forehead.
The expression on his face froze as his body fell straight backward.
*Thud.*
A muffled sound echoed, followed by dead silence.
This effortless, finger-flicking method of execution once again shocked everyone present.
Li Xingyun's heart violently clenched.
He knew that he wouldn't have been able to dodge that casual finger flick either. The gap in strength between him and this man seemed even vaster than he had imagined.
Only after finishing all this did Ian finally turn around slowly.
He cast his gaze toward Li Xingyun.
In that moment, Li Xingyun experienced an illusion.
It was as if he had been seen completely through, from the origins of his bloodline to every single thought in his mind, all laid bare before those profound eyes.
Everything about him had nowhere to hide in front of this man.
Ian looked at Li Bai's soul beside him, pointed at Li Xingyun, and spoke.
"Brother Li, do you see him?"
"This is the one who bears the destiny of the previous dynasty, the last direct bloodline of the Li Tang royal family, Li Xingyun."