The Immortal Path Is Crowded

A thought crossed Luo Wuji's mind: kill the two children right now to avoid future trouble, or keep running?

Behind him, the forest was chaos. Staying there, even for a moment, for the sake of two youths was foolishness, but beyond that, an intuition sharpened by a lifetime of practice pierced his chest like a needle. If he spared the young man in white, he would become a future threat.

In an instant, the calculation was done. His opponent was only a ninth-level Qi Condensation cultivator, an ant in his eyes, someone he could annihilate without dirtying his sleeves. If he didn't hold back, he would finish him in a single exchange.

Once decided, his divine sense took control. Deep in his soul sea, an ancient, ethereal sword shadow slowly materialized, and its intent, though not yet released, already vibrated in the void.

Before he could activate it, a chill ran up his spine. He felt a pure and refined sword intent, something that should not exist in someone so young.

To anyone else, Wei Han's movements would have seemed slow, almost calm, but Luo Wuji understood instantly it was an illusion. He hadn't finished analyzing that intent when an invisible tip was already grazing his throat.

Spinning with the lightness of a swallow, he barely dodged. The cold blade brushed his skin and cut the air with a dry snap.

Without hesitation, his figure turned into a blur among the trees while the sword in his mind took its final shape.

Distance was all he wanted, but the white-clad youth's aura was faster and pinned him in place.

Wei Han followed close behind, unhurried. His long sword was simple, unadorned, and each movement had a slow, almost lazy rhythm.

Even so, every cut whistled in a chilling way, and Luo Wuji knew it: if that blade touched him, it was death.

A common ninth-level cultivator would already be dead. Only the experience from his previous life and the intent he himself had condensed allowed him to keep dodging.

After creating space, Luo Wuji stopped short. His feet sank into the damp earth. He put on a perfect expression of panic, opened his eyes wide, and let his voice tremble like a fifteen-year-old boy's.

"Hey, wait! Why are you attacking me? I was just passing through!" he said with his hands up.

Wei Han finally spoke, his voice cold as iron in winter.

"You can't hide it from me. Deep in your eyes there is a fleeting killing intent."

The answer truly surprised Luo Wuji. He hadn't let slip even a thread, he had only thought it, and the boy had read it. Inside, fury flared — the brat's senses were abnormal.

With a short, nervous, false laugh, he took a step forward, hands still raised. "What are you talking about?" he said as if he wanted to explain.

That step was the trigger. Wei Han moved. His sword traced a clean, low arc, silent, straight for Luo Wuji's arm.

Instead of retreating, Luo Wuji seized the opening. A silver sword appeared in his left hand as if it had always been there. He thrust it straight toward Wei Han's chest.

Wei Han saw it coming, twisted his wrist midway, and crossed his blade in front of his chest.

They clashed with a dry snap, and the force sent Wei Han skidding backward, dragging soil in his wake.

Landing lightly, Luo Wuji forgot to pretend for an instant and frowned. "Tsk. I didn't expect you could block that. This will be more troublesome than I thought."

Wei Han barely lost his balance. He dug his heel in a step back and stood straight again, sword still in his hand as if it hadn't moved.

Luo Wuji's gaze turned cold. "This farce ends here," he thought coldly.

A sword intent filled the clearing, intense and strangely calm like a motionless tide crushing the forest. It came from Luo Wuji, whose silver sword lowered barely a finger's width in his left hand, and the air thickened until the leaf litter stopped crunching under his boots.

Tilting his head, and with genuine curiosity for the first time, he asked: "What's your name?"

The young man in white kept his sword raised, calm as a lake. "Wei Han," he answered in an empty voice.

As he spoke, an intent burst from his body, contained and thin as a needle under water, but with an edge you could feel on the skin.

The two intents met in the center and began to bite each other silently. Moss split open in a straight line, falling leaves were cut in half before touching the ground, and a young tree three paces away groaned as it split in two.

Sun Qingli had hidden behind a thick tree. She watched with a frown, confused by the sudden eruption, and yet, seeing her senior brother standing before the stranger, she clenched her fists and shouted: "Senior Brother Wei, you can do it! Beat that villain!"

Hearing her, a sarcastic smile filled Luo Wuji's face, an expression that didn't fit his youthful features.

"Well," he said, drawing out the word, "for your age, you're a monster among geniuses. I've seen quite a bit, and there aren't many with that understanding of the sword path at your age."

Wei Han didn't change his tone. "I don't know what you mean. Your age is similar to ours."

For an instant his empty gaze brightened, as if something lit up behind the ice, and he added: "It's also the first time I've seen someone my age with a deeper comprehension than mine."

No sooner had he finished speaking than the two vanished.

Luo Wuji dissolved into a shadow that slid without raising dust. Wei Han became a silver afterimage that sliced the air where he had been.

From where she crouched, Sun Qingli couldn't look away.

What she saw was fascinating. It reminded her of the Sword Dao demonstrations her grandfather performed at dawn in the courtyard, with dew hanging from the leaves and him moving as if he weren't breathing.

That didn't look like a fight, but a mortal dance. Every movement was precise and efficient. If one struck, the other was already there to counter, and the blades passed so close the air whistled a moment later.

She had not yet condensed her own intent, but she could see theirs clearly: one heavy and calm like a tide, the other thin and contained like a needle, colliding and biting silently. The air fractured, trees opened in clean lines, earth rose in fine dust, and everything reduced to nothing with each clash.

Even fascinated, her hands were ice cold. She was worried, truly scared, because she had never seen her Senior Brother Wei at a disadvantage against someone his own age. He always set the pace and made others retreat.

Now it was Wei Han who stepped back half a pace each time the silver sword reached him.

On his side, Luo Wuji grew thoughtful.

At first he had wanted to end the boy quickly and cleanly, one cut and keep running, but the more blows they exchanged, the more he felt it. The brat was accelerating his rhythm and his comprehension grew layer by layer, as if the fight itself were teaching him.

As if he had already amused himself enough, Luo Wuji sighed and murmured, more to himself than to anyone: "How is it possible that I never heard of someone with so much talent on this continent in my past life?"

Decision made, his qi flowed smoothly from his arm to the sword blade, coating it in a thin, almost transparent layer fused with his intent, and at that moment the sword seemed part of him.

Suddenly the rhythm of the fight changed.

One strike gave way to three, three to five, and five to a rain of cuts, each loaded with a mortal intent that cut before touching.

At first the young man in white read them. He deflected the first with a turn of his wrist and stopped the second by crossing his blade before his chest, but the third was already chained to the fourth, and the fifth to the sixth. Little by little he lost ground. His white robe opened in fine slashes, first at the shoulder, then at the side, and from each cut a thin line of blood ran down his skin without him lowering his sword.

Looking down from above, Luo Wuji wore that arrogant gaze that did not belong to a fifteen-year-old boy.

"Your death will mark the first step of my ascent… and the beginning of my revenge against the heavens." he said as if it were already decided.

Mid-sentence his gaze sharpened.

An absurd amount of spiritual energy burst out suddenly from behind the trees, and a heavy, cold pressure filled the place.

Luo Wuji did not hesitate. He stopped attacking, gathered all his qi and his intent, compressed them to a point at the tip of his sword, and turned to thrust to his left.

A silver talisman slammed full into his blade, split in midair, and an explosion of lightning engulfed him completely, swallowing his figure in a white flash.

A shout rang out from where the talisman had come.

"Leave my Senior Brother Wei alone!"

It was Sun Qingli, hand outstretched, fingers trembling around another silver paper.

Trapped amid the lightning, Luo Wuji felt the bolts coil around his arms, bite his robe, and crackle against the thin layer of qi on his sword. He gritted his teeth. That power was not to be taken lightly. Even someone in the advanced stage of Foundation Establishment could die if caught off guard.

Condensing all his aura into a point, he drew a vertical cut. The blade split the lightning in half at once, and the flash died with a dry snap that left the air smelling of burnt earth.

Turning his head with annoyance toward the girl, he was just about to move when he felt a fluctuation in the white-clad boy's intent.

A burst of qi charged with sword intent came at him from the side. Twisting his trajectory at the last instant, Luo Wuji went out to intercept it.

The two blades collided with brutal force and the shockwave threw them backward until both regained their balance.

Luo Wuji's arms trembled from the impact. Tightening his grip until they steadied, he stared at Wei Han as if he were something abnormal.

There was no mistake: that brat had just copied the way he manifested his sword aura.