Seeking Truth with a Sword-Chapter 703 - 633 Dissipation

The aura had dissipated. 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

In the sky, Lian Xuanyao slowly stopped flying, overlooking the vast forest sea in the distance.

"Heh."

Lian Xuanyao chuckled wryly. Back in the day, Jun Qianzi’s defection from the Academic Palace led to his close friend Pu Liuxuan being implicated and stripped of his Cultivation.

And now, he had also escaped his own sensing by self-destructing his realm and dissipating his aura. How ironic.

Well, if he could not be found, so be it. It’s just a pity that this sword strike could not be carried out.

He turned around, his left hand grasping the Sword hilt, lifting the Sword to carefully examine the metallic patterns etched on the blade.

HISS—

The sound of something crumbling suddenly arose. His right shoulder turned into sand, and his riddled right arm, its fingers all broken, detached and fell towards the forest sea below, pulled by gravity.

Before it even hit the ground, it was scattered by the strong wind.

Not only his right hand, but his ankles were also continuously turning to sand. His feet, along with his boots, dissipated in the wind, exposing ghastly white bones.

He felt no pain because even the nerves responsible for transmitting signals were no longer there.

Go home.

Lian Xuanyao put down his Sword, bent his body, and began to glide through the air.

He crossed deserts, scaled snow-capped mountains, and passed through grasslands. The border of Yu Country was getting closer and closer, close enough to see the long lines of merchant caravans in front of the checkpoints, preparing to cross the border for trade.

Despite the tense standoff between nations, trade among the common people had always been ongoing.

Those merchants lying in wagons, full from drink and yawning, ready to sleep, were still unaware that on this very day, the political landscape of the world’s nations had been forever changed, and their business plans would come to an abrupt end due to the tumultuous situation.

Lian Xuanyao slowly descended, stepping onto a mountaintop.

The sandification caused by the collapse of his Divine Soul had spread to his knees, and he needed to support himself on a tree trunk to avoid falling.

This spot will do.

He chose a boulder that caught his eye, picked up his Longsword, brushed away the fallen leaves and moss on the rock, and with the tip of his Sword as a brush, drew the map of Yu Country.

"Look!"

The people of the Academic Palace aboard the East Sea Heavenly Battleship noticed the anomaly. They climbed onto the deck, looked up, and saw a grand purple aura falling from the sky, spreading towards the west.

The common people at Dengzhou Port saw it, those in Cang State saw it, followed by those in Youzhou, Pingzhou, and Ying State...

The purple aura skimmed along the border of Yu Country, slowly unfurling. From the cold White Mountains and Black Waters in the east to the vast grasslands in the north, from the Sand City Hengluosi in the west to the perpetually spring-like Mule State in the south.

Across ten thousand miles of territory, hundreds of millions of common people looked up to the sky, all witnessing the vast expanse of purple clouds.

The people on the low hills of Ta’an Village in Xingzhou naturally saw it as well.

"What is that?!"

Lin Hongbo asked with a frown, but Tantai Leshan, who was most proficient in the talismanic Tao, had a swiftly changing expression—shock, admiration, grief.

"That is a Divine Talisman," Chen Danqiu gazed upward at the sky, his voice soft, "the Nation’s Guardian."

Thousands of miles away, on the broad border between Yu Country and the Turkic, a patrol of Cavalry also saw the magnificent purple mist.

The splendid aura, like softly drifting silk, gently cascaded down to form a wall stretching an unknowable distance, before slowly dissolving into the heavens and earth, as if it had never existed.

The Turkic soldiers looked at one another in bewilderment, completely unable to understand the situation. They sent one person back to report while another cautiously drew his saber and probed the area where the Purple Qi Great Wall had stood. Nothing happened. The soldier then mustered his courage and rode his horse across, and still, nothing happened.

CLIP-CLOP, CLIP-CLOP.

The sound of galloping horses grew from faint to loud as a troop of Cavalry clad in thick armor, their chests emblazoned with the Ashide golden eagle crest, hastened to the scene.

The leading Martial Artist was burly, like a small hill, and full of vigor. His steed also clearly possessed Demon Beast Blood, its eyes bloodshot and muscles tightly corded.

He glanced suspiciously across the grassland and spat on the ground. "TCH! Are the Yu Country people performing some sort of magic trick?"

He urged his horse forward. "What’s going on..."

Before he could finish, he toppled from his horse, his massive body sliding down the gully.

The Turkic soldiers hastily rushed forward, pushing and pulling to drag him back within the border.

Only then did the ashen face of the Ashide noble warrior start to recover. He lay on the ground, continually coughing up blood and spewing froth.

At the same time, all High-level Cloud Patrol Cultivators attempting to cross the Yu Country border experienced the same fate.

"The Nation’s Guardian. It’s a talisman that previously existed only in ancient books—merely a concept, never realized by anyone."

Tantai Leshan spoke softly, "Once completed, all Cultivators outside the border with Cultivation above a certain realm will be unable to cross into the country from the outside.

It lasts for several years.

The Academic Palace Master... he has erected a fence for us."

Rolling farmlands, winding rivers, and undulating mountains.

Lian Xuanyao sat atop a mountain peak, resting on the hilt of his Sword, greedily gazing at the Yu Country landscape, as if he could never tire of it.

Even the workshops established by the riverside, continuously belching choking smoke, looked so lovely in his eyes.

Unlike those Confucian Scholars who criticized the workshops for ruining the natural beauty and disturbing the pastoral idyll, Lian Xuanyao could see the Life Force contained within those workshops through the thick smoke.

It was a strength not inferior to Cultivation. It could turn decay into wonder, allowing the poor to afford food, clothes, medical care, and housing. It made luxuries, once the sole preserve of royalty and nobility, cheap and widely available.

The common people of Yu Country suffered greatly. They were clearly resilient, hardworking, and mild-mannered, yet they still struggled to scrape by, fighting against heaven and earth for their very lives.

In areas beyond the reach of the Academic Palace’s achievements, in vast mountain villages where the court’s influence could not penetrate, the locals still lived numb lives, no different from hundreds of years ago.

If possible, Lian Xuanyao truly wished to see workshops spread across the land of Yu Country, with smoke billowing from chimneys to cover the sky, and tons of molten iron flowing from furnaces into molds to forge kitchen knives and farm tools. At least then, those Yu Country farmers living deep in the mountains would no longer have to use wooden hoes.

It’s a pity I couldn’t witness that scene with my own eyes. But fortunately, I know that day will inevitably come, no matter how winding the journey.

WHOOSH—

The sound of sand shifting blended with the wind atop the mountain.

「...」

"Are the Demon Exorcism Talismans ready?"

"All prepared, Boss."

"Good. Follow me, and let’s move up quietly."

The soldiers from the nearby State Mansion garrison, having detected fluctuations in Spiritual Energy, moved stealthily, skirting the bushes as they quietly ascended the mountaintop.

When the moment was right, everyone burst from the woods, raising their Crossbows to aim at the open space atop the peak.

The anticipated Demon Cultivators or demon beasts did not appear. Instead, on the mountaintop’s open space, a giant rock engraved with the map of Yu Country stood silently. Beside it, a simple, unadorned Longsword was planted in the ground.

A Jade Pendant hung from the Longsword’s hilt, swaying in the wind and lightly clinking against the blade, producing a crisp, ringing sound.

Wary of a trap, the garrison Colonel did not allow his men to approach for inspection but stood at a distance to observe carefully.

He made out the words and read them aloud, character by character, from the Jade Pendant hanging on the Sword’s hilt:

"Academic Palace Master, Lian Xuanyao."