The Heavenly Tome was rekindled from the ashes.
This wasn’t a metaphor; it was a precise description.
Li Jin’an saw that the Heavenly Tome in her sea of consciousness, which had lost all its luster and been burned to ashes after she killed Wuzhaoxing, was now struggling to piece itself back together.
Just as she was about to interrupt the Heavenly Tome’s repair process, her heart felt as if it had been bewitched, stopping all her movements. She watched helplessly as the Heavenly Tome transformed into a plain, unadorned, dilapidated book with nothing on its cover.
No wonder it was so quiet when she killed those three wicked protagonists earlier; so it was waiting for her here all along.
Li Jin’an suddenly remembered Xie Huaixue’s earnest advice, telling her to keep it in mind. At the time, she was preoccupied with mischief, eager to kiss Xie Huaixue in front of Yinyue Monarch, Xie Wushen, and Liu Xinshu, so she carelessly said she had heard it with both ears.
In fact, Xie Huaixue was talking about this very matter: warning her to be wary of the Heavenly Tome’s counterattack.
Even ants cling to life, and wicked beasts know to humble themselves to save their lives first, let alone the Heavenly Tome.
She had heard it, but hadn’t taken it to heart…
It wasn’t that Li Jin’an didn’t take Xie Huaixue’s words seriously; she simply hadn’t remembered them in her excitement.
Having killed the three wicked protagonists, she was naturally eager to go home to her Xie Huaixue. How could she have thought that under the watchful eye of the Heavenly Dao, the Heavenly Tome could still bare its fangs and bite Li Jin’an?
Suddenly!
A dazzling red light flashed.
An urgent ‘ding’ sound echoed in Li Jin’an’s sea of consciousness.
[Ding—]
[System under attack, activating final firewall.]
[System 1700 activated successfully. All core modules are operating normally. Initiating monitoring.]
[Detection results as follows: Anomaly detected in designated AE Zone-69, Carved World. Plot has deviated from normal trajectory, multiple unknown errors have appeared, and potential risks exist. Corrective measures are advised immediately…]
A bad premonition rose in Li Jin’an’s heart. She instinctively felt that the “multiple unknown errors” mentioned by the strange voice referred to everyone from Qingxiao Peak, and it might want to take them all out in one go.
From the oldest to the youngest, everyone on Qingxiao Peak had been born with a rebellious streak, contributing their strength to the great endeavor of overthrowing the Heavenly Tome. Even the three young ones—Qi Lingzi, Tan Yanyi, and Ling Qiu—were no exception.
The Heavenly Tome sided with the wicked protagonists. If it truly wanted to take measures, wouldn’t that mean obliterating them?
She wouldn’t allow it!
They had come all this way. Her Dao companion, master, disciples, and family were all waiting for her to come home. She absolutely would not allow anyone to ruin any of it!
Li Jin’an looked at the motionless Xie Huaixue, Jingting Dao Lord, Jiang Fengmian, and the others below. Her eyes turned blood-red, and veins bulged on her arms.
The strange, monotone voice, impossible to discern as male or female, continued, not requiring a reply from Li Jin’an, the body’s owner.
[Anomaly detected, taking immediate measures: restarting service or adjusting resource allocation.]
[Protagonist deceased, restart failed.]
[Adjusting resource allocation—]
She was unwilling!
Li Jin’an gritted her teeth. Under immense tension and fury, she could almost hear the sound of her own blood flowing. Her aura surged, black energy flickered faintly around her, and she was on the verge of demonic deviation.
She had no inner demons; she was simply overcome by boundless murderous intent.
[Allocation successful.]
[Adjusting Jijin Sword Sovereign as protagonist. Adjustment successful.]
[Ding—]
[System 1700 greets you, Jijin Sword Sovereign. Do you wish to become the new protagonist?]
The stiff, mechanical voice gained a touch of liveliness, asking Li Jin’an with apparent understanding.
It was a redundant question to ask Li Jin’an after the adjustment had already succeeded.
No, it wasn’t superfluous.
That sentence held immense bewitching power, constantly urging her heart to quickly agree.
It was hundreds, thousands of times more influential than the Heavenly Demon race’s effect on a cultivator’s sea of consciousness, as if this impulse stemmed from her true heart, her own free will, and wasn’t interfered with by external forces.
It was as if the only words she could utter were “I am willing.”
Uttering those three words would mean signing a bond of indenture, after which she would be completely at another’s mercy, her every thought and idea controlled by others.
Li Jin’an found she could move. Her blood-red phoenix eyes filled with murderous aura, and her lips moved as she struggled to resist the constantly spreading impulse within her heart. The corners of her lips curved into a sinister smile as she bluntly said, “How about this Venerable sends you to your death instead!”
Of all things to call her, it had to be Jijin Sword Sovereign.
If it had called her by her name, Li Jin’an, she might have immediately agreed.
This strange thing was just like those idiots from the Heavenly Demon race; it only remembered her Daoist title, not her real name.
It wasn’t attentive at all and was extremely arrogant. It didn’t even bother to learn from Li Jin’an’s advanced experience in doing wicked things. It deserved to fail.
Before her mind completely emptied, Li Jin’an was filled with relief. Thank goodness Xie Huaixue had given the Heavenly Tome to her; otherwise, Xie Huaixue would be the one facing the loss of her self-awareness and ‘voluntarily’ agreeing to become the Heavenly Tome’s protagonist.
But then again, perhaps not absolutely. What if the Heavenly Tome had called Xie Huaixue ‘Master’?
Don’t look, don’t think. Cast aside all thought and entrust everything to her instincts.
What was a sword cultivator’s instinct?
—Draw her sword.
A sword cultivator’s excellent combat intuition had allowed Li Jin’an to make the right choices in battle time and again, and this time was no exception.
As long as she didn’t think, this strange and bizarre System 1700 wouldn’t be able to interfere with her.
It didn’t matter if she had no sword in hand or couldn’t condense a body in her sea of consciousness. She mobilized her entire sea of consciousness, unleashing boundless sword energy towards that strange thing that had opened its cover and was about to write “Jijin Sword Sovereign” in large characters.
A surging sea engulfed boundless sword intent.
Kill!!!
If Heaven didn’t give them a way out, then she would use her sword to break this Heaven.
She absolutely refused to become the Heavenly Tome’s protagonist. She was herself; she was Jijin Sword Sovereign, Li Jin’an, Xie Huaixue’s Dao companion, Chixin Sword Lord’s disciple, and the master of Qi Lingzi and the two others… she was everything except the so-called new protagonist.
Did it really think the Heavenly Tome’s protagonist was something good?
If she lacked fortune, she would go seize and fight for it herself, commit murder and arson, swindle and cheat, fight with others, fight with Heaven, fight with herself. Did she need the Heavenly Tome to condescendingly bestow it upon her?
Li Jin’an would rather defy Heaven and be an enemy of the Heavenly Dao than accept the Heavenly Tome’s charity.
She would rise in rebellion and take its place. Who said she couldn’t be the next Heavenly Dao?
Of course, she was just talking. She wasn’t a noble and pure person like Dao Venerable, who could sacrifice herself for a great cause. She had no merits, only flaws and selfish desires, and not the slightest interest in becoming the Heavenly Dao.
As a master of her art among sword cultivators, Li Jin’an was practically a personification of rebellion. She wouldn’t even submit to the native Heavenly Dao of the Lancang Continent, occasionally cursing it as “that wretched dog,” let alone an external Heavenly Tome.
It was already an act of sufficient kindness for her not to turn around and cause the Heavenly Tome trouble… well, not kindness exactly. She simply hadn’t expected that at the very end, the Heavenly Tome would be so unyielding, able to make a comeback and use its last bit of strength to thoroughly disgust her.
Murderous intent and fury burned away all her rationality, leaving only her body’s instincts.
Swing the sword, swing the sword, swing the sword with all her might.
At the same time, after detecting the anomaly in AE Zone-69, Carved World, System 1700, which had always considered itself to be in a high dimension and regarded minor worlds as mere useless data, finally deigned to transfer its main program over from elsewhere. It merely asked if Jijin Sword Sovereign was willing to become the new protagonist, and then found itself unable to leave…
The moment it landed, it was in Li Jin’an’s sea of consciousness, with nowhere to escape and even a physical form. It was practically a natural target, perfectly suited to be a sword practice dummy.
And its opponent was merely a furious Jijin Sword Sovereign.
Swing the sword, swing the sword, and still swing the sword.
It was a long-recognized fact on the Lancang Continent that sword cultivators were obnoxious and highly destructive. Unfortunately, the System 1700, having come from afar, did not know the truth verified by countless cultivators’ blood and tears in the cultivation world. It was simply engulfed by endless sword energy, and all its attempts to interfere with Jijin Sword Sovereign’s words were drowned in the fiery light.
If her original sea of consciousness was a vast ocean, it was now a tyrannical, raging sea of fire. After all, when the master went furious, the sea of consciousness naturally followed suit.
No thought, no communication…
And System 1700, whose main function was to inject plots and collect fortune and energy, didn’t even have any means of restraint or counterattack.
Because it had no energy at all.
The Heavenly Tome remaining on the Lancang Continent was merely a self-operating subsystem. The wicked protagonists had died repeatedly, and the Heavenly Tome’s plot content had long been destroyed beyond recognition. Its last bit of energy had been used to bewitch Jijin Sword Sovereign into agreeing to become the new protagonist, but to no avail. Thus, it could only passively take a beating.
As a result, it met the same fate as the originally chosen wicked protagonists: caught in a trap, with no peaceful end.
Beaten, beaten, continuously beaten, relentlessly beaten day and night.
Finally.
The static time began to flow forward.
Li Jin’an didn’t even have time to take another glance downwards before she was kicked out of this space-time with lightning speed, not even passing through the space-time rift.
“Which scoundrel dares to sneak attack this Venerable!”
She wasn’t fully awake yet, but her mouth subconsciously cursed and grumbled, unwilling to suffer even the slightest loss.
The black energy on her body suddenly dispersed, leaving no trace.
After leaving one last remark for this space-time, a gentle breeze brushed past Li Jin’an’s head, as if praising her for doing very well and being a wonderful, obedient child.
The former was the Heavenly Dao, the latter was Dao Venerable.
One treated meritorious individuals roughly, while the other simply enjoyed praising juniors.
…
Suddenly.
Li Jin’an fell from the sky, landing in a familiar embrace.
A subtle, clear fragrance.
It was Xie Huaixue who caught her.
Li Jin’an took the opportunity to wrap her arms around Xie Huaixue’s neck, rubbing her head against the hollow of her shoulder to alleviate the aching in her temples, which felt as if they were about to explode. Still uneasy, she peered into her sea of consciousness again.
Good, it was clean and spotless; there was no filthy thing there anymore.
Aside from that, she did have an extra portion of memories in her mind: the work log of that System 1700.
Xie Huaixue brushed away the fallen leaves that had drifted onto Li Jin’an, and softly said, “You’re home. Get a good rest; I’ll handle everything.”
Behind her stood Yinyue Monarch, Chixin Sword Lord, Jingting Dao Lord, Xie Wushen, and Liu Xinshu, filling the space, as well as Qi Lingzi, Tan Yanyi, and Ling Qiu, who were trying to jump around to see their master.
Li Jin’an fluttered her eyelids, yawned, and mumbled indistinctly, “Don’t forget to wake me up. I have a great discovery to announce.”
Once she finished studying System 1700’s work log, she would know exactly what the Heavenly Tome and this system were, and then use her abundant knowledge and the truth to give them a big fright!
Even sword cultivators can make a comeback!
“I won’t forget.”
Li Jin’an specifically glanced behind her.
Without her needing to speak, they understood her meaning. Jingting Dao Lord said ill-humoredly, “Just go to sleep.”
“Mm.”
People and spring were in harmony.
It was a fine day.
[End of Main Text]