The Grand Defile lay in a state of suspended animation, frozen between cosmic absurdity and deep spiritual shock.
Across the outer ridges of the mountain pass, the seven pride-ships of Heavenly Sword Manor’s aerial armada rested like beached whales among the ancient cedars. Thick plumes of white steam hissed from their burst reactor valves, smelling of burnt oil and shattered jade. Students and deckhands tumbled out of the tilted hatches. It slid down rope ladders into the mossy ravines, their faces blackened with soot and their eyes wide with the hollow stare of men who had witnessed the laws of physics shattered before their very eyes.
Further back along the canyon floor, twenty-five thousand reserve fighters from Heavenly Sword Manor, Azure Cloud Sect, Mystic Talisman Hall, and Crimson Flame Pavilion stood frozen in their ranks.
They held drawn steel, notched arrows, and active magic charm sheets. But not a single warrior dared take a forward step.
They had watched thirty billion jin of sky total ruin starlight plunge toward a tiny, forty-inch sapphire blob. They had heard the world-shaking boing. And they had watched their sect’s supreme sky-high array get bounced back into the clouds like a child’s toy rubber ball.
“Is... Is it coming for us?” an Azure Cloud deacon whispered, his knees trembling so wildly that the sword sheath at his hip rattled against his shin guards. “The ancient Chaos God... Is it going to swallow our souls?”
From the center of the crushed clover clearing, a soft pulse of azure light dissolved the little blue slime.
Standing once more upon the grass was Lin Xiao, clad in his clean scholar robes of pale azure linen. His dark hair was tied neatly with a silver-stitched ribbon. He smoothed his sleeves, checked to ensure there was no dirt on his cuffs. Then he looked across the three miles of scared, frozen crusaders with a warm, relaxed smile.
“Ling’er,” Lin Xiao called out over his shoulder.
Su Ling’er stepped out from behind the forward watchtower, her nine white tails swishing gracefully in the mountain breeze. Beside her, Old Man Tie hefted a massive wooden ledger under his furred arm. Meanwhile, Xiao Hei trotted forward with a soft, excited whine, his tail wagging like a happy domestic hound.
“Yes, Sect Master?” Su Ling’er asked, her voice carrying across the silent meadow like the pure ringing of crystal wind chimes.
“Let’s not leave thirty thousand people standing around in the hot sun holding heavy metal,” Lin Xiao said pleasantly. “Someone might drop a blade and take off a toe. Bring out the cedar crates. It’s time for the collection sweep.”
“Understood, Master,” she replied with a graceful bow.
At Su Ling’er’s signal, three hundred Shadow Gale Wolves melted into the midday shadows.
What followed was the most polite, organized, and utterly surreal disarmament in the recorded history of the training continent.
The shadow wolves didn’t pounce with bared fangs. They didn’t tear throats or rip armor. Instead, they used their innate shadow-stepping abilities to phase directly into the ranks of the trembling crusaders. With lightning-fast, impossibly gentle nips of their front teeth, the wolves unclasped sword belts, slid daggers from boot sheaths, and slipped magic charm pouches from trembling sashes.
Whenever a young student squeaked in terror, the black wolf attending to him would gently nudge his elbow, drop his sword into a waiting crate, and give his fingers a quick, reassuring lick.
Behind the wolves came hundreds of bear-beast craftsmen and mortal safe hall artisans. He pushed wide four-wheeled carts loaded with deep cedar chests lined with soft lamb’s wool.
“Hold still, young master,” a burly bear-smith rumbled gently to a scared Heavenly Sword core student, unbuckling the young man’s gold-trimmed sword belt. “Don’t tremble like a willow leaf. Nobody’s going to hurt you. Look here: we have little bamboo registration tags.”
The bear produced a thin slip of polished green bamboo, dipped a brush into red stone ink. Then he neatly wrote upon the surface: Heavenly Sword Manor, Regiment 4, Sword #142.
The bear tied the tag carefully to the golden sword’s crossguard, placed the weapon into the padded velvet slot of the crate. Then he handed a matching wooden receipt token to the stunned student.
“Keep that token in your belt pouch, son,” the bear-smith advised in a warm, fatherly growl. “Once our Sect Master finishes negotiating the peace pact with your elders, you bring that token to the trade depot at the pass. You get your old family blade back in clean condition. If there’s a scratch on the lacquer that wasn’t there before, our forge hall will polish it out for free.”
The core student held the wooden token with both hands. It stared down at the neatly carved registration number in sheer, pure disbelief.
“You’re... You’re tagging my sword?” the student stammered. “You’re not going to melt it down to make demonic cooking pots?”
“Melt down good folded steel?” the bear laughed boisterously, slapping his broad knee. “What a waste of coal! Sect Master says respect for an artisan’s craft is the foundation of great realm. Now hand over that brass throwing dagger in your left boot, please. Don’t be shy.”
While the bear-smiths and shadow wolves step by step disarmed the outer ranks, Abbot Hui Lun stepped forward from the western knoll.
Four thousand warrior monks of the Pure Lotus Abbey marched in single file down the slope, their bronze prayer staves jingling softly. They reached the outer edge where Lin Xiao stood. Then, Abbot Hui Lun planted his Nine-Ring Staff into the turf. He pressed his palms together, and bowed deeply from the waist.
“Amitabha,” Abbot Hui Lun spoke, his deep voice filled with deep, trembling respect. “In eighty years of crossing the mortal realm, this humble monk has seen righteous grandmasters butcher thousands over a patch of spirit grass. I’ve seen sect wars turn fertile river valleys into charnel houses of rot and ash. Yet today, I have witnessed a sovereign who disarms an invading host of thirty thousand souls without shedding a single droplet of blood.”
Behind Hui Lun, four thousand monks at the same time placed their staves, vajra daggers, and iron rosaries into the cedar crates. He knelt upon the green clover in peaceful surrender.
“Sect Master Lin,” Hui Lun said, his eyes clear and moist with emotion. “The Pure Lotus Abbey acknowledges your boundless virtue. We withdraw all claims of demonic heresy. Should Heavenly Sword Manor try further violence against this safe hall, my monks shall stand as a living shield before your gates.”
Lin Xiao returned the bow with a polite, casual cupping of his hands.
“Abbot Hui Lun, you’re far too polite,” Lin Xiao said with a warm chuckle. “Honestly, we just didn’t want twenty thousand sharp swords lying around where people might trip on them. Besides, Auntie Chen just finished steaming another ten barrels of red-bean buns. Would your monks care for some hot tea and sweet pastries? We used mountain honey from the cliff hives. It pairs wonderfully with roasted barley.”
Several young novice monks in the front row swallowed audibly, their eyes glistening with hunger.
“To accept the hospitality of an enlightened host is a virtue,” Abbot Hui Lun smiled softly, his stern features finally relaxing into genuine warmth. “We would be honored.”
Across the entire three miles of the Grand Defile, the disarmament went on without a single clash of steel, without a single scream of agony, and without a single corpse falling to the earth.
Twenty-eight thousand four hundred and fifty flying swords, spears, battle axes, and brass formation magic charms were step by step gathered, cataloged. Then he secured into cedar chests. Students who had marched into the valley expecting to be flayed alive were now sitting on the grass in massive, relaxed circles, comparing registration tokens, drinking herbal tea, and chatting with the bear-smiths about weapon-tempering techniques.
A crisp, semi-clear blue screen chimed into Lin Xiao’s vision:
Lin Xiao reviewed the system report with a deeply satisfied nod.
Twenty-eight thousand weapons packed neatly in crates, zero injuries, and everyone has a cup of tea, he thought. Now this is what I call a productive afternoon.
“Host,” the Omniscient Dao Spirit chimed in his mind. “The strategic and political hegemony of the Myriad Spirit Commonwealth across the Eastern Sector is effectively solidified. However, external spiritual tracking data indicates a strange flaw of extreme priority.”
Lin Xiao paused, taking a sip of his tea. “A strange flaw? Did one of the tea barrels run dry?”
“Negative,” the Dao Spirit responded, her tone subtly shifting into deep analytical gravity. “The moving squeezing absorbed during the Seven Star Beam glow has destabilized the load-bearing boundary of your Golden Core. Deep internal saturation has reached ninety-nine point four percent. Universal outside indicators suggest a certain, sky-order breakthrough event is coming soon.”
Lin Xiao glanced up at the afternoon sky.
The bright azure heavens were still clear. But high in the stratosphere, the faintest ripple of violet static seemed to shimmer against the blue.