Nine Desolate Records

Xuanji took Lu Li not to the deeper part of the valley.

It's underground.

A crack appeared in the rock wall beside the broken sword, just wide enough for one person to pass sideways. Below the crack were stone steps leading downwards, and a damp, cold wind surged up from the ground, carrying the smell of rust and some ancient decay.

"The true core of the Sword Tomb isn't up there." Xuanji held up the blue lamp, its flame flickering in the narrow passage. "Those stuck up there are broken swords. But buried down there..."

He paused for a moment, then said, "It's a sword spirit."

The stone steps were long and spiraled downwards. After climbing about a hundred steps, a bronze door appeared ahead. The door was undecorated, with only two simple grooves, their shape matching the broken edge of the Zhige sword.

Xuanji handed the green lamp to Lu Li and placed his hands lightly on the door.

The old man closed his eyes, and an extremely faint sword intent began to emanate from his body. The sword intent was gentle and calm, like the breath of a slumbering man. Sensing the sword intent, the bronze door emitted a low hum and slowly slid open inward.

Behind the door was complete darkness.

Absolute, all-consuming darkness. Even the light of a lamp can only illuminate three feet beneath one's feet.

But Lu Li could sense something breathing in the darkness.

It is not a living organism.

It is a sword.

Countless swords.

"Follow me, and walk lightly." Xuanji's voice was very low. "Every sword here carries a remnant soul. Some are the sword masters, some are sword spirits, and many more are... the spirits of the dead who were slain by the sword."

The two stepped into the darkness.

Beneath his feet was something soft, like ashes. Lu Li looked down, and in the dim light, he could see countless tiny metal fragments mixed with some kind of red powder.

Sword ash.

And...blood and dust.

After walking about ten zhang, a faint light appeared ahead.

It was a short sword stuck in the ground, its blade mostly rusted, but a tiny pearl, the size of a grain of rice, was embedded in the hilt, emitting a pale white light. Beside the sword sat a semi-transparent, ethereal figure.

She was a young woman dressed in the palace attire of a previous dynasty, who was bowing her head and stroking the blade of a sword while humming a muffled tune.

"Three hundred years ago, the imperial concubine used this sword to commit suicide for her country," Xuanji said softly. "Her obsession was too deep; after her death, her soul attached itself to the sword. Let's go around her without disturbing her."

The two walked along the edge of darkness.

As Lu Li passed by, the woman suddenly looked up.

Her face was delicate, but her eyes were empty, and the rust on the sword was reflected in her pupils.

"Your Majesty..." she murmured, "Why didn't you come to fetch me..."

Lu Li paused in his steps.

The woman lowered her head and continued humming.

"All the remnant souls here live in some fragment of the past." Xuanji continued forward, "Some died unwillingly, some had unresolved obsessions, and some... voluntarily stayed here to protect something."

The further you go in, the more swords you'll find.

Some were stuck in the ground, some hung in the air, and some were even half-buried in sword ash. Each sword exuded a different aura: grief, despair, protection, madness...

The forms of the remnant souls are also incredibly diverse.

A general stood there with his sword in hand, his armor covered in knife marks.

A scholar clutched his sword and wept bitterly, his clothes soaked with tears.

A child huddled beside the sword, his fingers picking at the inscriptions on the blade.

What chilled Lu Li the most was a faceless shadow. It knelt before a broken sword, its hands gripping the hilt tightly, its body repeatedly making the motion of "drawing the sword," but it could never pull it out.

Lu Li watched in silence.

This is what the underground of the Sword Tomb truly looks like.

It's not a holy site, it's a graveyard.

All the obsessions, resentments, and lingering regrets related to swords over the past three thousand years have finally converged here.

"The second level of the Zhige Sword Intent you're going to learn, 'Seeing All Beings,' isn't about seeing the living," Xuanji stopped in his tracks. "It's about seeing these dead people, seeing these souls forgotten by time."

He pointed into the depths of darkness: "There lies the 'Sea of ​​Sword Souls.' The remnants of sword souls accumulated over three thousand years have formed a unique entity there. You must go in and resonate with them."

"resonance?"

"Yes." Xuanji turned to look at Lu Li, "Feel their pain, understand their obsession, and then use your sword intent to soothe them."

"Smooth it out?"

"The true essence of the sword intent of cessation of war is not killing, but pacification," Xuanji said. "Pacify the will to fight, pacify resentment, pacify all the causes and effects arising from the sword. What you need to do is not to destroy these remnant souls, but to let them rest in peace."

Lu Li looked at the wandering shadows in the darkness.

Each one carries a bloody history.

"What should I do?"

"Sit down." Xuanji pointed to the ground. "Right here. I will guide you into the 'Sword Soul Sea,' but how long you stay and how much you comprehend is up to you."

Lu Li sat down cross-legged.

Xuanji placed his palm on the top of his head.

The next moment, the world spun around.

Lu Li's consciousness was forcibly pulled out, as if he had fallen into a sea.

It wasn't water, but countless shattered fragments of memory, like billions of sharp pieces of glass, tumbling, colliding, and roaring in the darkness.

He witnessed a bloody battle on the battlefield, where a general beheaded an enemy general with a single sword stroke.

He witnessed a banquet in the deep palace, where a concubine coated the blade of a sword with poison.

He saw in the secret room that the assassin held a sword to the child's throat.

He saw on the mountaintop that the swordsman committed suicide during a duel.

Each scene is accompanied by extreme emotions: anger, sadness, fear, madness...

Lu Li felt like she was being torn apart.

Too much, too much variety, too much intensity.

He instinctively wanted to escape, but Xuanji's voice resounded deep within his consciousness:

"Firm mind. You are not them, you are the observer."

Lu Li gritted his teeth and activated the Heart-Stabilizing Technique.

Consciousness detaches from the torrent of memories and stands on the "shore".

This time, he saw it more clearly.

Each fragment of memory has a "thread." One end of the thread connects to the fragment, while the other end... points to a colossal entity deep within the darkness.

A monster dragging chains.

It is the prisoner's "fighting spirit".

The concept of "fighting spirit" has become increasingly powerful over the past three thousand years by constantly absorbing negative impurities from the outside world.

Lu Li understood.

What is sealed in the Sword Tomb is no longer the original "war intent".

It is a distorted "war spirit" soaked in the obsessions and blood of countless people.

"What you need to do," Xuanji's voice came, "is to use your sword intent to purify those impurities."

Lu Li fell silent.

This is more difficult than I imagined.

How strong a will is needed to purify three thousand years of accumulated knowledge?

"Use your bloodline," Xuanji said. "The pure and intense bloodline of the Flame Emperor can burn away impurities. Use your protective will to guide the purification in the right direction."

Lu Li tried to probe the nearest fragment of memory with a wisp of his consciousness.

That was a soldier's last moments before dying on the battlefield. He gripped his broken sword, his eyes filled with resentment.

The moment Lu Li's consciousness touched the fragment, the soldier's resentment coiled around him like a venomous snake!

"I don't want to die... I have a wife and children... Why me...?"

Intense negative emotions assaulted Lu Li's consciousness.

But he did not back down.

The sword imprint lit up, its crimson-gold light enveloping that wisp of consciousness. The moment the light touched the resentment, the resentment melted away like ice and snow.

It's not about being eliminated, but about being understood, accepted, and then transformed.

The soldier's fragmented memories became transparent in the light. The resentment, hatred, and fear gradually subsided, leaving only a simple thought:

"I hope...my child...doesn't have to go through this..."

It stopped roaring and floated quietly, then... slowly sank into the depths of the Sword Soul Sea and disappeared.

It's not annihilation, but a return to a more essential state.

Lu Li sensed a faint warmth emanating from the sword imprint.

That was the purified obsession, transformed into "protective power".

"Continue," Xuanji said.

Lu Li began purifying the second fragment.

The third one, the fourth one...

At first, it was slow, with each fragment requiring a great deal of mental effort. But as the purification progressed, the protective power within the sword seal gradually accumulated, and the purification speed began to accelerate.

His consciousness traveled through the sea of ​​sword souls, and wherever it passed, fragments were purified and settled one after another.

The roars gradually subsided.

Those resentments gradually dissipated.

The Sea of ​​Sword Souls began to clear.

It didn't become empty; it became orderly. The purified fragments no longer collided randomly, but arranged and flowed according to certain rules, like a galaxy flowing.

Meanwhile, Lu Li's sword seal is also changing.

Within the crimson-gold light, fine lines began to emerge, the manifestation of the "order" absorbed during the purification process. Each line corresponded to a lingering obsession that had been soothed.

I don't know how much time has passed.

When Lu Li finished purifying the thousandth fragment, he stopped.

It's not that I'm tired, it's that I feel like I'm at my limit.

The sword seal has reached near saturation in terms of the number of ordered patterns it can support. Continuing further might lead to imbalance.

He regained consciousness.

Open your eyes.

The underground space remained unchanged, but Lu Li's perception had changed.

He could "see" the causal threads wrapped around every sword, "hear" the whispers of every remnant soul, and "feel" the flowing rhythm of the entire sea of ​​sword souls.

"See all living beings." Xuanji's voice rang out. "Now you understand?"

Lu Li nodded: "Every sword is connected to a group of people. Every obsession stems from a life. To quell the fighting spirit, we don't need to eliminate war, but to understand the humanity behind it."

"That's right," Xuanji said. "Human nature has good and evil, light and darkness. The will to fight itself is neither good nor evil; it is merely a tool. What distorts it is the human heart of the one who uses the tool."

The old man paused: "You have purified one-thousandth of it now. To completely purify the Sword Soul Sea, it will take hundreds of years."

Lu Li remained silent.

century?

He did not live to be a hundred years old.

It didn't even take ten years.

"Therefore, you need to find a faster way." Xuanji looked at him. "That's why you must go to the Northern Border. The source of the Yan Emperor's bloodline may hold the secret to purification."

"source……"

"Legend has it that in the ancestral land of the Yan Emperor lineage, there is a 'Purifying Flame Pool'," Xuanji said. "The flames in the pool can burn away all impurities and restore the original state. If you can find it, you might be able to complete the purification in a short time."

Purifying the World's Blazing Pool.

Lu Li memorized the name.

"Now, get up." Xuanji turned around. "The second phase of your training is over. For the next ten days, you will practice on the ground how to integrate your insights from 'Seeing All Beings' into your sword techniques."

The two left the underground area.

When they returned to the broken sword, it was already dark.

Under a sky full of stars, Sword Tomb Valley was as quiet as a tomb under the moonlight.

"Starting tomorrow, I will teach you the first move of the Zhige Sword Intent," Xuanji said. "In these ten days, you will learn three moves."

"Three styles?"

"The first move soothes, the second guides, the third transforms." Xuanji's eyes deepened. "Transformation is the highest realm of the sword intent of stopping war. It's not about eliminating the enemy, but about transforming them. Just like when you purify your sword soul, turning evil thoughts into benevolent power."

Lu Li was startled.

Transformation...

Isn't this the key to countering the Prisoner's Power?

"Now, rest." Xuanji sat down cross-legged. "Tomorrow at sunrise, we'll begin sword practice."

Lu Li also sat down and closed his eyes to regulate his breathing.

But deep within his consciousness, the memories of Sword Soul Sea still surged.

Those thousand purified fragments, those thousand smoothed-out lives, left an indelible mark on his heart.

He finally understood why Xuanji said that "seeing all living beings" is not the same as seeing living people.

Because the dead don't lie.

Their obsessions, their regrets, their resentment... all starkly reveal the complexity and weight of human nature.

Bearing this heavy burden is the destiny of those who guard it.

In the night breeze, the broken sword emitted a soft hum.

It was as if it were responding to his thoughts.

Deep in the valley, beneath the earth, the Sea of ​​Sword Souls, which had been partially purified, began to flow for the first time.

It is no longer a chaotic vortex.

Instead, they converge slowly but steadily toward a certain center.

At that center was Lu Li's sword imprint.

After three thousand years of accumulation, people began to recognize this new swordsman.