"Sunny! Hand over the Sword of Nihility if you want to leave here alive with your family and your loved ones!!!"
A thunderous voice cut through the air, directed toward a light-skinned man in flowing white robes and silver hair.
His eyes were filled with unmistakable anger and rage as he glanced at the many cultivators surrounding him.
Around him were sixteen thousand progenitors!
Progenitors were at the peak of the immortal world.
And for sixteen thousand of them to gather around him, all for the Sword of Nihility, one could tell how terrifying this primordial artifact was.
According to records, it was the Rank 1 primordial artifact. However, the reasons were unknown.
Still, because Sunny, the greatest genius of this era, had obtained this legendary artifact, the whole world was alarmed. It was sent into a frenzy as all sorts of terrifying cultivators, including those hidden in the Mirror World, the Forgotten Sea, the Treacherous Land of Gods, and other dreadful places, came out to try and obtain the artifact.
Although they had demanded the sword from Sunny, the sixteen thousand progenitors didn't wait for his reply and immediately made their move.
Instantly, countless attacks were unleashed.
Heaven and earth split apart as though the skies were weeping.
The heavens turned blood red, as if the world itself was being torn open under the pressure of more than sixteen thousand progenitors.
Roarrrrrrrr!
Thunder rumbled as cultivation techniques descended upon Logan like a falling apocalypse.
Logan held the Sword of Nihility tightly and scanned the encirclement and the incoming waves of power…
His hands cracked and trembled, veins bulging beneath his skin, yet he still raised the Sword of Nihility into the skies and slashed forward.
Instantly, the world dimmed, and the bleeding heavens seemed to encounter something even more dreadful.
The already fractured sky split further, collapsing into chaotic layers of space.
A silvery sword glow shot forward and collided with the combined attacks of the progenitors.
Bang!
Compared to the countless attacks, the sword light was extremely minuscule. Yet wherever it passed, techniques disintegrated, crushed apart as if erased from existence.
Sunny's face turned pale the moment the slash left his blade.
His breathing grew heavy. A faint ache burned in his dantian, warning him of the price already being paid.
His eyes darted around frantically, searching for a path of retreat.
But he already knew it was impossible…
"Just give them the sword, brother." A voice entered his ears.
Sunny's body stiffened.
Turning toward the distant left, he saw a cage hovering in the skies.
Inside the cage were about ten people, bound by shackles. Their faces were pale as they twitched, as though enduring endless torment.
His family.
The very weakness he had never managed to cut away.
Sunny's grip on the sword tightened.
He wanted to hand it over. For a brief, dangerous moment, that thought almost overpowered everything else.
The question gnawed at his mind…
Between his loved ones and the sword… which was more precious?
'My sword heart is still not strong enough…'
Logan muttered internally.
He had embarked on the emotionless sword dao.
He should have severed all ties, discarded all attachments, and cared only for the peak of the sword path.
Yet now, with their lives hanging in front of him, he understood the truth.
He had lied to himself.
The current situation, this hesitation, carved it into his bones.
Meanwhile, after an arduous struggle, more than a thousand progenitors finally neutralized the remaining sword glow.
Their gazes locked onto Logan once more as they tightened the encirclement.
'What should I do?'
'What can I do?' Logan repeated in his mind, already knowing the answer.
Saving everyone was impossible.
Swallowing the bitterness in his throat, Logan forced himself to make the choice.
He would abandon them.
He would walk the sword path to the end.
Only then could he return… only then could he take revenge.
But even as that resolve formed, he knew escape was almost impossible.
The space of this world had been sealed.
Only one side would leave alive.
Logan didn't have enough qi to slaughter sixteen thousand progenitors. Worse still, more were arriving, while others hid in the shadows, waiting to strike when he weakened.
"Since you want the sword so badly." Logan gritted his teeth and roared toward the cultivators, "I will drag you all to death with me, destroying the sword in the process!"
The progenitors glanced at Logan and their expressions shifted. A few panicked, while others hesitated to approach. Some bold ones sneered, doubting the truth of Sunny's words.
But soon, their faces were filled with disbelief.
"The… dao? A trace of the Dao? He… he really mastered it??!"
Clad in fluttering white robes, Sunny's figure rose slightly above the encirclement as he raised his blade.
Pain exploded inside his body.
Crack.
His lifespan burned at an alarming rate.
Meridians screamed as invisible threads of vitality were torn apart and fed directly into the Sword of Nihility.
Suddenly, it felt as though the world itself bowed beneath his presence.
Heaven and earth churned violently.
At the same time, the progenitors were dragged into countless illusions.
This was merely the basics of the power of the Dao.
They saw different timelines, endless deaths, shattered futures, and doomed possibilities.
Suddenly, their bodies began to change.
Some aged rapidly, their skin shriveling and bones creaking.
Others grew younger, their flesh rewinding unnaturally.
To control the Dao was to control life and death.
And as Logan subconsciously wielded it, he felt as though he had touched upon some Forbidden truth.
It was in this heated moment that he mastered the technique unexpectedly, so he didn't fully understand it.
But he could faintly sense it…
He had the power to grant life and bring about death.
The attack he had prepared halted as he stared at the horrifying spectacle unfolding around him.
A bearded progenitor near the front suddenly screamed.
"No! My cultivation! Stop it—!"
His body shrank violently, turning from an immortal elder into a trembling youth, then into a child, before collapsing into pale dust that scattered across the void.
Others weren't so fortunate.
Some aged in seconds, backs bending, flesh decaying, bones collapsing inward before turning into black fragments that drifted away.
The corrosion of the dao spread indiscriminately…
From the front ranks to those behind.
Before long, thousands had perished.
Logan watched it all in stunned silence.
Only then did he realize something was wrong.
A violent cough escaped his lips.
Blood splattered onto his robes as his body weakened.
His hair rapidly turned grey.
Wrinkles carved into his face.
From a man in his prime, he became an old figure standing at the edge of death.
"This…" Sunny's eyes widened.
He had thought he was the executioner.
But he was standing on the same blade.
A bitter smile tugged at his lips.
Still holding the Sword of Nihility in his hand, despite his hunched back wracked with pain, he tried to stand tall.
A sword cultivator should always stand tall in defiance of the heavens, no matter the situation!
"So this is how my life ends…"
Logan murmured while staring at the devastated battlefield.
Although he had won.
Although he had touched the dao…
'But at what cost?'
"To live by the sword, taking judgment, life, and death into one's own hands… is to die by the sword."
He lifted his gaze one final time.
There was nowhere to hide the sword.
Only endless emptiness remained, filled with drifting black and white specks.
He knew it would inevitably fall into another's hands.
"How fucked up." Logan muttered, then raised the Sword of Nihility and brought it down without hesitation.
In more than a hundred years of cultivation…
He had always known he would die by the sword…
Just not his own sword.
Another bitter gasp escaped Sunny's lips as regret filled his chest.
"If I'm granted another chance at life… I promise to pursue the peak of the sword dao without any emotions in my heart."
Logan knew the only reason things had reached this point, ultimately leading to his death, was because of his loved ones and the care he held for them.
Darkness pressed in from all sides as the stinging pain of the Nihility Sword tore through him.
In barely a few minutes, the old man with grey-silver hair turned into a dried corpse as a whisper escaped his lips.
"Today… my heart dies."