Chapter 959: Ling Family

“It was said that the Blade Ruins is the only region without a secret realm general.” Zhu Zhixun gazed at the endless shards of metal and said, “Perhaps the fragments of weaponry here have been stained with the blood and will of our human heroes, suppressing all the realms.”

Master Jin added, “This is the only area within the Holy Ruins that belongs to the human race.”

His words were filled with a tragic grandeur. Li Xiaofei remained silent. It felt as though he could sense a solemn, desolate aura flowing through the heavens and earth, compelling him to keep quiet.

Every broken piece of weaponry represented the valiant sacrifice of a fallen human hero.

“I don’t feel any signs of danger,” Liu Shaji said as he scanned their surroundings. “Is this really one of the most dangerous areas in the Holy Ruins, a place even the Reapers refuse to approach?”

Li Xiaofei felt the same. The air between heaven and earth was somber and bleak, but there was no real sense of danger.

“Let’s pick up the pace,” Li Xiaofei said.

They had to act quickly and locate the third suspicious formation before the Heavenly Eye Guards arrived. Otherwise, once the Reaper Ancestor Court completed its arrangements, more complications would arise, and entering the formation would become extremely difficult.

The group surged forward at full speed.

“Look, what’s that?” Xiong Gang suddenly shouted in alarm.

A massive army suddenly appeared in the void ahead. Countless figures surged forth like a flood, blotting out the sky and bearing down on them like a wave of darkness. The army was vast and well-equipped. It rolled in like a terrifying storm.

Why did so many troops suddenly appear?

Li Xiaofei, too, was momentarily taken aback.

“It’s our human battle division.” Zhu Zhixun suddenly cried out with joy and said, “They’re our own people.”

“Something’s not right. Stay alert,” Liu Shaji warned, frowning.

The flood of soldiers closed in fast. Shouts of battle roared to the heavens. Blades were drawn and spears rose in unison. In an instant, the cold glint of countless weapons lit up the sky like stars, piercing through the darkness like flashes of disaster.

Liu Shaji summoned the White Lotus Killing Sword. Everyone else also grew solemn and focused, preparing themselves. Yet the massive army passed through them like a gust of wind, sweeping past in a flash. It surged into the void behind them, then vanished piece by piece.

The shouting, the roars, the sounds of slaughter— All of it disappeared in an instant. The world fell into sudden silence as if everything had been nothing more than a dream.

“It was an illusion.”

“The unyielding will of our fallen predecessors still lingers in the world, leaving behind phantom echoes of war.”

“They... all died in battle.”

At some point, the five young warriors were already in tears. They had been immersed in that vision of war, consumed by the tragic and stirring atmosphere and unable to pull themselves away. Such a vast and magnificent battlefield was something they, as members of the resistance, had never witnessed before.

How grand and heroic it must be to confront the Reapers head-on. They felt proud that the human race had mounted such a fierce and majestic resistance against the invincible overlords of the universe. They longed to become part of that legacy.

The group pressed on.

Half a day passed.

A colossal figure suddenly emerged up ahead. It was a towering human warrior, standing like a mountain between heaven and earth. His form was somewhat blurred. He appeared to be a man, holding a sword in one hand, his head raised proudly toward the sky. His entire body radiated a powerful aura of battle.

He was surrounded by a storm of swirling metal, like a tornado forged of shattered weapons. Broken fragments of metal orbited around him like stars clustering around the moon, guarding him in solemn silence.

Liu Shaji abruptly stopped in his tracks. A trace of pain surfaced on his face. The White Lotus Killing Sword in his hand let out a sorrowful wail.

“Liu Shaji?” Li Xiaofei looked at him with puzzled concern.

“I knew this man,” Liu Shaji sighed and said, “I didn’t expect... he had already fallen in battle. Has the situation on the Star Battlefield truly become that dire?”

“Who is this senior?” Li Xiaofei asked.

Liu Shaji replied, “Ling Chi.”

“Hm?” Li Xiaofei looked confused.

He had never heard of the name.

Liu Shaji explained, “He was a martial powerhouse of the Sword Immortal Lin Beichen’s world. A true divine-level god of war. Not only was his personal strength overwhelming, but his skill in commanding troops was unmatched. He earned countless military honors in the war against the Reapers, killing so many of them that the Reapers’ Ten Great King Clans did not dare approach the Ziwei Starfield for a hundred years.”

Li Xiaofei and the others felt their blood boil with excitement. The human race had more than just the Five Great Immortal Emperors. There were also heroes like this, whose spirits burned brighter than stars. But as they realized his figure had appeared within the Blade Ruins, the truth was hard to ignore... Their hearts grew heavy with grief once more.

Liu Shaji continued, “In terms of status and background, Ling Chi came from an illustrious line. He was the brother-in-law of Sword Immortal Lin Beichen and the elder brother of the quasi-Immortal Emperor Ling Chen... I never imagined even he had fallen on the Star Battlefield.”

The group moved forward. They soon saw a colossal fragment of a sword blade, thousands of meters long, half-buried beneath heaps of metallic debris. The exposed portion of the blade was as smooth as a mirror, reflecting beams of light that stretched into the sky.

The figure of Ling Chi was, in fact, a projection cast from this fragment of the blade. Countless fragments of weaponry circled around the projected form, just like loyal warriors guarding their fallen general.

“Those fragments... could they be the souls of General Ling Chi’s fallen soldiers? Even in death, they still remain faithfully by their commander’s side,” Master Jin murmured.

His words nearly moved everyone to tears once again. They all bowed solemnly toward the projected figure before resuming their journey. As they continued along their path, they encountered similar scenes.

But what moved the five warriors to tears the most was the sight of an elderly man’s corpse lying between two metallic peaks. The old man’s hair was white, his face kind yet filled with stern anger. His body bore countless scars, the marks of a veteran who had walked through fire and blood.

When Liu Shaji revealed his identity, even Li Xiaofei was overwhelmed with sorrow. It was Ling Taixu, another mighty warrior of the Ling Family and Ling Chi’s grandfather. He was a revered old war god.

“The warriors of the Ling family were pillars of the human forces on the Star Battlefield. They guarded the Ziwei Starfield. Now that both of them have fallen... could something have happened to the Ziwei Starfield?” Liu Shaji’s face turned grim.

In his previous life, he had been a major force on the human side of the Star Battlefield and was deeply familiar with its affairs. Although his personality made him prefer solo operations, taking on the role of a troubleshooter who rushed to hotspots to resolve crises, he had forged deep friendships with many of the strongest human warriors. He was practically the social butterfly of the Star Battlefield.

Seeing his old friends fall in battle filled him with grief. But more than that, the implications behind their deaths filled him with growing urgency. The Ziwei Starfield was a vital territory of the human race. It was where Li Mu had once risen to power. That was why the Ling family had been stationed there and why the female Sword Goddess, Ling Chen, had held command.

But now, both her elder brother and grandfather had fallen in battle. Could the Ziwei Starfield have already fallen? Liu Shaji had not returned to the Star Battlefield after his resurrection, so he was unaware of the current state of the war. Now, he was growing increasingly concerned.

Ling Taixu’s corpse also bore that strange contaminating force. It was even more severe than the corrupted corpse they had encountered earlier. Clearly, he had used a secret technique to taint his own body at the moment of death.

This was to prevent his flesh, his blood, and the essence cultivated over a lifetime from being devoured by the Reapers and become fuel for the evolution of this sworn enemy of the human race.

“This secret art didn’t even exist in my previous life,” Liu Shaji said solemnly, standing before the corpse. “We believe that the dead deserve peace, to return to the earth and rest in their homeland. Even the most battle-hardened warriors hope to be buried in their native soil and have their souls return to the underworld. But this self-pollution technique is terrifying. Once a corpse is tainted, the Reapers can’t devour it, yes—but it also can’t be brought back home. It would corrupt the natural laws and the land itself... This technique is too dreadful. Unless it’s absolutely necessary, no one would willingly use it.”

Li Xiaofei was filled with sorrow as he listened. Indeed, aside from scum like Jiepeng, living a comfortable life while poisoning their own homeland, who else would ever choose to spread toxic filth across the place they called home?

Looking down at the old man’s body, he once again fell into solemn silence. Li Xiaofei personally stepped forward and buried Ling Taixu’s corpse. Countless fragments of broken blades formed a burial mound over the fallen war god.

Liu Shaji said, “It seems the situation on the Star Battlefield has grown unimaginably brutal. Otherwise, the human race wouldn’t have resorted to creating a self-polluting secret art like this.”

Li Xiaofei felt a deep weight in his heart. Even war gods and commander-level figures had perished. The battlefield must be beyond tragic, and the odds were clearly turning against the human race.

This only strengthened his resolve to rescue Sword Immortal Lin Beichen. A figure of Immortal Emperor level held the same deterrent as a nuclear weapon. Such a presence could turn the tide of war.

“Let’s go,” Liu Shaji urged.

Ever since they had entered the Blade Ruins and witnessed so many scenes related to the human race, Liu Shaji had abandoned his usual comedic persona. The once carefree and unruly face now bore an expression of rare seriousness and anger.

The group quickened their pace. Along the way, they encountered various phantom images. Human experts, scenes from battlefields, and fields of death.

Each one depicted fierce confrontations between human warriors, battle divisions, and their enemies, fragments of desperate, life-and-death struggles. Eventually, they arrived at the most dangerous region within the Blade Ruins, Mount Ten Thousand Blades.

A range of peaks, each gleaming with cold metallic light, stretched before them. Countless upturned blades jutted from the mountains like vegetation, each one shining with a chilling gleam, giving the vast mountain range the air of a forbidden land teeming with death.

At the center of the many peaks stood a towering blade-shaped mountain, ten thousand meters high, rising proudly into the sky. This was Mount Ten Thousand Blades.

According to legend, the Reapers had discarded countless fragments of human weapons within the Blade Ruins. Some of these fragments retained lingering spirituality and killing intent. Over time, these weapon shards instinctively gathered, fused, and piled together, eventually forming an entire mountain.

This mountain was a true death zone. Before the Reapers had completely abandoned the Blade Ruins, they had once sent numerous high-level warriors to explore it. But six level nine Reapers had perished on Mount Ten Thousand Blades alone.

𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

That incident had been one of the reasons the Reapers had ultimately given up on the Blade Ruins and designated it as a dumping ground. They could not conquer it.