First Immortal of the Sword

Chapter 1000 - Dying of Anger

Earlier, the man in the sapphire shirt had smiled and chatted with calm composure, as if gazing down upon the masses with an air of lofty superiority.

Yet now, he’d been beaten black and blue. His face was swollen, his flesh was torn, and he sat on his knees, still as a statue. It hurt to even look at him.

The disparity was simply enormous.

“And here I thought he was strong. So, he only looked impressive…” muttered the elder in Confucian robes.

“That’s because he encountered my master,” Ye Luo solemnly corrected him. “That’s why he seems so pathetic. Were we to fight him instead… that would be completely different.”

The old man in Confucian robes was briefly stunned, but when he thought about it, he agreed completely. The man in sapphire was in the early-stage Profound Serenity Realm. His cultivation base might not amount to much, but his power of the Laws was taboo and terrifying beyond limit!

It’s not just the Nine Heavens Pavilion’s Laws of Heavenly Prayer. He can even counter the Church of the River of Stars’s Laws of Cosmic Silence! No wonder the Supreme Leader has been searching for such a power all this time. It really is unbelievable… The Netherworld King’s heart churned.

She found it hard to stay calm. This discovery was just too shocking!

“I’m just a minor character ordered to stand watch over this place. Killing me won’t do you any good,” said the man in sapphire robes as he knelt there, his voice raspy. “On the contrary, if I die, my senior sectmate will find out right away, and it’s hard to say what the consequences of that would be.”

“Are you threatening me?” asked Su Yi.

The man in sapphire robes sighed bitterly. “No, I’m just trying to beg for mercy.”

None of his former bluster remained. He seemed miserable and forlorn, and his wounds were incomparably heavy. It seemed as if his body were on the verge of falling apart.

Su Yi gazed down at him. “First, tell me where the old rooster is.”

One hand gripped the Immortal-Beating Mallet, while the other hand was behind his back. He had a transcendent air about him.

However, in the man in sapphire’s eyes, this blue-robed youth was unquestionably far too terrifying. He said in a quavering voice, “He’s in the eastern side palace.”

He forced the words through the gaps in his teeth, and his tone was full of terror, humiliation, and dejection.

Su Yi looked up and into the distance. The gates to two side palaces stood on each side of Yama’s Palace.

“All of you, wait outside.” Su Yi swept his gaze across his companions, then lifted the man in sapphire off the ground. “You’re coming with me.”

The gate to the eastern side palace was tightly shut. When Su Yi pushed open the door, he saw that the interior was dimly lit. It was mostly empty, but numerous snow-white, dried-out bones were piled on the floor.

A row of bronze torture racks stood at the far end of the grand hall. Each was thirty feet tall and carved with mysterious formation markings.

Su Yi could see a colorful rooster confined on one of the racks. Its feathers were battered and stained with blood, and one of its wings had been ripped off.

The rooster’s head drooped, and it seemed listless and on the verge of death.

The sound of someone pushing open the door seemed to provoke it. It whipped its head up and launched into a series of curses. “Fuck you, you…”

A series of expletives poured out, each of them unique.

But a moment later, the rooster’s eyes widened. “Huh!?”

It suddenly realized that the man in sapphire, the one who viewed him as food, was hanging there like a dead dog, and a young man in blue held him aloft. The rooster couldn’t help but pause, flabbergasted.

“Even in such a state, that mouth of yours is as merciless as ever,” sighed Su Yi. The old rooster really wasn’t dead! He finally relaxed.

“Who… Who are you?” The old rooster asked with obvious confusion.

Su Yi teased him. “Back in the day, you called me your ancestor and begged me to accept an Unsinkable Ship. Why is it that now, you can’t even recognize your own ancestor?”

After he and the old rooster first got acquainted, the two of them “debated the Dao.” The old rooster was reckless and arrogant enough to declare that whoever lost would have to take the other as their ancestor.

“I called you my ancestor? Kid, your breath still reeks of your mother’s milk! You’re barely even eighteen…” The rooster burst into derisive laughter, but a moment later, he shrieked strangely. “No way. No, no way! You… You… You’re…. Old Monster Su!?”

Su Yi walked right up and examined the wounds covering the rooster’s body. He sighed. “I told you I’d have you slice off one of your wings for me to snack on while I drank, but it seems that pleasure has been wasted on someone else.”

“....” The rooster fell silent, but a moment later, its battered body quivered with agitation. “I’m in such a state, but you’re still making fun of me? Do you even have a conscience?”

Su Yi laughed, but he didn’t delay. With a wave of his hand, he severed the chains binding the rooster to the bronze rack.

Whoosh!

As soon as the old rooster broke free from its fetters, he transformed into a man with the air of a Daoist immortal. He wore wide-sleeved dark robes, like a god or immortal straight out of a legend.

This was the expert the populace knew of as the Peach Haven Mountain Monarch. This was also the appearance he’d taken on after proving his Dao and becoming an Emperor. However, his face was pallid, and he was covered in blood. It was obvious that his vitality was severely damaged.

“I’ll kill you, you fucker!” As soon as he broke free, the old rooster exploded with murderous intent and charged at the man in sapphire.

However, Su Yi stopped him. “I still have questions for him.”

The old rooster’s chest heaved, but in the end, he suppressed his pent-up anger and hatred.

The man in sapphire realized that this didn’t bode well, and he said gravely, “I told you: if I die, my senior will know immediately.”

Whap!

The old rooster slapped him right across the face and cursed. “You’re about to die, but you’re still so stubborn? I’ll boil you alive!”

The man in sapphire shook from head to toe, so furious he wanted to die. His cheeks instantly swelled.

“Seems to me we’d be best off just searching his soul. Why go to all the trouble of interrogating him?” The old rooster glanced at Su Yi.

He had the air of a Daoist immortal, but he spoke like an incorrigible hoodlum.

However, Su Yi had long since grown accustomed to the rooster’s temperament, and he didn’t find this strange.

“You want to search my soul?” The man in sapphire completely lost his cool. He hissed, “There’s a restriction placed on the soul of every member of our church, regardless of rank. If an external power invades our soul, it will immediately crumble. There’s absolutely no way you’ll learn anything that way!”

Su Yi furrowed his brow.

The Church of the River of Stars actually conducted itself quite similarly to the Nine Heavens Pavilion.

The former placed restrictions on their adherents' souls, while the latter made recruits take a Grand Dao Oath upon entering the sect.

“Tell me what I want to know, and I won’t kill you,” Su Yi got straight to the point. “If you refuse, I’ll kill you here and now.”

After a moment’s silence, the man in sapphire said, “Alright, but forgive me if I cannot answer questions pertaining to some of our core secrets or legacies.”

“Alright,” said Su Yi.

In the time that followed, he learned that the man’s title was Yun Qi, which meant “Cloud Cover.” Just as the Netherworld King said, he was from the Cloud Division of the Church of the River of Stars, and he was one of their Guardians of the Faith.

A long time ago, he and three other Guardians of the Faith from the sect’s cloud division followed a Sacred Emissary of the Celestial Palace to the Sea of Bitterness.

However, Yun Qi was uncertain of what they’d come to the Sea of Bitterness to achieve.

He and the other three guardians of the faith were just acting on orders. Only the Sacred Emissary of the Celestial Palace knew why they were here.

However, when Su Yi asked about the Sacred Emissary, Yun Qi’s answers were all quite strange.

He had no idea either!

According to Yun Qi, the Sacred Emissary was from the Celestial Palace, but his identity was unique and mysterious. A Guardian of the Faith like Yun Qi wasn’t in any way qualified to learn the truth.

That aside, Su Yi learned that a long time ago, after Yun Qi and his companions arrived in the Mausoleum of the Gods, the Sacred Emissary proceeded toward the hidden realm in the heart of this forbidden zone.

While Yun Qi and the other three Guardians of the Faith kept watch outside. They weren’t to let anybody draw near.

Yun Qi was stationed here, in the Yama’s Palace on Allriver Mountain.

The other three Guardians of the Faith stood guard outside that hidden realm.

Here, Su Yi couldn’t help but frown, and his expression filled with uncertainty.

The hidden realm in the deepest depths of the Mausoleum Gods was called the Reincarnation Grounds!

Aside from him and Old Ghost Coffin-Bearer, only Su Yi knew how forbidden and mysterious the Reincarnation Grounds were.

More importantly, it was there that Su Yi had found the secrets of reincarnation and rebirth!

If word of this spread, it would shake everything both above and below the heavens. It would throw the whole world into uproar!

And Su Yi had come to the Burial Ground of the Gods, not just to seek out an opportunity to prove his Dao and become an Emperor, but to investigate Old Ghost Coffin-Bearer’s whereabouts.

And he figured that if the old-timer really was trapped in the Burial Ground of the Dao, he had to be in the Reincarnation Grounds!

Because only a forbidden, mysterious place like that could possibly trap Old Ghost Coffin-Bearer!

Yet now, it turned out that a Sacred Emissary of the Church of the River of Stars had long since entered the Reincarnation Grounds! How could Su Yi not be surprised?

“I’ve already told you everything I can tell you,” Yun Qi said in a raspy voice. “By now, I’m sure you understand how powerful our Church of the River of Stars is. It’s far beyond the orthodoxies of your Netherworld. I just hope that you can keep your promise. Otherwise…”

But before he could finish, Su Yi tightened his grip and destroyed Yun Qi’s entire cultivation base!

Yun Qi screamed and roared as if he’d gone insane. “Bastard! You said you’d spare my life, but now you….”

But before he could finish, Su Yi knocked him unconscious, bringing his infuriated, maddened cries to an abrupt halt.

“I said I’d spare your life, but I never said I wouldn’t cripple you.” Su Yi shook his head. He then tossed the unconscious Yun Qi to the old rooster. “Here. As long as you don’t kill him, you’re welcome to vent however you’d like.”

After a brief daze, the old rooster looked disdainful. “Forget it. I have no desire to humiliate a helpless cripple. I’d get no satisfaction out of that at all.”

He licked his lips. “You know I like it best when my enemies fight back. The harder they fight, the more excited I get….”

Before he’d even finished muttering, Su Yi turned and left the side palace, and the old rooster hurried after him.

As for the now-crippled Yun Qi? They simply abandoned him, paying him no further heed.

However, after Su Yi and the old rooster disappeared from the side palace, the sprawled-out Yun Qi suddenly opened his eyes. His pupils shone with incomparable resentment.

He opened his mouth and exhaled. A black spirit pearl floated into the air. Threads of strange, contorted silver Dao markings lingered around it.

“In all my years of cultivation, when have I, Yun Qi, ever suffered such degradation? You bastards… All of you must die!”

Yun Qi’s eyes shone with hatred as he bit through the tip of his tongue. But just as he was about to do something…

A large, slender hand with clearly defined joints appeared and seized the black pearl.

Yun Qi reacted as if he’d been struck by lightning. He looked up and saw Su Yi and the old rooster. They’d come back!

“Wah!” Yun Qi coughed up a mouthful of fresh blood and convulsed like an epileptic.

Mere moments later, his head drooped to the side, and he died on the spot.

The old rooster was dumbstruck. He muttered, “That walking tuft of pubic hair sure had quite the temper. He actually got himself so worked up that he died of anger!”action

Seth's Thoughts

1000 chapters, and it ends with a human tuft of pubic hair and someone dying of anger. It's... fitting?

....The pubic hair thing is a literal translation of a term most people (me included) would usually translate as "fucker" or "scumbag" or something like that. But that really is what the characters mean!! I left it literal because it seemed appropriate for an expletive-flinging rooster.

...I call it literal, but the raws just say "pubic hair." I added "walking" and "tuft" for clarity and flow.

....anyway! Enough about pubic hair! Thanks to everyone who's followed Su Yi's journey thus far! And thanks for all your support!!