Dongjie answered for him, “This is the former hero of the Cosmos’ First Ranger Swordsmen Alliance, the ever-lasting spiritual pillar, and now, a mere dog of the Emperor, as well as my personal bodyguard, Luo Dongjie.”
“Impossible! Absolutely impossible!” Tears streamed down Lei’s face as he stared at Situ Hai’s rusted sword. “You are Situ Hai, the peerless martial expert, the one who once protected the outer territories from the Empire’s invasion. How could you defect to the Empire? How could you betray us?”
No wonder Lei was so agitated. Although a few people knew about Situ Hai’s defection to the Empire, within the Resistance Alliance, only a handful like Hertz were aware. As one of the two spiritual pillars of the Resistance Alliance, news of his betrayal could severely demoralize the resistance fighters.
Situ Hai remained silent, his expression completely blank as he gazed at Lei.
“We’ve fought to the death for decades, and we’ve lost hundreds of thousands of lives. For what?” Lei, gripping his signature massive spear, walked toward Situ Hai in grief and fury. “When we lost one regiment, we rebuilt another. Without spaceships, we modified merchant ships. Without weapons, we crashed our own ships into the Empire’s vessels, taking countless lives. So many died, so many willingly sacrificed themselves inspired by your spirit. But why? Why?”
Situ Hai took another sip of wine. The amber liquid flowed into his body through the rhythmic contractions of his throat, the fiery sensation helping him forget too much.
Lei tore open his shirt. Suddenly, everyone’s gaze was stunned. Across his muscular and youthful body were countless scars, almost no intact skin remained. The hideous and terrifying scars were connected together, almost forming an armor of scars. “I crawled out from one bloody battlefield after another. For what? I hoped to become a warrior like you, an undefeated fighter, a hero who fights for the people of this universe.” Lei trembled as he pointed his gun at Situ Hai. “But what about you?”
Judging by his appearance, he was ready to pull the trigger at any moment, unleashing the particle gun’s firepower and his fury upon Situ Hai.
But as the greatest swordsman in the universe, how could Situ Hai die from a simple particle beam? Although he continued drinking, his fingers had already touched the hilt of his rusted sword—the sword that, though dull and unremarkable, could kill everyone the moment it appeared.
Clang! The sword was drawn.
But it wasn’t Situ Hai who drew the sword—it was Yang Hao.
Seeing the imminent explosion between the two, Yang Hao acted swiftly, drawing his ice blade and swiftly tapping Lei on an artery. Instantly, the previously furious captain was frozen into an ice statue.
This was a new technique Yang Hao had recently mastered—infusing his qi into the ice blade and tapping the arteries to freeze a person’s blood for ten minutes, much like animal hibernation.
“Hahaha!” Yang Hao kicked the frozen Lei aside with a smile. “Misunderstanding, misunderstanding! It must be a misunderstanding! I didn’t expect to see Uncle Situ Hai here. We’re old friends, no, old acquaintances!”
“Yang Hao!” Situ Hai finally spoke, a slight smile on his lips. “We meet again.”
“Meeting, meeting! We should have met long ago.” Yang Hao’s acting skills were now truly refined. “Ever since we met on Saint Bear Planet, I’ve been looking for you. A man as extraordinary and unparalleled as you can’t be hidden anywhere; your brilliance shines wherever you go.”
“Why are you panicking?” Situ Hai sighed. “Yang Hao, don’t you still have a wandering immortal inside you? What do you have to be nervous about?”
Although Situ Hai didn’t draw his sword, his words were sharper than any blade.
Sweat appeared on Yang Hao’s forehead as he hurriedly covered his stomach. “What wandering immortal? That’s just him flattering himself. He’s just an old ghost who’s hibernating inside me now. When spring comes, I’ll take some laxatives to get rid of him.”
This time, Hun Yuanzi cooperated perfectly with Yang Hao, not making a sound. He clearly understood that if he had a physical body, Hun Yuanzi could match a wandering immortal and wouldn’t fear Situ Hai. But the situation was completely different now. Situ Hai’s strength was even greater than Yang Hao’s, who had already broken through the Yuan Ying stage. After all, Situ Hai was known as the greatest swordsman in the universe, not someone to be trifled with lightly.
“No matter what you say, it won’t work!” Luo Dongjie’s eyes flashed with ferocity. “Kill them! Drunken Cat Situ, kill them all!”
“Wait! Calm down!!” Yang Hao quickly pulled out some aphrodisiacs as a peace offering. “How about we take some aphrodisiacs first? They taste great.”
“I don’t need aphrodisiacs to kill you.” Situ Hai remained unmoved.
“But you’ll ruin your reputation.” Yang Hao stamped his foot in anguish. “It’s easy for you to kill us, but who are we? That ice statue is your fan, and his subordinates are all your disciples. Killing him would be an outrage. And that big fool, Longyun, he’s even your friend, who let you have his wife. How can you kill him and still call yourself human? Even me—I’m at least the adopted son of that old dog bear, who fought alongside you. You should give him a little face, right?”
“So what do you suggest?” Situ Hai’s drunken eyes slowly filled with amusement.
“I have a great plan.” Yang Hao gestured wildly, his persuasive powers in full swing. “None of the people here can be killed by you, so don’t kill them. In return, I’ll let you go, back to your spaceship, and fly out of this airspace to the warm embrace of the Empire. How about that?”
“You spare me, and I spare you?” Situ Hai smacked his lips.
“Exactly! You give an inch, and I give a mile.” Yang Hao cheered. “We’re all civilized people. Fighting is so uncouth. Why not laugh at the winds and moons, chat casually, and have porridge when there’s porridge, and rice when there’s rice?”
“Reasonable!” Situ Hai was surprisingly reasonable. As he uttered those two words, he immediately turned around, clearly intending to leave.
This was not what Luo Dongjie had expected. He had brought Situ Hai here to kill Yang Hao and avenge his previous defeat. There was no way he would let it go so easily.
“No! Drunken Cat Situ, you must kill them. I command you!” Luo Dongjie lost his composure, nearly screaming.
But Situ Hai smiled. When he drew his sword, he inspired fear, and his smile was just as chilling. “General Luo, you said I’m your personal bodyguard. Bodyguards are only responsible for protecting you, not for helping you kill people.”
Saying this, Situ Hai walked slowly, even brushing past Luo Dongjie without hesitation. Luo Dongjie’s face turned pale with rage, but he dared not stop him, not even daring to touch Situ Hai’s clothes.
Yang Hao let out a big sigh of relief. This crisis was no small matter, even compared to the ones in the Divine Realm. He never expected to face such a serious situation the moment he returned. If Situ Hai had really attacked, no one on this spaceship would have survived. After all, Yang Hao had witnessed the eleventh sword strike, whose power was simply unimaginable. In terms of swordsmanship, Yang Hao really didn’t know who in the world could be Situ Hai’s equal.
“I.” A voice suddenly rose. He had been standing behind Yang Hao, silently watching Situ Hai. Only after Yang Hao thought the crisis was over did he suddenly speak. “I, Longyun, challenge Situ Hai. I want to duel you, right here, right now.”
As if the spaceship itself had shaken, everyone’s mood changed, and even the light before them seemed dazzling.
Situ Hai’s departing steps paused, and he began to slowly turn back.
Luo Dongjie couldn’t hide his smile.
But Yang Hao nearly fainted.
“I challenge you, Situ Hai.” Longyun was calm, but the broadsword in his hand howled like a storm. Longyun looked at Situ Hai with complex eyes—the best friend who had once taken his wife.
Situ Hai fully turned back, took a deep breath, and met Longyun’s gaze. “Must it be now?”
“Right here, right now.” Longyun didn’t compromise. “The war has already begun, and I might die in battle anytime. So I must duel you before I die.”
“Do you want to die by my sword?”
Situ Hai’s voice was not a threat but a statement of fact. If even Yang Hao, who had broken through the Yuan Ying stage, might not be Situ Hai’s equal, then Longyun’s strength was far too inferior to that of the greatest swordsman in the cosmos. It was like the distance between a battleship and a small plank floating on the sea.
Longyun’s challenge was tantamount to suicide—he was offering his life to be ended by Situ Hai’s rusted sword.
But Longyun felt it was worth it. “Dueling you is my responsibility, an inescapable duty as a man. Even if I die by your sword, that responsibility won’t change. I am a man. A man cannot allow his brother to betray him without reacting. A man cannot watch his woman being taken away and abandoned without responding. I am a man. My destiny in this life is to challenge you and duel you. Even if I die, I want to die in a duel with you.”
Situ Hai seemed to hear a thunderclap from the sky. His thoughts were drawn back to many years ago. The years had not dulled the scars in Situ Hai’s heart. Looking at Longyun was like looking at himself.
A man’s destiny is death. But how he dies is his responsibility.
Situ Hai seemed to hear the weeping of his own soul.
He nodded. “Since that is the case, I will grant your wish.” Situ Hai reached for his rusted sword.
Clang! The sword was drawn. Longyun fell.
The speed was like a lightning kiss.
But to everyone’s astonishment, the one who drew the sword was not Situ Hai, but Yang Hao again. Yang Hao had drawn his ice blade at an incredible speed, tapping Longyun’s artery and freezing the determined, death-bound Longyun into an ice statue.
Yang Hao shook his head helplessly, kicked Longyun aside with his foot, and stacked him next to the nearly awakening Lei.
“Decisive!” Situ Hai smiled. In this situation, probably only he still had the heart to smile. “Truly, heroes emerge from the young. Since that’s the case, we should each go our separate ways.”
Go their separate ways?
Yang Hao looked at Situ Hai with a bitter smile as he turned again and shouted loudly, “Situ Hai!”
Situ Hai didn’t turn around, his back facing Yang Hao. “Hmm?”
“I challenge you!”
“You?”
“I challenge you on behalf of my friend Longyun.” Yang Hao was more serious than ever, although he clearly knew the price of saying those words. “We duel, right here, right now.”
“Dying for others is your style?” Situ Hai wanted to say it was funny, but it wasn’t funny at all. “Aren’t you someone who forgets righteousness for profit?”
“I am.” Yang Hao nodded, candidly. “But I won’t betray my friends. And I’m willing to die for my friends. Longyun challenged you, and he’s doomed to die. I challenge you on his behalf, at least giving him a ten percent chance of survival.”
“Just for that ten percent chance, are you willing to risk your life?” Situ Hai asked. “You could live, live very well.”
“Longyun declared war on you, which means I declared war on you. I have no choice because Longyun, and all these people here, are comrades who have bled together with me.” Yang Hao’s voice was even a bit lazy, as if he truly didn’t care about his life or death in the next few minutes.
“Friends… so far away.”
Clang! The sword was drawn.
This time, it was Situ Hai’s rusted sword that was drawn, but the blade was not aimed at Yang Hao; instead, it was thrust straight into the sky.
The universe trembled. This time, it was truly an earth-shaking event. No one could imagine what had caused such a massive fluctuation in cosmic energy, but Yang Hao knew. He not only knew, but could even feel and see it.
When Situ Hai thrust his sword into the sky, it seemed faint and powerless, not even piercing the cabin wall. But this sword strike was like one shot by a god, a true sword god’s strike.
The sword edge and sword light did not appear before people’s eyes because it was not a strike aimed at a person but at the sky itself—piercing the sky, slaying the heavens. The mighty and invincible sword light pierced straight through the spaceship, leaping into the sky, colliding with the vast cosmic space outside.
Yang Hao closed his eyes, feeling it. He felt the pain of the universe. He even felt what was happening outside the spaceship, the astonishing and terrifying truth that would shock everyone in the universe.
Right on the vast blue cosmic backdrop, a hole had been pierced, with white, pure substance swirling out of the hole. No one knew what that substance was—was it air from another universe or energy from the Creator? But there was no doubt that with a casual swing, Situ Hai had pierced the sky.
He pierced the universe itself.
What kind of sword technique was that?
Yang Hao’s heart felt as if gripped by an invisible hand, stopping his breath.
“You can still regret now.” Situ Hai didn’t turn around, his back still facing Yang Hao, his rusted sword still in the posture of piercing the sky.
Yang Hao opened his eyes, using almost all his strength to break free from that suffocating grip. He hardly knew what to say.
So, Yang Hao drew a long sword from behind and repeated his previous words: “Situ Hai, I challenge you. Right here, right now.”
Silence, a silence as if death itself.
Situ Hai turned around, the tip of his rusted sword pointing directly at Yang Hao’s heart. From a distance, it was as if that deadly intent would extend along the sword blade straight into Yang Hao’s heart.
Night came again, unstoppable.
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