Chapter 103

Chapter 103
# Chapter 103: The Sword’s Resonance

Pure, luminous Heavenly Harmony Qi surged and brimmed with radiant, untainted vitality as it seeped deep into the waiting blade, infusing every inch of its metal with a warm, thrumming energy that seemed to awaken something long dormant within the steel.

The sword itself, a living vessel embodying the profound, almost unfathomable mysteries of the Heaven-Covering technique, began to tremble violently in response—quivering not with fear, but with a wild, eager life of its own—as it unleashed a cascade of low, resonant vibrations that swelled into clear, haunting musical tones, hanging in the heavy air like a spell woven entirely of sound.

**SKILL ACTIVATED**
**Heaven-Covering Sword Resonance** — Vibrations and tonal waves surge outward, repelling and dispersing venomous creatures across every corridor and shadowed crevice

Melody, at its core, was a delicate balance: the harmony of notes weaving together, and the sharp, piercing pitch that gave each note its distinct, unforgettable character. Between these two pillars of sound, it was the pitch that carried the greater weight, the one that held the true power to shape and sway what lay before it.

**BOOM!**
**BOOM!**
**BOOM!**

The great thrumming rolled through the passage again and again, rising in swift, dizzying climbs until the note pierced so high it teetered on the very edge of hearing, thin and bright as spun glass, then plummeted in a heartbeat, slowing its rhythmic vibration into a deep, earth-shaking rumble that traveled through the very stone beneath Yang-hui’s feet. It was nothing short of miraculous—a symphony wielded as a weapon, gentle and terrible all at once.

Even as he raced forward at full speed, his boots striking hard against packed earth and stone, Yang-hui could see the venomous creatures that had choked every shadow and filled every inch of the path ahead vanishing in droves, scuttling and scrambling in frantic retreat into the narrow cracks and fissures that pocked the earthen corridor walls, their countless chitinous legs clicking and rasping in a dry, frantic rustle as they fled the unbearable sound.

*Thank goodness they’re running. I couldn’t have cut through all of them without losing precious time.*

Sound, he reflected as he pressed onward, could wrap itself around you like a gentle, pleasing melody, soft and sweet and comforting—but far more often, it was a harsh, grating thing, a jagged noise that scraped against the senses and made even the calmest brow furrow with instinctive discomfort. If ordinary humans reacted so strongly to such discord, flinching and turning away and clamping their hands over their ears, what chance did mere vermin stand against it? Unless these venomous swarms were bound by ancient, unbreakable orders to stand guard over this passage at any cost, this agonizing, all-encompassing cacophony would surely drive them away as surely as fire drives back the dark.

**THWACK!**

With the last of the creatures gone, the corridor opened up into smooth, unobstructed ground—no skittering bodies, no venom dripping from above, no hidden menace waiting in the gloom. He crossed the entire stretch in a blur of motion, breath coming fast, and stepped through the shadowed archway into the next passage beyond.

*What lies ahead now… I wonder.*

It was another broad corridor, stretching far into the dim distance, laid out so nearly identical to the one he had just traversed that it might have been its mirror image—too perfect, too neat, too blatantly suspicious to be anything but a carefully laid trap.

He slowed his pace instantly, reaching into his travel pack to pull out a firm cake of dried rations, weighing it in his hand for a heartbeat before hurling it hard against the far wall.

**WHOOSH!**

*Just as I thought. Hidden mechanisms, buried deep in the walls, waiting for the first careless step.*

The ration cake shattered into a dozen fragments as dozens of steel pellets tore through it from every side, peppering the earth where it had struck. Glancing down at the broken pieces scattered across the ground, Yang-hui drew a slow, steady breath and stretched his ki perception to its absolute limit, straining to sense every hidden spring and trigger and woven ward.

*I see it now. I can feel them, all of them, strung through the stone like a spiderweb.*

Since the very moment he had crossed the threshold into the fabled Sword King’s Tomb, his already sharpened ki sense had grown so piercing, so vividly clear and intense, that it verged on painful—every tremor in the stone, every shift in the air, every faint thread of hidden power registering as sharply as a thorn pricked against his skin. It was a gift, and a burden, and right now it was the only thing keeping him alive.

**PFFT!**

Moving with the utmost, painstaking care, he stepped forward inch by inch, the tip of his sword held low and steady, and pressed it gently into the earthen wall where he felt the strongest concentration of hidden power. A sharp, crackling sound echoed softly as the mechanism beneath the surface gave way and fell silent, its threat dissolved.

*If I smash every single trap I come across, I’ll waste what little time I have left—and I might bring the whole ceiling down on my head besides. I must disable only what I truly need to, and leave the rest untouched.*

In this wide, deceptive stretch, every patch of ground held a hidden trigger, waiting to spring based on exactly where you stepped, how far you reached, how high you lifted your foot. Yang-hui moved like a ghost through the shadows, disabling only the absolute minimum number of traps required to keep his path clear, stepping with precise, deliberate grace where the ground lay quiet and unwarded, never striking twice, never lingering longer than he had to.

“Whew. This is the third gate, then,” he breathed, glancing back at the archway he had just passed through, shaking his head in quiet disbelief. “What kind of tomb builds three such barriers in a row, and leaves them all fully functional for centuries on end?”

And from what he could feel thrumming faintly in the air ahead, there were more—at least three more, perhaps far more, stretching deep into the mountain’s heart.

Had the ancient Sword King truly possessed endless wealth and resources, enough to build such a place and leave it standing for generations? Well, the man had saved the Central Plains from ruin and risen to become the greatest warrior under heaven; naturally he would have commanded vast riches and the loyalty of skilled artisans and craftspeople. But even so… was this truly necessary?

A faint, persistent feeling of unease lingered at the back of his mind, quiet but impossible to shake. This tomb was never meant to seek out worthy disciples, never intended to pass down teachings or a legacy to those who came seeking it. Truth be told, Yang-hui was moving through its trials with surprising ease, guided by his own innate gifts and the steady, unyielding pull of pure qi that drew him ever forward. Yet judging by the sheer, brutal difficulty of the gates—traps that would shred seasoned warriors to pieces, formations that could confound the sharpest minds—even masters at the very peak of their power would struggle to make it past the first few chambers, let alone reach the end.

*No—rather, it feels strangely easy. Unnaturally so, as though the path is being smoothed for me, as though the hardest edges are being softened before I can even reach them.*

A centuries-old legacy, sealed away and untouched, yet it yielded to his abilities without true hardship, without demanding the impossible. Could this truly be nothing more than chance, nothing more than his own talents carrying him where others had failed?

**PURE QI PULSE**

He felt the faint, steady rhythm of the pure qi calling him, pulsing like a heartbeat deep within the stone, and pushed off the ground again, breaking into a run. The corridor stretched on and on, curving gently downward, and just as he began to wonder when the next trial would step out of the gloom to meet him—

**SWISH—**

Everything shifted, and he snapped back to sharp, sudden awareness, breath catching in his throat.

*What was I doing? Where was my mind wandering?*

“Please, spare us! I beg you, don’t hurt us!”

Ah, right. Pung Ga Village. It was under siege by bandits, burning and bleeding and crying out for help. Fatigue must have finally caught up with him, dragging heavy at his limbs and clouding his thoughts until they grew foggy and indistinct, tangled up in dreams and half-formed visions.

With a quick, fluid motion, he caught the blade meant for his back—held by a trembling, desperate woman—and gently twisted it from her grasp, setting it aside.

“You see that, Chui-dal? This is exactly why we must stamp out every last traitorous cur of the unorthodox path—they strike at the innocent when they think no one is watching!”

“Chui-dal?”

Where had the boy got to? He turned to scan the smoke-choked surroundings, searching for a familiar face, and a sudden, heavy urgency settled over him, cold and sharp as a blade pressed to his ribs. He could not say why, but he needed to settle this, and settle it now—every moment wasted was a moment he might never get back.

Yes—the Sword King’s Tomb. The pure qi. He had to find it, before it was lost forever.

*Defeat these bandits quickly, drive them away, and go—but if I stop here, I might arrive too late. I might miss my chance entirely.*

He glanced at the weeping woman who had collapsed to the earth, clutching a small bundle tight to her chest. Stopping to help would cost him precious, irreplaceable time. And so, for the sake of his goal—to secure what he had traveled so far to find—he told himself he should walk away.

“Young hero! I beg you, save my child! They took my child—please, I have nothing left, save them!”

This was the same woman who had just tried to take his life, driven to desperation by fear and grief. Should he truly waste moments he could scarcely spare to rescue someone he did not even know?

No, his mind whispered. It is not your burden. Keep walking.

Upholding justice did not mean making oneself a fool, did not mean throwing away your own chance for the sake of strangers. His priorities were crystal clear, laid out before him like a map.

“I truly wish I could stay and help you, but…”

That was the moment his father’s voice echoed in his memory, soft and steady as it had always been.

“Hui-ya. People call your old father the Peerless Righteous Helper. It’s a name meant in mockery—for a man of little skill who prates endlessly about doing what is right, who gives away what little he has to those who will never thank him.”

He paused, his hesitation melting away, and lifted his head to meet the woman’s eyes.

“But I have never once felt shame at that name. Not for a single day of my life.”

He set his jaw, and the fog in his mind lifted completely, burned away by a sudden, bright clarity.

“I will help you. Show me where they took your child.”

“Young hero! Truly? Thank you—thank you so much, I will never forget this!”

Time was short; the need to be elsewhere beat like a hammer at his chest, a steady, insistent rhythm that would not be silenced. And yet—

*Do I lack time? No. I lack the strength to be everywhere at once, to save everyone who needs saving and still reach my goal in time.*

He would make no excuses. He would not blame the hour, or the road, or the hand fate had dealt him. He would simply give all he had, every last drop of strength and breath and will, and trust that it would be enough.

If it was not enough, then so be it. He would take this moment to heart, carry it with him always, and let it drive him onward toward greater heights—until the day he was strong enough to do both: to save those who called for help, and to walk the path he was meant to follow.

*Helping them does not hold me back. It is simply that I am not yet strong enough to have everything I want.*

The moment that thought settled deep in his mind, solid and unshakable, a sense of profound, boundless clarity washed over him, and his surroundings rippled and shifted like water disturbed by a stone.

“Ah.”

The smoke, the bandits, the burning village—all of it dissolved like mist in morning sunlight.

Or rather, he understood now that it had never been real at all.

“A formation. An exceptionally powerful one, crafted with consummate skill.”

He had encountered similar phantasmagoric arrays before, at the Sound Pentad Gate of the Shadow Demon, illusions woven from light and sound and thought. Back then, his sharpened ki sense had spotted the deception instantly and broken it with a single, focused breath. This time… he had been snared without the faintest suspicion, drawn in so deep he had not once questioned what he saw.

This was the work of a true master, a formation for the ages, laid down with care and foresight centuries ago. Still, there was purpose in it, a clear and unmistakeable intent.

“It was testing whether one holds goodness in their heart, wasn’t it? Whether you would choose what is right over what is easy.”

Righteous resolve. Compassion. Mercy. Every choice he had faced in the vision, every turn of the road, had been designed to sift out those who possessed such virtues, and to turn away those who did not. Yang-hui found himself smiling, a faint, genuine curve of the lips.

“Heh. A test even someone like me could never fail.”

He shrugged off the last lingering traces of the illusion, invoked the Sky-Piercing Steps, and shot forward like an arrow loosed from its bow, faster than he had run all day. The call of pure qi grew stronger with every stride, thrumming in his bones, and he could feel it—he was nearly there, nearly at the end of the long, winding path.

“Hmm?”

The narrow passage suddenly broadened, opening up into a vast, echoing cavern whose high, vaulted ceiling vanished into gloom. Set directly before him, dominating the entire space, stood an enormous iron gate carved all over with swirling, intricate patterns that seemed to shift and turn when he looked at them too closely.

*How am I meant to open this thing? There’s no handle, no keyhole, no visible lock.*

He drew his sword and struck the heavy surface with all his might, pouring strength into the blow.

**TING!**

Not a dull, heavy clang, nor a sharp, ringing peal—a clear, high, bell-like tone that echoed back from the walls. He leaned in closer to examine the material, running a hand gently over the dark metal. It bore a faint, silvery luster, and radiated a biting, bone-deep chill despite being far underground, untouched by sunlight for centuries.

“No way… cold iron?”

Not the fabled thousand-year variety spoken of in legends, perhaps, but certainly metal steeped in earthly qi for at least a hundred years—rare, precious stuff, hoarded by master smiths and fought over by kings. And they had used it as a door, buried deep beneath the earth