Chapter Twenty-Three: The Sword of Eternal Life (Part One)

As soon as Fei Liguo finished speaking, the Longevity Sword shot forth like lightning, its speed so shocking that even Gamio was startled. Just the swiftness alone, he admitted to himself, was something he could not withstand.

Nearly a hundred wild elves wielding various weapons and bows were rushing over. The Longevity Sword, glowing with a faint white light, sliced through the air. One reckless wild elf raised his sword to block, but the Longevity Sword withdrew slightly and thrust forward again in midair. A green light flickered on the elf’s body, and a green shield suddenly appeared, timely intercepting the blow. Yet the Longevity Sword, ranked among the eighth-tier flying swords in the Daoist sects, had an attack power rated at fifteen hundred in the Divine Weapon Appraisal, enough to shatter gemstones of eighth-tier hardness—what this continent called magic crystals. The elf’s Force Wall spell was a fifth-tier defensive magic, sufficient to resist arrows or many melee attacks, but it could not withstand the Longevity Sword.

The green shield generated by Force Wall was sliced as easily as paper, and although the elf’s nimble movements let him dodge a fatal strike, one arm fell to the ground.

A wave of astonishment swept through the crowd. These wild elves, though long separated from their kin and lacking the elders’ guidance in martial arts and magic, had honed their killing skills through years of bloodshed. In sheer proficiency and ruthlessness, they even surpassed ordinary elves. In single combat, the outcome would be uncertain. Yet before the Longevity Sword, a single stroke severed a limb.

A wild elf with eyes red as lacquer gave a wave, and the others, far from being intimidated, surged forward en masse. Clearly, this wild elf leader had seen through Fei Liguo’s weakness: no matter how formidable the sword, it could only kill one elf at a time.

“Icy Ground and Snowy Sky!” Fei Liguo chanted softly in midair, activating the first spell permanently imbued in the sword, while conserving his own mana for a duel with Wei Wuji.

From the Longevity Sword, five hundred meters away, a brilliant white radiance blossomed. Within a hundred-meter radius centered on the sword, the temperature plummeted, and the ground instantly froze over. Some wild elves even found their feet trapped in ice.

“Fall back!” The wild elf leader sensed danger, his blood-red eyes flashing. He possessed the bloodlines of both the surface moon elves and the subterranean dark elves. Normally, these two kinds of elves were sworn enemies ever since the dark elves fled underground and began worshipping the Spider Goddess. Yet there were always exceptions—among wild elves, such hybrids were not unheard of, for example, ****.

These wild elves were seasoned brigands, their combat experience extreme. Seeing Fei Liguo cast what looked like an ice spell to hinder them, they knew the next attack would be a thunderous blow.

Wild elves began casting various spells, the brilliance of white magic repeatedly lighting up the field. White magic originated from divine arts; in simple terms, it used magic to mimic divine effects—healing, removing abnormal states, and so on. Though less potent than true divine arts and incapable of ultimate effects, mages were delighted by this branch of magic, as it broke the monopoly of divine arts over healing.

Third-tier white magic: Avoid Plane Effect. Third-tier white magic: Remove Magic. Fourth-tier white magic: Protect Against Energy Damage. Even the wild elf leader cast a group protection against energy damage effective within a fifty-meter radius.

Timely white magic freed the wild elves from the icy ground. They hesitated, unsure whether to advance, but the wild elf leader sensed something amiss and shouted, “Fall back!”

Fei Liguo’s spell had only half finished. After the icy ground came the snowy sky. Within two hundred meters, snow began to fall, but each flake carried deadly force. When they touched the elves’ skin, it was as if each had been cast into a frigid ice cellar.

The protective effects of third-tier white magic could no longer dispel this ongoing group harm, which had the potency of a fifth-tier spell. Even group energy protection was ineffective; though that white magic was fifth-tier, its actual efficacy was only third-tier. Generally, if a spell’s effect changes from single to group, its tier rises by one or two levels. The tier of a spell is not solely determined by power and lethality, but also by practicality.

The wild elf leader’s face darkened. This time, he couldn’t even shout—the snowy sky came too swiftly after the icy ground. He could only cast another spell: sixth-tier Anti-Element Force Field. With a flash, the force field was imposed, repelling elemental magic. Of course, this repulsion was relative, not absolute, limited by the sixth-tier magic’s capacity.

Within the force field, the wild elves were protected from the ongoing damage of the ice and snow, needing only to use white magic to cure previous effects.

“The Sword of the Sequencer?” Laiad was astounded. The so-called sequencer was a high-end product invented in the alchemical era by Rochester. Mages, besides casting from themselves, could use scrolls for spell effects, but scrolls were inconvenient: unfolding them during a battle with agile foes could spell disaster, even death. The logic behind sequencer design was to release several stored spells in a preset order without interruption, sometimes generating combo effects—such as casting Anti-Element Force Field to counter an opponent’s elemental magic, then following up with multiple attack spells in retaliation. Adding spells cast by the mage himself, the resulting effect could be extraordinary.

Most wild elves, protected by the leader’s Anti-Element Force Field, retreated from the icy and snowy zone, but a few outside the field’s range were struck down by successive blasts of frozen air, twitching in the snow until they died.

The Longevity Sword still shone with a pale white light, hovering motionless in the air. Fei Liguo pointed to the ground and declared, “Cross this line and you die!”

The Longevity Sword drew a deep scar in the earth, marking out a boundary fully five hundred meters away from Wei Wuji and his companions.

The wild elf leader sneered, clearly not convinced by Fei Liguo, but he wisely held back his followers, gesturing toward Wei Wuji and his group. “No need to rush. Since they want a fight, let them battle first—we’ll clean up the leftovers afterward.”

The Longevity Sword withdrew, floating before Fei Liguo with its tip aimed at Wei Wuji.

“Wei, are you ready?” Fei Liguo asked quietly.

Wei Wuji had not yet replied, but Laiad suddenly interjected, “By the way, you said you’d strike once, and if we withstand it, you’ll leave—is that right?” He bit out the word ‘we’, turning what had been Wei Wuji’s challenge into one everyone could join in resisting.

Fei Liguo cast a cold glance at the shadow mage, as if looking at an ant.

“Come then. Let me see how far your sword control has come.” Wei Wuji grinned, “Don’t underestimate me. I may have lost my flying sword artifact, but I’m still at the Golden Core stage.”

Those words seemed to ignite a fire—Fei Liguo’s icy demeanor suddenly came alive, his floating robes trembling slightly.

“Hahaha, Wei, it’s precisely because you still have your Golden Core that I’m interested in this duel. Haven’t you noticed that even without the Longevity Sword, I can float in midair!”