Chapter 2: The Sword That Once Broke
The moment Ye Chen finished speaking, the entire courtyard in front of the Azure Dragon Escort Agency fell into deadly silence.
Zhao Gang—the Iron Sword Sect's Guardian—narrowed his eyes. He was a First-Rate expert. Though he had used only thirty percent of his strength in that palm strike to intimidate the Li family's brat, it was already strange enough that a lowly stable hand hadn't died. And yet the boy still dared to look at him with that gaze—the gaze of a wolf cub cornered with its back to the wall.
“What did you just say?” Zhao Gang growled.
Li Qingshan broke into a cold sweat. He stepped forward, shielding Ye Chen behind him, and cupped his hands. “Guardian Zhao, please calm down. He's just the stable boy at my agency. His mind... well, he's not very bright and tends to babble. As for the wooden box, I truly know nothing about it.”
“Know nothing?” One of the Iron Sword Sect disciples behind him sneered and drew his sword. “Then we'll go inside and search. We'll find out soon enough!”
The escort guards of the Azure Dragon Escort Agency all placed their hands on their saber hilts. The air grew taut as a drawn bowstring.
Ye Chen remained where he was. The black iron shard beneath his clothes grew hotter and hotter, as though it wanted to burn through his flesh. A strange warmth flowed from the shard along the meridians in his right arm. The wound from the palm force, which had been oozing blood, suddenly went numb, then began to itch.
He had no idea what was happening. For the past ten years, this iron shard had been nothing more than a cold, lifeless piece of metal.
“Father!” Li Muwan had dismounted by now and ran to Li Qingshan's side, gripping her short sword tightly. “They're obviously here to rob us!”
Zhao Gang lost patience. He waved his hand. “Search the place! Kill anyone who gets in your way!”
Two Iron Sword Sect disciples immediately charged into the inner courtyard. Unable to hold himself back, a young escort guard swung his saber at them. “Get out!”
Clang!
A flash of sword light burst forth. Before the escort guard could even see what had happened, his saber had already snapped in two. A long streak of blood appeared across his chest, and he fell backward.
The Iron Sword Sect's swordsmanship was fierce, swift, and vicious.
Li Qingshan roared and prepared to charge forward. But Zhao Gang was faster. His figure moved like a ghost; with a mere roll of his shoulder, he appeared in front of Li Qingshan and struck out with a palm.
Li Qingshan was also a Lesser Internal Mastery expert. Their palms collided with a deep, muffled boom. Li Qingshan staggered back three steps, his face deathly pale and blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. Zhao Gang merely swayed once.
The gap between First-Rate and Lesser Internal Mastery was like the difference between heaven and earth.
“Chief Escort Master!” the escort guards cried out in alarm.
Zhao Gang let out a savage laugh and raised his palm again, preparing to strike.
At that moment, a horse's neigh rang out like thunder.
Blackbolt, who had been standing still, suddenly went berserk for no apparent reason. It reared onto its hind legs, then charged straight into the middle of the Iron Sword Sect's ranks, sending the two disciples searching the courtyard flying.
And on its back, no one knew when, Ye Chen was already sitting there.
He didn't know how to ride well, and his posture was crooked and unsteady. But his hands gripped the reins tightly, and his bloodshot eyes stared at Zhao Gang.
“You... you want to die!”
Zhao Gang was truly enraged now. A mere stable boy had made him lose face twice. He pushed off with his toes and shot into the air, thrusting his sword straight at Ye Chen on horseback. He had used seventy percent of his power in this strike, and the sword aura shrieked as it tore through the air.
Li Muwan screamed, “Look out!”
Ye Chen didn't dodge. At the instant the sword tip was about to touch his chest, the black iron shard beneath his clothes suddenly gave off a faint hum that no one but him could hear.
A stream of information—or rather, an image, a sword stroke—suddenly exploded inside his mind.
An old man in coarse clothes stood amid wind and rain, a broken sword in his hand. Facing him were thirty experts wielding longswords. The old man merely raised his sword once. It was the simplest swing imaginable, without any flourish whatsoever—just a slash from overhead.
Yet all thirty longswords snapped in two at the same time.
The image vanished in a flash.
Acting on instinct, Ye Chen drew the pitch-black iron shard from beneath his clothes. It was no longer an iron shard. Beneath the sunlight, it trembled faintly, its blackened broken blade seeming to swallow the light.
He gripped the broken shard as though it were a sword and slashed downward, exactly as the old man in the vision had done.
It was an ugly, wavering motion, without the slightest trace of internal force.
Yet Zhao Gang, a First-Rate expert, suddenly went deathly pale.
He felt a terrifying sword intent crash straight into his face—lonely, battered, and desolate, yet exalted above all others. The sword he was so proud of, his Hundred-Forged Refined Steel sword, suddenly began to tremble violently.
Clang! Crack!
It wasn't the sound of metal striking metal. It was the sound of breaking.
Zhao Gang's sword snapped in two in midair, the break smooth and clean.
Ye Chen, meanwhile, spat out a mouthful of blood, fell from the horse's back, and passed out cold. Bearing a Grandmaster's sword intent with a body that had never practiced martial arts was simply too much for him.
For the second time, the entire courtyard fell silent. This time, the silence was ten times heavier than before.
Zhao Gang stared at the broken sword in his hand, his fingers trembling uncontrollably. He stammered, all arrogance gone from his voice, leaving only utter terror:
“The Broken... Broken Sword... the Sword Saint... the Broken Sword Art! You... you're from Hidden Sword Valley!”
The moment the four words “Hidden Sword Valley” were spoken, the Iron Sword Sect disciples' faces turned deathly white.
Li Qingshan caught the unconscious Ye Chen and stared at the pitch-black broken shard in the boy's hand. His aged eyes contracted as well.
He recognized it now. Fifteen years ago, when he had still been a young escort guard, he had once had the honor of seeing the Sword Saint Ye Gucheng from afar. In his hand, the Sword Saint had carried a broken sword exactly like this one.