Chapter 281: The Sealed Long Sword

Within the rainbow-colored calamity clouds in the sky, lightning flashed erratically, and the arcs of electricity that shot out from time to time sent shockwaves through those watching.
Long Tian had been missing for nearly an hour, yet the calamity clouds in the sky still remained, hovering in place, surrounded by lightning. This puzzled everyone. What surprised them even more was that despite Long Tian’s disappearance, the clouds did not pursue him; even more strangely, after nearly an hour, aside from the flashing lightning above the clouds, not a single bolt of thunder had fallen. This inevitably filled everyone with anxiety.
“What’s going on?” Su Mo suddenly appeared beside Fat and the others. “I sensed energy fluctuations coming from your side earlier, so I didn’t pay much attention. But just now, the sky suddenly filled with dark clouds—who is undergoing the tribulation?”
“A friend of Dao Feng’s!” Fat glanced at Su Mo. “Where’s Meng Shan? I haven’t seen him lately.”
“Uncle Meng is in seclusion—it’s been over fifty days already. I was supposed to keep watch over him. But there was so much activity here that I left for a while to see what was going on,” Su Mo said apologetically.
She paused, looking around. “Where is the person undergoing the tribulation?”
“In the calamity clouds!” Fat pointed at the rainbow-colored clouds in the sky.
“Uh… Are everyone from Water Blue Planet this strong?” Su Mo raised her head to look at the clouds, her expression frozen as those words slipped out.
“Probably… not…” Fat said, sneaking a glance at Pearl and the others before shaking his head uncertainly.
“Alright, you guys continue watching. I’m going back. Uncle Meng can’t be disturbed.” Although Su Mo wanted to stay and watch, she felt it was her responsibility to ensure Meng Shan’s cultivation wasn’t interrupted, so she rejected the temptation to stay and turned to leave.
After hearing Su Mo and Fat’s conversation, everyone finally understood why Long Tian had disappeared and why the calamity clouds remained in place.
The people who had been growing impatient now waited patiently, eager to know if the person inside the clouds could return safely.
…
In a refining room of the Alchemy Sect, inside a massive cauldron, the liquid substance had completely vanished. A long sword rotated slowly within the cauldron, its originally silver blade now glowing red from the intense heat.

Outside the cauldron, waves of white mist rose from its lid, and among the originally red flames at the bottom, faint blue flames occasionally flickered. The entire cauldron emitted a low, continuous hum, as if this unusual process of cultivation was causing it pain.

After a long while, the long sword began to change slowly, transforming into a human shape. The contours of its face gradually became clear—it was Meng Shan. At this moment, Meng Shan’s clothes had long been burned away. His eyes were tightly closed, and wisps of white mist rose from his bright red skin.

A crack appeared on the cauldron that contained him. As time passed, the crack became more apparent and spread faster. In less than the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, the cauldron exploded with a loud noise, shattering into pieces that scattered everywhere in the alchemy room.

Su Mo, who had just returned, heard the noise and thought something had gone wrong with Meng Shan’s cultivation. She waved her hand to lift the restrictions she had placed and rushed in.

The moment she rushed in, her face turned red as she turned her head to the side. “Uncle Meng, are you… okay?”

Meng Shan stood up curiously and walked toward Su Mo. “What could possibly be wrong with me? It’s just that the cauldron exploded.”

“Uncle Meng… could you… put on some clothes first?” Su Mo turned away, not daring to look at him.

“Huh?” Meng Shan looked down and realized he was standing naked less than two meters away from Su Mo. His face turned red instantly, and he waved his hand, creating a green feather barrier between them. In just a few breaths, he put on his clothes before removing the barrier.

“If you’re fine, I’ll leave now…” Su Mo still didn’t dare look at Meng Shan. With a red face, she headed for the door.

Meng Shan shook his head with a wry smile but said nothing more. His carelessness had cost him face, as he had been seen completely naked by a young girl from his own family. He had once been married, and his son was now grown up. He felt somewhat embarrassed about such things but didn’t take it too seriously. However, Su Mo, who had grown up in the Alchemy Sect and had never seen a man before, might be deeply affected by this experience.

Meng Shan quietly looked down at his hands, his fingers moving slightly. “It seems that even though I’ve reached the Tianxian level, there are still many things I can’t solve…”

Ye Feng stood in this palace with a somewhat novel structure, which actually resembled the Void Realm in many ways—rows of shelves filled with various items. However, the sizes of the shelves here were uneven, and their arrangement seemed rather chaotic. The goods were placed haphazardly without any sense of organization, not even categorized by type. Weapons, armors, pills, and other accessories were all scattered around in disarray.

Ye Feng walked around the shelves, examining all the items, but found nothing particularly valuable. After his thorough search, he didn’t spot a single item with colored glows, indicating that the highest-grade items here were only from the Heavenly Realm, with no items from the Divine Realm. Still, Ye Feng was relieved—after all, Fat and the others had already searched this place before him, so it was normal there to be no divine artifacts. Likely, they must have also struggled hard to find them.

“Fine, no artifacts then!” Ye Feng shook his head helplessly. “Anyway, there are plenty of items from the Heavenly Realm here, which should be enough to exchange for a significant amount of third-tier domain value.”

With that, he went to the first shelf and began throwing items into the Void Realm one by one.

“Item recycling permission activated!”

“One low-grade immortal weapon recycled, earning 9,000 domain points…”

“One mid-grade demonic weapon recycled, earning 98,000 domain points…”

“…”

……

“You trapped me for over 300 years—these items are your compensation!” Ye Feng muttered to himself as he collected them.

“There’s a seal on the item’s surface. Recycle it directly?” A dialog box suddenly appeared before him as he held a long sword, ready to recycle it.

Ye Feng immediately took back the sword that he hadn’t yet recycled and examined it closely. “I don’t see anything special about this sword at all…”

The sword looked extremely ordinary. After checking, it turned out to be just an unremarkable mid-grade immortal weapon. When placed among other weapons, it became even less noticeable.

“Never mind. Put it aside for now. I’ll deal with it after recycling everything else.”

The moment Ye Feng returned the sword to the Void Realm, he faintly felt the ground begin to tremble.

“What’s happening?” Ye Feng frowned. As the vibrations grew stronger, he realized this wasn’t an illusion.

He glanced around, and even the ceiling above him began to fall apart with fragments of dust. The walls around him also started to develop large cracks and misalignments. It seemed as though the entire world was falling apart.
“Could it be…” Ye Feng suddenly remembered something—everything happening was because he had placed that long sword in his storage space.
Without hesitation, he took out the long sword, hoping that this might turn things around.
As he had guessed, the moment Ye Feng took out the sword, everything calmed down, and the cracks that had appeared began to close rapidly. Everything around him seemed to revert to its original state as if time had reversed.
“It’s definitely it. It must have some special connection to this hall,” Ye Feng concluded after confirming his guess.
“If that’s the case, does it mean that by controlling this sword, I can control this hall?” Ye Feng’s eyes lit up. “Although I might not be able to control the entire palace, if I can control this hall, I should be able to leave it. As for leaving the palace, that’s something for later—let’s get out of here first!”
As he spoke, Ye Feng focused on the long sword in his hand. He held it with his right hand and made a small cut on his left arm. Then he dripped his blood onto the sword, wanting to see what would happen—this was the legendary blood refinement.
On the sword stained with Ye Feng’s blood, the bloodstains gradually disappeared, as if they had been absorbed into the sword itself. Yet even after a few minutes, the sword showed no other reaction…