A Sword Cleaves Open the Road Between Life and Death

Author, you've become a moderator on this book!

Are you kidding me? A book I read years ago is now on the shelves and highly recommended. What are you doing, CWM?

This contains spoilers; please do not read if you are sensitive to spoilers. The writing style is comfortable to read. However, the combat power felt somewhat confusing on the way to the Moon Palace Assembly. A seasoned sixth-realm expert, You Tan, had to use a Dao artifact to kill fourth-realm demon soldiers, and even then, it wasn't an instant kill; it took more than ten moves, and she had to move while fighting, remaining some distance from the protagonist afterward (if you want to suggest it's related to that unknown-grade bead, I can't argue with that; besides, the known grades of magical artifacts, from lowest to highest, are: Spiritual Artifact, Profound Artifact, Fate Artifact, and Dao Artifact). Following the protagonist, Shi Xiu, a fourth-realm sect prodigy, fought a third-realm rogue cultivator trying to steal a spiritual herb, but he was very hesitant. Although the opponent had a rather strange weapon, it only slightly affected the opponent's magical artifact. The transition from third to fourth realm is a huge hurdle. Even disregarding the difference in realm, their supernatural powers and spells are on completely different levels. Why could a third-realm rogue cultivator fight for several rounds against a fourth-realm prodigy ranked second in the martial arts competition of the world's top three sects? Furthermore, the battle illustrations were rather plain and unimpressive. The male lead's setup is quite impressive. From what I've seen in the story (not to mention later episodes), he's practically an unconventional Wushi. Initially, he's said to have a naturally gifted physique for cultivation, and later, with the fusion of the Jade Blood Heart and the Heart of Loyalty, his physique is further enhanced, making him almost a Saintly Body Dao Embryo. However, all he has are 108 Qi pillars during cultivation, and his physique is about one level higher than others in the same realm, and that's it. Many descriptions in the plot gave me a comical feeling, as if the protagonist was surrounded by powerful figures watching him, while he remained oblivious or pretended not to know. What I found particularly unacceptable was that the protagonist couldn't control most of the powerful things he possessed. Take the Heavenly Sword, Qingyan, for example; it would frequently malfunction when it encountered anything related to its previous owner. For instance, it encountered an infant who might be the reincarnation of its former owner, or perhaps an imposter created by an enemy, and immediately drew its sheath to kill her. Fortunately, an elder intervened. Later, the protagonist repeatedly questioned the sword about why it wanted to kill the infant, but the sword ignored him and remained silent. The gourd he obtained later was even more outrageous. First, it nearly killed the protagonist, then it contained the head of a peerless master who was likely not quite dead. Later, during a mission in the mine, after killing an enemy, the gourd swallowed a precious jade stone, leaving the protagonist to clean up the mess and even figure out why it swallowed the stone and consult with the gourd. Well, to put it simply, these two weapons are like two old ancestors. After all, in my opinion, it's very dangerous if you can't control your own weapon as you wish or even at will.