Students fleeing in every direction climbed the bell tower and accidentally struck the Boundary Drum, which had lain dormant for ages.
A thousand years ago, human cultivators fought off wave after wave of monster tides and made a pact.
If the Boundary Drum ever sounded again, cultivators were to gather at the Heavenly Gate by sunset and protect the peace of the region.
Alas, a thousand years had passed, and the world had entered the Age of Declining Magic. The great powers of old had either perished or carved out new worlds of their own. Most of those who remained were weak. The lucky few who had entered the path of cultivation probably knew nothing of the pact.
The students trapped in the bell tower grew more and more desperate. Their teacher had been brutally killed right outside their classroom, yet they couldn't even avenge him.
The footsteps that shook the ground drew closer and closer, and the stench of blood churned in the air.
Some covered their mouths and sobbed. Others wrote their last words to their families with trembling hands.
The next moment, a sword bright as the full moon split open the demon emperor's vaunted domain.
The newcomer spoke in a cool, clear voice. "Sorry I'm late."
·
Some juniors, emboldened by the fact that one or two great cultivators had once come from their clans, began looking into Zou Yuhuang's origins.
Yet this woman was unrecorded in the official histories of cultivation, and unnamed even in the unofficial tales.
It was no wonder. Even if they dragged out their ancestors, they still wouldn't recognize those three characters.
But if they were told she was the one who had taken the Sword Immortal's primordial yang, seized the Ghost King's spirit dais, and killed the only true dragon in the world...
Then everyone would know her.
Zou Yuhuang had always made her living on the edge of a blade. The path of a rogue cultivator was hard: you were either running through secret realms or hiding in the dark.
Answering the Boundary Drum's call was the first time in her life she had been admired beneath the sunlight.
No one knew her name or where she came from.
But there would always be someone left stunned by her sword.
2024.2.20
Theme: Self-reliance
