Chapter 16: The Sinner Covered in Elder Brother’s Blood

The invading demonic cultivators of the Heavenly Sword Sect were all slaughtered.

The endless despair in Xu Moli’s heart was momentarily alleviated.

She calmly scanned her surroundings, looking at the belated righteous reinforcements. No one dared to meet her gaze, not even familiar faces from the Heavenly Sword Sect, who were so startled they took several steps back.

What kind of gaze was that?

Anger?

Sorrow?

No, it was something more extreme—an emptiness where everything had been utterly lost.

It inspired fear, yet also raised doubts. Was this girl before them still even “human”?

Describing her as a “living corpse” might have been more fitting.

Xu Moli, expressionless, paid no heed to these righteous cultivators. She soared on her sword, heading back toward the Heavenly Sword Sect.

“Elder Brother, what exactly happened three years ago?”

The girl silently pondered.

She wasn’t foolish. After avenging her brother, she keenly sensed something: if Xu Xi truly thought she was a burden, he wouldn’t have coincidentally arrived to save her.

This meant that, from beginning to end, Xu Xi had been silently watching over her.

But then, if he cared so much, why did he act so heartlessly back then, even leaving the Heavenly Sword Sect and cutting off all contact between them?

With confusion and doubt in her heart, Xu Moli flew straight to the Forest Sword Peak of the Heavenly Sword Sect. If anyone could answer her questions, it was undoubtedly Li Wanshou, the teacher of the two siblings.

Not long after, Xu Moli met the old man recovering from his injuries after the great battle.

She told him everything that had happened.

Li Wanshou remained silent for a long time before finally sighing deeply. “Enough, enough. What’s the use of hiding it now?”

“Since he appeared before you, he must have been prepared for you to learn everything.”

Looking at the blood-stained wooden sword in Xu Moli’s hand, Li Wanshou stroked his beard and shook his head. He revealed the full story of how Xu Xi had sacrificed everything to create an External Spiritual Root to save Mo Li, and how he had chosen to leave without a word to prevent her from finding out.

This truth, this reality, far exceeded Xu Moli’s expectations.

She could never have imagined that the price of curing her seven-year-long ailment was her brother’s everything.

He had burned his life, his cultivation, his Spiritual Root. Living in such pain, she couldn’t fathom what kind of mindset he had endured.

Even on the last day of his life, he had dragged his broken body to save his sister.

“I…”

Xu Moli’s pupils trembled violently.

The tragic scene of her brother’s death replayed in her mind, deepening her despair and making her heart ache even more.

It hurt.

Her entire body was wracked with intense pain.

Especially her stomach, which convulsed in agony.

Her eyes stung, as if they wanted to shed tears, but they had long since dried up. The pain only grew worse, blurring her vision until she could no longer see her own hands.

Looking down at her hands and feet, she felt they were stained with the blood of sin.

“It’s all my fault, it’s all my fault!”

If it weren’t for her, her brother could have lived a good life, basking in the admiration of others as the top prodigy.

Not like this.

Not with his bones turned to dust.

Yes, it was all her fault. She was a burden, a sinner drenched in her brother’s blood.

“Elder Brother…”

Having learned the truth, the girl left the peak of Forest Sword Peak in a daze, returning to the cave abode where the two siblings had lived together for 12 years. Like a madwoman, she rummaged through every corner.

After searching for a long time, she finally found a small Storage Ring.

It contained a vast amount of cultivation resources.

Left behind by Xu Xi.

The girl didn’t care about the resources. What she cared about was that this was one of the few items her brother had left in the world, a gift with special meaning.

From then on, the girl shut herself in the cave abode, neither cultivating nor responding to the sect’s summons.

She simply sat quietly in the deepest room of the abode.

Opening the Storage Ring, she poured out all its contents, letting the items imbued with Xu Xi’s aura completely engulf her.

As if doing so could create the illusion that Xu Xi was still by her side.

But as she emptied the ring, Xu Moli suddenly noticed something different among the items. It wasn’t cultivation resources or some rare treasure.

It was a jar of candy.

A jar packed to the brim with sweets.

“This is…”

A faint glimmer returned to Xu Moli’s previously lifeless eyes. Her arm stiffly reached for the jar, and she took out a piece of hard candy, placing it in her mouth.

The taste was familiar.

But something was off.

Perhaps because it had been stored for too long.

It was no longer edible.

No, that wasn’t it. It wasn’t that it had been stored too long, but that she had discovered it too late.

Tears silently fell from the girl’s eyes. If she had found this jar of candy in the first year after Xu Xi left, she could have enjoyed it at its best.

But she hadn’t.

She was so useless, so useless that she hated herself for it.

“I must atone… I must, I must… bring Elder Brother back to life…”

“No matter… the cost…”

Her voice, on the verge of breaking, carried both sobs and determination.

The next day, Xu Moli disappeared from the Heavenly Sword Sect.

Without any announcement or farewell, she vanished without a trace.

It was said that someone once spotted her in a Mortal City called Blackstone City. At that time, she had used great mana to move a wooden house, tears of blood streaming down her face as if she were weeping bitterly.

Later, someone saw Xu Moli in a legacy cave abode.

Her cultivation had reached the Nascent Soul stage.

Her actions were fierce, and she even killed a Spirit Transformation cultivator.

The name “Killing Immortal” shook the entire Cultivation World.

Kill, an endless slaughter, until the entire demonic path was nearly wiped out.

It seemed she had an irreconcilable vendetta against demonic cultivators, single-handedly driving the demonic path to near extinction. This provoked the intervention of a Tribulation Transcendence demonic overlord, but she still managed to escape.

Not only that.

When Xu Moli appeared again, she had also broken through to the Tribulation Transcendence stage.

With a single sword strike, she annihilated the Tribulation Transcendence demonic cultivator and the top demonic sect behind him, using a divine ability to erase them from existence.

After that, the cultivators of the world knew nothing more.

Xu Moli’s talent was too monstrous, too heaven-defying.

The mortal realm could no longer contain her.

She disdained staying in the Cultivation World, as if there was nothing left she desired. So, with her Sword Opens the Heavenly Gate technique, she forcibly opened the path to ascension before her cultivation had even reached the requirements for ascension, and entered the Immortal Realm alone.

“Audacious! A mortal dares to trespass into the Immortal Realm!”

“Meeting an immortal without bowing, your name shall be inscribed on the Monument of Rebirth!”

“Mortal, seeing me is like a frog gazing at the moon. Now that you’ve entered the Immortal Path, seeing this Emperor is like a mayfly glimpsing the vast sky.”

She fought her way through, breaking through her cultivation at every step.

She encountered countless powerful enemies.

But with just a wooden sword, Xu Moli slaughtered until no one in the Immortal Realm dared to boast.

The infamous title of “Killing Immortal” from the mortal realm spread like wildfire in the Immortal Realm. In the end, even the lofty Immortal Emperor could not escape her heaven-piercing sword.