Xu Yue's sword continuously cut through the empty space in front of her, shifting and morphing with every single slash.

But even though every single slash was completely different, all of them seemed to have in common, something that even Xu Yue did not realize nor sense, no one could.

Suddenly, Xu Yue's sword stopped, midway through its slash as Xu Yue slowly opened her eyes.

Merely a few moments later, Xu Yue did not launch a single sword slash, but rather, a series of different strikes, slashes and other maneuvers.

Xu Yue had finally felt something extremely familiar, albeit briefly.

Many years ago, back when Xu Yue was extremely young, she had reached grand completion in the signature Sword Style of the Origin Sword Sect, the Origin Sword Style.

But after that, no matter how much Xu Yue's mastery of the style improved, how many millions of times more powerful she became, she could not reach the next level.

Uncharacteristically slowly, the sword in Xu Yue's hands moved, completing the movements of the Origin Sword Style.

Merely a few moments after having finished practicing the style, Xu Yue moved once again, beginning to practice the style, which at first glance seemed relatively simple.

Slowly but surely, the Origin Sword Style, which in Xu Yue's hands had remained unchanged for nearly thousands of years, slowly began morphing.

After over a hundred years of practicing later, the morphing of the Origin Sword Style finally showed it's true colors to the naked eye, as it's Eighteen moves slowly became Seventeen.

Twenty-three years later,

Seemingly speeding up, another move from the Origin Sword Style disappeared, leaving only Sixteen.

As a few more years passed by, it seemed as if the floodgates had been opened, more and more moves of the Origin Sword Style began disappearing, and the rate of the disappearances became higher and higher as time passed.

Six years later,

Slash

Stab

Block

Parry

As she repeated all of these extremely basic moves over and over again, Xu Yue couldn't help but smile.

After the Origin Sword Style became more and more simplified, contrary to most other Breakthroughs, it's power became weaker and weaker, seemingly no longer being any more powerful than just any other sword art.

At the same time, right now, the moves of the style had become so simplified that they looked exactly the same as four extremely basic sword moves that anyone could master.

But even so, if any single user of the Origin Sword Style watched Xu Yue right now, they would be able to immediately recognize what Xu Yue was doing as practicing the Origin Sword Style.

A while later, as she slowly exited the trance, Xu Yue still continued practicing the extremely simplified style.

"Return to Origin," said Yan Yuan, feeling the way Xu Yue controlled his sword body.

Even though Xu Yue's progression was clear to see, Yan Yuan couldn't help but feel emotional, as memories flashed through his mind.

...

Looking at the piece of red hot metal in front of him, Xu Jinming couldn't help but take in a deep breath, before clenching the bloodied stone necklace on his neck.

At the same time, Xu Jinming couldn't help but stare at the rack of experimental metal objects on the other side of the room.

Ignoring his anger, which was telling him to go pick up one of the weapons, go and go outside, and slaughter those damn priests, Xu Jinming picked up his hammer before smashing at the piece of metal at full force, not having time to be as careful as he could.

Suddenly, several grown men barged into the room.

"Go take them and go fight, I'm coming out right away after I finish," said Xu Jinming, no longer paying attention to what was going around him, only focusing on the piece of metal in front of him.

Under his ravenous rampage, the piece of metal rapidly morphed, from a piece of metal to a long, relatively wide, and extremely thin piece of metal.

Merely a few moments after seeing that the weapon reached a suitable shape, Xu Jinming suddenly threw it into a tub of water, causing steam to emerge, as the water rapidly evaporated.

As more and more steam came out from the tub, sweat couldn't help but fill Xu Jinming's forehead, not from the heat, but rather from worry, as he waited for the weapon to quickly finish cooling off so that he could join in the fight.

Sadly, only a few minutes later, Xu Jinming could hear noises of fighting coming from the outside, causing him to make a rash decision.

Without any hesitation, Xu Jinming placed his hand in the tub of water, before picking up the weapon and rushing outside as his hand was seared from the heat.

Suddenly, Xu Jinming's eyes darted to Wei Gu, one of the head guards of the priests, fighting with several other men.

Although Wei Gu was stronger than them, thankfully these men were the ones that barged inside Xu Jinming's residence, and as such, they had weapons made by Xu Jinming.

Taking his eyes off that fight, Xu Jinming jumped into the crowd, beginning to fight against the guards of the priests.

...

A middle-aged man stood cross-legged inside of a relatively luxurious room when suddenly, a young priest barged in.

"Master Wei, it's not good, there's a revolt, Wei Gu is trying to fight them off but he's being overwhelmed!" shouted the young priest while looking at this so-called 'Master Wei'.

Hearing those words a ruthless indifference flashed through Master Wei's eyes.

"Hold them off for as long as possible, I need to prepare a ritual," said Master Wei as he suddenly got up, no longer sitting crosslegged, but sadly it seemed as though it was too late.

Without any sign or warning, Xu Jinming's sword pierced through the back of the head of the young priest, before cutting through his skull and coming out the left side.

The young priest fell to the ground, leaving only Xu Jinming and Master Wei inside of the room, but a few moments later, only one of them remained, as a slash of Xu Jinming's sword ended this farce of a rebelion.