It was when his wife passed away that Guo Zhengming woke up from the dream he had been living for over five hundred years.
He had always carried deep regret about not being able to protect his sect members when they needed him most. Even during the happy years with his wife, he had always known deep down that this day would eventually come.
He had tried everything within his power to find a cure, consulting every healer and searching through countless ancient texts, but there was simply no way to completely eliminate the immense corruption that had entered her body.
This was part of the reason he hadn’t argued with her about abandoning his pursuit of revenge. A part of him had always understood that she didn’t have much time left, and he wanted to spend every moment he could with her while she was still alive.
When she finally passed away, he didn’t even cry - he had been mentally preparing for this moment for centuries.
After her death, Zhengming took his infant son to one of his sworn brothers. "Please look after him," he said simply, placing the baby gently in his brother’s arms. With those final words, he turned and left their home forever.
"From that day, I lived my life for just this moment," he said, his sword growing even brighter as energy continued gathering around the weapon. Every day of cultivation, every technique he had practiced, every sacrifice he had made - it had all been building toward this single strike.
"What are you going on about? Are you having a flashback scene right now?" the buff man asked with growing irritation.
But his mocking expression quickly changed to one of alarm as he sensed the incredible power growing more and more intense within the sword that Zhengming was holding. The spiritual energy was becoming so concentrated that it was causing the space around them to tremble and distort.
"Wait, hold on a second. Let’s talk about this," the man said in a panicked voice, finally recognizing the threat he was facing.
"Too late," Guo Zhengming said before making a downward slash.
The sword transformed into a blinding blue light that made it seem as though the heavens were falling.
The panicked man moved quickly to intercept the attack aimed straight toward the demon lotus. At the same time, the other nine integration realm experts who had been hiding throughout the area emerged from their concealment, all of them working together to defend the lotus.
The massive beam of light struggled fiercely against the combined power of the ten integration realm experts. The two opposing forces were locked in an intense struggle for dominance that lasted several seconds.
Finally, with visible strain, the ten experts managed to barely win the battle for power. Working together, they managed to push aside the huge light beam just enough to prevent it from striking the lotus directly.
The redirected beam of light went to the side instead, striking a significant section of the demon lotus and cutting it clean off. Though the majority of the lotus remained relatively unharmed, the damage was still considerable - easily a quarter of the lotus had been destroyed in the attack.
The ten experts breathed heavily as they tried to stabilize their cultivation.
On the other hand, Guo Zhengming slowly began falling toward the ground with a resigned expression on his weathered face.
"So in the end, I couldn’t accomplish anything," he thought bitterly.
During his years in seclusion, instead of focusing on cultivating his own power, he had dedicated absolutely every ounce of his energy and talent to perfecting this single sword strike. Day after day, month after month, year after year, he had poured more and more spiritual energy into the sword, constantly enhancing it and refining it. His goal had been to create one devastating sword strike that would end everything - a sword strike so powerful it could destroy any enemy in a single blow.
"It seems I never woke up from the dream after all"
As he slowly fell toward the ground, he suddenly noticed something that caused his eyes to widen in surprise. Then a smile gradually spread across his face.
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