Chapter 3401: The Eighteenth Layer of the Sword Pavilion
The seventeenth layer of the Sword Pavilion was vast and boundless, stretching over a hundred million li in length, comparable to a major world.
Previously, Zhang Ruochen had gone into seclusion here for several thousand years, causing oases, vegetation, and rivers to appear within a hundred-thousand-li radius, drastically altering the landscape.
Over the years, as the Sword Pavilion continuously absorbed the energy of heaven and earth and revived from its deathly stillness, the traces of life in the seventeenth layer had spread to even farther places.
Moreover, as Zhang Ruochen ascended layer by layer, he discovered that the tenth layer, eleventh layer, and so on, each exhibited varying degrees of vitality, no longer being mere expanses of yellow sand as before.
Jie Zunzhe spoke mysteriously, "The eighteenth layer of the Sword Pavilion is very likely the Ancestral Realm left behind by the Sword Ancestor. The seventeenth layer, all the way down to the tenth layer, is probably the outer region of that Ancestral Realm."
Zhang Ruochen had a similar guess.
Because, starting from the tenth layer, the world gates of each layer appeared to be made of stone, but in reality, they were filled with Ancestral Divine Patterns.
Jie Zunzhe said, "The Sword Ancestor and the Sword Pavilion are too far removed from this era. The artifact spirit of the Sword Pavilion has changed hands countless times. There must have been a world-shaking battle in the past, where the worlds from the tenth to the seventeenth layers were shattered, leaving them barren and lifeless, as desolate as the surface of a dead star."
Glancing around and seeing that Granny Haitang was not present, Jie Zunzhe lowered his voice, "Now that Haitang has reached the Divine Realm and the Sword Pavilion has once again become a divine artifact, the eighteen worlds within the Sword Pavilion will inevitably undergo a stunning transformation. Within no more than ten thousand years, the eighteen worlds inside the Sword Pavilion will be turned upside down."
The flow of time in each layer of the Sword Pavilion differed from the outside world.
If ten thousand years passed outside, it would be two hundred thousand years in the tenth layer.
In the seventeenth layer, it would be a million years.
But not everyone could enter the tenth layer; one had to fully comprehend Sword Ten.
Even so, the Sword Pavilion was bound to become the ultimate cultivation site of the Kunlun Realm, propelling the rapid development of the Sword Dao in Kunlun.
And this was without the eighteenth layer being opened.
If the eighteenth layer of the Sword Pavilion truly was the Sword Ancestor's Ancestral Realm, the value of the Sword Pavilion would be even more extraordinary, surely earning it a place in the first chapter of the *Taibai Divine Artifact Canon*.
Because it would no longer be merely an artifact; it would be endowed with greater value and significance.
Zhang Ruochen looked at Jie Zunzhe with a strange expression and clapped his hands, "Impressive, truly impressive. Only now do I truly admire you, old man. I never expected your schemes to run so deep, plotting for the Sword Pavilion years in advance. If I guess correctly, your lingering in the Sword Pavilion, claiming to heal your injuries, was a pretense. Your real goal was to claim this peerless divine artifact."
"Haha..."
Jie Zunzhe's laughter gradually stopped, and his expression turned sour, "What do you mean by that, boy? You make it sound as if I, the Venerable One, am some sinister schemer. For the Zhang Clan to grow and develop, to rise again, and to restore the glory of an Ancestral Clan, we naturally need a vast amount of cultivation resources. The Sword Pavilion happens to provide exactly that. Besides, if I hadn't made Haitang the artifact spirit of the Sword Pavilion, it would now be nothing more than a place for sword enlightenment."
"You spend all your time stirring up trouble outside. How could you understand my painstaking efforts?"
"By the way, have you added any more children to the old Zhang Clan in recent years?"
Every time, the conversation circled back to the revival of the clan, yet he himself made no effort. Zhang Ruochen couldn't be bothered with him and walked toward the stone gate of the eighteenth layer of the Sword Pavilion.
The stone gate was covered in verdant, jade-like vines, growing from the gap between the two doors.
Compared to the last time he saw it, the vines were even denser, with the longest reaching dozens of meters.
Jie Zunzhe told Zhang Ruochen that he had used Ancestral Divine Qi and Ancestral Rules to bring Granny Haitang through the gates all the way to the seventeenth layer. However, the Sword Dao Ancestral Divine Patterns on the eighteenth layer's stone gate were too dense, and with his current cultivation, he couldn't budge it at all.
"I have already mastered Sword Eighteen. I should be able to give it a try."
Zhang Ruochen slowly pressed his palm against the stone gate, and the sword intent of Sword Eighteen erupted forth.
This sword intent resonated with the Sword Dao Ancestral Divine Patterns on the stone gate.
"Whoosh!"
The stone gate burst into brilliant white light, each beam of light a sword, surging violently toward Zhang Ruochen.
Strangely enough, these sword-light energies automatically slid past Zhang Ruochen. But Jie Zunzhe behind him wasn't so lucky. Seeing billions of sword energies surging toward him, he immediately raised a nine-colored divine glow to envelop himself.
It was hard to withstand.
Jie Zunzhe rapidly retreated, rumbling sounds erupting from within his body as layers of heavenly realms rose above his head.
By the time the sword-light white energy dissipated, Zhang Ruochen had already vanished.
The stone gate closed tightly again.
Jie Zunzhe's jade crown had shattered, and his hair was disheveled. He cursed, "I, the Venerable One, possess a full Ancestral cultivation, yet I can't even enter a stone gate. Do I really have to devote myself to mastering the Sword Dao?"
Granny Haitang approached and said, "If you could condense a twentieth layer of heavenly realms, you might be able to force your way in."
Jie Zunzhe tidied his appearance, regaining his elegant demeanor, and said, "No, I will comprehend the sword. Until I master Sword Eighteen, I will never leave the Sword Pavilion. Haitang, I'll stay here in the Sword Pavilion to keep you company."
Cultivate a twentieth layer of heavenly realms?
Just thinking about it gave Jie Zunzhe a headache. Without hundreds of thousands of years, there was no chance at all.
...
Passing through the stone gate, Zhang Ruochen found himself surrounded by thick white mist, his vision limited to a few dozen li.
He looked down and saw the ground covered in vines of longqing fruit, blanketing the earth in green.
Last time, he had entered as a sword soul, so he had been reckless.
But now, he was here in the flesh, in the resting place of an Ancestor. Who knew what dangers lurked? He had to be cautious.
Zhang Ruochen waved his sleeve, summoning a gale to blow away the white mist.
Gradually, the land became clear, li by li, revealing peaks, plains, and deep valleys. There were towering ancient trees, resembling pines, but their needle-like leaves emitted a silvery-white radiance, giving off an extremely dangerous feeling.
The wind swept across a thousand li of land.
Zhang Ruochen donned the Ancestral Divine Garment and activated the "Boundless Universe" Truth Realm Form, turning the area a thousand li around him into a sea of stars.
Holding the God-Defying Stele in one hand and the Earth Cauldron in the other, he strode forward.
Avoiding areas dense with Ancestral Divine Patterns, Zhang Ruochen followed his inner sense and arrived beneath a silver pine.
The trunk of the silver pine was as thick as a mountain peak.
Its bark resembled metal armor.
The moment Zhang Ruochen's hand touched it, the silver pine's trunk shook, and its needle-like leaves fell like a rain of swords, filling the sky with silver light.
"Bang, bang."
Zhang Ruochen raised the Earth Cauldron to shield himself.
The needles clashed against the cauldron with a clanging metallic sound.
After a while, Zhang Ruochen moved the cauldron aside, and the ground was covered in fallen pine needles.
"Good, it's only developed basic intelligence."
The ancient silver pines here stretched in vast numbers, countless in quantity, each possessing simple intelligence capable of unleashing Saint-level attacks.
After traveling hundreds of thousands of li, Zhang Ruochen spotted an ink-black ancient pine king. Its trunk was as massive as the peach tree, and its leaves, as they breathed, could release pure divine energy of heaven and earth.
It was a divine tree!
Zhang Ruochen tested it and was met with an attack of ink-black sword rain.
It was a defensive attack, not actively pursuing him, with combat power only at the level of a False God.
Clearly, the ancient pine king was merely a special divine wood with limited intelligence and no cultivation of techniques or divine abilities.
For such naturally born divine wood, False God-level combat power was its limit.
Unless it embarked on the path of cultivation!
This made Zhang Ruochen breathe a sigh of relief. His greatest fear was that the eighteenth layer of the Sword Pavilion, like the Sword God Temple, had given birth to beings like the Heavenly Ladder and the Blood Mud Man—powerful entities with absolute self-awareness at the God Venerable level.
Thinking about it, it was unlikely. Even if the eighteenth layer was an Ancestral Realm, it couldn't be completely independent from the universe. It needed to absorb various spiritual energies, Saint Qi, and Divine Qi from heaven and earth to sustain the cultivation of beings within. Otherwise, there would be an upper limit.
When the Sword Pavilion had no artifact spirit, the layers above the tenth were completely sealed, with no connection to the outside world.
In contrast, the Sword God Temple had always existed within the vast universe, providing the conditions for the Heavenly Ladder and the Blood Mud Man to reach the God Venerable level.
At the same time, Zhang Ruochen didn't believe that the eighteenth layer had been completely sealed since the Sword Ancestor's passing. In certain periods of history, it must have been opened.
Inside the Sword Pavilion, the tenth to seventeenth layers were completely ruined, and the eighteenth layer had likely suffered some degree of impact as well.
All the plants Zhang Ruochen saw now, with the ancient pine king as the oldest, were no more than ten eons in age.
Continuing forward, Zhang Ruochen encountered many rare miraculous herbs and divine woods similar to the ancient pine king. Beneath the earth, he discovered divine stone mines and materials that could be used to forge Monarch Sacred Artifacts, or even divine artifacts.
His heart was greatly shaken. If the eighteenth layer of the Sword Pavilion were opened and the plant life here could be successfully enlightened and cultivated, the overall strength of the Kunlun Realm would reach an extremely terrifying level in a short time.
A single pine tree could be enlightened into a Saint.
A divine wood like the ancient pine king, once it embarked on the path of cultivation, would see its combat power skyrocket.
The eighteenth layer of the Sword Pavilion was far too vast. Who knew how many divine trees had been born? Perhaps it could rival the Wood Element Clan of the Demon God Realm.
However, Zhang Ruochen was very rational. He was well aware that more cultivators meant more resources consumed. If all the plant life here were to be enlightened, the current cultivation resources of the Kunlun Realm would be far from sufficient. They would have to wage war against the outside world, like the Hell Realm, to plunder and expand.
Everything needed to be promoted step by step. Going too far would only lead to destruction.
Unless...
They moved to the Sword Realm.
Following his inner perception, Zhang Ruochen continued forward and discovered that the plant life here had indeed been born no more than ten eons ago.
This indicated that ten eons ago, the eighteenth layer of the Sword Pavilion must have suffered a cataclysm.
This point in time was very subtle.
Additionally, Zhang Ruochen found that the flow of time here was the same as the outside world, contrary to his expectations. After all, in the seventeenth layer, the time ratio to the outside world had reached an astonishing one to one hundred.
For ordinary Saint-level cultivators, the current eighteenth layer of the Sword Pavilion was extremely dangerous, with dangers lurking everywhere.
For most gods, this place could also be called a forbidden ground. Once they triggered the Ancestral Divine Patterns, they would likely fall. Not every god had Zhang Ruochen's perception!
After walking for an unknown distance, Zhang Ruochen once again saw that towering crimson divine tree, its trunk covered in scales, its leaves like red gems.
He stopped far away.
Without a doubt, the Sword Ancestor's skeletal body lay beneath that divine tree.
Last time, Zhang Ruochen's sword soul had been annihilated by the sword energy erupting from the Sword Ancestor's body when he tried to approach it.