I risked my life, using the butterfly effect to shatter the immortal realm.

Forbidden area behind Zizhu Peak.

There are no sword energies crisscrossing here, nor are there people dressed in white like snow.

Only a sharp, teeth-grinding sound, like a dull knife scraping bone, shattered the deathly silence.

"Sizzle—sizzle—sizzle—"

Yu Liang sat cross-legged amidst a pile of discarded alchemy furnace dregs, holding the rusty sword that looked like a fire poker in his hands.

His eyes were bloodshot, his forehead was covered in cold sweat, and his right thumb and forefinger were trembling wildly at a speed imperceptible to the naked eye along the spine of the sword.

This was no ordinary sword-wielding exercise.

This is the second level of the "Everything Can Be Polished" technique – the Great Polishing Technique.

"Open it for me, you bastard!"

Yu Liang let out a low growl.

The fingertips did not touch the solid object, but instead gripped the thick layer of "rust" tightly.

To the average person, those are the marks left by the erosion of time.

However, in Yu Liang's eyes, who had opened his "cause and effect eye," these reddish-brown patches were all "karmic obstacles" and "dead knots" accumulated over millions of years of the operation of the Heavenly Dao.

Every grain of rust is a remnant of cause and effect, abandoned by heaven and earth.

"puff--"

A wisp of gray smoke rose up.

The surrounding void distorted slightly, as if a stone had been thrown into a calm lake, causing strange ripples to spread and even blurring the light.

Immediately afterwards, a terrifying devouring force suddenly erupted from the sword.

Whoosh!

The 30,000 low-grade spirit stones piled at Yu Liang's feet didn't even make a crisp sound before their spiritual energy vanished instantly, turning into a pile of pale dust.

A mountain breeze blew, turning Yu Liang's face ashen.

"You son of a bitch!"

Yu Liang's hand trembled, and he almost threw the sword into the latrine next to him.

"Thirty thousand spirit stones! A whole thirty thousand! And all that rust is rubbed off in a tiny bit the size of a fingernail?!"

He stared intently at the faint glimmer of cold light on the sword, his heart aching so much that his internal organs seemed to convulse.

This is hardly sword practice.

This is clearly trying to fill an abyss that can never be filled!

This broken sword is like a peerless enchantress, only knowing how to take and never giving back, devouring people without spitting out the bones!

"Hmph."

Pig Lord rolled his eyes, pointed his front hoof at Yu Liang's empty storage bag, then at the sword, and made a very vivid "throat-slitting" gesture.

It means: I'm broke, I'm just waiting to die.

"Want to drain me dry?" Yu Liang wiped the stone powder off his face, a ruthless glint of a desperate gambler flashing in his eyes. "Since you cultivate the Dao of Cause and Effect, you have to be willing to 'force a sale'."

puff!

He suddenly bit his tongue, spitting a mouthful of blood onto the sword.

This blood contained no spiritual energy, yet it contained Yu Liang's immense "karmic debts" that even the Heavenly Dao could not calculate.

"Listen, old chap."

Yu Liang looked at the rusty sword with a benevolent smile, like a cunning merchant eyeing a fat sheep.

"Every breath of spiritual energy you inhale now is a loan I've taken out at exorbitant interest rates. The more you consume, the heavier your debt becomes."

"If I die and my cultivation dissipates, this mess will all be pinned on you. When the Heavenly Dao settles its accounts, the first bolt of heavenly lightning will melt you down and turn you into a chamber pot!"

Om-!

The rusty sword trembled violently.

It seemed to understand this shameless threat, and its originally greedy suction force was forced to subside, the sword emitting a trembling sound like the mournful cry of metal.

Now!

Yu Liang's divine sense, like a needle, followed the rust marks that had been rubbed open and forcefully penetrated into the core of the sword's origin.

boom!

The world changed color.

The colors of mountains, rivers, grasses, and trees fade, transforming into countless flowing streams of energy composed of black and white.

At the heart of all this energy, the sword in his hand was a pitch-black vortex that constantly devoured the surrounding laws.

In his mind, the third level of the "Everything Can Be Played" mental technique operated on its own:

[A sword is not a sword, a person is not a person, everything is a tangled mess of threads.]

Don't cut, pick; don't stab, tease; find the loose thread to untangle the chain.

If the Taoist priest says it's gone, then it's gone.

"Everything is a tangled mess of threads; find the end of the thread to untangle the chain—this is the art of unraveling the mystery!"

"Unraveling the mystery?!"

Yu Liang's lips twitched. "Is this old ghost trying to make me, the Taoist priest, become an embroiderer?"

Despite his inner grumbling, the core of the "Dao of Cause and Effect"—twisting threads with his fingertips—instinctively surfaced in his mind.

If fingers can manipulate cause and effect, why can't a sword?

Since this rusty sword is a "flaw" in the Way of Heaven and a "karmic obstacle" in the world, then it is the best "knot-untying cone"!

Yu Liang took a deep breath, and the black pupils in his eyes disappeared, replaced by a deathly gray.

【A Causal Perspective: Opening Your Eyes】

Ahead, the black gold sword-testing stone, which weighed a ton, was no longer a stone, but a dense, tangled mass of silk threads.

The gray lines of the earth's veins pull it downwards; the white lines of matter define its "hardness" and "shape".

"Found it... the thread."

Yu Liang's lips curled into a strange smile.

Instead of focusing his energy in his dantian or splitting Mount Hua with his might, he crept out his rusty sword like a sly thief.

The third level of "Everything Can Be Discussed" - Sword Techniques - [Cloud Deconstruction Technique]!

"First move: Steal a sheep while you can."

With a flick of his wrist, the tip of the sword slicing into the tangled mess with extreme precision.

He didn't touch the thick solid lines, but instead draped them very smoothly over an inconspicuous gray dotted line.

That is the causal line that defines the "completeness" of the testing stone.

squeak--!

There was no clanging of metal, only a teeth-grinding scraping sound.

It's like a foreign kind of internal energy invading your meridians.

The red spots on the rusted sword seemed to come alive, spreading wildly along the lines of cause and effect, as if a bone-corroding poison was altering the laws of nature.

"Give me... loosen it!"

Yu Liang suddenly flicked his wrist.

collapse!

That invisible thread of cause and effect has been severed.

In the real world, a bizarre scene unfolded.

The surface of the seemingly indestructible testing stone suddenly became blurry, as if a reflection in water had been disturbed, and the lower left corner began to blur and flicker.

"That's right... Don't treat the sword as a weapon; it's a magical artifact, a pen to change your fate."

Yu Liang began to bleed from his seven orifices, and the spiritual power within his body surged into the rusty sword like a burst dam, serving as "toll money" to alter reality.

"Second move: Calling a deer a horse!"

He was no longer cautious; he gripped the sword with both hands and stirred it wildly in the void as if he were stirring thick porridge.

"If the Taoist priest says you're soft, then you must be soft! If the Taoist priest says you're mud, then you can't be a stone!"

The rusted sword emitted a dull, dark light.

The originally incredibly hard black gold stone actually began to twist, soften, and even drip, just like melted wax.

This is a forced distortion at the level of laws—using "falsehood" to forcibly cover up "truth".

"Hmph!!!"

The pig was so frightened that it jumped up and covered its head with its two front hooves.

Not only the rocks, but even the surrounding void began to crack, as if this area was about to be forcibly "peeled" off from this world.

"The last resort..."

Yu Liang's entire body was covered in "divine punishment marks" so red they looked like they were about to bleed.

His spiritual power is exhausted; what is now burning is his lifespan, his very existence in this world.

But he couldn't stop.

Once this sword technique is initiated, it is like an arrow released from a bow, and it will not return until it draws blood.

He raised his sword tremblingly.

This sword strike was devoid of any fancy moves.

There is only one word.

"delete."

The ultimate secret of the third layer of "Everything Can Be Plated" - [Return to the Void - Erasure].

Sizzle—!!!

A dark crack appeared at the tip of the sword.

It's not sword energy.

It is pure "nothingness".

Where the rusty sword slashed, all the threads of cause and effect—hardness, weight, the past—were violently severed.

There was no explosion, no smoke or dust.

That immensely heavy testing stone vanished into thin air, like ink wiped away by the hand of a god.

Not a speck of dust remained.

The cut was as smooth as a mirror, even wiping away the dust particles in the air, creating an absolute vacuum dead zone.

"So... this is... the plate is gone?"

Yu Liang's throat was dry.

This sword strike is utterly unreasonable.

No matter how indestructible you are, no matter how powerful your shield is, as long as the causal link of your "existence" is severed, you will disappear.

This is a dimensional reduction attack in the cultivation world!

"Exquisite".

Yu Liang grinned, just about to strike a pose like a peerless master.

puff.

He felt as if all his bones had been removed, and he collapsed to the ground, limp.

The rusted sword seemed to have tasted the sweetness of success. The rust on the blade writhed wildly, emitting a hungry buzzing sound, and wrapped around the arm in reverse, trying to devour the host's flesh and blood to fill the void.

Warning signs are rising... Lifespan is running out...

A death knell seemed to toll deep within my soul.

After performing this set of "Crochet Sword Techniques," not only was his spiritual energy completely drained, but even the little bit of "presence" he had just accumulated was almost reduced to a negative number.

"Hmph! Hmph!"

As Pig Lord watched his master become transparent at a visible speed, he was terrified and opened his mouth to spit out his primordial essence to save him.

"Don't...don't spit it out..."

Yu Liang trembled as he extended a finger and pressed it firmly against the pig's snout.

His face was ashen, and his body flickered like a dissipating soul, but his eyes burned with an even more insane flame of greed.

That was the look in the eyes of a desperate gambler who saw a mountain of gold.

"Lord Pig, your essence... is too precious. Keep it to save your life."

Yu Liang struggled to use the rusty sword to support his body as he climbed into the wheelchair.

He pulled out the densely filled account book from his pocket.

"Since this sword can eat so much... then we need to find it an even richer sucker."

Looking at his master's "I'm about to die but I still want to extort money" face, Pigsy sighed helplessly and skillfully raised his wheelchair.

The setting sun is like blood.

A man, a pig, and a broken sword capable of erasing everything.

A rust mark peeled off the rusted sword, revealing two ferocious and ancient seal characters: "Qiongqi".