The morning of the Exchange Tournament did not begin with a gong or a horn. It began with a sound that resembled a thousand glass windows shattering at once.
The sky above the Myriad Beast Academy, usually filled with the lazy drift of clouds and the occasional Gryphon, was suddenly sliced open. A fleet of flying swords—hundreds of them—descended from the clouds in a perfect, glittering formation. Standing atop each blade was a cultivator dressed in robes of pristine white and azure, their hands clasped behind their backs, their expressions radiating an arrogance so potent it could probably curdle milk.
This was the Heavenly Sword Sect. They were the rivals of the Beast Hall, the predators of the cultivation world. To them, beasts were not partners; they were leather, meat, and alchemy ingredients.
In the center of the formation drifted a massive sword, the size of a small ship.
Upon it stood Elder Jian, a man whose eyebrows were so sharp they looked capable of cutting paper. Beside him, pointing eagerly toward the ground, was Master Mo.
"There, Elder Jian!" Master Mo shouted over the wind. "That is the sore spot I spoke of. The Twilight Stable. The warden there insults the dignity of cultivation. He relies on tricks and... barnyard animals."
Elder Jian looked down at the newly fortified Twilight Stable. He saw the Star-Iron walls glistening in the sun. He saw the defensive spikes. He saw the faint shimmer of the Tortoise's barrier.
"Hmph," Elder Jian scoffed, the sound echoing like a drawn blade. "A turtle shell. He thinks metal walls can stop the Heavenly Sword? We shall see."
The massive sword descended, landing directly in the main plaza of the Beast Hall, crushing a decorative fountain. The Grand Elders of the Beast Hall hurried out to greet them, their faces tight with forced politeness.
But Elder Jian didn't care for pleasantries. He waved a hand.
"We are not here for tea, Elder Shen," Jian announced. "We are here to test the 'progress' of your disciples. Master Mo tells me you have a new champion. A... 'Roach King'?"
The Sword Sect disciples behind him snickered.
"We wish to challenge this champion first," Jian declared. "To set the tone."
Grand Elder Shen sighed. He knew this was a setup. But honor demanded he accept. "Very well. But be warned, Elder Jian. Su Ye is... unconventional."
"Unconventional is just a word for weak," Jian sneered. "Bai Yun, step forward."
A young man stepped off his floating sword. He was handsome, cold, and possessed a Sword Intent so sharp the air around him rippled. Bai Yun. The genius of the Sword Sect.
"Go to this stable," Elder Jian commanded. "Cut the shell. Break the spirit. Bring me the warden's head—figuratively speaking, of course."
Bai Yun bowed. "It will take one strike, Master."
At the Twilight Stable, Su Ye was currently trying to explain the concept of restraint to a chicken.
"Listen, Little Sun," Su Ye held up a rusty spoon. "You can't just eat everything shiny. You have to wait for the command. If you eat the Tortoise's shell, the roof falls on us."
Moooo, Little Sun argued, eyeing the spoon hungrily.
"Master!" Lin Fan ran down from the guard tower, tripping over his own armor. "They're here! A single Sword Cultivator is approaching the gate! He's flying!"
"Just one?" Su Ye asked, tossing the spoon to the chicken, who caught it mid-air with a crunch.
"He's floating on a blade, Master! It's Bai Yun! The 'Cloud-Cutter'! He's a Tier-5 Core Formation cultivator!"
"Open the gate," Su Ye said calmly. "If we keep it closed, he'll just scratch the paint trying to knock."
The Star-Iron gates creaked open.
Bai Yun drifted into the courtyard, hovering a few feet off the ground on his azure blade. He looked around the fortress, noting the haphazard construction, the sleeping pig, and the disciples who looked like they were dressed for a masquerade ball.
He landed gracefully, his boots not kicking up a single speck of dust. He looked at Su Ye.
"You are the Warden?" Bai Yun asked, his voice devoid of emotion.
"That's me," Su Ye leaned against a post, eating an apple. "Welcome to the Twilight Stable. Admission is five coppers. Ten if you want to pet the pig."
Bai Yun's eye twitched. "I am not here to pet livestock. I am here to expose the fallacy of the Beast Taming path. You rely on beasts because you lack the strength to stand alone. A true cultivator needs only one thing."
He tapped the hilt of his sword.
"A sharp edge."
Bai Yun raised his hand. His flying sword rose into the air, humming with lethal energy.
"Draw your beast, Warden. I will allow you the first move."
Su Ye looked at the flying sword. It was a beautiful weapon—forged from Cold-Iron, infused with wind runes, and glowing with a soft blue light.
"That's a nice sword," Su Ye complimented genuinely. "High carbon content? Balanced temper?"
"It is the Azure Wing," Bai Yun said proudly. "Forged in the breathless peaks of the Western Mountains. It has severed the heads of Wyverns. It is unbreakable."
"Unbreakable," Su Ye repeated, a strange glint in his eye. "Is that a challenge?"
"It is a fact," Bai Yun sneered. "Now, summon your creature! Or do you plan to hide behind your students?"
Su Ye sighed. He whistled.
"Little Sun. Lunch."
From the roof of the barn, a small golden blur hopped down. It landed on the dirt between Su Ye and Bai Yun. It fluffed its feathers, looked at the floating Azure Wing sword, and tilted its head.
Moooo.
Bai Yun stared. The Sword Sect disciples who had followed to watch laughed openly from the gate. Master Mo, lurking in the back, grinned.
"A chicken?" Bai Yun looked insulted. "You insult me with poultry?"
"It's a very hungry chicken," Su Ye warned.
"Die!" Bai Yun snapped. He pointed two fingers at Su Ye.
"Azure Wing! Pierce!"
The flying sword vanished. It moved faster than the eye could track, a streak of blue light aimed directly at Su Ye's heart. It was a killing strike, precise and unstoppable.
Su Ye didn't move. He didn't even blink.
But Little Sun moved.
The chicken didn't intercept the sword; it intercepted the path. It hopped upward, opening its beak impossibly wide.
CLANG.
The sound wasn't a sword hitting flesh. It was metal hitting a clamp.
Bai Yun froze. His connection to the sword suddenly felt... heavy.
He looked.
The Azure Wing hadn't pierced Su Ye. It was stopped in mid-air, caught firmly in the beak of the golden chicken. Little Sun had bitten down on the flat of the blade, halting its momentum instantly.
"What?" Bai Yun gasped. He tried to recall the sword with his Qi. "Return!"
The sword vibrated, trying to fly back to its master.
Little Sun growled—a low, rumbling sound like a furnace. The chicken clamped down harder. The Star-Iron beak dug into the Cold-Iron blade.
CRUNCH.
A sound echoed through the courtyard that made every swordsman in the vicinity clutch their chests in phantom pain.
Little Sun bit a semi-circle chunk out of the Azure Wing.
Bai Yun paled. "My... my sword!"
Crunch. Munch. Gulp.
Little Sun swallowed the metal. Its eyes lit up. It was delicious. High-grade, spiritual iron. Much better than the rusty spoons.
Moooo! (More!)
The chicken began to peck rapidly. It treated the legendary flying sword like a cob of corn.
Crunch-crunch-crunch.
In three seconds, the Azure Wing was gone. Only the hilt remained, falling sadly into the dirt.
Bai Yun stood there, his hand still extended in the command gesture, controlling absolutely nothing. He looked at the hilt. He looked at the chicken. He looked at Su Ye.
"You... you ate it," Bai Yun whispered, his worldview shattering. "That was... a masterwork... heirloom..."
"It was lacking salt," Su Ye critiqued. "Little Sun, did you save any for Zhu Zhu? No? Greedy."
Bai Yun fell to his knees. A swordsman without a sword is like a writer without a hand. He was broken.
"How?" Bai Yun wept. "Sword Qi... is invincible!"
"Sword Qi is metal," Su Ye explained gently. "And my bird is the Solar Eclipse Crow. In the ancient myths, they ate stars. A piece of sharpened iron is just an appetizer."
Su Ye walked over and patted the sobbing genius on the shoulder. "Don't worry. You can still use the hilt. Maybe as a paperweight?"
At the gate, the laughter of the Sword Sect disciples had died instantly. Elder Jian, who had arrived just in time to see his prized disciple defeated by a farm animal, turned a shade of purple that defied medical science.
"ABOMINATION!" Elder Jian roared.
The massive skyship-sword hovering over the academy descended. Elder Jian jumped off, landing in the courtyard with enough force to crack the ground.
"You dare destroy a treasure of the Heavenly Sword Sect?" Jian bellowed, his aura flaring. He was a Nascent Soul cultivator. The pressure he released caused Lin Fan and Gao Ming to collapse to their knees, gasping for air. Even the Star-Iron walls groaned.
"You will pay with your life!" Jian drew his own sword—a massive, two-handed greatsword that glowed with blinding white light. "Heavenly Severing Slash!"
He didn't bother with a duel. He swung to obliterate the entire stable.
The slash released a wave of energy fifty feet high. It tore through the ground, heading straight for Su Ye and the chicken. Little Sun fluffed its feathers, ready to try and eat a bigger meal, but Su Ye knew this was too much. This was Nascent Soul power. The chicken would explode if it tried to eat that.
"Zhu Zhu!" Su Ye yelled. "Shield!"
But Zhu Zhu was asleep in the barn.
"Tortoise!"
"Too fast," the Tortoise Ancestor projected. "I can't raise the barrier in time!"
The wave of death was feet away.
Su Ye didn't flinch. He reached into his pocket. He didn't pull out a weapon. He pulled out a Token.
It was an old, wooden token he had found in the pocket of the Ghost Janitor's robe in the Forbidden Vault. He hadn't known what it did, but the System had labeled it: [The Emergency Brake].
Su Ye snapped the token.
HUMMMMMM.
Suddenly, a beam of light shot down from the center of the Myriad Beast Academy—from the Forbidden Tower itself.
The light didn't hit Su Ye. It hit the space between Su Ye and the Sword Wave.
A figure materialized in the light.
It wasn't a beast. It wasn't a human.
It was a Broom.
A simple, bamboo broom, floating in mid-air, surrounded by a terrifying, ancient aura.
The broom swept sideways.
Swish.
The massive, terrifying Heavenly Severing Slash simply... vanished. It was swept away like dust. The energy dissipated into harmless sparkles.
Elder Jian froze, his sword raised high. "What... what is that?"
A spectral voice echoed through the courtyard—the voice of the Ghost Janitor from the vault.
"NO. MESS. IN. MY. YARD."
The Broom floated menacingly toward Elder Jian.
"You made a crack in the pavement," the Ghost Janitor's voice hissed. "Do you know how hard it is to fix pavement?"
The Broom wound up and smacked Elder Jian on the head.
THWACK.
It wasn't a lethal blow. It was a humiliation blow. But the force behind it was absolute. Elder Jian, a Nascent Soul powerhouse, was knocked face-first into the dirt.
"LEAVE," the Broom commanded. "OR I WILL SWEEP YOU INTO THE SUN."
Elder Jian scrambled up, his face covered in dust, his dignity incinerated. He looked at the broom. He recognized the aura. It was the aura of the Founding Era. This wasn't a stable; it was a protected heritage site.
"Retreat!" Jian screamed to his disciples. "This place is cursed! Retreat!"
The Heavenly Sword Sect, who had arrived like gods, fled like cockroaches when the kitchen light turns on. They scrambled onto their flying swords (those who still had them) and shot into the sky, desperate to escape the angry janitorial supplies.
The Broom floated there for a moment, watching them go. Then, it turned to Su Ye.
"You used the favor," the Ghost Janitor's voice grumbled. "Now we are even. Don't call me again unless something spills."
The Broom vanished.
Silence returned to the Twilight Stable.
Su Ye looked at the crater where the sword wave had vanished. He looked at his shaking disciples.
"Well," Su Ye dusted off his hands. "That went well."
"Well?" Luo Bing stood up, her legs trembling. "Master, you just summoned a legendary Ancestral Spirit to sweep a Sect Elder out of the yard! We have declared war on the Sword Sect!"
"They started it," Su Ye shrugged. "Besides, we got free scrap metal."
He pointed to the hilt of Bai Yun's sword. "Lin Fan, melt that down. We can make a nice door handle out of it."
As the team began to clean up, Master Mo, who had been hiding behind the gate, tried to sneak away unnoticed.
"Ah, Master Mo," Su Ye called out without looking.
Mo froze.
"Tell the Council that the 'Exchange' was a success," Su Ye smiled, feeding a worm to Little Sun. "We exchanged their arrogance for a very nutritious meal. Same time next year?"
Master Mo didn't reply. He ran.
Su Ye watched him go, but his smile didn't reach his eyes.
Zzzzt.
"You are playing a dangerous game, boy," the Tortoise Ancestor warned. "You have revealed the Bird. You have revealed the Janitor. You are running out of secrets."
"I know," Su Ye whispered, looking at the sky where the swords had fled. "That's why we need to leave."
"Leave?" Lin Fan overheard. "Leave the Academy?"
"We've outgrown the pot, Lin Fan," Su Ye said. "The roots are starting to crack the ceramic. The Sword Sect will come back with an army. The Council will come back with laws we can't bluff. And the Void..."
He looked at Zhu Zhu, who was chasing a butterfly, his shadow flickering ominously.
"...The Void is getting hungry again."
Su Ye turned to his disciples.
"Pack everything. Not just the travel bags. Everything. We aren't going on a trip."
He looked at the Twilight Stable, his home.
"We're taking the stable with us."
"Taking... the stable?" Gao Ming blinked. "Master, it is a building. It does not have wheels."
"No," Su Ye patted the ground. "But it has a Tortoise."
He grinned.
"Who's up for a mobile fortress?"