144 Twelve Great Families

"Father, look at the sky!" a child cried out while looking out of the window. The scene this child saw was being repeated an unknown amount of times throughout the entire world.

In the beginning, one star had started falling from the sky, but after a brief moment, more and more stars fell from the heavens, painting the entire night sky with beams of light as they descended towards the ground.

There were millions of stars in the skies, but that night, over half of them began collapsing and descending towards the earth.

Many of these stars burned up before they hit the ground, extinguished like dying lights in the sky, but a few landed with massive explosions on all the different continents.

If anyone was not awake at this point, the event certainly woke them. This phenomenon sent ripples of shock throughout the world; something like this had never before happened before, so many started making divinations about it.

Some were certain that this was a good omen that would spell the prosperity of their race.

Others were certain that a genius unlike any other had been born in the world, that the stars had displayed their complete and utter support for this genius by descending to the ground and welcoming his arrival.

Many different theories were being spread all over the different continents, but not a single person in the Vermilion Forest Kingdom noticed anything.

The phenomenon of falling stars began the moment the sword had swelled in size to kill off their remaining enemies, and ended the moment it returned to its normal appearance.

None of the people present had noticed anything or felt any changes, but this was not the case for the rest of the world.

In the center of the Chang'an continent, Lan sat outside a small shabby cabin located inside a luxurious yard within his mansion. Next to the cabin, a large lake flowed out of his mansion, which bordered the entire western side of the city. However, there was no sign of life within a kilometer radius of his mansion, indicating that the entirety of this area belonged to him, cut off from the rest of the city. The lake seemed to be the reason that the city had grown here in the first place, one and beginning from the riverbank before the cabin. The cabin itself seemed as if it had existed for a very, very long time in the same old spot. Perhaps it was older than even the city itself.

He had two cups in front of him, yet he was using only one of them, and no other guest was present.

Lan seemed to be in deep thought when a sigh escaped his lips. He looked into the sky and saw the first shooting star, after which the other stars started to fall rapidly.

His brows furrowed and his eyes focused. He lifted his hand and emptied the cup of wine he had in front of him and closed his eyes.

As to what he was doing, no one would know, yet moments after laughter rang through the entire courtyard.

"To think that that old Bai Tianyi has banded together with youngster Wei!" he said, laughing. "I guess this means that only amusing things will happen in the future! I cannot wait to see it; I had even forgotten everything about old Tianyi. To think that fate has such unusual changes..."

He was laughing to himself while pouring another cup of wine, which he quickly emptied with a swig.

"I wonder how the descendants of those old goats will take this?" he wondered before he leaned back and continued to enjoy his wine.

At another place in the center of the continent was the Ouyang Family. The Ouyang Family was one of the oldest families on the entire continent; their history was ancient, dating back to when they were slaves to the primordial beasts, where the Ouyang family existed as one of the few families that fought against the Primordial Beasts.

They went through the annals of history with a spotless reputation, and their younger generations were always ranked as the true geniuses of the younger generations of the entire continent.

The Ouyang Family specialized in zithers, guqins, brushes, fans, and other artistic items for weapons. They were known to be elegant and refined, beautiful and outstanding.

It was precisely in this Ouyang Family that the Elders had scrambled to meet up, all of them wearing frightened expressions on their faces.

"It happened!" one of them exclaimed with shock. The others gave him a condemning look. It was apparently not his place to say so.

Understanding this, he bowed in apology and looked at the family patriarch, who was sitting still with closed eyes and his hands cupped in front of him.

When the elders finally turned silent, he opened his eyes, and instantly it was as if a heavy pressure had covered all of them.

"Our ancestor told us that our greatest enemy, the sword spirit Bai Tianyi, had been dealt with by them. But if one day the stars are falling, then it means that this vile spirit has been freed and is coming for revenge," he said thoughtfully.

"The other eleven great families are on the other continents, so they cannot come right away to help us deal with Bai Tianyi."

"We do not know who had the power to unleash him, nor do we know the current situation or exact location of the sword spirit, as the information has been lost throughout history, but we know that he was here on this continent."

"This means that we are the vanguard of the twelve great families in the task of apprehending the immortal sword spirit."

"I know that many of the other great families wish to subdue this vile sword and make it become a slave to their whims, but this sword is regarded as a vile and disgusting creature that will not pause at anything for its own benefit."

"It will slaughter innocents and humans as well as beasts. Such mentality cannot be allowed to exist in our world; we have to eradicate it completely!"

"We will send out two Sky Knights of the fifth layer and give the same instructions to all of our younger generations. If they find a person with a talking sword, then they are to report back and kill them as soon as they can!"

"The individual who has decided to work with such a vile creature can only be a wicked person as well."

"In fact, send someone to Prophet Lan. He might be able to point us towards the right direction!"

On the other continents, the other families were discussing the same thing. Who should they send to pursue the sword spirit Bai Tianyi?

In the end, every family sent a group of Sky Knights alongside a handful of their younger generation geniuses.

Things were exactly as the Ouyang Patriarch had expected. Apart from him, only one other family wished to eradicate the sword; the rest wanted to take control of it.

The truth was only revealed to a few select families. The majority of the human civilizations and all the societies of Primordial Beasts were unaware of what had happened, yet the falling stars phenomenon had still shocked every last one of them.

In the Vermilion Forest, the remaining people of the village had all been overwhelmed and killed.

This time, Xue Wei and Hei Gou did nothing to clear the field. The corpses were left untouched, left to the elements. They had already gotten all they needed.

Rushing back to the cave, they found Jiang Fengmian waiting for them. She was still as emotionless as ever, but if one looked carefully, then they could see her fists being clenched tightly into fists.

"We need to clean ourselves," Xue Wei pointed out. Their clothes and bodies were stained with blood from head to toe, not only from themselves but also from their enemies. They had to get rid of it before they could emerge from the depths of the Vermilion Forest.

Having said this, they found a small stream where they cleaned themselves. Xue Wei and Hei Gou changed their clothes and threw out the old ones. Had they just been bloodied, then they could have washed them, but they had also received injuries which had caused gaping holes to appear on their clothes.

"To be honest, you are quite weak," Tianyi sighed. "Your foundation is strong, but you don't have a lot of strength. Instead of wasting too much time, why don't you start cultivating properly?"

Xue Wei smiled wryly, "It is not that I don't want to," he complained, "but no matter where I have gone, I have been chased. I need to find some time to cultivate."

"Are you telling me that you aren't using the pressure given by the ones chasing you to break through?" Tianyi was shocked. Xue Wei was confused.

"Cultivation is by sitting still, entering a meditative state and rotating the Qi in my body, refining it and slowly merging it with my body to become my own. How can I do this while running?"

"Your body can do it unconsciously, you don't need a meditative state to do that, nor do you need to spend your energy on it. Every step you take can be used to cultivate."

Xue Wei was suddenly very interested. "How?" he asked curiously. If he could cultivate with every step he took, would he still be stuck as an Earth Warrior?

"First, show me your cultivation technique," Tianyi said. Xue Wei did just that.

"Woah!" Tianyi sounded astonished. "This is... well, nevermind."

He had lost his cool for a moment, but when he realized this, he quickly returned to his stoic and holier-than-thou personality. However, deep inside he was shocked. And since Xue Wei and he had a connection, how could Xue Wei not sense these real emotions?

"Well, you just keep rotating the Azure Dragon Scripture in your body while walking, if you do it for long enough, it will become like a habit where your body will do it by itself even when you do other stuff. At the start, it does require some effort, but that is repaid thousandfold later on."

Xue Wei did not waste any time and attempted it. In the end, Hei Gou ended up leading the group on the way out of the Vermilion Forest, while Xue Wei was in deep thought, trying to focus on simultaneously walking and practicing the Azure Dragon Scripture.

It took them a week to get away from all the formations. During this time, no one came to look for them. It seemed that the experts of the Thousand Mist Village had all died, and the women were not intent on taking revenge.

When the women in the Thousand Mist Village realized what had happened, their eyes turned red with grief and hatred. They honestly hated Xue Wei and Hei Gou to the core, but at the same time, they did not try to gain vengeance.

"This is our new chance," someone said in the end, sighing. "We can become a proper village, and our children will no longer have such a bleak future. Let us bury our dead ones and grieve for them, but then we will have to move on and flourish! We will be what we once were, a typical village!"

The one who spoke was Qing Li's wife. Tears were streaming from her eyes, and she was holding onto two children who were sobbing loudly from the loss of their father, but her voice did not tremble, and her eyes were firm and unyielding.

"Let us burn down the temple!" someone exclaimed. "Let us burn it to the ground and never again see it!" another added.

Like this, the Thousand Mist Village turned back into the Thousand Blossom Village, and it flourished for a long time to come. The temple had been burnt down, and with it went all their sorrow, anger and unhappiness.

Meanwhile, Xue Wei was getting somewhat proficient at using the Azure Dragon Scripture while walking. At the start, he had walked into trees, stumbled over roots, and slipped on the leaves. Now he could keep an eye around him while doing it, and he was able to split his mind into two. One part was focused on cultivating, the other allowed him to keep an eye on their surroundings while engaging in idle conversation with Hei Gou and Jiang Fengmian.