Rebirth of the Revered Sword Sovereign

“Uh…… huh?”

Cang Wuyin blinked several times, struggling to understand what he was seeing.

Just moments ago, he had been caught in a battle that had shaken the world, fighting against the Lord of the Northern Sea Ice Palace, a man who could be called the leader of the Four Tyrants of the World that ruled over the Neo-Outer Murim.

No, saying they had fought would not be entirely accurate.

Cang Wuyin had sacrificed his own life and died alongside him.

Even someone like Cang Wuyin, who had been praised as the greatest genius in the history of Shaolin, had found the Lord of the Northern Sea Ice Palace overwhelmingly powerful. He had been a monster whose strength was so far beyond ordinary martial artists that Cang Wuyin had barely managed to defeat him by giving up his own life in the process.

“But what is this?”

Cang Wuyin had spent his entire life perfecting his martial arts for the sake of peace in the Central Plains. Following his master’s wishes, he had become Shaolin’s hidden weapon, a disciple entrusted with strength that was not meant to be revealed easily.

That was why he had given up his life without hesitation.

He had believed that it was the right thing to do.

And yet, somehow, he was alive.

Squeeze.

“I definitely died.”

Cang Wuyin clenched both hands as he stared at them.

The hands he remembered from before his death had been stained with blood and belonged to a thirty-year-old martial artist who had spent years fighting and training. What he saw now were two youthful hands that still carried traces of immaturity.

Cang Wuyin stared at them with a dazed expression.

There were calluses scattered across his palms and fingers, proof that this body had trained in martial arts, but they were clearly not the hands of the man he had been at thirty. The difference was so obvious that Cang Wuyin could hardly believe what he was seeing.

No matter how many times he thought about it, he could not find another explanation for the situation.

“……Did I really come back again?”

After sitting there for a while in confusion, Cang Wuyin scratched his head roughly.

He tried to remember what had happened, but the only conclusion he could reach was regression.

He had returned to the past.

The thought itself was absurd, but his confusion did not last long. Before long, Cang Wuyin let out a quiet chuckle.

“This isn’t bad.”

Although he was technically a disciple of Shaolin, Cang Wuyin was an unregistered disciple.

His master had recognized his extraordinary talent the moment they met and had personally taught him Shaolin’s secret techniques. Yet, despite receiving such treatment, Cang Wuyin had never been entered into the monastic registry.

His master had explained that Cang Wuyin possessed no karmic ties with Buddhism.

Even so, Cang Wuyin had spent his entire life suppressing much of his own nature because he considered himself a disciple of Shaolin.

He had always believed that he could never allow himself to bring shame upon the name of Shaolin.

But after experiencing death once, his way of thinking had changed.

“This time, I should live a bit more casually. I lived diligently and even gave my life for the peace of the Central Plains, so in this life, it’s fine to live while enjoying myself a bit, right?”

At first, returning to the past had been so shocking that he could barely accept it. However, that feeling did not even last a full day.

There was no reason to reject a fortune that had fallen into his hands for no apparent reason.

He had no idea why he had been given another chance at life, but whatever the reason was, Cang Wuyin considered it a blessing rather than a misfortune.

He had been given his life again.

That alone was enough.

“My body really is different. Compared to when I was thirty, it’s a complete difference between heaven and earth. Youth really is something.”

Cang Wuyin rolled his shoulders and smiled as he felt the vitality of his twenty-year-old body again.

When he had reached thirty in his previous life, he had noticed the difference himself.

The gap between being in his twenties and entering his thirties was much greater than most people realized.

Now that he had experienced both stages firsthand, he understood just how enormous that difference truly was.

“Which means there are about ten years left until the invasion of the Four Tyrants of the World. If I calculate by date, about nine years?”

Cang Wuyin lay across a tree branch in a position that was far from comfortable, yet he seemed perfectly content.

Under normal circumstances, someone like him would never have spent his time resting around like this.

He would have been training relentlessly in the martial art that had been granted exclusively to him, the Three Dharma Swords.

Shaolin, or more accurately, his master, had allowed him to practice the Three Dharma Swords because of his exceptional talent. Yet Cang Wuyin did not feel particularly pressured to train it at the moment.

“Everyone must be growing vigorously right about now.”

There was a reason Cang Wuyin could afford to take things so easily.

For one, there was currently no one within Shaolin who understood the Three Dharma Swords better than he did.

More importantly, although the vast inner energy he had possessed in his previous life had disappeared with his younger body, his memories had not.

His countless experiences, battles, insights, and accomplishments were still there.

His body had returned to the past, but his mind had not.

So although it might have looked like he was simply being lazy, Cang Wuyin was actually making his own effort to bring his mind and body into balance.

And he knew something else as well.

There were countless hidden masters and secret weapons being raised by the various sects and martial families.

Many of them had yet to reveal themselves.

“It’s really strange. How do you always find me?”

Cang Wuyin tilted his head slightly as he asked the question.

Even though he had returned to his younger body and his habits and movements should have changed from his previous life, the other person always managed to find him as if he knew exactly where Cang Wuyin would be.

“Come on, you can tell at a glance. How many places are there to go within the temple grounds anyway?”

“But I’m moving differently than usual.”

“Hehe! Because they’re all places I’ve been to before.”

“Oh, is that so?”

Luo Wuhen, who was now fifteen years old, answered with an embarrassed smile.

Hearing that these were all places Luo Wuhen had already visited himself, Cang Wuyin gave a quiet chuckle.

“But the senior uncles know too, right? That you’ve changed a lot compared to before.”

“It’s my own business, of course I know.”

“Actually, because of that, not only us but also the other senior uncles and martial uncles are all quite puzzled.”

“Because I’ve changed too much?”

“Yes. Some people say your puberty just came late.”

Luo Wuhen spoke carefully.

Although he was only fifteen, he had spent far more years inside Shaolin than his age might suggest.

He had been abandoned at Shaolin’s One-Pillar Gate as a child and had been raised there before eventually taking refuge in Buddhism. Shaolin was practically the only home he had ever known.

Because of that, Cang Wuyin could not compare his own relationship with Shaolin to Luo Wuhen’s.

There was not much difference between their actual ages, but their positions within the sect were completely different. No matter how friendly and easygoing Luo Wuhen was, he could not help being cautious when speaking to Cang Wuyin.

Cang Wuyin was the abbot’s youngest disciple and technically an unregistered lay disciple, but he was still one of only two disciples personally accepted by the abbot of Shaolin.

His status was therefore far from ordinary.

“Puberty, huh. That’s not entirely wrong either.”

“Really?”

“But it’s not exactly right either. My way of thinking just changed a bit. You know what my original personality is like, don’t you?”

“When you first came to Shaolin, your personality was similar to how it is now.”

Luo Wuhen might have been only fifteen, but his time at Shaolin stretched back much further.

He had been abandoned at the One-Pillar Gate, raised within the temple from infancy, and eventually taken into Buddhism.

In that sense, there was no one Cang Wuyin could compare him to.

‘If I include my past life, I’ve lived longer, but I can’t say that.’

When Cang Wuyin had first realized that he had returned to the past, he had not been able to accept it.

He had thought it was a dream.

But now, things were different.

Everything around him was too clear and too real to be a dream. Since this was reality, Cang Wuyin had to be careful with what he said.

Even if he told someone the truth, nobody would believe him.

At best, they would think he had lost his mind.