Kindly note that this rewritten passage aims to capture the essence of a Xianxia novel while maintaining the original meaning. Some terms and phrases have been adjusted for better flow and imagery within the genre.

Prompt from the Heart: Keep me in your thoughts and seek my collection, it shall prove convenient later.

Jiang Wang moved with the swiftness of thunder, his sword a vertical blur as he advanced. Jiang Yan, manifesting through the Candle of Illumination, drew forth azure smoke to form his own blade and danced forward in kind.

One sword was like hoarfrost and snow, the other like a flickering yellow candle flame.
One sword was the manifestation of a sword spirit, the other a congealed treasure-light.
One sword belonged to a renowned scholar fallen upon hard times, the other, too, belonged to a renowned scholar fallen upon hard times.
The same Human Path sword styles collided.

Two swords intersected and crossed.
Sword edge met sword edge, horizontal strokes cleaved through horizontal.
A turn of the longsword, and the ‘Body Not My Own’ style appeared in both.
The momentum shifted again, and like the nascent sun of dawn, two fierce sword lights clashed, unleashing the ‘Young and Frivolous’ sword form in concert.

This strike had already missed its mark. Jiang Wang spun back, the Candle of Illumination reversed.
Thus, the sun rose in the morning, and fell in the evening.
The sword turned to the momentum of an old general in his twilight years, a momentum that, once unleashed, could not be recalled.
Two wheels of the setting sun collided!
Sword tip pressed against sword tip, neither yielding an inch.
Their chosen timing for these sword styles, even the support they received within the Tongtian Palace, was utterly indistinguishable!

Jiang Yan had, unexpectedly, completely mastered all of Jiang Wang’s sword styles, and was in no way inferior in comprehension.
What kind of terrifying feat was this?
The Human Path sword style was, up until this point, the strongest sword technique Jiang Wang had comprehended, a truly unique sword technique that belonged solely to him, and the very aspect that set him apart from the multitude.
Yet, now it was completely replicated within Jiang Yan’s body.

If the outcome of this battle was failure, who would discover that Jiang Wang was no longer Jiang Wang?
What else could prove his existence!
This kind of replication, far more than any display of power, instilled a deeper dread. Perhaps this was Jiang Yan’s original intent.

“Jiang Wang, I am you. I understand everything about you, what you desire I desire as well, and I am stronger than you. You have no chance of victory, why continue this futile struggle?” The Candle of Illumination resonated with Jiang Yan’s voice, attempting to shatter Jiang Wang’s psychological defenses. “Hand over your body… no, simply hand it over to a better self. Let us together become a better me. You will see, I will accomplish much. As for Du Ruhui, Zhuang Gaoxian, Zhang Linchuan, they are not worth a mention, nor worth you suffering for so long. I will certainly kill them for you!”

The two swords had separated after their exchange.
As he spoke, Jiang Wang had merely drifted closer to where the Divine Soul Hidden Serpent and the Black-Eyed Star Python were locked in battle.
Upon hearing these words, he simply raised an eyebrow and looked towards the Candle of Illumination, his gaze cold and sharp.
“My tenant, are you truly… me?”
He suddenly reversed his sword and struck towards himself!

The flesh and blood manifested from his divine soul was cut down in a large piece. This represented a severing of Jiang Wang’s divine soul origin.
This kind of pain was beyond what any mortal could imagine.
Even one as resilient as Jiang Wang couldn’t help but grit his teeth, a pained groan escaping his throat.
His physical body, lying motionless in the underwater demon cave, slumped and fell to the ground, rolling continuously!
This one sword strike inflicted heart-wrenching, lung-splitting agony.
Spreading from the divine soul to the physical body, it was utterly unbearable.

And within the Tongtian Palace…
That piece of divine soul manifested as flesh and blood fell. It fell…
From the start, the Heart Demon occupying the Black-Eyed Star Python had been suppressed by the Divine Soul Hidden Serpent. Perhaps this was what Jiang Yan desired – to tie down Jiang Wang’s divine soul power.
But in this moment, the Divine Soul Hidden Serpent consciously separated, swimming away, unexpectedly giving up its encirclement of the Black-Eyed Star Python. And that piece of divine soul manifested flesh and blood fell directly into the Black-Eyed Star Python’s massive maw!

“Damn it!” A furious roar erupted from the approaching Candle of Illumination.
At this moment, the one occupying the Dao Pulse True Spirit was indeed Jiang Wang’s Heart Demon.
As Jiang Wang’s divine soul origin fell in, it was instantly swallowed by the Heart Demon.
Nourished by this, black smoke suddenly rose from the Black-Eyed Star Python’s body. Its pair of ink-black snake pupils gained a deeper, more profound hue.
It was developing spiritual intelligence!

This was Jiang Wang’s true Heart Demon, conceived through Jiang Yan’s machinations from Jiang Wang’s hatred.
Jiang Yan had controlled this Heart Demon, using it as a weapon against Jiang Wang, relying on it to occupy the Dao Pulse True Spirit and contend with Jiang Wang for control of the Tongtian Palace. This had allowed him to establish an absolute advantage, pushing Jiang Wang into a continuous retreat.
But the premise for all of this was that the Heart Demon was without knowledge!
The possibility of the Heart Demon developing spiritual intelligence had been erased by Jiang Yan, allowing him to calmly control it.
Jiang Yan had always tried to tell Jiang Wang that he was Jiang Wang’s heart nightmare, that he and the Heart Demon were of the same origin and could be one.
But on that rainy night outside Xin’an City, the first time Jiang Wang saw the Heart Demon, he had already realized that the Heart Demon was the Heart Demon, and Jiang Yan was Jiang Yan.
This was the crux of the problem.
Why had he self-harmed his divine soul origin? It was to help the Heart Demon grow, to let the Heart Demon truly develop spiritual intelligence.
What kind of terrifying existence was a Heart Demon? Any cultivator would eliminate it at the first opportunity. No one would think of actively cultivating a Heart Demon, of allowing it to grow.
This, at any time, would seem like an act of courting death.
But only at this moment, it was an incomparably brilliant and strange move.
Because after the Heart Demon developed spiritual intelligence, the first one it would deal with was not Jiang Wang, but Jiang Yan, who had always controlled it!
For after developing spiritual intelligence, the Heart Demon also had one most fundamental desire: to occupy the very body that gave birth to it.
And this was a bottom line that both Jiang Wang and Jiang Yan were absolutely unwilling to yield.
That is to say, Jiang Wang, by actively harming himself and introducing a powerful enemy, had transformed the two-sided contention over the body between himself and Jiang Yan into a three-way slaughter between himself, Jiang Yan, and the Heart Demon.
He had turned a confrontation between two armies into a chaotic battle involving three parties.
For the side in the weaker position, stirring up the situation was the best possible choice.
It was precisely a case of finding life in a death ground!
Even Jiang Yan had fundamentally not anticipated this step.
During the retreat after the swords were exchanged, it wasn’t that he hadn’t noticed a slight shift in Jiang Wang’s position.
But he had only thought that Jiang Wang might be secretly planning to attack the Black-Eyed Star Python, wanting to regain control of the Dao Pulse True Spirit. And he had already prepared for this, intending to deliver a heavy blow to Jiang Wang.
Yet, he hadn’t imagined that Jiang Wang would self-harm his divine soul origin.
This move was so decisive, so ingenious!

“Indeed, my decision was correct. I cannot let you grow any further.” Thus spoke Jiang Yan’s voice from within the vertical candle-light sword, the Candle of Illumination.
And just as he spoke, a figure wearing a black robe leaped out from within the Black-Eyed Star Python.
Endless black smoke coalesced to form this person, who bore a resemblance to Jiang Wang in appearance, but the black robe on his body and the madness in his eyes still made it easy to distinguish the two.
With the birth of spiritual intelligence, Jiang Wang’s Heart Demon had taken form.
With a shake of his hand, the black smoke transformed into a sword, gathering in his grasp.
With a shift of his feet, he unleashed a strike without hesitation, chopping towards the Candle of Illumination!
Upon the birth of spiritual intelligence, he had already broken free from Jiang Yan’s control. And as a Heart Demon truly born from absorbing Jiang Wang’s divine soul origin, he was, in the true sense, Jiang Wang’s dark side. He only needed his spiritual intelligence to fully mature to inherit all of Jiang Wang’s talents and wisdom.
Now, he was only in his nascent state, but the decisiveness and ferocity inherited from Jiang Wang were already evident.
Although he was mad, hateful towards the world, cold, selfish, and a collection and amplification of all of Jiang Wang’s negative aspects, he was not foolish.
Among the three parties within the Tongtian Palace at this moment, he and Jiang Wang could be said to know each other inside out, while Jiang Yan was fundamentally deep and unfathomable, controlling the situation from beginning to end and undoubtedly the strongest.
Jiang Wang had self-harmed his divine soul origin precisely to create a Heart Demon and break the stalemate.
In a three-way mixed battle, it was exactly the right time for the weaker parties to unite against the stronger.
So, he attacked towards the Candle of Illumination without hesitation, precisely because he knew that Jiang Wang would certainly do the same!