In the icy tomb, as that voice faded into the echoing silence, a woman dressed in ice-blue robes slowly emerged from the darkness between the glacial pillars. She seemed to form from the cold air itself, her figure ethereal yet radiating a pressure that made the very space around her hum and tremble.
"Where is Yingying?"
The question slipped from Su Min's lips faster than she intended, her voice unusually tight, betraying a sliver of the anxiety she usually kept locked down. She hadn't even drawn her weapon yet, her instincts screaming at her to guard herself—but her heart, always where Xie Yingying was concerned, leapt ahead of caution. She stared intently at the woman in ice-blue robes, trying to read her ancient, placid face for any sign of whether she was friend, foe, or something far more ambiguous and worse.
The woman was no ordinary remnant soul—her mere presence was enough to make the fabric of space in the hall tremble. Even now, Su Min's knees strained under the invisible weight of that calm, assessing gaze. And yet, all she could think about, all that truly mattered in that moment, was Xie Yingying's safety.
Yao Xian'er had warned her: if the evil soul awakened, it would inevitably attempt possession. And if this truly was the benevolent half standing before her, Su Min still couldn't afford to relax. Good and evil weren't simple, black-and-white labels in the complex world of cultivators—especially not for one as ancient, powerful, and emotionally fractured as this Lunar Sovereign.
But then, the blue-robed woman let out a soft, amused "Oh~" and tilted her head, resting her chin on her hand as if watching a curious little drama unfold right before her. A faint, knowing smile played on her lips.
"My, you're awfully anxious. So protective... how sweet." Her eyes gleamed with open amusement, but also something deeper, something wistful—nostalgia, perhaps, for a feeling long lost. "The bond between you two must be remarkably strong. There's still residual Lunar Sovereign essence clinging to your body, like a perfume. Essence blood, no doubt? A rare and precious gift for any cultivator. Or was it shared in a… more intimate setting?"
Su Min flushed—only faintly, a quick heat that rose to her cheeks before being ruthlessly suppressed—but the slight shift in her aura, a minute ripple in her spiritual pressure, was enough of an answer. She clenched her fingers at her sides and looked away, focusing on a distant, shimmering pillar of ice.
"She's important to me," she said simply, the words leaving no room for doubt.
"Hm~ Clearly," the remnant mused, her tone still teasing but not unkind or cruel. "But don't worry, she's fine. For now. The evil soul sleeps... but if it stirs, well, you'll need far more than love to save her from its hunger."
"Evil soul?" Su Min prompted, her gaze snapping back, now all business.
"That… was my greed," the woman said softly, her gaze turning distant, as if staring right through the palace walls into a time long buried beneath layers of frost and regret. "The path of cultivation is long—and often bitterly cold. Sometimes, it feels unbearably so. To walk it with someone warm at your side… it can feel like the greatest blessing."
Her voice dipped, becoming low and bitter with the weight of memory.
"But a single, narrow path cannot forever carry two souls walking side by side. In the end, I couldn't choose. I wanted ultimate power. I wanted lasting companionship. I wanted everything—and that insatiable want, that refusal to sacrifice one dream for another, was my downfall."
Her eyes returned to Su Min, sharp now, cutting through all pretense and getting straight to the heart of the matter.
"There's only one mark of the true inheritance. Yao Xian'er still carries hers, I can feel it across the realms. But between you and your Yingying, only one can bear that final burden to the very end. If you hesitate… if you can't make the choice when it matters most… you'll become what I am now."
She smiled, but it was thin and tired—like the faintest moonlight on a vast field of snow. "A remnant clinging to the past, frozen solid in a choice never made."
"Then give it to her," Su Min said, her tone flat—almost too flat, too controlled. But beneath that practiced stillness was unbreakable steel, and something much softer, a deep and abiding care. "I don't need it."
The woman raised a delicate brow, genuinely surprised. "You'd give up a clear path to ascension? Just like that? Without a second thought?"
"I'm not short on options," Su Min replied calmly, a statement of pure fact. "Or on time."
That was the simple truth. Her Five Elements Holy Body—once fully awakened and mastered—was more than enough to forge another, perhaps even greater, road to power. The Immortal Root of a Fallen Immortal she had once glimpsed in a forbidden domain could also act as a potent substitute. And unlike others who were constantly racing against their own mortality, she had no need to gamble everything on a single, threadbare chance. She had all the time in the world.
But even so, as she said the words, her hand curled into a loose fist at her side.
Xie Yingying needed that mark more. Xie Yingying, who had been left alone and vulnerable in a dying world, who had faced so much pursuit and peril. If there was only one chance, only one key to grasp that fleeting path to ultimate safety and power...
Then let it be her.
Su Min had walked her own road drenched in blood, dragging an entire, corrupt dynasty into the grave behind her. Her future was built on a foundation of vengeance, survival, and hard-won power—but she'd share all of it without hesitation. She'd even surrender it, if it meant Xie Yingying could reach a height she herself might never see.
After all, wasn't that selfless, almost reckless devotion what made their connection so dangerous? And so rare?
She didn't look at the remnant when she spoke again, her eyes drifting to the floor, but her voice had lost its earlier detachment, warmed by a quiet conviction.
"She deserves to ascend. If this path leads there, let her take it. I'll find another."
As Su Min spoke these words, the floor of the great hall before her slowly split open with a deep, grinding sound of shifting ice and stone, revealing a chamber below where Xie Yingying sat in deep, secluded cultivation. However, the latter's aura now seemed ethereal and indistinct, merging with the ambient spiritual energy of the tomb, just as Su Min had guessed.
"Dao Comprehension stage?"
Su Min couldn't help but exclaim in soft surprise. Clearly, Xie Yingying had reached the critical moment of breaking through to the Dao Comprehension stage. Under these delicate circumstances, it was best not to disturb her. Of course, Su Min couldn't help feeling a small, sharp pang of envy - Xie Yingying had actually surpassed her in cultivation level, for now.
But there was nothing embarrassing about this. The Lunar Sovereign Body's defining characteristic was precisely this - as long as there was sufficient spiritual energy, there were virtually no bottlenecks or side effects. Moreover, at this advanced stage, it came with its own unique, pre-ordained laws - everything had already been prepared by the physique itself.
"Correct - the Primordial Force of Lunar Sovereign. It's both the special blessing and the inherent shackle of the Lunar Sovereign Body. Back then, I lost to her precisely because I was constrained by the limitations of the Lunar Sovereign Body. Actually, she had already given me a special method to sever the Law. If I could have severed the Lunar Sovereign Body and cultivated anew, I could have achieved even greater heights."
Looking down at Xie Yingying bathing in the luminous blood pool she had left behind, the benevolent soul sighed with deep emotion. These words startled Su Min slightly - it seemed Yao Xian'er's special method was indeed effective. Moreover, if one did sever it, the severed physique could be resealed to await the next suitable inheritor.
Clearly, if this were true, Su Min and Xie Yingying could completely avoid such life-and-death struggles over a single legacy. Of course, what she didn't know was that Su Min's lifespan was infinite - she could literally wait things out through sheer, endless time, needing to compete with no one.
Therefore, Su Min didn't feel compelled to compete with others for this particular opportunity.
Clearly, this remnant soul of the Lunar Sovereign Body was testing her, but upon receiving this selfless answer, a genuinely satisfied expression appeared on her translucent face.
"Right now… she's in a perilous state," the woman murmured, her voice as cold and distant as the moonlight filtering through ice. "The essence blood I left behind will carry her steadily to the threshold of Dao Comprehension. That much, I ensured. But—"
She paused, a faint, almost imperceptible tremor passing through her spectral form.
"—my other half, the evil soul born of my own greed and obsession, still lingers in the deepest depths of this tomb. If it awakens fully, it will try to take her, to use her pristine body as its new vessel. You must stop it."
Her gaze fixed on Su Min, sharp and profoundly solemn. "I need you to enter the inner sanctum and destroy it. This task… it was meant for Yao Xian'er. But she refused to come. Perhaps she feared what she might see in this place—or what she might be forced to lose once again."
A long, heavy silence stretched between them, filled only by the faint, resonant hum of the tomb's ancient energies.
The woman's breath became thin, and the faint silver glow around her started to flicker like a dying candle flame. Despite the fading light, she stood tall—graceful, proud, but undeniably, heartbreakingly alone.
"This will be the end for me," she said softly, as if speaking to no one at all, her voice a whisper of regret. "I was once the revered Lunar Sovereign… but now, I must entrust my final legacy to strangers. Funny, isn't it? The turns fate takes."
Her eyes, old and weary, swept over Su Min one last time, holding a glimmer of fragile hope.
"But perhaps... someone like you, with your particular heart, can walk the path I never could."
"Evil soul..."
Hearing this, Su Min narrowed her eyes, as the whole concept sounded somewhat fantastical and abstract. All humans had three souls and six spirits, with both good and evil aspects residing within. Even she possessed them, though Su Min didn't particularly care to label or dwell on such things.
But being able to split them so cleanly, to externalize one's own darkness, was absolutely extraordinary - it was a process that could even drive one completely mad. Yet the person before her seemed far too complete, too composed, as if she'd never been split at all, which made Su Min somewhat curious and wary.
Even as a master alchemist with profound knowledge of the soul, she knew she couldn't achieve such a clean, stable soul division.
Sure enough, upon hearing Su Min's skeptical tone, the Lunar Sovereign woman's expression darkened, a shadow passing over her translucent features.
"Didn't Yao Xian'er tell you the full truth?"
"No. She was… vague."
"That thing wasn't originally a part of me - not truly. It was born from my weakness, but it was catalyzed by a fragment of an immortal that fell from the heavens."
"Huh?"
Su Min was momentarily stunned, not quite understanding the implication. But soon her expression turned strange as the pieces clicked into place and she realized something profound.
Fallen Immortal...
Just a soul fragment, a wisp of thought, could inflict such suffering and create such chaos for a peak Mahayana cultivator?
In the game she remembered from her past life, the Fallen Immortals only existed in background lore and dusty tomes. Even when they occasionally appeared in expansions, it was just an excuse for better graphics and more epic cutscenes.
But judging by this firsthand information, there seemed to be something deeply, fundamentally abnormal here about their true nature and power.
"Actually, it's partly my fault too. As the mortal saying goes, flies only go for cracked eggs. My inner conflict and greed created the crack it needed to latch onto. Now the seal Yao Xian'er left behind all those years ago is about to break. I'm just a remnant soul now, my power mostly spent, and Xie Yingying still needs time to safely receive the inheritance. This is the perfect, most vulnerable time for that thing to attempt possession, so I need your help now."
"Me..."
Hearing this, Su Min's mouth twitched uncontrollably. To be honest, she felt more than a little apprehensive. And when the woman before her claimed to be just a harmless remnant soul, Su Min took it with a large grain of salt - she didn't believe it for a second.
Because the earlier, automatically triggered ice storm had been powerful enough to activate the Nanming Lihuo's automatic defense within her, meaning its innate power could have completely frozen a regular Divine Transformation cultivator solid.
No one who had reached this legendary level of cultivation was ever simple or fully transparent. Moreover, Yao Xian'er, for all her quirks, would surely have prepared something for her, some advantage or warning. If nothing else, the fact that those three powerful, corrupted beings had all been crouching at the entrance for who knows how long without taking a single step inside was proof enough of the tomb's dormant dangers.
"That jade pendant you have - you should know about its properties. Come with me. If that thing breaks free completely, I won't be able to resist it in my current, purely spiritual state. Only you, with your physical body and that unique life force of yours, can confront it directly. Moreover, that thing, once purified, should also represent a significant opportunity for you."
Clearly, this ancient woman had noticed Su Min's hesitation and took the initiative to explain further, offering a tangible incentive. This made Su Min nod inwardly - now things were making more sense. So in the next moment, as the woman waved a hand, their surroundings transformed again, and the two found themselves standing in an illusory, mist-shrouded space.
There, at the center, a massive, seething cloud of black gas was bound by enormous, glowing chains inscribed with runes, though the chains were now covered in hairline cracks that pulsed with a sickly light. Su Min understood that the jade slip containing the true inheritance, the one Yao Xian'er had sent her for, would only materialize after these chains were shattered and the evil within was destroyed.
"You're here again. Come, take one more step closer and let me devour you. Become one with me again."
Upon seeing the two appear, a voice full of dark temptation and rasping static sounded in Su Min's ears. However, this voice wasn't primarily directed at Su Min, but at the woman beside her.
"You were born from my moment of weakness and the remnant thoughts of that Fallen Immortal. I won't let you leave this prison now, not when a new vessel is so near."
Looking at the restless black gas, the Lunar Sovereign woman's expression was extremely dark, filled with a mixture of loathing and pity.
"Kekeke, I am you, and you are me. We are one and the same. Back then, you lost to that person and ultimately, in your despair, chose to try and merge with that fallen remnant thought, thinking it would grant you power. You created me. Little girl," the voice suddenly shifted, now addressing Su Min directly with a sneering tone, "you'd best stay away from that woman - who knows when she might decide to sell you out to save her own skin."
At this point, a piercing, discordant laughter came from the swirling mass, making Su Min's eyes narrow slightly. Such transparent attempts at sowing discord were useless against her, and she was already maintaining a healthy caution around the so-called benevolent woman.
As a modern person at her core, Su Min always adhered to two simple principles: first, don't provoke others unless provoked; second, while harboring no ill intentions toward others, one must always maintain a necessary degree of vigilance for self-preservation.
Sure enough, in the next moment, the black gas spoke again, its voice dripping with malicious glee.
"I can sense it - another young girl with a pure Lunar Sovereign Body has come here to receive your so-called inheritance. She's the perfect vessel - no one in this world understands how to fully utilize and dominate the Lunar Sovereign Body better than I do."
"Who are you, really?" Su Min demanded, her voice cutting through the static.
At this point, Su Min was certain - regardless of what the true nature of the woman beside her was, this black gas, this concentrated malice, had to be destroyed.
But first, she needed to extract some useful information. Clearly, this thing was the toxic product of that fallen immortal's remnant thought merging with the Lunar Sovereign's own inner darkness.
"I am the True Lunar Sovereign Immortal, a being who attained true immortality countless epochs ago, before this world's laws were even fully formed. Hahaha, what you call Great Emperors or Martial Saints in this petty realm are all just trash, insignificant ants, before me, hahaha!"
"Another Lunar Sovereign Body."
Listening to the maniacal, arrogant laughter, Su Min muttered to herself. While the physique was rare, over countless years of accumulation across the vast cosmos, the number of such physiques that had appeared was still considerable. But that wasn't the key point right now - she needed to know more about this 'immortal', and there were other, more pressing things she wanted to understand.
Since this thing claimed to be an existence from ancient times, Su Min decided to test something, to probe for a reaction.
"So what happens when a Lunar Sovereign and a Solar Sovereign truly combine their powers, their essences?"
"Gah!"
The next moment, the entity's manic laughter abruptly stopped, cut off as if by a knife. Then Su Min actually detected, amidst that swirling cloud of violent emotion, a trace of pure, unadulterated fury. However, this fury wasn't directed at her, nor at the woman beside her, nor at any human in this world. It was a deep, ancient rage mixed with a palpable undercurrent of fear, aimed at something… else.
"At the end of the other shore, in the void between worlds, those ancient and twisted existences... they fear... they fear the birth of a single, specific physique."
"Oh?"
Hearing this, Su Min's interest was immediately piqued. Not just hers - even the composed woman beside her couldn't help twitching her eyebrows, her expression turning intently serious. Clearly, this information was something even she, in all her long existence, couldn't ignore. Or rather, when she had first heard this secret from the evil soul, she had also been profoundly shocked and interested.
"When pure, supreme yin and absolute yang combine, and a new life is conceived not just by flesh, but through the fundamental laws of heaven and earth, there's only one possible outcome - a physique that is, even in the immortal world, nothing but a whispered legend."
"Chaos Body?"
Su Min interjected, the name leaving her lips before she could stop it. This surprised the blue-robed woman slightly. Clearly, she hadn't expected a cultivator from this latter age, especially one with a Five Elements Holy Body, to know about this most mythical of physiques. This physique had truly never appeared in recorded history - there weren't even clear records of it in the great river of time. But since its name was known, there must have been records once. That could only mean one thing - it had once existed, but all traces of it had been deliberately, systematically erased by a power beyond comprehension.
"To think a mere Five Elements Holy Body like you would know of it. Yes. That is the Chaos Body. All things in the universe are born from the primordial chaos - it is the original, the source physique. A physique that can rival the Great Dao itself. The so-called distinctions between immortal and mortal, the struggles of ten thousand paths - none of it matters to one who holds the source. It is a physique that from the very moment of birth can theoretically crush all laws and all things in existence beneath its heel...
How pitiful. And how ironic. Those beings who use countless worlds as sacrificial offerings to maintain their own power also fear it. They paid a price beyond your imagination, a cosmic toll, to ensure that the Lunar Sovereign and Solar Sovereign could never peacefully coexist in this world again, could never produce that which they fear most."
"Enough. These ancient, cosmic matters have nothing to do with people of today. There's no need to say more, you only seek to confuse her." Looking at the frenzied True Lunar Sovereign Immortal, the blue-robed woman's expression turned stern, a note of command entering her voice. "Little one, later you must..."
But this line of conversation made Su Min think of something - something she hadn't been able to verify before, a lingering question in her heart. Now seemed like as good an opportunity as any to ask. Moreover, she was beginning to understand that Yao Xian'er's reason for sending her here definitely wasn't as simple as not wanting to see off her old partner; there had to be more to it, a deeper layer.
It was about one crucial thing - Lunar Sovereign essence blood. Xie Yingying's essence blood was potent, but the cultivation gap between them wasn't vast enough for it to be transformative. But if it were replaced with, or supplemented by, the pure, concentrated essence blood of a peak Mahayana expert, the results would be entirely different, potentially unlocking new levels of power.
Yao Xian'er's goal was simple, yet profound - she wanted to see if Su Min could complete her own unique physique, to see if the legendary combination was possible. Back during the Golden Core Avenue, when Su Min had simultaneously balanced yin and yang within herself, it had shocked Yao Xian'er profoundly.
Moreover, Su Min clearly remembered the undisguised shock and deep regret on Yao Xian'er's face when she had first perceived the nature of Su Min's physique. She had even said, with a heartbreaking sincerity, that if Su Min were complete, truly complete Solar Sovereign, even if she, Yao Xian'er, had to abandon her own path to immortality, she would return to her peak and fight her way to the other shore just to buy Su Min a few thousand safe years to grow.
So under these circumstances, with this memory fresh in her mind, Su Min turned to the woman beside her, her expression utterly serious, and asked, "Do you have any spare Lunar Sovereign essence blood? I don't need much. Just one drop will suffice."
"What do you want to do with it?" the woman asked, her gaze wary and searching.
"You'll know when the time comes," Su Min said, her expression grave and unreadable. She also needed to confirm, for herself, whether she truly was a nascent Chaos Body, or what critical element might still be missing from achieving a true, complete Chaos Body. The answer, she felt, was close.