"Elder Zhong, what are you doing?"
At this moment, a late Nascent Soul stage cultivator stationed as a sentry in the sky flew up, his voice a mixture of confusion and alarm. His gaze immediately fell upon the several Divine Transformation stage powerhouses floating ominously in the air, their auras radiating intent. But one among them was someone he recognized all too well, a sight that made his blood run cold.
Zhong Ming, one of the alliance's five great elders, a pillar of their society from the prestigious Zhong Family.
"Die."
However, Zhong Ming showed no interest in conversation or explanation. Instead, he raised his hand with contemptuous ease and swatted down at him like he was nothing more than an irritating fly. There was no need for concealment anymore, so his strike was ruthless and without hesitation.
Crack!
The next moment, a sharp, shattering collision sound rang out. The late Nascent Soul stage cultivator remained unharmed, but only because the fortress's grand defensive formation had activated at the last second, absorbing most of the attack's devastating force. However, as a cost, spiderweb cracks rapidly spread across the shimmering energy shield before it began its slow, laborious process of repairing itself.
These fortresses were designed by a grand formation master from the alliance. They were meant to withstand immense pressure, and even Divine Transformation stage cultivators couldn't easily shatter them with a single blow.
"The three of us will attack together and break that turtle shell."
Zhong Ming wasted no words when he saw the fortress below holding firm. He had already secretly relocated his core clansmen, but he needed to act swiftly. If alliance reinforcements arrived, complications would arise. After all, no one knew how many hidden cards that woman, Lin Yao, still had up her sleeve.
Almost instantly, the massive blood drenched sword expanded violently, humming with a power that made the very air vibrate. A blade of energy, colossal enough to split the heavens and earth, materialized above them, radiating waves of pure destruction and chilling death.
The entire fortress was engulfed in that oppressive aura of death. Inside, Lin Yao immediately grabbed Su Min's sleeve, her knuckles white. This was far beyond her level of involvement; it was an apocalyptic event. In fact, even the late Nascent Soul stage cultivator on the ground was drenched in a cold sweat, his face pale.
"Reinforcements, how long until they arrive?!" he yelled into his communicator.
Bzzzt—
At this moment, all he could do was desperately call for help. Unfortunately, the enemy had already taken measures to block all transmissions. No messages could get through, leaving them isolated.
Though Zhong Ming had prepared for his family's eventual exposure, he still preferred to avoid it if possible. This strike was meant to annihilate the fortress below completely. Even if that woman somehow survived, everyone else would die, erasing all witnesses.
Wuuu—
The entire base was now filled with the wails of despair as the aura of death loomed over them, a palpable weight pressing down on every soul. The blood red great sword had fully formed, and none present could hope to resist its descent.
Many instinctively hugged themselves or each other, trembling uncontrollably. When the immense pressure began to seep through the cracking formation, pressing down on their bodies and spirits, everyone knew death was inevitable.
Even the Golden Core and Nascent Soul stage cultivators felt utterly helpless against this world ending strike.
"Communications are cut off. But if we can just hold out for a few minutes, reinforcements will arrive, they have to," Lin Yao said, grabbing Su Min's arm anxiously. But this time, Su Min gently but firmly ignored her. She had already vanished from the room in a blur, reappearing on the chaotic battlefield outside, a solitary figure against the apocalyptic sky.
At that moment, the great sword finished its preparations. A wave of death and terror surged forth. A Heaven rank high grade treasure carried its own terrifying laws, a shred of Mahayana level power, something no ordinary Divine Transformation stage cultivator could ever hope to resist. If Su Min hadn't reached the Dao Comprehension stage, her only option would have been to grab Lin Yao and flee as fast as possible.
"Scarlet Holy Sword, Annihilation of Heaven and Earth."
As the attack reached its completion, a bloody aura erupted from the great sword, spreading across the entire planet's atmosphere in an instant. Whether it was day or night on any given continent, everything was dyed a sinister, bloody crimson.
This wasn't a good sign, it meant the three couldn't fully control the energy they were unleashing, causing it to spill out uncontrollably. Every cultivator on the planet sensed the terrifying pressure, and all Divine Transformation stage experts immediately began rushing toward the source.
The three had no retreat now. The colossal sword of energy began its descent upon the earth with devastating, deliberate force. If this strike landed true, the destruction would rival any recorded earthquake or cataclysm in history.
A Heaven rank high grade treasure, a Mahayana stage powerhouse's core weapon, was not to be underestimated. In the hands of a peak Mahayana expert, it was said one could even cleave a planet in half.
These three couldn't hope to reach that level, but the power they were unleashing was still immense enough to scour the landscape clean.
But at that moment, Su Min's hands moved swiftly, forming a series of intricate seals. The Northern Water's Profound Origin within her surged wildly, a deep, abyssal power rising to her call.
"Black Tortoise Shield, Shield Wall!"
In the next instant, countless hexagonal shields, dark as the deepest ocean and hard as the world's foundation, materialized before her, layering over each other to form an impenetrable, domed barrier, the legendary shell of the Black Tortoise.
"What is that?!"
The three in the sky were stunned. In the blink of an eye, the entire fortress had transformed into a fortress within a tortoise shell, something completely outside their intelligence reports. No matter how much the fortress's own defenses activated, this shouldn't have happened.
But it was too late to reconsider. The arrow was already loosed. The blood red great sword collided with the immense black shell, and in the next moment,
The world lost all color, washed out in a blast of pure white. A tempest of released energy raged.
All the shockwaves were blocked by the massive shell and reflected back up into the sky. The cultivators rushing over from across the planet were sent flying like leaves in a gale by the violent, outward rushing energy.
Fortunately, this cataclysm occurred tens of thousands of meters in the air, sparing the ground below from total annihilation. Even so, global communications were completely disrupted. The shockwaves persisted for a full, long minute before finally dissipating, leaving an eerie silence.
Inside the fortress, everyone stared in stunned disbelief at the slender, unmoving figure hovering in the sky before them.
Mouths hung open in shock, even Lin Yao's. Previously, Su Min's victories had been so swift and overwhelming that Lin Yao hadn't fully grasped the sheer depth of her strength. But now, facing an attack that could have erased them all, it was crystal clear, she was terrifyingly powerful.
"We survived... Which elder is that senior?" someone whispered, their voice trembling with relief.
"Don't know. I have never seen her before in my life."
"Maybe a reclusive expert from the inner continents?"
"Are you stupid? Look at her, she is clearly young!" another argued, though the concept of age was meaningless at such power levels.
The base was filled with the palpable relief of a narrow escape, every single person gazing at the figure in the sky with newfound reverence.
"Ahem, Senior, you, wait, it is you?!" The late Nascent Soul stage cultivator flew up cautiously to express his gratitude, but his words caught in his throat as he froze, finally recognizing Su Min's face. She was the mysterious expert who had emerged from the land of the Filth Beasts. They had assumed she had left their world long ago. Who would have guessed she was still here, living among them?
Hmph.
Su Min ignored his stunned recognition and flew higher, arriving calmly before the three utterly stunned figures hovering by their now dimmed sword.
"You?!" one of them stammered.
"So you are the one behind that woman?!" another exclaimed, the pieces clicking into place.
The three were completely dumbfounded. No matter how they had calculated, run scenarios, or planned, they never, ever expected Lin Yao's backer to be Su Min. She was a variable from entirely outside their frame of reference.
"What is wrong? Did you think you could keep scheming against my little disciple without me noticing?" Su Min smirked, a glint of amusement in her eyes. The Heaven rank high grade treasure had been utterly wasted in their clumsy hands. She had been holding a seventh grade recovery pill just in case, but in the end, her Black Tortoise Shield Wall had effortlessly blocked their strongest attack.
These three were nothing special.
"Wait, so it was you?!" Zhong Ming suddenly realized something, his face shifting through expressions of shock and dawning horror as he pointed a trembling finger at Su Min.
"Indeed." Su Min admitted cheerfully, further shocking the three and confirming their worst fears.
"Senior... you are at the Dao Comprehension stage?!" Even these shameless, hardened individuals were stunned into a kind of reverent terror. A Dao Comprehension stage powerhouse had been hiding in the shadows, watching their every move? They would never have guessed. With that kind of strength, she could have crushed them outright from the very beginning. Why be so cautious? Did she ever consider her opponents' feelings? This was outright overkill!
"Disciple... Wuwu, this is great!" Unlike the three frozen in shock, Lin Yao below was jumping for joy like an ecstatic child, all her fear forgotten. Su Min had finally, formally acknowledged her.
"Miss Lin, that is your master? Wait, your rapid rise coincided with her arrival here." Not just the three in the sky, even the late Nascent Soul stage cultivator hovering nearby was stunned. He looked at Lin Yao with newfound, profound awe. Even if her own strength was negligible in his eyes, her master was a different story entirely. A Dao Comprehension stage expert, to him, that was akin to a living deity.
"Mhm." Lin Yao nodded excitedly, her heart fit to burst. This was the acknowledgment she had dreamed of but never dared to demand.
Sigh, "You should have said so earlier. Who would dare harass you then? And thank you for your mercy, Miss Lin." The Nascent Soul stage cultivator smiled bitterly. Had they known Lin Yao had such a formidable backer, anyone who had even thought of offending her would have preemptively crushed themselves. Before she had reached the Golden Core stage, many forces had tried to pressure her into marriages or servitude. After all, a young, beautiful, and powerfully talented female cultivator was a coveted resource for any family, as the children of two strong cultivators had a higher chance of inheriting that strength.
"Ah..." Lin Yao could only smile wryly in response. The truth was, Su Min had not acknowledged her as a disciple before, and after providing some initial guidance, she had gone into seclusion to break through. What could Lin Yao have possibly done? She could not exactly go around boasting without permission.
But the conversation below did not interest the four in the sky.
Especially since the three, after their initial shock, exchanged a determined glance and reactivated the great sword, its bloody light flickering back to life. In a way, this was good news for them. If she was not a Mahayana stage expert's contingency plan but a living, present Dao Comprehension stage cultivator, the difficulty of the task had actually decreased in their minds. She could be killed.
"Hmph."
Seeing them foolishly reactivate the sword, Su Min sneered internally. Though she did not know exactly what they were thinking, they clearly had not grasped the true gap between them. But regardless, their strength was fundamentally limited. They could not even unleash ten percent of the Heaven rank treasure's true potential power.
They could not truly harm her, even if they used all their Nascent Soul stage cultivators as fuel. Su Min's goal here was simple, to pressure them to the absolute brink without killing them. She needed the location of their final, most secret base. According to her extracted intel, its coordinates were sealed behind a powerful soul oath, something she could not simply extract via mind reading.
All she knew was that it housed a unique black and white Kirin egg and possibly a method to awaken the fallen powerhouse behind them. Her plan was to force them to retreat there in desperation, retrieve the Black Kirin egg, and leave before that being fully awoke. So as the three braced themselves for another attack, Su Min simply clasped her hands behind her back, looking utterly unconcerned.
"!!!"
The three were puzzled by her nonchalance, until their expressions twisted into pure, unadulterated horror.
Because behind Su Min, a radiant, golden light erupted, piercing through the residual bloody aura. A colossal, serene yet terrifyingly powerful illusory Buddha slowly materialized, filling the sky behind her.
This was not the Wooden Buddha from before, but a new fusion, forged after obtaining the Western Metal's Sharp Gold and advancing to the Dao Comprehension stage.
It was an enhanced, more potent version of the original. Yet the moment it appeared, the three paled, feeling their very souls tremble.
They sensed a terrifying aura from it, an illusion, yet one that seemed completely fused with the cosmos itself. After mastering all four divine beasts' legacies, Su Min could synchronize her techniques with heaven and earth itself, drawing power from the world.
"Thousand-Handed Annihilation."
Without sparing them another glance, Su Min spoke the words softly. In the next instant, countless golden palms blotted out the sky, crashing toward them like a celestial avalanche.
The three's faces contorted in absolute terror. They could feel that any single one of those strikes carried enough power to erase them from existence. They knew the gap between Divine Transformation and Dao Comprehension was vast, but this was absurd! This was not a gap, it was an unbridgeable chasm.
"Heaven Earth Obliteration Slash!!!"
In desperation, the three fed more Nascent Soul stage cultivators from the canisters into the sword as fuel, burning lives for a fleeting burst of power. The world trembled under the violent, clashing shockwaves, any one of which was capable of crippling a regular Divine Transformation stage expert. By now, every Divine Transformation stage cultivator in the alliance had arrived, hovering at a distance and staring in disbelief. They realized with stark clarity, this battle was far, far beyond their level of participation.
"The heretics... how are they this strong?!" The alliance's own strongest expert shuddered, watching the exchange. That eerie blood red sword was actually managing to block a Dao Comprehension stage expert's apocalyptic strikes, and the three users' cultivation levels, one late Divine Transformation stage and two mid stage, was a lineup beyond his own ability to face.
Wait, why did one of the mid stage cultivators look so familiar...
"Dammit, we have been betrayed!!!" someone from the alliance forces shouted, the realization dawning.
===
Yun Jin was supposed to die—a forgettable cannon fodder chewed up by the plot to make the real heroine shine. But after centuries of grinding through infinite worlds as a system's lackey, she's back, armed with a golden finger that's anything but conventional.
Meet the "Super Simplified System." Its goal? Make cultivation stupidly easy.
Problem? To keep it running, Yun Jin needs emotional fuel—and the more chaos she causes, the more points she gets.
—Trying to meditate? Simplified. Now she absorbs qi by… snacking on melon seeds.
—Sect elders preaching discipline? Oops. She just yawned mid-lecture—+500 Emotion Points.
—Destined to be a nobody? Not today. Every outraged gasp, every baffled stare—power-ups in disguise.
Between accidentally trolling the entire cultivation world and rewriting her "doormat" destiny, Yun Jin's counterattack is a masterclass in productive pandemonium. Who needs hard work when you can harvest rage, confusion, and sheer disbelief—and call it cultivation?
Chaos. Comedy. Comeuppance.
(And maybe, just maybe, world domination.)
Stay tune for the new novel~ "Troublemaker's Guide to Immortality"
I was too happy and couldn't help myself to add more novel to my already stacked project. Anyway thanks for the support!!!