The Immortal Gate stood as one of the few havens of stability in these turbulent times, a rock in a rushing river of change. Naturally, it had flourished under this reputation, attracting talent and resources, but today, its inner sanctum was under strict lockdown, accessible only to the highest echelon. Xie Yingying placed a small, unadorned porcelain vial at the center of the chamber's main formation circle, its presence simple yet profound.
"Has the Grand Elder finally returned?" Tian Yinzi gazed at the vial with deep emotion. Su Min was the epitome of a hands off leader, believing in delegating authority and rarely spending extended time micromanaging within the sect. Her absence was felt, but her trust was a powerful motivator.
"I wonder if she obtained the final heavenly treasure. A perfected Five Elements Holy Body... only two have been fully recorded in all of history." His voice was full of awe at the prospect.
Xie Yingying did not respond, her attention fixed on the vial. Such was the life of a true cultivator, she thought, especially one like Su Min, whose unique path was fraught with challenges no one else could fully understand. Her absence was, in a way, a necessity, a price paid for the power to protect what mattered.
Then, without any further warning,
Boom!
The sky above the sect split with a thunderous crack, the sheer force of it shaking the very clouds apart. A blinding pillar of pure white light tore directly through the sect's layered protective formations without damaging them, not shattering the barriers but passing through seamlessly, like a phantom blade slipping cleanly through silk.
And then, she appeared.
A single figure descended from the point of light, her white robes flowing around her like solidified waterlight, the silver embroidery catching the sun with a quiet, dignified brilliance.
Su Min had returned. She wore immaculate white robes etched with intricate, cosmic patterns, the craftsmanship so precise it seemed every stitch held intention. It was not gaudy. Nothing about her ever was. But that subtlety made her all the more arresting. The robe did not cling to her form, but it suggested a latent strength beneath its elegant folds. Its very design was a perfect balance of purity and unspoken command, of modesty and inherent danger. Something about it silently declared that she did not need to reveal an inch of skin to make the world kneel.
Her presence felt utterly otherworldly, not in a fragile way, but with an unreachably distant quality, like a figure from a legend painted across the heavens, half myth, half history. She did not descend like a mere person but arrived like a fundamental truth the world had simply forgotten. There was a weightlessness to her steps, as if gravity itself bent out of reverence rather than physical force. The air around her shimmered faintly, distorted not by heat but by the sheer, palpable tension of time itself brushing against mortal reality.
She was ethereal, yes, but not in the way of the delicate maidens from romantic tales. Her beauty was not designed to soothe. It commanded absolute stillness. It demanded awe.
"Finally back. I would rather die than do another interstellar voyage. That shit was not livable." And with that single, grumbled complaint, the illusion shattered. The grandeur, the immortal mystique, it all collapsed under the weight of her very mortal, very relatable irritation. The figure who had descended like a living myth was suddenly, undeniably, just Su Min again, complaining like someone fresh off a bumpy, interminable cart ride.
"..."
A profound silence filled the sanctum.
Xie Yingying stared, her poised expression faltering for a single instant before she slowly raised a slender hand to her face, covering her eyes as if she could block out the secondhand embarrassment. She exhaled a soft, controlled breath through her nose, as if trying to will the entire undignified moment into silence.
Su Min. Daughter of the Minister of Rites. A young lady once groomed to host elegant poetry salons, recite the Four Books and Five Classics from memory, and glide through palace halls with the effortless elegance expected of highborn daughters.
Not curse the hardships of interstellar travel like a grizzled mercenary just back from a losing campaign.
She had known it was foolish to hold on to that refined image, but some small, stubborn part of her had still wanted to see it, that grace, that refinement, that unshakeable composure. The kind of woman who moved through the world with the quiet, innate pride of old nobility.
But no. Su Min had never played her role the way others wanted her to. She cursed when she felt like it, fought like she had nothing left to lose, and spoke with the cutting, undeniable clarity of someone who had set every stuffy etiquette scroll on fire and dared heaven to object.
And maybe, Xie Yingying admitted to herself, that was precisely why she was so utterly unforgettable.
Still, Xie Yingying could not pretend to be surprised. Su Min's reputation for verbally dismembering her opponents was legendary. Male cultivators, in particular, rarely escaped an encounter unscathed. She did not just insult them; she went straight for the crotch, with precise, ruthless, and unforgettable aim.
She had seen it herself, back during their Foundation Establishment days, when Su Min had mocked a powerful Corpse King's missing parts with terrifying, unblinking poise. And again in the Ancient Battlefield, when she had crushed a Divine Transformation cultivator's ego by clinically diagnosing his impotence mid fight.
Tian Hao had once summed it up best after a particularly brutal verbal exchange: "She does not debate. She castrates."
Xie Yingying let out another quiet breath, somewhere between a sigh and a reluctant, fond laugh. Exasperation and a deep, grudging admiration warred quietly in her chest.
"You are back. There is something we need to, " she began, her voice striving for its usual businesslike tone.
Thud.
Before Xie Yingying could finish her sentence, Su Min's legs simply gave out. She collapsed backward, landing flat on her back on the cool stone floor of the sanctum, staring blankly at the ceiling.
"Ah?!" A rare, sharp crack of alarm slipped through Xie Yingying's iron composure as she rushed to Su Min's side, kneeling swiftly beside her. Her hands moved with practiced, precise urgency, checking for external wounds, feeling for a pulse at her neck, listening for the sound of her breath. But after a tense moment, her shoulders relaxed and she exhaled in quiet relief.
No physical injuries. No signs of Qi deviation or spiritual backlash. Just… profound, bone deep exhaustion.
Decades of traversing the empty, soul crushing void demanded absolute, unceasing mental focus. Even for a Dao Comprehension expert, maintaining such intense spiritual and psychological strain for so long was utterly debilitating. She had fallen into a deep, immediate sleep, something Su Min had not needed to do since she first reached the Golden Core stage.
Xie Yingying stared down at the sleeping face in front of her, serene and strangely youthful in repose, barely frowning, as if even in unconsciousness she carried a thread of her inherent pride. A faint, complicated warmth bloomed in Xie Yingying's chest, sharp and aching.
"Of course you would come back like this." The words were a whisper, meant for no one but herself.
"Sect Master, the Grand Elder, is she...?" Tian Yinzi asked cautiously from the doorway.
"She is fine," Xie Yingying replied without turning, her gaze still fixed on Su Min. Her voice regained its customary calm, but a subtle tightness at its edges betrayed something much deeper. "She is just tired. Crossing the void alone is simply too much for a Dao Comprehension cultivator to endure without cost."
She reached out and gently brushed a stray strand of hair from Su Min's forehead, her fingers lingering against the cool skin for a moment longer than was strictly necessary. "Her spiritual foundation is as rock solid as ever. Prepare the resources we have gathered over the past century. Once she has recovered, she should be able to attempt a breakthrough to the mid stage of Dao Comprehension."
Su Min's consistent progress did not surprise her. Despite being a master alchemist with the means to do otherwise, Su Min had never relied on cultivation boosting pills for her own core advancement. She had always resisted the temptation of rapid, unstable advancement, painstakingly ensuring an unshakable foundation for each step.
"Understood." Tian Yinzi bowed deeply and departed, leaving the two women alone in the quiet sanctum.
Xie Yingying carefully, almost reverently, gathered Su Min into her arms, holding her close as she stood. She was lighter than Xie Yingying had expected, her frame perhaps a little thinner after the long journey. It stirred a small, protective frown that she did not let anyone see.
She carried her through the sect's winding, silent corridors without a word, her steps soundless and steady. The master quarters had been cleaned and aired just the day before; she had insisted on it herself, though no one had dared to ask why.
Inside, the large bed was already made, the silken sheets scented faintly of osmanthus and the subtle, calming herbs Su Min preferred. Xie Yingying laid her down slowly, with a reluctance she would never voice, adjusting the pillow beneath her neck with practiced care. She covered her with a single, light quilt, her fingers brushing against its edge as if she meant to tuck her in properly but then thought better of it, withdrawing her hand.
Then she simply sat on the edge of the bed beside her, saying nothing. The silence was heavy and full. She then reached out, took Su Min's limp hand in her own, and held it loosely between her palms. Just for a moment. Just until the faint, almost imperceptible trembling in her own chest finally calmed.
After all, she was finally here. The century of waiting was over.
And for the first time in a hundred years, Xie Yingying allowed her own rigid posture to soften, allowing herself to rest, too.
Thus, Su Min's long awaited return to the Immortal Gate was marked not by fanfare, but by a profound and quiet simplicity.
-
A full week later, Su Min awoke, her spirit refreshed and her eyes clear once more.
"Oh, you are up. Did you manage to obtain the last heavenly treasure? Show me what a perfected Five Elements Holy Body truly looks like." Xie Yingying's voice, cool and familiar, greeted her the moment she opened her eyes, as if she had been waiting there the entire time.
"Of course! And I missed you so much, !" Su Min lunged forward with sudden, explosive energy, burying her face in Xie Yingying's chest and nuzzling against her like an over affectionate, oversized cat.
"Did the void scramble your brains on the way back?" Xie Yingying stiffened immediately, her body going rigid, but she resisted the powerful, instinctual urge to simply punt the woman across the room.
"Sigh..." Su Min exhaled deeply, the sound theatrically long suffering. She kept her voice deliberately bright and casual. "No brain scrambling. I just figured I would test if you are real or a very vivid, very stubborn illusion conjured by my lonely, void addled mind." She laughed softly, as if it were all a great joke. But her arms, wrapped around Xie Yingying, lingered. Her fingers curled tighter into the fabric of Xie Yingying's robes for a brief second before she consciously forced them to relax.
Though she had lived for centuries, with many of those years spent in the silent, focused stillness of cultivation, this journey had been something else entirely. The void was not tranquil; it was sterile, empty, endless. There were no stars to navigate by after a point, no wind, no heartbeat but her own. Just an immense, swallowing darkness, and time itself stretching so thin she had lost all sense of it.
She had not spoken a single word out loud for years. She had not needed to, there was no one to hear.
But now, Xie Yingying's voice, with its unique, cool timbre, had been the first real sound to pierce that absolute silence. Familiar, unchanging, solid. It had felt like a single, sturdy thread tossed across an endless abyss, and Su Min had clung to it like a lifeline.
"I mean," she added, glancing up with a grin that did not quite reach the depths of her eyes, "you could at least act a little moved. I braved the soul crushing void for you, you know."
Xie Yingying looked down at her, her expression unreadable, a complex mix of exasperation, underlying concern, and something much quieter, much deeper, hiding beneath the surface. She said nothing at first.
But then her hand lifted. It hesitated in the air for a heartbeat.
Then it settled, gently and firmly, on the center of Su Min's back.
She did not speak, but the simple, grounding gesture said enough. "I am here. You made it back."
Su Min did not push further. She could not. Because if she did, the carefully constructed humor would crack, and everything she had kept buried during the long, lonely voyage might spill out. So instead, she just leaned against her, resting her weight there for just a second longer, quietly soaking in the simple, human warmth, the rhythm of a steady breath that was not her own, the grounding, real weight of someone else alive and present beside her.
She had not realized, until this exact moment, just how much she had missed it.
How much she had missed her.
Finally, Xie Yingying spoke, her voice quiet, as if afraid that saying too much would unravel the delicate balance they had found.
"You have been through a lot." She had watched Su Min laugh, tease, and act like her usual, unbothered self, but she was not fooled. Not when Su Min's grip on her robes had trembled for just a moment. Not when she had lingered in the embrace a heartbeat too long. Not when her eyes, though smiling, held a kind of deep, spiritual weariness that no amount of sleep could ever fix.
There was no dramatic outburst, no grand declaration of suffering. Just those four quiet words, offered with a rare, profound tenderness and understanding.
"It was not that bad," Su Min said lightly, tilting her head as if weighing the memory on a whim. "Just a mildly hellish void crossing, a quick deathmatch with a Mahayana level Fallen, and… I picked up a disciple somewhere along the way. You know, standard interdimensional vacation itinerary."
"What?" Xie Yingying's eyes widened, her cool composure shattering. A Mahayana Fallen? The words themselves were terrifying. Even Jiang Xi, dead for who knew how many millennia, could probably annihilate her, a mid stage Dao Comprehension cultivator, without breaking a sweat.
And Su Min had fought one, alone, in a foreign world?
"Relax." Su Min chuckled, trying to deflect the storm of worry and disbelief brewing behind Xie Yingying's eyes. "It was a peak early stage Mahayana, at best. Severely weakened. Not on the same level as a prime Jiang Xi or that monstrous Great Desolate Holy Body that Tian Hao encountered." Su Min waved a dismissive hand, though the memory of that desperate battle still sent a cold shiver down her spine. Had the Bloodfiend Old Demon reclaimed his Heaven grade treasure before the fight, she would have been in real, mortal trouble.
"I had wanted to let you rest longer, but... we need you to handle something." Xie Yingying's expression shifted back to one of practical concern.
"Oh?" Su Min looked at her, curious.
But looking at Xie Yingying, who now offered a small, bitter smile with a look of genuine heartache after hearing her story, Su Min was stunned for a moment.
"A clan from beyond the stars, the Yao Clan, has laid claim to two of our central provinces. Those lands contain the richest spiritual veins critical for our sect's long term resources, veins dense enough to support both of us through to the Unity stage."
"Excuse me?" Su Min's face darkened instantly, all traces of her earlier playfulness vanishing.
"Who the hell dares touch my turf?" Advancing through the Dao Comprehension stage was already exponentially harder than the Divine Transformation stage. Every single step forward was a monumental struggle, and unlike prodigies like Yao Xian'er or that little monk, she was not recultivating with prior knowledge; she was paving a new road. She needed every scrap of resource she could get her hands on.
And now someone was actively trying to steal them?
But, "Where is the Golden Crow in all this?"
"The Golden Crow is a divine beast. While her personal power is immense, directly intervening in internal human conflicts is risky and goes against ancient pacts. Unless they outright provoke her or invade her territory, she will not act." Xie Yingying's tone was heavy with resignation.
"Tch." Su Min understood immediately. It was a matter of precedent and survival. When she had annihilated the Future Maitreya Mountain, she had stood on clear moral high ground, giving the Golden Crow and the Dragon Maiden a justified reason to act without hesitation.
But this was different. This was a political and territorial dispute.
Historical records spoke of an ancient, devastating war, one spanning millennia, where humanity as a collective had clashed with nearly every major divine beast race. In the end, humanity had outlasted them. Not through individually superior strength, but through sheer, relentless endurance and numbers.
Since that cataclysmic conflict, the divine beast clans had largely withdrawn and strictly avoided interfering in the internal affairs and squabbles of humankind.
"What is this clan's specific strength? You could not suppress them yourself?"
"They are an Imperial Clan." Xie Yingying stated flatly.
Su Min's eyebrow twitched. Of course. The continent's five recognized super sects all had true Emperors in their distant lineage, and her own sect leaned heavily on the Golden Crow's prestige. But that number was laughably small compared to the full scope of history. The Golden Core Heavenly Rankings alone had listed over a dozen different Emperor level legacies.
Many Imperial factions must have fled beyond the stars during the last great exodus.
Still, her resolve did not waver. "Do they think I will just back down because of a famous ancestor? How strong are they, right now?"
"Three confirmed Dao Comprehension experts, one at the mid stage like me. Worse, they possess their founding Emperor's ancient scriptures and, most critically, a genuine Imperial Artifact."
"So what? They would not dare use it recklessly here." Su Min sneered, her confidence returning. Her own battle with the Bloodfiend Old Demon had literally reshaped a planet's surface. While the Heavenly Continent was far sturdier, the full, unleashed power of an Imperial Artifact could still devastate entire regions, rendering them uninhabitable for centuries.
The collateral damage, the loss of innocent life and spiritual lands, would be unforgivable. Even cultivators, who were hardly paragons of morality, would not tolerate such indiscriminate, world scarring slaughter from a returning faction.
"Announce my return to the entire world. Let every faction, native and celestial, hear it. None of them will dare make a move now. And crushing their ambitions will be trivial." Su Min's smile was icy and sharp.
She was absolutely certain no other seventh tier high grade alchemist of her caliber existed among these returning clans. The great decline of the Age of Dharma's End had seen to that. Moreover, their arrival did have one unintended benefit: the Fallen's influence and hiding places would be squeezed even further.
In the game's original lore, the Fallen had been largely relegated to background mentions. Now, it seemed their historical suppression had been indirectly tied to these powerful clans' return.
But this, she knew, was only the beginning. The true, sleeping threats, the Mahayana level Fallen, had yet to make their move.
"Understood." Xie Yingying nodded, a look of relief finally easing the tension in her shoulders as she turned to leave.
Su Min settled into a cross legged position on the bed, closing her eyes. Though her little gourd had sustained her life during the voyage, decades of constant spiritual strain had left subtle, almost imperceptible imbalances in her meridians and soul, something her perfectionist nature refused to tolerate.
A week or two of focused adjustment would suffice to smooth everything out.
-
Meanwhile, the news of Su Min's return spread from the Immortal Gate like a wildfire fanned by a gale.
Her motives for the public announcement, however, were not purely defensive.
A full century had passed. A lot could happen in a hundred years. It was time to reap the leeks that had grown fat in her absence.
While the sect had diligently stockpiled resources for her, Su Min personally needed specific, ultra rare materials, especially for the final upgrades to her Medicine King's Cauldron.
As expected, her announcement sent shockwaves through every major and minor faction on the continent. More importantly, they all knew the story of Tian Hao's lover. A devastating, supposedly incurable Dao Injury that had been completely healed by a seventh tier high grade pill crafted by Su Min.
Seventh tier high grade. The words alone were enough to make veteran Dao Comprehension experts salivate.
Though it was not the mythical eighth tier, with only a handful of reclusive Unity stage experts active in the world, Dao Comprehension cultivators were the true powerhouses, the decision makers, the pillars of every major force.
And for them, a pill from Su Min was not just a commodity; it was lifeblood, a second chance, the key to their next breakthrough.
She herself had suffered countless injuries over her career, but as a master alchemist, she had always had the means to recover fully. Most other Dao Comprehension experts lacked that luxury. Many bore accumulated internal wounds from past battles, and some even carried faint Dao Injuries from failed attempts at law comprehension, wounds that festered and hindered their progress.
Thus, within just three days of the announcement, the Eastern Mulberry State was utterly flooded with visitors. Emissaries from factions both native and celestial arrived bearing extravagant gifts and profound humility, desperate for a chance to gain Su Min's favor. Some of the older experts were openly willing to bankrupt their personal treasuries for a single, life changing pill.
But not everyone was celebrating the news.
"That woman is back, and she is making a spectacle of it. A seventh tier high grade alchemist would have been a treated as a revered guest and strategic asset even in that glorious era." A group of grim faced figures gathered in a lavish, secluded hall far from the Immortal Gate. Among them was the very young master who had recently harassed Xie Yingying.
His companions, all powerful Dao Comprehension experts from his clan, radiated oppressive, worried auras. In the modern world, any one of them would be a hegemon, a ruler of millions.
Now, they felt only a growing sense of dread.
Su Min's influence was undeniable, her network potentially vast. One word from her could mobilize enough power to crush their clan's ambitions, if not the clan itself. But those two central provinces were their ancestral home, the very geographical foundation of their lineage and their planned resurgence.
"What do we do now? Open conflict is suicide." One of the elder's voices was gravelly with frustration.
The two senior elders both glared at the Young Master Yao, their expressions accusatory. Their clan's grand return, planned for centuries, had immediately run into a brick wall named Su Min.
Who could have possibly predicted that a monster like her, a once in a millennium talent, would emerge from this backwater world during the Age of Dharma's End?
===
Too much candy~~~