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Chapter 3: The Demon That Bent Law
The air here… was alive.
Not simply filled with Qi, but saturated with sentience—divine threads of cosmic law interwoven into the very atmosphere. A lesser ascendant would've been torn apart trying to breathe it. The Upper Realm did not welcome intruders. It tested them.
But Ryu Yeon-Hwa wasn't a visitor.
He was a contaminant.
And this new world would learn it could not contain him.
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He floated above an endless jade ocean of clouds. Celestial beasts weaved through the mist below like dragons under glass. Far above, immortal stars pulsed with will, orbiting in spirals too perfect to be natural.
The Qi here was vast… but rigid. It obeyed sacred hierarchies, flowing only to those marked by bloodlines, divine clans, or heavenly blessings.
Yeon-Hwa had none of these.
And yet—
"Kneel." he whispered.
Not a command to people.
But to the very laws of Heaven.
The Qi around him resisted for a heartbeat. Then—like a blade slicing silk—it buckled.
A vortex exploded from his body, silent yet catastrophic.
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In the Heavenly Realms
Across layered realms the size of universes, phenomena erupted:
Entire rivers of star-essence reversed direction
Primordial formations flickered and recalculated
Divine spirit-beasts howled in confused fear
One of the Seven Jade Thrones cracked, just slightly—but enough for its seated elder to bleed from the eye
"What is this rejection…?" a Dao Monarch murmured. "Who rewrote the eternal laws?"
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Back with Yeon-Hwa
He exhaled slowly, and the Qi of this foreign universe entered his body. It resisted like a beast being tamed—but was soon bent, twisted, refined through the Sutra of the Blooming Void.
His unique cultivation method didn't clash with the realm. It seduced it.
"There you are," he muttered. "The structure beneath your order…"
He felt it now. How Qi here moved in strict lines. How laws punished beauty and softness as 'useless', and honored rigidity and control.
It disgusted him.
So he gathered his spiritual energy and performed a single gesture—a bloom mudra, traced through the air with his finger.
> A lotus of silk and shadow bloomed at his back—its petals wide enough to eclipse cities.
> It radiated temptation, grace, and superiority.
It was not an attack.
It was a statement.
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Reaction from the Realms
From across the Grand Upper Echelon, powerful beings turned toward the spectacle:
A reclusive cultivation genius muttered, "Who dares unfold Dao in the sky?"
A sect of immortals gathered their heavenly mirrors, terrified to look, terrified not to
An ancient clan that prided itself on never bowing… instinctively lowered their heads when the lotus appeared
And yet, none could see the face of the man who caused it.
Only the symbol remained: a lotus made of pure rebellion, basking in silken radiance.
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Yeon-Hwa's Awakening
Sitting calmly at the lotus center, Yeon-Hwa smiled faintly.
"This realm will not destroy me. It will bloom with me."
The first seeds of his sect had just been planted.
Not in soil.
But in the Laws of the Dao itself.
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