The walk down from the summit of Jade Emperor Peak was a silent, heavy affair. The four friends, once a tight-knit group of equals, were now separated by a chasm of power and a world-ending secret. Jin, Mei, and Guan kept stealing glances at Wei, their minds struggling to reconcile the reclusive, eccentric poison master they had known for centuries with the Spirit Emperor who had hidden his true cultivation from everyone, a being on par with the sect's revered Old Ancestor.
They did not speak until they were back within the familiar, fragrant air of Silent Bloom Peak, seated around the simple stone table in Wei's courtyard. The silence was finally broken by Guan, who slammed his hand on the table, though the sound was uncharacteristically subdued.
"A Spirit Emperor!" he half-shouted, half-whispered, his face a mask of disbelief. "All this time, you've been a bloody Spirit Emperor! While I was bragging about my new formation arrays, you were in a realm I can only dream of. Why, Wei? Why keep it a secret from us?"
"Would it have changed anything?" Wei asked calmly, pouring tea with a steady hand. "Would your formations have been stronger? Would Mei's beasts have been more loyal? Would Jin's fists have been harder? My cultivation is my own path. It did not affect yours."
"It affects our trust!" Guan retorted, though his anger was already fading, replaced by a sense of awe.
"No," Elder Jin said, his deep voice cutting through the tension. He looked at Wei, his expression not one of betrayal, but of dawning understanding. "It makes sense. The Blackwood Sect, the Grey Rot... the ease with which you handled it all. It was never a battle of equals. You were a giant swatting flies." He shook his head slowly. "I am not angry, Wei. I am... humbled."
Mei, who had been quietly observing, finally spoke, her voice soft. "The Sect Master has placed the weight of the world on your shoulders. To travel north, to face this... Void Corruption alone... it is a death sentence." Her eyes were filled with a deep, genuine worry for her friend.
"Perhaps," Wei conceded. "But it is also the most fascinating puzzle I have ever encountered. A poison that consumes reality itself. Its mechanism, its composition... it is the ultimate expression of the Dao of Destruction. To study it, to understand it, is a temptation no true scholar of my art could resist."
His clinical, academic curiosity in the face of a world-ending threat was more chilling to them than any display of anger would have been. They were thinking of survival, of saving the world. He was thinking of research.
"While you are gone," Jin said, his tone shifting to a grim seriousness, "we will handle the sect. Jian Feng and his faction will not be idle. With the Old Ancestor's time running out, they will see it as an opportunity to seize power."
"Jian Feng is a sword," Wei said, a thoughtful look in his eyes. "He is sharp, direct, and believes any problem can be solved by cutting it. He lacks subtlety. Do not meet him on his terms. Do not engage in direct confrontations of power or authority. That is the battle he wants, the one he thinks he can win." He looked at Guan. "Your formations are not just for battle. Use them to create illusions, to misdirect, to sow confusion among his followers." He then turned to Mei. "Your beasts are not just weapons. They are the perfect spies. Use them to listen, to gather information. Know his plans before he even makes them." Finally, he looked at Jin. "And you, old friend, are the unbreakable shield. You are a symbol of stability. Let him break himself against your stoicism. Let his ambition be his own undoing."
He was not just their friend; he was their strategist, giving them a blueprint for the political war that was to come.
He then stood up. "I will need three days to prepare. After that, I will depart."
He left them in the courtyard and sealed himself in his pagoda one last time. The fate of the world was a heavy burden, but his immediate priority was practical. He was walking into a land where reality itself was unraveling. He needed tools that could function in such an environment, tools that only his system could provide.
He focused his mind, communing with the Venomous Sovereign System. The mission bestowed upon him by the Sect Master was of a scale that transcended personal gain. The system, in its cold, mechanical logic, seemed to agree. In response to the unprecedented threat, it granted him access to three critical, mission-specific abilities, a necessary upgrade for the impossible task ahead.
The first was a profound understanding of a single, complex rune called the 'Rune of Unchanging Self'. The knowledge flowed into his mind, detailing how to inscribe it upon his own soul to anchor his personal reality, making him immune to any external law-altering effects. The Void Corruption erased the laws of the world; this rune would ensure that Wei's own personal laws remained intact.
The second was a technique called the 'Art of the Star-Stepping Phantom'. It was not a flying technique, but a spatial one. It allowed the user to find and step upon the "cracks" in reality, the seams between the folds of space, allowing for instantaneous, untraceable movement over vast distances. In a land where the world was literally breaking apart, these cracks would be everywhere.
The final gift was an alchemical recipe for a pill called the 'Pill of Eternal Sustenance'. A single pill, once consumed, would draw upon the latent energy of the void itself to nourish the body and spirit, eliminating the need for food, water, or even spiritual energy absorption for a full century. It was the ultimate survival tool for a long, lonely journey into a dead land.
He was now equipped. He spent the next three days in a deep meditative state. He painstakingly inscribed the 'Rune of Unchanging Self' directly onto his shadowy Nascent Soul, a process of such intense focus that it made the Nine Transformations feel like child's play. He then absorbed the knowledge of the Star-Stepping Phantom art and brewed a single, perfect Pill of Eternal Sustenance, which he consumed immediately. A feeling of profound, self-contained completeness settled over him. He was now an ecosystem of one, needing nothing from the outside world to survive.
On the dawn of the fourth day, he was ready. He did not say his goodbyes. His friends knew he was leaving. There was nothing left to be said.
He stood at the highest point of Silent Bloom Peak, looking north. His 'Domain of Abyssal Stillness' was active, and the world around him seemed to hold its breath. He took a single step.
The world did not blur. He did not shoot forward like a streak of light. Instead, reality itself seemed to crack before him, a tiny, hairline fracture of blackness appearing in the air. He stepped into it and vanished without a sound.
Miles away, high above the sect, he reappeared, taking another step into another crack, his movements silent, instantaneous, and utterly untraceable. He was a phantom, walking on the broken seams of the world, heading north towards a creeping, silent doom.
His heart held no fear, no sense of heroic duty. There was only the cold, burning curiosity of the ultimate poison master, traveling to the edge of the world to study the final, most perfect poison: the death of reality itself.