The passage sealed behind Su Chen with a sound like reality itself clicking into place, and he found himself standing in what could only be described as a corridor of contradictions. The walls were simultaneously solid stone and empty void, the floor both present beneath his feet and absent in terrifying stretches of nothingness. The air tasted of ozone and impossibility, carrying the metallic tang of something fundamental being twisted into configurations it was never meant to hold.
Su Chen's dual pupils immediately began their analysis, but for the first time since he had awakened them, they struggled to provide coherent information. The golden eye showed him energy flows that looped back on themselves in causal violations, while the silver eye revealed spatial structures that existed and didn't exist in the same breath. It was as though the passage had been constructed not in normal space, but rather in the gaps between states of being—the infinitesimal moments when something transitioned from one form to another.
"Clever," Su Chen murmured, genuine appreciation coloring his tone. "The trial doesn't test whether I can move quickly through different states. It tests whether I can exist in the transition itself."
He took a step forward, and immediately his body began to destabilize. His flesh flickered between solid matter and pure energy, his bones oscillated between calcium and crystallized spiritual power, and his blood shifted from liquid to plasma to something that might have been condensed space itself. The sensation was profoundly disorienting, like being torn apart and reassembled thousands of times per second, each reconstruction slightly different from the last.
Most cultivators would have panicked at this point, their survival instincts screaming at them to retreat back to stable reality. But Su Chen had long since trained himself to treat his body as a tool rather than an inviolable sanctuary. He had died and been resurrected through the T-Virus, had his genetic structure rewritten by Dragon Blood, had his bones replaced with Supreme Sword essence, and had undergone countless other transformations. His sense of self was not tied to any particular physical configuration.
Instead of fighting the destabilization, Su Chen relaxed into it, allowing his existence to flow between states without resistance. The Indestructible Diamond Body provided an anchor—not by preventing change, but by ensuring that no matter how drastically his form shifted, the fundamental core of his being remained intact. His consciousness, elevated to near-Sovereign levels through the combination of Tatsumaki's psychokinesis and the Perfect World's cultivation system, maintained perfect clarity even as his body became a blur of potential states.
The Origin Mirror pulsed within his consciousness, its presence a constant that transcended physical form. Su Chen realized with sudden insight that the artifact had always existed in this transitional state—it was neither fully real nor fully conceptual, but rather occupied the space between idea and manifestation. That was how it could copy anything; it existed in the same liminal realm where all things were equally undefined and therefore equally accessible.
"Show me," Su Chen commanded, directing his will toward the Mirror. "Reveal the pattern underlying this chaos."
The artifact responded, and Su Chen's perception suddenly expanded beyond the confines of his fluctuating body. He saw the passage not as a physical space but as a diagram of transformation itself—a living equation that described how anything could become anything else given the correct sequence of intermediary states. The Kun Peng had not merely learned to transform between fish and bird; it had mastered the fundamental principle of metamorphosis, understanding that all forms were simply stable points in an infinite continuum of possibility.
The walls of the passage were covered in glyphs that Su Chen had initially dismissed as decorative, but now he recognized them as a comprehensive treatise on existential flux. Each symbol represented a different category of transformation—physical to energy, matter to void, real to conceptual, living to dead and back again. They were arranged in sequences that described transformation pathways, showing how one could move from any starting point to any destination by passing through the appropriate intermediate states.
Su Chen extended his hand toward the nearest glyph, a complex character that depicted the transformation from solid matter to pure spatial distortion. The moment his fluctuating fingers made contact, knowledge flooded his mind—not mere intellectual understanding, but visceral, experiential comprehension of what it meant to stop being physical and become the warping of space itself.
His body responded immediately, and for a fraction of a second, Su Chen ceased to exist as a material entity. He became instead a localized distortion in the fabric of reality, a place where straight lines curved and distances became meaningless. In that state, he could perceive things that were normally hidden—the formation arrays underlying the passage revealed themselves completely, the spatial coordinates of distant locations became as clear as if they were right beside him, and he could sense the presence of other beings attempting the trials in different parts of the nest as though they were pressed against his non-existent skin.
Then the moment passed, and he snapped back into material existence, his body reconstituting from the spatial distortion with a sensation like being born. He gasped—not from pain, but from the sheer overwhelming intensity of having experienced reality from a completely alien perspective. For that brief instant, he had not merely understood spatial manipulation intellectually; he had *been* space, had felt what it was like to be the medium through which all things moved and existed.
"Again," Su Chen growled, already reaching for the next glyph. This one depicted transformation from living flesh to undead essence, a pathway he had some familiarity with through his Lich Bloodline. But his previous understanding had been superficial, a surface-level grasp of death energy and necromantic principles. Now, as he touched the glyph, he experienced the transformation from the inside.
His heart stopped. Not gradually, not as a failure of biology, but instantly—switching from living organ to inert matter as though someone had flipped a switch. His blood ceased flowing, his neurons stopped firing, and his spiritual energy inverted from the warm vitality of life to the cold permanence of death. Yet his consciousness remained, anchored by his Sovereign-level mental strength, allowing him to experience death while maintaining awareness.
In that state of undeath, Su Chen perceived the world through entirely different senses. Living things appeared as bright flames of thermal and spiritual energy, while the inanimate world faded into gray insignificance. He could feel the pull of the underworld, the vast emptiness that waited beyond the threshold of mortality, calling to him with promises of eternal rest. But he also felt the threads that connected him to his physical form, the ties of blood and bone and cultivated power that refused to let him slip away completely.
He held the undead state for three full seconds, exploring its nature, before allowing himself to shift back to life. The transition was explosive—his heart restarted with the force of a sledgehammer blow, his blood surged through his veins like a tidal wave, and his neurons fired in a cascade of electrical activity that made his vision white out momentarily. When clarity returned, he found himself on his knees, gasping for breath even though his body hadn't technically needed oxygen for the past several minutes.
"I see," Su Chen said between breaths, a manic grin spreading across his face despite the discomfort. "This is the true nature of the Kun Peng's transformation. Not merely changing shape, but fundamentally altering the category of existence. The fish and bird forms were just the most obvious manifestation—the technique allows transition between any states, including those that should be mutually exclusive."
He rose to his feet, his body stabilizing as he adapted to the passage's destabilizing influence. The flickering between states continued, but now he rode the fluctuations instead of being battered by them, synchronizing his existence with the rhythm of transformation itself. Each shift became a step forward, carrying him deeper into the passage as he literally walked through different states of being.
The glyphs passed by in a blur as Su Chen touched each one, absorbing their lessons with greedy intensity. Transformation from flesh to metal, teaching him how biological matter could adopt the properties of inorganic materials without dying. Transformation from matter to energy, revealing the equations that governed mass-energy conversion at the quantum level. Transformation from singular to plural, demonstrating how one existence could split into multiple independent instances before reconverging into unified wholeness.
Each transformation carried risks. When Su Chen attempted the flesh-to-metal conversion, his blood began crystallizing into iron, threatening to clog his circulatory system before he managed to reverse the process. The matter-to-energy transformation was even more dangerous—for a terrifying moment, his consciousness dispersed across countless photons scattering in all directions, and only the Origin Mirror's anchoring presence allowed him to pull himself back together. The singular-to-plural split created a situation where three different Su Chens briefly existed simultaneously, each one complete and independent, leading to a nauseating moment of triple-consciousness before they merged back into one.
But with each successful transformation, Su Chen's mastery grew. He began to understand the fundamental principle that united all these disparate changes—the concept of the "transition state," the infinitesimal moment between what-was and what-would-be. By learning to extend and inhabit that moment, he could exist between categories, enjoying the benefits of multiple states simultaneously without suffering the contradictions that should make such existence impossible.
Time became difficult to track in the passage. Su Chen's perception warped along with his physical form, moments stretching into subjective hours when he slowed his personal timeframe, then compressing into microseconds when he accelerated. He might have been walking for minutes or days—there was no way to tell in this space where normal causality held no authority.
Eventually, the passage opened into another chamber, larger than the first checkpoint but far stranger in composition. The floor was a patchwork of different materials that shifted and changed as Su Chen watched—stone becoming water becoming fire becoming void in endless cycles. The walls displayed images of the Kun Peng, but these were not static carvings. Instead, they showed the creature in the actual process of transformation, captured in the precise instant between fish and bird, simultaneously both and neither.
At the center of the chamber stood a pedestal, and upon that pedestal rested an egg. Not a physical egg, though it resembled one superficially. Su Chen's dual pupils revealed its true nature immediately—it was a crystallization of pure transformation potential, a condensed mass of possibility that could become absolutely anything given the correct catalyst.
"The second trial," a voice echoed through the chamber, and Su Chen recognized it as the Kun Peng's remnant will from earlier, though now it carried additional weight and presence. "You have demonstrated understanding of individual transformations. Now prove that you comprehend the principle underlying all change. This egg contains infinite potential but no defined nature. Give it form through your will, and if your understanding is sufficient, it will accept your definition and hatch into existence. Fail, and the backlash will erase you from reality, transforming you into undifferentiated potential that will be absorbed into the egg for the next challenger to attempt."
Su Chen approached the pedestal slowly, his mind racing through possibilities. This was not a test of power but of comprehension—he needed to understand what the egg fundamentally was before he could successfully define what it should become. The wrong approach would indeed be fatal; attempting to force a transformation without proper understanding would be like trying to impose order on chaos through brute strength alone, and chaos always won such confrontations eventually.
He circled the pedestal, examining the egg from every angle. His golden pupil showed him the energy flows within—chaotic, turbulent, containing elements of every form of power he had ever encountered and countless more he hadn't. His silver pupil revealed the spatial structure—the egg existed in superposition across infinite potential timelines, simultaneously being and becoming everything it could possibly be.
"It's not about choosing what you want it to become," Su Chen murmured, understanding crystallizing in his mind. "It's about recognizing what it already is."
He reached out and placed both hands on the egg's surface. The moment contact was established, he felt the full force of its infinite potential trying to drag his consciousness into its chaotic depths. It wanted to dissolve his sense of self, to add his existence to its infinite catalogue of possibilities. Most cultivators would have panicked and tried to pull away, triggering the defensive backlash the remnant will had warned about.
Instead, Su Chen dove deeper into the chaos, abandoning any attempt to impose order from without. His consciousness expanded, spreading through the egg's infinite potential like ink dispersing in water. He stopped trying to observe it as an external object and instead became part of it, experiencing its nature from within.
From that perspective, everything became clear. The egg was not truly chaotic—it only appeared that way from outside because it contained every possible form of order simultaneously, and the interference patterns between them created an appearance of randomness. It was like looking at a painting from so close that you could only see individual brushstrokes; pull back far enough, and the complete image would reveal itself.
Su Chen pulled his awareness back, but not all the way to his normal perspective. Instead, he found the middle distance, the point where he could perceive both the infinite details and the unified whole simultaneously. From that vantage, the egg's true nature revealed itself.
It was not merely potential waiting to be defined. It was a question waiting to be answered, a riddle whose solution would determine what form it took. And the question it asked was simple, yet profound: "What is transformation?"
Different answers would produce different results. If someone answered that transformation was the replacement of one thing with another, the egg would hatch into a tool for shapeshifting—powerful, certainly, but limited to surface changes. If someone answered that transformation was the destruction of the old to make room for the new, it would become a weapon of annihilation that could erase and remake reality.
But Su Chen had learned a deeper truth through his journey down the passage. Transformation was not replacement or destruction. It was revelation—the process of making manifest what had always been potentially present. A caterpillar didn't become a butterfly by destroying its caterpillar-nature; it revealed the butterfly that had always existed within its genetic code, waiting for the right conditions to emerge.
"You are not potential waiting to be defined," Su Chen said aloud, speaking directly to the egg. "You are everything, everywhere, everywhen, all at once. Transformation is not about becoming something new—it is about revealing which aspect of your infinite nature is most relevant to the current moment."
The egg pulsed under his hands, and he felt something shift deep within its core. The chaotic energy flows began to synchronize, not by eliminating diversity but by finding harmony within it. The infinite potential timelines started to resonate with each other rather than interfering, creating standing waves of probability that reinforced instead of canceling out.
The egg began to crack, fracture lines spreading across its surface like lightning bolts frozen in crystal. Light poured from the gaps—not any single color, but all colors simultaneously, a spectrum that included shades that shouldn't exist in normal reality. The chamber trembled, and Su Chen felt the formation arrays throughout the entire Kun Peng Nest responding to what was happening, recognizing that something significant was occurring.
With a final crystalline chime that seemed to resonate in dimensions beyond the merely physical, the egg shattered. Fragments of solidified potential scattered across the chamber floor, where they immediately began transforming into different materials—some became precious gems, others turned into spirit herbs, still others shifted into elemental essences. But these were merely the shell, the container that had held the true treasure.
Floating in the space where the egg had been was a technique manual, though "manual" was perhaps too mundane a term for what Su Chen's senses detected. It was information in its purest form, compressed into a crystalline matrix that contained not merely words or images but actual experiential knowledge. Anyone who absorbed it would not simply learn about the technique—they would remember having practiced it for thousands of years, would possess muscle memory for transformations they had never physically performed.
The manual's title wrote itself across Su Chen's vision in characters that shifted between every language that had ever existed: **"The Primordial Metamorphosis Sutra—Complete Edition."**
Su Chen's hand shot out and grasped the manual before it could fully materialize, pulling it against his chest. The Origin Mirror activated instantly, copying not just the manual itself but the entire conceptual framework it represented. Knowledge flooded his consciousness in a torrent that would have destroyed a lesser mind.
The Sutra contained nine major transformation categories, each divided into eighty-one minor variations, creating a total of seven hundred and twenty-nine distinct transformation pathways. But more than that, it contained the meta-technique—the understanding of how to create new transformations by identifying the transition states between any two forms of existence. With sufficient mastery, a practitioner could theoretically transform into literally anything, including abstract concepts like "distance" or "probability."
As the knowledge integrated into his consciousness, Su Chen felt his body beginning to change in response. His cells restructured themselves, developing the capacity to shift between multiple stable configurations without degradation. His spiritual energy refined, gaining new properties that allowed it to catalyze transformations in external objects as well as himself. His very existence became more fluid, less rigidly defined, capable of adapting to virtually any environment or circumstance.
The chamber around him began to dissolve, the trial complete. But before the space collapsed entirely, Su Chen heard the Kun Peng's remnant will speak one final time, and for the first time, its tone carried something that might have been approval.
"**You are the first in ten thousand years to answer correctly. The egg does not judge power, only understanding. You have proven yourself worthy of this legacy. Proceed to the inner sanctum, where the final trial awaits. But be warned—what you have learned thus far is merely the foundation. The true inheritance requires more than comprehension. It requires sacrifice.**"
The words faded, and Su Chen found himself standing in a new location—a vast atrium at what must be the heart of the Kun Peng Nest. The space was impossibly large, easily a kilometer across, with a ceiling that vanished into darkness above. The walls were covered in murals depicting the Kun Peng's entire life story, from its birth in the primordial seas to its ascension to the ranks of the Vicious Ten, and finally to its death in some ancient cataclysm that the images couldn't fully capture.
At the center of the atrium, three other passages opened—the exits from the other trials. As Su Chen watched, figures began to emerge. From the left passage came Bibi Dong, her robes torn and her spiritual energy fluctuating wildly, but her eyes blazing with triumph. She had clearly pushed herself to the absolute limit, but had succeeded in completing the speed trial. Her movement technique had evolved during the test, incorporating principles of temporal acceleration that allowed her to move so quickly she created genuine afterimages that persisted for several seconds.
From the center passage emerged Xiao Yi Xian, her silver hair now streaked with rainbow colors that shifted and changed moment by moment. Her Poison Body had undergone a fundamental evolution during the perceptive velocity trial, gaining the ability to process sensory information at rates that approached precognition. She could now predict the immediate future by calculating probability flows from microscopic environmental changes, effectively seeing several seconds ahead of the present moment.
Both women spotted Su Chen and immediately moved to join him, relief evident in their expressions. They had clearly been concerned about his trial, though neither would have admitted it aloud. As they approached, they noticed the changes in his aura—the way his existence seemed less solid than before, as though he might shift into some other form at any moment.
"You succeeded," Bibi Dong observed, her analytical mind immediately cataloging the transformations he had undergone. "And gained something significant. Your spiritual pressure has not increased in raw magnitude, but its quality has changed fundamentally."
Su Chen nodded. "The trial of existential velocity taught me how to transform between states of being. I can now alter my fundamental nature, not merely my surface appearance. The applications are... extensive."
Before he could elaborate, the atrium trembled. A massive formation array activated in the center of the space, lines of spiritual energy blazing into existence and weaving themselves into an intricate pattern that formed a three-dimensional mandala of staggering complexity. At the mandala's heart, space began to tear, revealing not another chamber but rather a throne.
Upon that throne sat a figure that radiated such overwhelming presence that even Su Chen found himself tensing involuntarily. It was not truly the Kun Peng—the entity had died long ago, leaving only this remnant will to guard its legacy. But the sheer density of spiritual pressure, the weight of ancient power, made it feel as though the actual Vicious Ten itself had manifested.
"**Seven challengers entered my nest,**" the figure spoke, its voice resonating through the atrium like thunder rolling across mountains. "**Three have completed the trials and reached this sanctum. The others remain trapped in their chosen paths, lacking sufficient comprehension to proceed. But you three have proven yourselves worthy of consideration.**"
The figure's attention focused on each of them in turn, and Su Chen felt invisible tendrils of will examining him with an intimacy that bordered on invasive. It was reading not just his cultivation base or his techniques, but his very essence—his motivations, his character, his fundamental nature as a being.
"**Interesting,**" the Kun Peng's remnant mused. "**The Spider Empress, reborn from tragedy into determination. The Poison Fairy, bearing a curse she has transformed into a blessing. And you...**" The attention focused fully on Su Chen, and the pressure intensified tenfold. "**You are an anomaly. Your existence should not be possible—you are fragments of too many different realities stitched together into a coherent whole, held together by something I cannot perceive. You are either the greatest genius this realm has ever produced, or you are an abomination that will eventually tear yourself apart through sheer internal contradiction.**"
Su Chen met the remnant's gaze without flinching, his dual pupils blazing with their own light. "I am both and neither. I am what I have made myself through deliberate choice and constant transformation. Is that not the very principle your legacy embodies?"
The remnant actually laughed, a sound like wind howling through mountain passes. "**Bold words, anomaly. Very well. If you wish to claim my true inheritance, then demonstrate that you understand what it means to transform. The trials you have completed thus far were tests of comprehension. Now I will test your conviction.**"
The throne vanished, and the figure stood, revealing itself fully for the first time. It was neither fish nor bird, but rather something that existed between the two states—scales that might have been feathers, fins that might have been wings, existing in permanent transition without ever settling into one form or the other.
"**The final trial is simple,**" the Kun Peng declared. "**Transform yourselves into me. Not merely copy my appearance, but truly become what I am—creatures of perpetual change, existing in the liminal space between definitions. If you can maintain that state for one hundred breaths, you will have proven yourselves worthy to inherit my complete legacy. Fail, and your existences will become untethered from reality, transforming endlessly until you dissolve into pure potential.**"
Su Chen's mind immediately grasped the implications. This was not merely difficult—it was a trial specifically designed to be almost impossible. The Kun Peng's true nature was not a stable form that could be mimicked, but rather a permanent state of transformation itself. To become that would require abandoning any fixed sense of self, existing as pure change without anchor or foundation.
For most cultivators, this would be equivalent to suicide. Their entire cultivation was based on refining and strengthening their core essence, building an unshakeable foundation of self. To deliberately destabilize that foundation would undo everything they had worked to achieve.
But Su Chen was not most cultivators. His entire existence was built on the principle of accumulation and synthesis—he had incorporated dozens of different bloodlines, cultivation systems, and techniques into his being without allowing any single one to dominate. He was already, in a sense, a creature of perpetual transformation, constantly adapting and evolving as he absorbed new capabilities.
The question was whether Bibi Dong and Xiao Yi Xian could do the same. He glanced at both of them, reading the determination in their expressions. They understood the risk, but they had not come this far to retreat at the final hurdle.
"We accept your challenge," Su Chen declared, speaking for all three of them. "Show us the transformation, and we will match it."
The Kun Peng's remnant smiled, revealing teeth that were simultaneously fangs and beak-edges. " Then let us begin. And may your convictions prove stronger than your instinct for self-preservation.**"
The trial had entered its final, most perilous stage.