When the Timeless Portal opened, the world held its breath.
Ancient runes engraved by Immortal Emperor Hao Hai flared to life one after another, like stars waking in the night. Lines of primordial light wove together above Heavenly Dao Academy, forming a vast circular door that did not feel like a door at all—it felt like a page of heaven being turned. Space twisted. Time shivered. For one breath, every cultivator beneath the sky felt as though someone had placed a hand on the river of time itself and pushed.
Deep below the academy, beneath endless strata of rock, the buried roots of the Realm God stirred.
That slumbering, world-sized will had once grown beneath another sky, beneath the World Tree and the distant shadow of the Void Gate. Even now, half-dead and half-fused with Heavenly Dao Academy's land veins, it reacted to that aura again—the faint, distant call of the Gate that no one else could hear. Its roots quivered, echoing a memory older than the Mortal Emperor World itself.
On the surface, the scene was far more mundane—and far more terrifying.
The plaza before the portal was packed to the horizon.
Auras surged like a rising tide. Zenith Era Hall's most promising disciples stood shoulder to shoulder with heirs of imperial lineages and scions of Ancient Kingdoms. Saints from the great sects, elites from hidden clans, proud geniuses only recently crowned "prodigy" in their local regions—all those who had begged, schemed, or paid mountains of refined jade for a quota in this generation's expedition gathered beneath the shimmering arch.
Immortal Emperor runes on countless banners responded to the opening, each character glowing with protective divine light as elders activated their sects' life-saving treasures for the juniors they favored. The roar of conversation rolled like thunder through the crowd; the Mortal Emperor World's highest hopes boiled together in one place, watching the sky.
"Open—!"
The command was not shouted once, but intoned in unison by the elders presiding over the ritual. Their voices joined the Dao sound of the runes and sank into the portal.
The curtain of light thickened.
What had been a faint, hazy sheet became a wall of luminous mist so dense it looked almost solid. Behind it, something vast flickered into view for a heartbeat—a shadow that was not truly a shape, but the suggestion of an outline too ancient and too immense for mortal eyes.
Some saw it as a closed gate.
Others thought it resembled an eye, turning in its sleep.
To those who had studied the academy's legacies, there was no mistaking it.
The distant echo of the Void Gate.
The curtain rippled.
Space gave way.
The Timeless Portal connected.
"Go!"
"Quickly—before the timespace stabilizes!"
The moment the path fully formed, the noise on the platform fractured into a hundred sharp shouts. The solemn atmosphere shattered into motion as juniors shot toward the portal like arrows loosed from fully drawn bows.
Jikong Wudi's group entered first.
The heir of the Thousand Emperors Gate stepped into the air without hurry, his Ascension Physique Dao merging seamlessly with the shifting, grand dao lines that framed the portal. Every step he took was steady, domineering; the light around him bent just slightly, as though space itself tilted in acknowledgment of his presence. Behind him, his followers advanced with the unshakable confidence of a sect that had once produced four consecutive Immortal Emperors.
Other proud geniuses followed in waves.
Sects that had emptied their treasuries to secure entrance sent in their most brilliant disciples beneath fluttering banners. Sacred Era Hall elites marched out with solemn expressions and Dao Hearts whetted to razor edges. Hidden lineages that had not seen daylight in several eras dispatched masked prodigies whose very silhouettes were wrapped in mystery.
Even the juniors of smaller sects—faces pale beneath the pressure of so many terrifying auras—forced themselves to walk into the light with stiff backs and clenched fists. They knew they were standing at the opening of an epoch; none were willing to stumble at the threshold.
Near the front of the platform, where the pressure from the portal was thickest, one group remained strangely… calm.
Ling Feng stood with his hands tucked into his sleeves, watching the torrent of geniuses vanish into the light like someone watching people crowd onto an overstuffed ferry.
At his side, Chen Baojiao shifted impatiently, battle intent burning bright in her phoenix eyes.
"Young Noble," she muttered, barely restraining the urge to leap forward. "If we keep waiting, all the good stuff will be gone."
Ling Feng's lips curved.
"Relax," he said lazily. "This isn't a vegetable market. Fortune doesn't run out just because someone grabbed the first cabbage."
Baojiao snorted, half amused, half exasperated. "You're comparing the Timeless Portal to a morning market?"
"Same logic," Ling Feng replied. "The anxious ones rush in for cheap greens. The ones who know the boss wait until he brings out the real stock from the back."
Li Shuangyan stood on his other side, veil lightly covering her peerless face. As always, she carried herself with the serenity of a snow lotus; even surrounded by this storm of geniuses, her Dao Heart stayed steady.
But as she watched the shimmering portal, she still could not help speaking.
"Young Noble," she said softly, voice as cool as spring water. "The timespace inside is unstable. The longer we wait, the more chaotic it becomes."
"Exactly." Ling Feng's smile deepened. "Chaos is home field advantage."
Behind them, Bai Jianzhen stood without a word, snow-white robes fluttering slightly in the portal's wind. Her hand rested on the hilt of her sword—not in threat, but in quiet readiness. Her sword heart did not fear the unknown; it simply faced it.
Xu Pei's storm-qi hummed faintly, lightning coiling and uncoiling between her fingers as she forced herself to keep it in check. The crackle of power under her skin mirrored the flickering of the portal's light.
Chi Xiaodie's gaze swept across banners and formations, not just measuring Dao pressure but counting lineages, tallying the presence of imperial clans and Ancient Kingdoms. Already, she was mapping out what their presence here would mean for Lion's Roar City.
Bing Yuxia, wrapped in her familiar blue men's robes, watched the portal through half-lidded eyes, the corners of her lips curved into a faint, mocking smile. To others, she appeared indifferent. Only those close to her could feel the slight tension in her shoulders—the way even her proud heart was stirred by this scene.
Mei Suyao's gaze drifted from the portal to Ling Feng and back again, immortal light flowing quietly in her pupils. Ye Chuyun, serene as a lotus blossoming atop a clear lake, stood composed, but her eyes were bright with curiosity.
Bing Yuxia broke the surface of the tension with a lazy drawl.
"Still not going in?" she said. "At this rate, this young master will be late to all the fun."
Ling Feng ignored the provocation at first. His eyes were half-lidded as he studied the portal, as if he were listening to something beneath the crackle of runes.
"Suyao, Chuyun," he said at last. "How's your state of mind?"
Mei Suyao glanced his way, Immortal Soulbone flickering for a heartbeat as her instinct dissected his question from several angles.
"…Steady," she answered.
Ye Chuyun nodded slightly, her voice candid. "Curious. I have read about the Timeless Portal and the Void Gate, but reading is different from standing here."
"Good." Ling Feng nodded. "Then while everyone else sprints in to grab scattered crumbs, we'll walk in slowly and eat the main course."
Chen Baojiao made a face. "Young Noble, stop talking about food when we're about to risk our lives."
"Lives, fortunes, Dao foundations—it's all just different flavors," he said, amusement lurking in his tone. "Alright. Let's go."
He took a single step forward.
Chaos stirred.
It did not explode outward in some vulgar display. It flowed instead—a subtle, intangible fragrance seeping from his pores, mixing with his already distinct Dao aura that had once swept through the Eastern Hundred Cities and crushed nine undyings as if they were insects. To the naked eye, there was no visible mist, no strange color. But to anyone with a half-decent Dao Heart, it felt as though someone had lit incense inside their souls.
Ling Feng's Chaos Fragrance Dao.
As he led his group toward the portal, that invisible scent washed over them first.
Li Shuangyan's Pure Jade meridians became even clearer under its touch. Chaos did not pollute her Dao; it traced the edges of her pathways like warm fingers, revealing every place circulation caught slightly, every minor knot hidden beneath years of disciplined cultivation.
Chen Baojiao's Immortal Spring Physique reacted with bubbling, almost eager excitement. The countless "springs" inside her bones and flesh stirred—not just wanting to devour impact, but seeking a deeper route to circulate incoming shocks, to store and re-release power with even more ferocity.
Xu Pei's tempestuous qi heard a new rhythm under her storm, a quiet timing hidden beneath the thunder of her usual attacks.
Bai Jianzhen's sword intent, which had already begun to integrate faint threads of unpredictability, caught the echo of something beyond straight lines—a future where her sword could cut not only Dao, but the assumptions that birthed those Dao.
Even Mei Suyao's immortal, fragrant Dao shook for a fraction of a breath. This Chaos scent did not try to overwhelm her Alaya Heavenly Fragrant Dao; it regarded it with a faint, amused familiarity, then walked past, pointing out invisible intersections where their paths could harmonize.
Ye Chuyun's lotus heart quietly bloomed wider, her understanding of stillness and reflection deepening without her moving a single step.
Ling Feng's voice floated back to them, light and lazy, as if they were taking a stroll instead of stepping into one of the world's greatest dangers.
"Breathe," he said. "Don't resist it. Let your Dao smell the place first."
"Smell… the place?" Xu Pei muttered, somewhere between incredulous and amused.
"Dao fragrances, world fragrances, destiny fragrances," Ling Feng replied. "This portal was built from Hao Hai's runes and the Realm God's roots. The Void Gate's shadow is on the other side. This whole setup stinks of too many eras stacked together. If you can't smell the layers, you'll just get lost and end up as fertilizer."
Mei Suyao's eyelashes lowered, her tone soft. "…You can distinguish them?"
Ling Feng grinned, teeth flashing. "Pretty easily. Perks of having an alien stomach. Now—eyes open, hearts open. We're going in."
They stepped into the light.
...
Inside the Timeless Portal, the world broke.
Not collapsed—broke.
Order itself had been taken apart and reassembled by someone with a cruel sense of humor.
Mountains hung upside down, roots clawing at empty sky. Rivers flowed backward into the clouds, then folded and disappeared into cracks in midair. Ancient cities from forgotten eras floated like mirages above overlapping plains: a palace from the Emperors Era drifted alongside a battlefield half-swallowed by sand from a much older time; beneath them, a shimmering Divine Sea from an unknown epoch lay frozen in the moment of its collapse, waves hanging like glass.
Time did not move uniformly.
On one fragment, seasons flickered by in instants—spring, summer, autumn, winter cycling several times in one breath. On a nearby island, the sun sat immobile at the horizon, trapped in eternal dusk. Farther still, an entire mountain range existed in black-and-white, its colors stolen by some long-lost power.
Dao lines crisscrossed through the chaos like veins in a living beast.
Some geniuses had already hurled themselves into the madhouse.
On a distant floating platform, Jikong Wudi's aura merged with a stone monument taller than a city wall, his Ascension Physique studying ancient runes carved there, trying to pry open secrets even Immortal Emperors had failed to see. On another fragment, disciples of a great sect fought savagely over a patch of land where Worldly Prime Liquid seeped from the soil like dew; each drop refined their foundations as they cultivated on the spot.
Ling Feng's group, in contrast, arrived on a modest floating stone platform… and stopped.
"We're just standing here?" Chen Baojiao asked, fingers itching for a fight.
Ling Feng looked over the edge.
The "ground" below their platform was a swirling ocean of timespace shards—broken moments, shattered scenes, and half-erased histories spinning together. A careless step into one of those cracks would mean being sliced into fragments across ten different eras.
"Don't wander off," Ling Feng said lightly. "This place looks like a pretty glass ornament, but it's really a broken kaleidoscope. Nice to look at. Very good at killing idiots."
Bing Yuxia snorted. "This young master is never an idiot. Reckless, maybe. Handsome, definitely. But never an idiot."
"Mm, mm." Ling Feng nodded solemnly. "You're very talented at jumping off cliffs with a straight face. I've taken note."
Her eye twitched. "…"
Before she could retort, he lifted his hand.
The Chaos Fragrance thickened.
This time, it wasn't just his passive aura. It was deliberate.
"Listen," he said simply.
He did not raise his voice. Yet every syllable threaded through the broken timespace like a thin stream of incense smoke, slipping past the usual defenses of Dao Hearts and sinking directly into comprehension.
"When you look at this place, don't just see 'opportunities,'" Ling Feng said. "See the pattern of the world."
"Pattern?" Chi Xiaodie echoed, brow furrowing.
"Every rune, every floating island, every twisted river is the world talking to itself," Ling Feng continued. "If you only care about what you can grab—treasures, techniques, loose fortune—you'll stay illiterate. I want you literate."
Li Shuangyan closed her eyes.
Her Pure Jade Physique circulated quietly, Dao flows inside her body becoming almost transparent. Under the influence of Chaos Fragrance, the madness outside shifted. What had been overwhelming chaos separated into faint, delicate threads.
She could see how the trajectory of a drifting palace mirrored the curve of a Fate Palace's formation. How the backward-flowing river's rhythm matched a reversed national fate technique. How an upside-down mountain's reflection hinted at the collapse pattern of a dynastic lineage.
"Shuangyan," Ling Feng's voice brushed her ear, soft as a whisper carried by the wind. "You're walking the path of governing both yourself and others. Think of each era's mistake as a crack in jade. Let this place show you where the jade broke, where previous Heaven's favors turned into disaster. Learn how to polish around those cracks instead of smashing the stone and starting over every time."
Her jade heart quivered.
"…Yes," she murmured.
Chen Baojiao's battle intent surged like a rising tide.
"Baojiao," Ling Feng said. "You feel all this as pressure, right?"
She grinned, savage and bright. "Of course! It's like being slapped with a thousand battlefields at once. It's great."
"Good." He chuckled. "Now notice which ones you don't feel."
She blinked.
As Chaos fragrance wrapped around her, the sensation deepened. Some battle remnants in the timespace made her blood roar—the echo of armies colliding like seas, tyrants trading blows that shattered continents. Others, just as intense, barely stirred her springs at all.
They weren't weaker. They simply walked different paths: sword Dao duels sharp as hair-thin blades, abstruse law contests fought across invisible Dao diagrams.
"You're a violent girl," Ling Feng said, amused. "So don't waste your time chasing leftovers from sword freaks. Focus on the fights that feel like mountains crashing into oceans. That's your road."
Her laughter rang out, wild and unrestrained.
"Understood!"
Xu Pei's storm-qi trembled as Ling Feng's voice slid over her like light rain.
"Pei-Pei," he said. "Look at those cracks."
Around them, invisible to mundane eyes, timespace fractures flickered randomly—here, an entire fragment vanished for half a heartbeat, reappearing several zhang away; there, a river jumped its own bed, flowing across a gap and returning as if nothing had happened.
"That's lightning," Ling Feng said. "Here, it's not the strike that matters. It's the decision to strike. Lightning is about right timing. Learn where this place pauses before moving. When your temper and your timing match, your Dao will stop tripping over itself."
Her thunder paused.
Slowly, she began to perceive it: the tiny hitch before a fragment blinked, the moment's stillness before a Dao line reconnected in a new pattern. That same rhythm lived in her lightning—she had just never listened for it.
Bai Jianzhen stood at the edge of the platform, gaze fixed on a distant sword-shaped ruin embedded in a floating mountain.
"Jianzhen," Ling Feng said. "You can already cut anything in front of you. That's not enough."
She did not turn. "What else is there?"
"Cut the assumptions behind the cut," he answered. "Look at that mountain. Everyone assumes the sword ruined it. Flip it. What if the mountain ruined the sword?"
She frowned faintly.
The Chaos fragrance bent her perception. She saw it now: how the mountain's weight remained, unmoved, while the sword's aura thinned and scattered, lost in the wind of time. The sword had carved the rock, but time and earth had slowly devoured the sword's legend.
"…I see."
"So let your sword Dao become a question," Ling Feng said. "Every strike asks: 'Is this really the only path?' When your blade can cut not only flesh and artifacts, but Merit Laws and fate itself… then we'll go shopping for another sword."
Her fingers tightened on the Six Dao Sword's hilt.
The sword hummed softly, as if hearing its future being discussed, its edge thirsting for that higher realm.
Chi Xiaodie listened with knitted brows, mind racing as she tried to apply his metaphors to national policy, military formations, tax lines, city defenses. The more she tried, the more things clicked: the way eras collapsed here mirrored how nations fell when they misread Heaven's will, overreached their strength, or clung to rotten traditions.
For Bing Yuxia, Ye Chuyun, and Mei Suyao, Ling Feng's words and fragrance turned the broken timespace into a living scripture. Each of them saw different lines of that scripture, yet all felt their Dao Hearts ripple in response.
Ling Feng kept walking.
Chaos Fragrance Dao Preaching unfurled behind him, turning the deadly Timeless Portal into a classroom for his group. To others, this place remained a pit of chaos and opportunity mixed with sudden death. For his companions, step by step, it became a structured lesson.