In the midst of the dark, watery ocean of spiritual consciousness, the beautiful woman's figure began to move. Her movement was utterly intoxicating. She slowly descended, a very slow and graceful glide in the void.
Her body seemed to be made of flowing silk, and every subtle movement caused her slender waist to sway gently like waves, while the curves of her chest behind the minimal clothing rippled softly with the shift in her posture. Finally, her white, long legs touched the surface of the black Dou Qi water.
Even after landing, her long, dark crimson hair continued to sway subtly, as if blown by a wind from another dimension, adding mystery to her presence.
The figure did not immediately answer. She stared at Chen Huang for a moment, her strong, ancient red eyes examining every inch of the young man's body, from his slightly messy hair to his wet cloth shoes. Her gaze was so sharp, it seemed to be scanning all of Chen Huang's Dou Qi and meridians.
After that brief but thorough scan, her beautiful lips formed a subtle, cynical smile. She began to conclude.
"You possess good Dou Qi, but your cultivation is low, pathetic, like showing off an empty vessel." Her voice was deep yet melodious, vibrating in the spiritual space. "And you are stuck at that level because you can't even control yourself. Your Dou Qi is being wasted like trash," she stated.
As she uttered those words, she raised her right hand, and her index finger stretched straight, pointing directly at Chen Huang's chest. The gesture of pointing was full of undeniable authority.
"Boy, with that Dou Qi energy, you should be able to achieve more than this. Truly a waste of a good opportunity."
Although Chen Huang was still filled with confusion about the mysterious figure's presence, the words she spoke pierced his deepest wounds, making him slightly annoyed. He clenched his jaw briefly, then retorted defensively.
"My cultivation stalled on its own, I don't know what to do either. I have done everything, but it was all useless," Chen Huang replied, the expression in his eyes radiating the frustration accumulated over years.
The figure did not budge. She raised her left hand and took a slow, graceful step closer.
"One more thing. It seems you have consumed a pill." She stopped beside Chen Huang. "A pill that stalls cultivation, only effective below the Dou Zhe Realm."
She then raised her delicate hand and patted Chen Huang's shoulder very lightly—a touch that was barely felt, but enough to draw attention. After that, she turned around and walked casually behind the young man, her mesmerizing curves moving dynamically with every step.
Chen Huang's expression instantly changed. From annoyed to shocked, then shattered. His eyes widened, and his whole body tensed.
"A pill..." The mumble escaped his throat with difficulty. He quickly turned his body to face the figure who now stood with her back to him. "Is that true? So all this time... everything I've experienced... was just because of a pill."
His head bowed low, shadows of guilt and anger obscuring his eyes. His hands clenched at his sides until his knuckles turned white. An overwhelming feeling of resentment—resentment towards the world, towards himself, and towards the perpetrator of this crime—made him feel like screaming.
The figure did not turn. She spoke to the empty air, her voice sounding wise and cold.
"Know that the world is full of envious people. If you have talent, you will be praised, but on the other hand, people will try to get rid of you."
As she spoke, the woman raised her right hand high above her head, her palm open as if to grasp something unseen in the spiritual consciousness sky. The pose showcased the exquisite beauty of her smooth back. "Easy to love, also easy to hate."
Chen Huang suddenly lifted his head, his eyes fixed on the woman's beautiful back, trying to process the information that had just shattered all his beliefs over the last six years.
"Who exactly are you?" he asked, his tone now a mix of astonishment and hope.
"Me? I am Yue Chan, also once called the Sky Goddess." The woman—Yue Chan—answered without turning. "I am merely a Dou Zun who lost my power, trapped inside a sword for thousands of years, causing my soul to slowly fade."
Her body swayed slightly where she stood, as if feeling the weight of millennia.
"We both are played by fate." She continued, her voice now sounding melancholic. "I am trapped in this sword, my power gradually disappearing bit by bit. And your cultivation Realm is slowly declining."
Yue Chan, the trapped essence of majesty, halted her always captivating movement. Her head tilted slightly to the side—a curvature of her long neck that summoned mystery.
In that slow motion, she looked like a fragile star calculating the age of the universe. Her majestic soul, now confined in a visually stunning form, was contemplating the gravity of the fate that had befallen her and the possibility of a very thin future.
A suffocating silence infected the ocean of spiritual consciousness, a quietness where the sound of the heart was the loudest roar. The air around them felt tense, so dense it seemed to be made of crystals of fate ready to shatter at any moment.
Then, with an elegance that surpassed the dance of the heavens, she turned around. The movement of turning, a manifestation of cold, divine beauty, was executed at a measured, very slow yet mesmerizing tempo.
Her beautiful body, like an ancient jade carving, rotated on its axis. The subtle spin caused her slender waist to gently sway, a fascinating and almost invisible ripple. Behind her minimal clothing, the curves of her ample chest subtly undulated, like water in a sacred lake disturbed by the slightest breeze.
She looked at Chen Huang. Her red gaze, seemingly made of cold lava, had changed. She was no longer the punisher, but a strategist reading a cosmic chessboard. Her eyes were filled with calculation, a complicated reckoning of cost and benefit.
Her full lips, colored as red as wine, parted slowly, launching a sentence that split the silence of destiny:
"Perhaps we have a chance to change our miserable fates."
Chen Huang, who had been holding his breath in the darkness of fate, was now driven by an unbearable turmoil. He stepped forward slightly, a movement that showed the push of the hidden hope he had stored for years. That hope, which he always thought had died, now rose into an ember burning his soul.
"What chance is that?" he asked, his voice choked and hoarse, as if his vocal cords struggled to release the words due to the massive anticipation pressing against his chest.
Yue Chan did not answer immediately. With a cold yet captivating gesture, she raised her slender, graceful right hand. The tip of her pale, slim thumb gently touched her full lips—an act both tempting and menacing, like a poisonous lotus flower.
"I have an interest in you; your blood might be able to sustain my soul so that it does not vanish and perhaps restore my power, though it will take a long time." She paused. The silence erupted again, a break she intentionally created so that the heavy offer could sink in and burden Chen Huang's soul. "And the benefit for you... I can help you break the curse that torments you."
This was the culmination of Chen Huang's suffering. This was the moment he had always waited for, the opportunity to smash the cage that bound him and fly free from the shackles of failure.
"How?" Chen Huang asked again. This time, he leaned his body slightly forward toward Yue Chan, a body language that clearly demonstrated the magnitude of his desire and willingness to accept this offer.
"I can teach you to use the Law Breaking Technique."
Slowly, as if painting with the finest brush, a faint smile began to form on Yue Chan's face. The smile was not fully shown, just a gentle pull at the corner of her lips, but enough to add a mysterious and dangerous aura to her.
"This technique will allow you to break the barrier within yourself, and not only that... this technique is a deadly attack for opponents at the same level. Using it to fight is also not bad."
Breaking the shackles that held him. That was Chen Huang's greatest dream.
Without hesitation, without undue pause for recalculation, Chen Huang straightened his back. His posture changed from a humiliated village youth to a warrior ready to seize his own destiny. He answered with a voice full of newfound conviction.
"I agree."
For a fraction of a second, Yue Chan looked slightly surprised. Her beautiful eyebrow raised a millionth of a millimeter, a subtle frown that quickly disappeared but did not escape Chen Huang's notice.
"You don't think twice? I just told you that the cultivation world is cruel. What if I deceive you?"
Chen Huang shook his head slowly, his movement calm and certain. His eyes, now radiating determination, did not waver at all as he stared directly into Yue Chan's red eyes.
"I don't know, but this is the only chance. If I refuse, there might never be another opportunity."
Yue Chan stared straight, very straight, into Chen Huang's eyes. She no longer saw shame or despair, but a strong resolve tempered and hardened by years of humiliation. She realized that beneath this young man's physical weakness, there lay an iron will that might just be able to reverse both their fates.
"Very well."
With a relaxed, graceful, and confident movement, Yue Chan raised her hand. Her silk-smooth fingers caressed a strand of her red hair and tucked it behind her ear. That small movement instantly revealed her long neck, an offering of beauty.
"The deal is struck."
Instantly, Chen Huang's consciousness was thrown back with a sudden and urgent force. It felt like a stone being thrown from the depth of a well to the water's surface.
His vision spun for a moment, a dizzying vortex of colors and light, then he felt his physical body welcoming his soul back.
He opened his eyes wide. His vision was blurry and shaky for a moment, slowly returning to focus on the real colors of the forest—the green of the moss, the brown of the earth, and the blue of the sky. Quickly, he surveyed his surroundings, finding himself in the exact same forest, in the spot where he had touched the cursed sword.
The forest wind blew, gently hitting Chen Huang's face—a cold and tangible touch of nature. He breathed in the fresh air for a moment, filling his lungs with the scent of wet leaves and soil, the air of life that felt much more real and solid than the dark spiritual space.
In front of him, the ancient dark-red sword still lay on the grass. Chen Huang extended his right hand with a steady and sure movement. His slightly rough palm firmly grasped the intricately carved sword hilt.
This time, there was no shock. There was no threatening suction of energy, no sudden change in dimension. He could hold the sword; it felt solid and cold in his grip.
Just as he grasped the hilt, a cold yet now familiar and authoritative voice echoed clearly in Chen Huang's mind—not through his eardrums, but directly into the core of his soul.
"The sword is a part of me now; do not lose it," Yue Chan said.
Chen Huang fully picked up the sword, lifting it from the ground with a meaningful motion, as if he was not just lifting a weapon, but lifting a newly redeemed future. Then, with the habitual motion of a village youth carrying tools, he placed it at his waist, neatly tucked into his belt.
He looked up, raising his face to gaze at the bright blue sky above the canopy of trees. After being downcast in humiliation for so long, he finally began to feel a new spirit warmly spreading, from his fingertips to the core of his body. That spirit was a promise, a long-lost hope that now filled the emptiness.
His journey began now.