Lin Yue's POV
The silver light collided with the Soul Devourer's hand, and the world exploded.
The shockwave threw everyone backward—cultivators, demons, even Shen Yifeng skidded across the ground. But I stood firm at the center, my newly awakened power flowing through me like a raging river. The Soul Devourer's hand disintegrated where my light touched it, turning to black smoke.
The creature roared in pain and fury, its empty eye sockets burning with rage as it stared at me.
"Impossible!" the old woman's voice shrieked from somewhere far away. "A newly awakened soul shouldn't have this much power! The seal only just broke!"
"She's not just awakened," Shen Yifeng said, pulling himself to his feet. Blood trickled from his mouth, but he was grinning. "She's integrated both lives. She has the Empress's power AND her current self's control. That's something the original Empress never achieved."
He was right. I could feel it—the raw strength of my past life combined with the compassion I'd learned in this one. The Empress had been all power and no restraint. Lin Yue the servant had been all heart and no strength. But together? Together we were complete.
The Soul Devourer attacked again, this time with both hands. Its massive shadow claws descended from opposite directions, trying to crush me between them.
I didn't run. Instead, I planted my feet and reached deep inside, pulling on memories of techniques I'd mastered centuries ago. My hands moved in complex patterns, drawing symbols in the air with silver light.
"Heaven-Defying Art: Nine Heavens Barrier!"
A dome of silver energy erupted around me, expanding outward so fast it pushed the Soul Devourer's hands back. The barrier kept growing, encompassing Shen Yifeng, then the fortress, then the frozen cultivators who'd come to attack us.
Everyone gasped as they found themselves inside my protective shield.
"She's... protecting us?" Master Qingfeng whispered in shock. "Even after everything we did?"
"Of course she is," Mei's voice called out. I spotted her in the crowd, tears streaming down her face. "That's who Lin Yue is. That's who she's always been!"
The Soul Devourer slammed against my barrier repeatedly, each hit sending tremors through the ground. But the shield held. My past life had created this technique specifically to protect people during her battles—it was one of the few good things the Empress had done.
"You can't hold that forever!" the old woman cackled from outside the barrier. "The Soul Devourer feeds on spiritual energy! The more power you use, the stronger it becomes! Eventually, you'll exhaust yourself, and then it will devour everyone!"
She was right. I could already feel the drain. Maintaining a barrier this size while the creature attacked was like trying to hold back an ocean with my bare hands. My newly formed cultivation was powerful, but not infinite.
"Then I won't hold it forever," I said calmly. I turned to Shen Yifeng. "I need you to get everyone out. Use your demon gate technique to teleport them away."
"That requires enormous spiritual energy," he protested. "I can transport maybe fifty people at a time, and there are hundreds here. It would take multiple trips, and we don't have that kind of time!"
"You'll have time," I promised. "Because I'm going to keep that thing busy."
"Absolutely not!" His red eyes blazed. "I just found you again after three centuries! I'm not losing you to some ancient demon!"
"You won't lose me." I touched his face gently, feeling the strange familiarity of the gesture—I'd done this before, in another life, another time. "Trust me. I know what I'm doing."
"The last time you said that, you died saving me from a tribulation," he said bitterly.
"And I'd do it again." I smiled. "But this time is different. This time, I'm not fighting alone. I have you. I have Mei. I even have..." I looked at Chen Hao, who was staring at me with heartbroken awe. "I have people worth protecting. That gives me something the old Empress never had—a reason to survive."
Shen Yifeng grabbed my shoulders. "Promise me you'll come back. Swear it on our soul contract."
"I swear," I said. "Now go. Save them."
He kissed my forehead—a gesture so tender it made my heart ache—then turned to his demon subordinates. "Open the gates! Evacuate all non-combatants first!"
Dark portals began opening throughout my barrier. Demon cultivators started herding people through them, prioritizing the wounded and weak. Chen Hao tried to stay, but Mei grabbed him.
"She doesn't need you anymore," Mei told him firmly. "The best thing you can do now is not be another person she has to protect."
His face crumbled, but he let her pull him toward a portal.
As the evacuation continued, I dropped the barrier and faced the Soul Devourer directly. Without the shield draining my energy, I could focus entirely on offense.
"Come on then," I said to the massive demon. "Let's see if you're as scary as the things I killed in my first life."
The Soul Devourer lunged at me with terrifying speed. Its jaws opened wide, revealing that mouth full of bone teeth, ready to swallow me whole.
I didn't flinch. Instead, I channeled my spiritual energy into my fist and punched upward.
My silver-glowing fist met the creature's jaw with an explosion of light. The impact sent shockwaves across the battlefield. The Soul Devourer's head snapped backward, and it stumbled, clearly not expecting a tiny human to hit that hard.
"Heaven-Defying Art: Thousand Strike Palm!"
My hands blurred as I unleashed a barrage of palm strikes, each one infused with spiritual energy. They hit the Soul Devourer's chest like tiny explosions, pushing it backward step by step. Black blood oozed from the wounds, hissing where it hit the ground.
But the creature was adapting. With each hit, its body absorbed some of my spiritual energy, just like the old woman said. It was getting stronger while I was getting weaker.
I needed to end this fast.
"Shen Yifeng!" I shouted. "How many are left?"
"About a hundred!" he called back, his voice strained from maintaining multiple portals. "Two more minutes!"
Two minutes. Could I last that long?
The Soul Devourer apparently decided it had had enough of my attacks. It opened its mouth impossibly wide and unleashed a beam of pure darkness—concentrated death energy that would corrupt anything it touched.
I barely dodged, feeling the beam graze my arm. Instantly, that part of my skin turned black and numb. The corruption was spreading, trying to reach my heart.
"Lin Yue!" Shen Yifeng started toward me, but I shook my head.
"Keep evacuating! I'm fine!"
I wasn't fine. The death energy was eating through my spiritual defenses, moving toward my Golden Core. If it reached there, I'd die—or worse, become corrupted like the Soul Devourer itself.
Think, Lin Yue. Think! The Empress's memories were there, showing me countless battles. But those fights had been against humans, not ancient demons. I needed something different. Something the Empress never tried because she was too proud to consider it.
Then I remembered—there was one technique. A forbidden art that required sacrificing part of your cultivation to generate overwhelming power. The Empress had refused to use it, believing her strength should never be weakened for any reason.
But I wasn't her.
"Heaven-Defying Art: Soul Severance Strike!"
I reached into my Golden Core and ripped out a chunk of my own spiritual energy—cutting away roughly twenty percent of my cultivation. The pain was indescribable, like tearing off my own arm. But that sacrificed energy transformed into pure destructive force, gathering in my hand as a sphere of silver fire.
"Last portal closing in thirty seconds!" Shen Yifeng warned.
Perfect timing.
I hurled the silver fire sphere at the Soul Devourer's chest with everything I had left. The creature tried to absorb it like it had my other attacks, but this energy was different—it was willing destruction, meant to unmake rather than harm.
The sphere hit the Soul Devourer's core and detonated.
The explosion tore the creature apart from the inside, shredding its shadow body into wisps of darkness that scattered on the wind. Its roar of agony shook the mountains before it finally dissolved into nothing.
I collapsed to my knees, gasping. The corruption in my arm had stopped spreading, but it was still there—a black mark from wrist to elbow that throbbed with residual death energy.
"Everyone's through!" Shen Yifeng materialized beside me, catching me before I could fall completely. "The portals are closed. You did it. You saved them all."
"Not all," I said weakly, looking at my corrupted arm. "This won't heal on its own. Death energy doesn't just go away."
His face went pale. "There are healers in the fortress. High-level doctors who specialize in—"
"It won't work," I interrupted. "Death energy this concentrated requires celestial-level healing. The kind only..." I trailed off, remembering something from my past life. "There's only one place that has that kind of power. The Celestial Jade Palace. Where the immortals keep their greatest treasures."
"The Celestial Jade Palace is in the upper realms," Shen Yifeng said desperately. "We'd need to pass through the Ascension Gate, and that requires surviving a heavenly tribulation. You're not strong enough yet—especially not after sacrificing your cultivation!"
"Then I'll get stronger." I tried to stand but swayed. He caught me easily.
"Or," a new voice interrupted, "you could accept my help."
We both spun around. Standing where the Soul Devourer had been was a woman I'd never seen before. She was impossibly beautiful, with skin that literally glowed and eyes that held starlight. She wore robes made of light itself.
"Who are you?" Shen Yifeng demanded, pushing me behind him protectively.
The woman smiled. "I am Celestial Master Yuehua, guardian of the Ascension Gate. I was watching your battle with interest, young Empress."
"I'm not an Empress anymore," I said.
"Perhaps. But you carry an Empress's soul, and more importantly, you made an Empress's choice." She gestured to where the evacuated people had been. "You sacrificed your own power to save those who tried to kill you. That kind of compassion is rare in our realm. It reminds me of someone I once knew."
"What do you want?" I asked warily.
"To offer you a deal." Celestial Master Yuehua's expression turned serious. "Your corrupted arm will kill you within a month unless treated with celestial healing. I can provide access to the Celestial Jade Palace—but only if you agree to undertake a quest for me."
"What kind of quest?" Shen Yifeng's voice was cold with suspicion.
"The kind that will either make you a true immortal... or destroy you completely." She looked directly at me. "In the Celestial Jade Palace, there is a artifact called the Heart of Renewal. It can heal any corruption, cure any disease. But it's guarded by the Palace's five trials—tests designed to break even the strongest cultivators. Many have tried. All have failed."
"And if I succeed?"
"Then you get the Heart of Renewal, your arm is healed, and you gain the right to challenge the Ascension Tribulation. You could become a true immortal while still keeping your humanity—something your past self never achieved." She paused. "But if you fail the trials, your soul will be trapped in the Palace forever, tortured by your own failures until you go mad."
I looked at my corrupted arm, feeling the death energy slowly spreading despite my efforts to contain it. Then I looked at Shen Yifeng's worried face.
"How long do I have to decide?"
"The corruption will reach your heart in thirty days," Celestial Master Yuehua said. "After that, no power in any realm can save you. Choose wisely, young one. Not all second chances lead to happy endings."
She vanished in a flash of light, leaving me and Shen Yifeng alone in the ruined battlefield.
"Don't even think about it," he said immediately. "We'll find another way. There has to be another way to heal you."
"You heard her. There isn't." I touched my corrupted arm, feeling it pulse with dark energy. "This or death. Those are my options."
"Then we do the trials together," he insisted. "I'm not letting you face that alone."
"The trials only allow one person at a time," a weak voice called out.
We turned to see the old woman lying in the rubble, barely alive. The Soul Devourer's destruction must have backlashed onto her since she'd summoned it.
"How do you know about the trials?" I demanded.
She laughed, coughing blood. "Because I tried them once. Three hundred years ago. I failed the third trial and barely escaped with my life. That's why I've been harvesting Golden Cores ever since—trying to build enough power to try again. But you..." Her eyes gleamed with malice even in death. "You'll fail too. The trials show you your worst fears, your deepest regrets. They break you by making you face every terrible choice you've ever made. And you, little Empress—you've made so many terrible choices across two lifetimes."
"Then I'll face them," I said quietly.
"No." Shen Yifeng grabbed my shoulders. "Listen to me. I watched you destroy yourself once pursuing power. I won't watch it happen again. We'll find another way—"
"There is no other way!" I shouted, then softened my voice. "Yifeng, I'm not doing this for power. I'm doing it to survive. To live. To have a chance at the life I never got in either of my incarnations." I touched his face. "To maybe, finally, get that happy ending with you."
His red eyes filled with tears. "And if you fail? If I lose you forever?"
"Then you'll know I died trying to become someone worthy of your love." I kissed him gently. "But I won't fail. Not this time. This time, I'm fighting for something real."
The old woman's dying laugh echoed across the battlefield. "Such confidence. We'll see how long that lasts when the trials show you the truth about yourself. When you see what you'll become if you keep walking this path. When you face—"
She died before finishing, her body crumbling to dust.
But her words haunted me. What would the trials show me? What truths about myself was I afraid to face?
I had thirty days to get stronger before attempting the Celestial Jade Palace.
Thirty days to prepare for trials that had broken every cultivator who tried them.
Thirty days before I faced my own demons—literally and figuratively.
As Shen Yifeng held me close, I looked at my corrupted arm and felt the death energy pulse like a timer counting down to my doom.
The question wasn't whether I'd attempt the trials.
The question was whether any part of me would survive them.