"Ye Lin! How dare you kill my family and now seize my finances?" A young man with black hair, clad in an undyed hemp robe of crossed-collar design, stood defiantly. His attire marked him as a student of one of the land's academies. "Tell me, is this what the elders of the Holy Xuxian Land call righteousness?"
The elders seated beside Ye Lin stared, their eyes wide with a mixture of terror, rage, and utter shock. A mere boy in the late phase of the Mortal Realm dared to disrespect their supreme Young Lord.
Upon a throne of pure gold, Ye Lin remained unmoved and silent. His long purple hair cascaded down his shoulders, and a white blindfold covered his eyes. An ethereal robe, light as mist, draped his form.
"You little bastard, son of a gutter whore! How dare you speak to our Young Lord in such a manner!" One of the elders, a man with white hair and a long beard wearing simple white robes, shouted at the boy. Though his anger was a palpable force, he did not attack. Instead, he turned and bowed his head deeply toward the throne. "Young Lord, please grant this servant the honor of executing this brat. I swear an oath to hunt down every last one of his descendants for ten thousand years."
To Ye Lin's left stood a young woman of breathtaking beauty, a loveliness that defied the heavens and surpassed even the most exquisite jade in the world. She was Xuan Yu, daughter of Yuan Yu—a Martial Realm cultivator approaching its late phase after tens of thousands of years of cultivation—though she herself was in the middle phase of the Spirit Realm. She was also the fiancée of the defiant young man.
Her lovely face was etched with worry as she watched her fiancé challenge Young Lord Ye Lin. "Tian Wan, please," Xuan Yu pleaded, her voice thick with concern. "Forget about me. I do not wish to see you hurt. Do not risk your life for my sake."
"Do not worry about me," Tian Wan muttered to himself before his voice rose in a shout. "Are you an idiot, Xuan Yu? Why would you sacrifice yourself? I am your destiny! I will save you from that monster, no matter the cost!"
Tian Wan was a disciple of the Holy Xuxian Land. Though born into a family that had only ever reached the Spirit Realm, his talent was heaven-blessed. He could master any technique with a single glance and had reached the late phase of the Mortal Realm in under a week, a feat that took others months even in the easiest realm to cultivate.
While this drama unfolded, Ye Lin was lost in his own deep, confused thoughts.
'I don't even know what is happening here. I was just at home, reading my favorite cultivation novel.'
'The last thing I remember is a magical circle appearing, teleporting me... and then I woke up to this scene. What is this drama?'
"Ye Lin, release my fiancée, you monster!" Tian Wan shouted, his voice straining. "If you do not, I swear on my life I will kill you in the name of righteousness!"
'Ye Lin... that's the name of the main villain from the novel I was reading. Did I get transmigrated into my favorite book, into the body of the villain? Then that boy must be Tian Wan, the protagonist. By the looks of it, this is the very beginning of the story.'
"Young Master, please forgive Tian Wan!" Xuan Yu begged, desperation clear in her eyes. "He is just a foolish boy. I promise he will never dare speak to you like this again. Young Lord, I offer myself in exchange for his life."
Ye Lin glanced to his side. The elder who had begged for the honor of killing Tian Wan still bowed deeply. The other elders quivered with barely contained fury at the young man's insolence.
'If I remember correctly, the protagonist Tian Wan should be in the Mortal Realm now, perhaps at the late phase. He is lower than a non-existent being to me. And these elders range from the Martial to the Sacred Realm. Even the weakest among them could erase him.'
In this world, cultivators ascended through multiple realms. The lowest in the lower realm was the Mortal Realm, followed by the Spirit, Martial, Transcendent, Sacred, Sacred Transcendent, Divine, and finally, at the peak of the lower realm, the Immortal Realm. Each realm had nine phases: one to three were the early phase, four to six the middle phase, seven and eight the late phase, and the ninth the perfection phase.
Breaking through the Mortal and Spirit Realms was relatively simple. However, advancing from the Spirit Realm to the early phase of the Martial Realm was profoundly difficult. Each subsequent breakthrough grew exponentially harder, often taking thousands of years to move from one minor phase to the next within the same realm.
Cultivators gained ageless immortality upon reaching the Spirit Realm, no longer dying of old age. They ceased needing food or sleep, and fatigue became a foreign concept. Every lower realm cultivator's ultimate goal was the Immortal Realm, the pinnacle of the lower world, where one became a true immortal, undying and possessing inexhaustible stamina. Yet even they were but ants compared to the powers of the upper realms.
The gap in power between a cultivator at the perfection phase of the Mortal Realm and one at the first early phase of the Spirit Realm was incomprehensible. The former would be unable even to stand in the presence of the latter. This principle held true for every realm… except for Ye Lin. He had already reached the pinnacle, a lonely god who transcended the entire cultivation system itself.
"Ye Lin! I warn you for the last time! Release Xuan Yu, or you will meet your death at this very moment!" Tian Wan threatened.
'He is becoming truly annoying. Should I kill him? He is the protagonist, but that means nothing to me. Still, I will keep him alive to see what happens. But I should teach him a lesson. Perhaps having him balance on a single finger beneath an icy waterfall for a few thousand years would suffice.'
"Young Master," the white-bearded elder implored once more, "please accept your servant's request. Grant me the honor of unmasking this whore's bastard child and hunting his lineage for ten thousand years."
Ye Lin heard the elder but remained silent for a long moment. Then he spoke, his calm voice seeming to stop time itself within the Holy Xuxian Land.
"Silence."
The single word echoed through the grand hall, and a profound silence fell. It became so quiet one could hear the frantic beat of a heart echoing off the distant walls.
Suddenly, every pair of eyes, including Xuan Yu's, widened in pure shock. Ye Lin had risen from his throne. He drifted forward, floating a few inches above the polished floor, until he came to a stop directly in front of Tian Wan.