*"Why is this essence blood so gentle?"*
Sera was stunned.
She had braced herself for violence — for the essence blood to crash through her meridians like a flood, battering her from the inside. Instead it moved through her like warm water, nourishing and steady, protecting her meridians rather than assaulting them.
And the physique that had been lying dormant in her body all these years — starved of energy, constantly straining against its own limits — was now drinking it all in. Greedily. Completely.
She felt no pain.
*This makes no sense.*
She had been through physique awakening before. As an eternal lord in her previous life, she had awakened a sacred body — and she remembered every second of it. Half a day in a medicinal bath. Pain like ten thousand insects eating her alive from the inside out. She had been older then, stronger, and it had still nearly broken her.
Now she was four years old.
And she felt nothing but warmth.
She couldn't explain it. She could only attribute it to her absurd father, file the question away for later, and keep her guard up. The energy was gentle, but she was not foolish enough to relax entirely.
She kept her focus inward and let the awakening continue.
---
Then the sky broke open.
The clear afternoon blue vanished in an instant. Dark clouds poured in from every direction, converging over the mountain with a speed that defied nature. Thunder split the air where the clouds met. Winds rose from nowhere, sending dust and leaves spiraling upward in dense columns.
Lightning — enormous, nameless, structural — cascaded from the clouds in sheets. Tens of thousands of strikes hammered the mountain forest below. The tree line became a flickering hellscape of light and scorched earth.
Far from the mountain, cultivators stopped in their tracks.
*"What is happening?"*
*"Why is all the world's spiritual energy flowing in one direction?"*
*"A rare treasure? Has something appeared?"*
Dozens of them stood at the mountain's edge, staring upward. None advanced. The display was too large, too violent — without a powerful figure leading the way, only a fool would walk into that.
Some were wise enough to hold back.
Others were not.
A handful of bold, treasure-hungry young cultivators pushed forward anyway, driven by the idea that great danger meant great reward. They didn't get close. The lightning found them before they could, and when it was over, not even ash remained.
The ones who had held back exhaled slowly, deeply grateful for their own restraint.
The disturbance had been going for nearly half an hour. That was long enough to draw something heavier than curious onlookers.
Across the mountainside, a dozen powerful auras locked into place — Emperor-tier presences, each one holding still, waiting. The moment anything valuable emerged, they would move.
Among them, a general in blood-red armor landed on a high ridge, long spear in hand, and stared toward the heart of the storm.
*"A disturbance this large, appearing without warning over the Nameless Mountain — I can only hope the young master and the lord are unharmed. If something has happened, I have no idea how I'll face the Empress."*
General Crest — Aurewyn Empire's First War General, the same man who had delivered Sera to Ethan's door three years ago — looked considerably more seasoned now. His aura had deepened, his bearing grown quieter and harder. He had clearly encountered fortune in the years between.
He had been posted here by the Empress herself, stationed near the Nameless Mountain to intercept any remnants of the three destroyed empires who might come after the young master. He had intended many times to bring Sera back to the capital, but the empire's internal troubles had delayed it again and again, and the Empress had never had a moment to spare.
Now this.
*"The Empress is already on her way,"* he muttered, shaking his head. *"I can only hope she arrives in time."*
He had just broken through to the emperor realm. Around him, he could count at least eight auras matching his level. That was only what he could perceive. The ones hiding deeper were beyond his read entirely.
Whatever was happening inside that mountain had pulled in emperor-tier powerhouses from across the region. General Crest felt the weight of that fact settle heavily on his shoulders.
---
Inside the mountain, Ethan was lying on his rocking chair.
He was aware of everything happening outside.
He didn't move.
A crowd of small fry. They couldn't cause trouble. And if any of them were foolish enough to set their eyes on his daughter, sending them along to reincarnation wasn't much of an inconvenience.
He had been in this world for over a hundred years, but he had never really fought — he couldn't afford to. The risk of accidentally unraveling the entire realm wasn't worth it. Only in the High Realm could he use his power without restraint.
For now, he watched. He waited. He rocked.
*"System — half an hour has passed and the awakening still isn't done. Is there not enough essence blood?"*
He watched Sera sitting motionless in the large pot and felt the anxiety that apparently came standard with fatherhood begin to simmer.
He had never cultivated. He had no physique of his own to speak of. He understood none of this on a technical level. He was operating purely on worry.
*The essence blood you added would turn a pig into an emperor immediately — and you added enough to kill it from overstuffing.*
*Your daughter possesses an innate dao body. The energy required for its awakening is naturally immense. Half an hour? Even a full day would not be unusual.*
*Furthermore — if it weren't for the catalyst of eight divine beast bloodlines, your daughter's physique would have stayed dormant for another decade at least. And you're anxious after thirty minutes??*
Ethan chose not to respond.
His System was excellent in most respects. Its one flaw was that it was entirely too sharp-tongued, too pointed, too unnervingly human for a machine.
It reminded him, frankly, of his mother.
He didn't know whether it was male or female. He suspected male.
The thought made him shudder.
---
Inside the pot, the awakening shifted.
The quiet warmth that had been flowing into Sera's body began to change — the energy built, compressing, concentrating. An aura unlike anything she had experienced before began to rise from within her. Raw. Dense. Vast.
The innate dao body was almost fully awake.
Outside, eight enormous phantom figures materialized in the storm-wracked sky above the mountain.
Their presence alone dropped every emperor-tier cultivator hiding in the surrounding area to their knees, cold sweat soaking through armor and robes alike. Not one of them dared to move.
*"What in all the realms—"*
*"Has an ascendant fallen? What is this pressure—"*
*"I can't breathe. I genuinely cannot breathe—"*
And they were right to be frightened. Each of those phantom figures had been formed from the essence blood of a divine beast at the ascendant emperor level. Even a single drop of such blood carried crushing weight. Ethan had put in an entire pot.
The phantoms didn't linger.
The moment Sera opened her eyes, they began to dissolve.
The storm quieted. The lightning stopped. The dark clouds rolled back as though recalled by an unseen hand, and the mountain forest returned to its ordinary, peaceful afternoon.
The eight crushing auras vanished.
Every emperor-tier cultivator on the mountainside exhaled at once, the collective relief almost audible.
Some of them fled immediately. Men and women who had lived thousands of years learned early that survival required knowing when to leave. They left.
The younger, bolder emperors stayed. The moment the auras lifted, they emerged from cover, eyes sharp and searching.
It was at that same moment that Seraphine Ashveil arrived.
She had come alone, the moment the message reached her — hadn't waited for an escort, hadn't stopped to change out of her traveling clothes. She landed near General Crest and turned to him before her feet had fully settled.
*"What is the situation?"*