Inside the Main Hall of Taiyin Holy Land, incense smoke curled in thin grey ribbons toward the vaulted ceiling. Lamplight caught the stone floor in long amber streaks, the surface polished smooth by centuries of kneeling disciples.
Holy Lord Su bowed toward Luo Fan. His spine trembled. Sweat darkened his ceremonial collar, tracing a slow line between his shoulder blades.
'Taixuan Demonic Pavilion. The pinnacle of power, since before anyone bothered writing it down, they have stood above everything. Have for god knows how long.'
His knuckles whitened around his sleeve hem.
'Two daughters. I never thought they could draw that kind of help down to us. We serve him perfectly, we have to. Heaven handed us a thread and we do not let it slip. Not this one.'
Three Peak Mahayana cultivators from the Taixuan Demonic Pavilion sat one tier below Luo Fan. They had arrived shortly after his group. None spoke. Their tea cooled untouched.
Behind Luo Fan, Su Qingxuan worked her thumbs into the muscle at his shoulder. Slow circles. Practiced. Su Qingyin tilted a porcelain pot, pouring the finest tea the Taiyin Holy Land kept in its vaults. Pale gold liquid steamed in a thin curl.
"Holy Lord Su." Luo Fan did not turn around. "You do not need to bow that deep. I took a liking to your daughters. That is reason enough."
Su Qingxuan's fingers paused mid-circle. Su Qingyin's pour faltered, a single drop splashing the cup rim. Both flushed at the cheekbones. Power. Background. A face that made the lamplight look dim. No breathing woman would refuse a place beneath that wing.
The sky cracked.
Not thunder. Something worse. The sound of a continent splitting its jaw. The support pillars groaned. Dust sifted from the ceiling joints.
The Gu Clan Ancestor materialized above the courtyard. Late Soul Formation. His pressure hit the mountain with physical force. Stone ground against stone. Tiles rattled on the outer roofs.
Then it stopped.
Unblocked. Undeflected. Erased. Wind dying at a shut door. The most natural cessation. The pressure had never existed.
A peak Mahayana aura descended onto the Gu Clan Ancestor from above.
He hit the flagstones face-first. Blood sprayed from his mouth in a thin arc. The stone cratered beneath him, spider fractures running outward for half a meter.
'Who.'
His ribs groaned under the weight. Each breath was a negotiation.
'This power. Impossible. Mahayana. Actual Mahayana.'
The Gu Clan Ancestor's face went the color of old ash. His fingers clawed at the cracked stone, nails splitting.
"Please. I did not mean to. I did not know."
Inside the hall, the scene played across the air in front of Luo Fan in pale shimmering light. He watched it the way a man watches rain on glass. His tea sat untouched. His breathing had not changed.
"What a weak man, acting tough."
Holy Lord Su flinched. The three Mahayana elders exchanged a glance. A Soul Formation cultivator was a summit in this world. Kingdoms bent around such figures. Luo Fan dropped the word weak as one might critique a disappointing dish.
Luo Fan turned his head. He looked at Su Qingxuan, then Su Qingyin.
"How do you want to deal with him?"
Su Qingxuan blinked. Su Qingyin set the teapot down too quickly. The lid clinked against the spout.
'He is asking us. We are servants, we are maids, and he still asks. Like our answer matters to him.'
Su Qingxuan bowed, hands pressed to her thighs.
"Young Master, it is entirely up to you."
Luo Fan touched his chin with two fingers. A small gesture preceding a decision already made.
"Holy Lord Su. Take the three Mahayana elders. Go to the Gu Clan. Demand compensation." He sipped his tea. "If they refuse or show any sign of disobedience, destroy them and take their resources."
Holy Lord Su and the three elders stood in unison. They bowed and left without a word. Footsteps echoed down the corridor and faded.
The hall went quiet. Just the incense. Just the faint tick of cooling stone.
Luo Fan's gaze settled on the two sisters.
"Both of you have special constitutions. Sealed, because the laws of the Taixuan World are incomplete."
Su Qingxuan and Su Qingyin stared at him. He sipped his tea again. Unhurried.
"Su Qingxuan. You carry the Nine Extreme Yin Body. Su Qingyin. You have the Innate Dao Body."
Neither name meant anything to them. Lower Realm records on special constitutions were sparse and fragmentary. A footnote in a footnote.
Behind Luo Fan, Grand Ancestor Liang went very still.
'Nine Extreme Yin. Innate Dao. Both of them. In the same family. That should not be possible.' In the Upper Realm, those words stopped conversations. The kind of bodies that produced empresses and reshaped sects around a single cultivator. Born here, in a sealed lower world with thin spiritual veins and broken laws. The odds were absurd.
"My Young Master." Su Qingyin leaned forward, hands clasped. "What are those? The Nine Extreme Yin Body and the Innate Dao Body?"
Luo Fan waved his hand. Light bloomed in the air, coalescing into a pale shifting display.
"Nine Extreme Yin Body. Female only. Cultivated to its extreme, it can freeze the River of Time. An entire Realm, effortlessly."
He paused. Sipped.
"There is another trait. Equally powerful. It makes the body exceptionally suited for dual cultivation."
His gaze slid to Su Qingxuan. Slow. Measured.
"The Innate Dao Body is on par with the Nine Extreme Yin Body. It grants the ability to cultivate and comprehend laws at tremendous speed. It carries an affinity toward all laws. Given enough time, you could comprehend every single one."
Su Qingxuan glanced at her sister, then back at Luo Fan. Her brow drew together.
'The Innate Dao Body is clearly more powerful. Affinity with all laws. So why call them equals?'
Luo Fan looked at Su Qingxuan.
"You might think Su Qingyin's constitution is the stronger one. Affinity with all laws. You would be correct. And incorrect." He set his cup down. The click of porcelain on stone rang once through the quiet hall. "I can make you learn any law you choose. The affinity hardly matters. It comes down to comprehension talent."
The Gu Clan Family Head hall smelled of cold iron and dried ink. The Family Head sat behind a wide black ironwood desk, a brush moving in slow strokes across a ledger. The hall was quiet. The kind of quiet meaning nothing had gone wrong in a long time.
The doors crashed open.
A disciple stumbled through the threshold, boots skidding on polished stone. His face had gone the color of wet linen. Sweat plastered his collar to his throat.
"Family Head. Something is wrong."
The brush did not stop. The Family Head turned a page.
"What is it. You come barging in here like a whipped dog."
The disciple's jaw worked. His hands trembled at his sides.
"The Ancestor's Soul Tablet." He swallowed. The sound was loud in the still hall. "It is shattered."
The brush stopped. A bead of ink swelled at the tip, held, then dropped. A black bloom spread across the ledger.
The Family Head's face went rigid. The lines around his mouth deepened into grooves.
"What did you say?"
The words hit with the force of a palm strike. Late Nascent Soul pressure rolled outward in a wave. The disciple's knees buckled. Air pressed against his skin with the flat of a blade, peeling the breath from his lungs. His fingers locked around the doorframe to stay upright.
High above the Gu Clan, Holy Lord Su stood behind the three Peak Mahayana Ancestors of the Taixuan Demonic Pavilion.
"Holy Lord, your cultivation is not high enough. You need to step back."
One of the Taixuan Ancestors raised his hand. A massive black palm materialized in the sky, large enough to cover the sun. The hand spanned the entire Gu Clan territory.
It descended.
The black palm struck the ground and erased the Gu Clan in an instant. No fight. No resistance. Just a crater where a mountain once stood.
Holy Lord Su stood with his mouth wide open.
'That powerful Gu Clan. They did not even know they were being attacked, and now they are just... gone. Just gone.'
His hands shook.
'The Taiyin Holy Land must cling to this patron with everything we have. Everything.'
He looked down at the dust settling over the ruins.
'Qingxuan, Qingyin. The glory of Taiyin is entirely in your hands now.'
News of the destruction spread fast. Rumors of a massive black hand crushing the territory reached a faraway village within days.
Ye Chen sat at a corner table in a rundown tavern, picking at a bowl of stale noodles. The wood was sticky with spilled wine. The room smelled of cheap rice liquor and unwashed bodies.
Two cultivators at the next table spoke loud enough to carry over the din.
"Did you hear?" The first cultivator leaned in, lowering his voice. "The Gu Clan was wiped out. Some giant black hand just flattened them."
"They say it was the Taiyin Holy Land settling a conflict." The second man scoffed, swirling his cup. "Impossible. Taiyin is not that strong."
Ye Chen chewed slowly. A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. The Gu Clan had made him suffer, forcing him to hide his face and stay in the shadows for years. Seeing them erased brought a deep warmth to his chest.
Then he thought of Su Qingxuan. His smile vanished. His chopsticks snapped in his grip.
'That bitch. I will make her kneel and serve me like a dog.'
He tossed the broken wood onto the bowl.
'If I had not helped her, nobody would have seen my face. Killing that Gu Young Master would have been simple.'
Ye Chen sighed and rubbed the dull iron ring on his finger.
"Master. The Gu Clan is gone. Should we proceed to the Taiyin Holy Land?"
A faint spiritual ripple emanated from the ring. The remnant soul of a fallen cultivator stirred within the metal.
"It would not be wise. You already made an enemy of the Holy Maiden. The inheritance and treasures inside Taiyin are useful, but it is too risky."
The figure inside the ring sighed. She had been a renowned cultivator before her tribe was slaughtered, falling to this lower realm as a weak remnant. If Ye Chen had not fed her his spiritual power for the last fifteen years, she would have left him long ago.
'Ye Chen helps me, but his personality is terrible. If not for his lust, we would not be in this situation. We might even have a proper invitation to the Taiyin Holy Land. Now our only chance is to sneak in.'
She helped him. His constant posturing and crude thoughts filled her with a quiet, grinding disgust.
"Master, you do not need to worry. If you help me, I can surely get inside the Taiyin Holy Land."
The remnant soul recoiled.
'A man should rely on his own feet to stand rather than asking others for help. This Ye Chen makes me feel sick day by day.'
Ye Chen did not notice his master's silence. He scraped the last noodles from the bowl, tossed a few copper coins on the sticky table, and walked out into the grey afternoon.
Not long after, Holy Lord Su and the three Peak Mahayana elders returned to the Taiyin Holy Land.
Holy Lord Su wore a bright expression. He had gathered all the resources from the Gu Clan, a haul massive enough to elevate his sect to new heights. The Gu Clan stores alone were more than double the current Taiyin Holy Land treasury.
Luo Fan still sat on his throne with Qingxuan and Qingyin beside him. He did not glance at the returning elders.
His gaze seemed to traverse all realms. Time and space meant nothing to it.
Luo Fan was watching Ye Chen. Even though he planned to kill this Son of Fate, he wanted to see how such a person truly operated.
Luo Fan glanced at Su Qingxuan.
"The Ye Chen you mentioned. Even though the Gu Clan is gone, we should not let the person responsible go free."
He then looked at Holy Lord Su.
"Order a full search. The bounty on Ye Chen's head continues."
Hearing the name Ye Chen twisted Holy Lord Su's mouth into a sneer. The brat was the sole reason the Taiyin Holy Land had suffered the Gu Clan's wrath. The sect had done nothing, yet Ye Chen vanished and left them to absorb the fury.
Night fell over the Taiyin Holy Land. The lamps along the outer corridors burned low, their flames thin and orange against the dark stone.
Luo Fan stayed in the Main Manor, in the private chambers Holy Lord Su had prepared for him. The room smelled of sandalwood and fresh linen. A single candle guttered on the side table, throwing long shadows across the carved screen.
Grand Ancestor Liang stood waiting for orders, hands clasped at his waist.
"You did well today. Your three Mahayana elders performed adequately."
Luo Fan raised his hand in a casual wave. The talent bottleneck trapping Grand Ancestor Liang at the Star Lord realm shattered into dust.
Grand Ancestor Liang's cultivation surged.
Early Star Transcendence.
Mid Star Transcendence.
Late Star Transcendence.
Peak Star Transcendence.
It stopped at Early Star Emperor.
Power flooded his meridians. The breakthrough came without heavenly tribulation or atmospheric phenomenon. The heavens themselves were being held back by an unseen will.
Grand Ancestor Liang had already suspected Luo Fan originated far above the Upper Realm Luo Clan branch. This casual display of authority still shook him to his core.
In the Upper Realm, the concept of an Immortal Realm was a myth that spread wide, the way mortals looked up at the Upper Realm itself. No information. No proof. But no proof it did not exist, either. The higher the realm, the greater the causal price one paid to descend into a Lower Realm.
'But to elevate a cultivator with a mere wave of a hand. Just how powerful must one be to do that? I cannot even frame the answer.'
Luo Fan glanced at Grand Ancestor Liang and tossed him three golden pills. They caught the candlelight, each one warm and heavy in the old man's palm.
"Void Transformation Pinnacle Pills. Guaranteed breakthrough for Mahayana cultivators. They even prevent the tribulation from forming. Give them to the three elders."
Grand Ancestor Liang closed his fingers around the pills. He bowed low, forehead nearly touching the stone floor, and backed out of the chamber without a word.
The candle flame steadied. The room went still.
Meanwhile, at the outer edge of the Taiyin Holy Land, Ye Chen slipped through a gap in the protective formation.
He wore black from throat to ankle, soft-soled boots pressing flat against the cold flagstones. The night air tasted of pine resin and damp earth. His breath came shallow through his teeth.
Then he saw them.
Su Qingxuan and Su Qingyin, dressed in pale silk that caught the moonlight, walking side by side toward Luo Fan's manor. Their hair was pinned up. Their steps were careful, deliberate. They had clearly spent a long time preparing.
Ye Chen's jaw clenched. His fingernails bit into his palms.
'Those two. I am going to make them beg me to spend a single night with them.'
The iron ring on his finger pulsed with irritation.
"Ye Chen. Focus. Did I not tell you this inheritance is important for me to recover my power?"
The remnant soul's voice was thin, papery, edged with exhaustion.
"If I can recover my power, I can help you even if you face a mid-stage Soul Formation cultivator. And as part of our deal, I will give you a Mahayana Sword Technique."
Ye Chen smirked. He respected his master. He did. But something about her tone always kept a wall between them, as though she could not quite bring herself to trust him.
'Either way, fine. I do not trust her that much either. But at least she is the most trustworthy person I have right now.'
He pulled his collar up over his nose and moved deeper into the shadows, following the faint glow of the sisters' lanterns toward the manor.
The two women disappeared through the manor gates. The soft click of the latch echoed once in the still air, then nothing.
Ye Chen pressed his back against a pillar. His breathing slowed. He waited three counts, then peeled away from the stone.
'Master. Can you sense what is inside the manor? I fear if I release my divine sense, I will be detected.'
A faint ripple extended from the ring. The remnant soul's awareness pushed outward, thin as spider silk, reaching toward the manor walls.
It never arrived.
The divine sense touched the outer perimeter and dissolved. No backlash. No warning. Simply gone, as though it had never left the ring.
"What happened?" Ye Chen whispered.
'What is wrong, Master?'
No answer came. The remnant soul had no time to explain.
Pressure slammed down from above. Not gradual. Instant. The flagstones beneath Ye Chen's feet cracked in a web pattern. His knees buckled. The air turned to iron around his ribs.
"Who dares disturb Young Master's rest?"
Grand Ancestor Liang descended from the sky, robes barely stirring. Behind him, the three Mahayana elders materialized in a loose formation, their gazes locking onto Ye Chen with the flat disinterest of men examining an insect on a windowsill.
The remnant soul inside the ring went cold.
'Three Mahayana. And one... Star Emperor.'
A pause. The mind catching up.
'That should not be possible. There should not be any force in this world at this level. And yet here it is, pressing us into the ground like insects. That Star Emperor, he is surely from the Upper Realm. Which force are they from? Which force could even produce this?'
Grand Ancestor Liang's eyes narrowed. The moment he had spotted Ye Chen, his perception had pierced the ring's concealment. A remnant soul. Faint, degraded, but present. In its prime, something like that could have rivaled him. The thought made his expression sharpen.
Inside the manor, Luo Fan watched through the shimmering display. His chin rested on one hand.
'The script has changed drastically since I interfered with the Taiyin Holy Land. Still, I do wonder how they intend to escape from this.'
Ye Chen's face had gone the color of old parchment. Four existences stood above him, any one of whom could lift a finger and reduce him to a smear of blood on stone. His legs shook. His vision tunneled.
'Ye Chen.' The remnant soul's voice was tight, compressed. 'I will try to open a crack in space. When I say now, you jump back as hard as you can.'
Grand Ancestor Liang raised his palm. Spiritual energy gathered at his fingertips, condensing into a thin blade of light. He looked down at Ye Chen the way one looks at a stain on a clean floor.
'Now.'
Ye Chen threw himself backward. Every tendon in his legs screamed. At that exact instant, the space behind his back split open. A crack, barely wider than his shoulders, glowing faintly at the edges. He fell through it.
The spatial fluctuation was minimal. A whisper of displaced air. A faint tremor in the fabric of the world that faded before it could be traced.
Grand Ancestor Liang stared at the empty space where Ye Chen had stood. The blade of light dissipated from his fingers. A corner of his mouth lifted.
"If it were before I became Star Emperor, I might not have been able to trace it in time."
He tilted his head, watching the last ripple of spatial distortion fade.
"Do not underestimate the servants of the Luo Clan. Just because I am a servant does not mean I lack talent."
He raised his hand. The space before him began to peel open, layers of reality folding back as he prepared to pursue.
'Just let him go.'
The voice carried no weight. No pressure. It simply arrived in Grand Ancestor Liang's mind, quiet and absolute.
He froze. His hand lowered. The peeling space sealed itself shut with a soft sigh of displaced air. He stepped back, folded his hands at his waist, and said nothing.
The three Mahayana elders exchanged a glance. None of them moved. The night settled back into silence, broken only by the distant tick of cooling stone and the low moan of wind through the outer corridors.
Inside the manor, the sisters had not heard a thing.
Su Qingxuan and Su Qingyin stood just beyond the threshold of Luo Fan's private chamber. The door had closed behind them. The room smelled of sandalwood and fresh linen, the candle on the side table casting warm amber across the carved screen.
Neither moved.
Before they had come here, Grand Ancestor Liang had visited their quarters. He told them plainly. Luo Fan was the Young Master of the Luo Clan. Not a branch. Not an affiliate. The Luo Clan of the Higher Realm.
Su Qingxuan had already suspected. The way he moved through the world, the casual weight of his words, the effortless way reality bent around him. But hearing confirmation still turned her stomach faintly nauseous. Her fingers pressed flat against her thigh to steady them.
Su Qingyin had not suspected at all. The information had hit her like a physical blow. Her mind kept cycling back to the same thought, unable to move past it. The Luo Clan. The Higher Realm. Here. In their manor. Drinking their tea.
'He is that high. That far above anything I could have imagined, and he is sitting in our manor drinking our tea like it is nothing.'
But now they stood in his chamber. Both of them intended to serve. Both of them wanted to. The problem was that neither had the faintest idea what serving someone at that level actually looked like.
At this height of identity, he would not lack for heavenly beauties. Women beyond counting, beyond comparison. What could two sealed cultivators from a lower world possibly offer?
Ten minutes passed. The candle burned lower. The shadows on the screen shifted.
Su Qingxuan's hand found her sister's. A small squeeze. Then she released it, straightened her spine, and stepped forward.
"Young Master Luo. Qingxuan and Qingyin are here."