"It's a shame... It's just a mountain range."
Weaving swiftly through the dense forest, Su Min's thoughts raced.
Minshan, much like the Taishan mountains of her previous world, had towering peaks but covered only a modest area. The true danger, however, lay in the endless plains surrounding it. To escape, she would need enough strength to break through the layers of military encirclement and reach the weaker outposts far from the empire's core.
Until then, she couldn't afford to clash with soldiers. Her current level, only at the Body Refining Stage, wasn't enough to ignore the threat of sheer numbers. Besides, there was always a stronger enemy waiting. She had to stay cautious, always.
At last, she found a place to breathe. Halfway up the mountain, a hidden cave tucked into the cliffside offered refuge. It was invisible from below. To reach it, one either had to rappel from the peak using a rope or climb the nearly sheer rock face using tiny cracks and ridges, a feat possible only with an almost superhuman body.
"Finally safe..." she thought, settling into the cave's shadows. Only now did she have time to truly reflect on her situation and the story unfolding around her.
"After all this chaos, I finally remembered... this must be the prologue of the game, The Empire's Collapse."
Back in her world, getting a helmet for this immersive cultivation game had been no easy task. By the time Su Min had secured one, it was already the third release batch. She hadn't even been able to play properly, relying instead on livestreams and secondhand accounts online.
The game centered around immortal cultivation, spanning centuries in its timeline. Players were tasked with continuously advancing before their lifespans ran out, and failure meant permanent character death. For beginners, the safest strategy was to focus on survival, slowly growing stronger while staying out of sight.
NPCs would age, die, and leave descendants, creating a living world that spanned generations. However, every player's starting point was different. Randomized birthplaces and identities meant each journey was unique, though eventually, every story led back to the same central plot.
Su Min had chosen to be born as a noblewoman. It had made sense at the time; her abilities weren't combat-oriented, and a noble background ensured an easier start. If she had picked a battle-focused talent instead, she might already have fought her way out, even at the Body Refining Stage.
"But who would've thought I'd end up like this?" she murmured with a bitter smile.
"If I remember right, the first arc of the story follows those old myths about gods and demons, like The Investiture of the Gods. Beautiful enchantresses corrupt kingdoms, empires fall into chaos, the emperor seeks immortality and loses his humanity, and monsters rise to fill the void. And this is only the beginning."
Su Min exhaled slowly, clearing her mind as she returned to cultivation. In the timeless silence of the mountains, days and nights blurred together. While she practiced in peace, at the foot of the mountain, chaos brewed.
"This—"
General Ma grimaced at the sight before him: the corpse of the hunter Su Min had killed. According to Great Wei's laws, the Minshan region, though vast, belonged solely to the emperor. Only families with hereditary hunting rights were allowed inside. Commoners were strictly forbidden.
This particular hunter had been one of the best, among the few who still knew the terrain well. Losing him now meant the army could easily lose its way in the deep forest.
"You're telling me that a squad—what, fifteen men?—couldn't catch a single little girl?" General Ma barked, his expression dark.
The squad leader, flanked by two wounded soldiers being dragged to the medics, knelt stiffly under the general's withering glare. He had been the one to shoot an arrow at Su Min—an arrow she had effortlessly split midair with her sword before escaping the encirclement.
"The girl's skills are extraordinary," the squad leader said bitterly. "She cut my arrow in half and moved like a phantom. Besides, we were under strict orders to capture her alive. We couldn't risk letting fly with volleys."
They were an archer unit, capable of drawing great war bows. But with the live capture order in place, only the squad leader had carried arrows—the others bore shields and nets. General Ma's face darkened further.
"How could that be?" he muttered in disbelief, turning toward the madam who had been feeding him information. His look clearly said: You lied to me.
You said she had no real cultivation, just a momentary burst of strength at most—enough to kill one or two, but nothing more. And yet, she cut her way out of an encirclement with a single sword stroke, then vanished without a trace.
Ten steps, one kill; a thousand miles, no lingering shadow.
You call her a 'little girl'? Even the empire's top martial artists fight like that!
"This... is a big problem."
Ignoring General Ma's accusatory glare, the madam hurriedly excused herself and left the camp, her heart pounding with unease. She had to report immediately. The worst-case scenario had come to pass. Somehow, that girl had crossed the threshold—the one separating mortals from cultivators. Now, she was far beyond anything the madam could handle.
Soon, deep in an underground chamber—
A young, beautiful girl struggled weakly in chains. As a sinister ritual completed, her skin withered in an instant, her youth consumed, leaving only a dried skeleton clattering to the floor. From the shadows, a decayed figure licked its cracked lips with grotesque satisfaction.
"Mistress," the madam knelt. "The worst has happened. That girl, she—"
Trembling, the madam recounted everything she had witnessed.
"Early Body Refining Stage... yes, that explains it. She truly has that level of strength now." To the madam's surprise, her mistress remained calm.
"What?" she gasped.
"He's already begun mobilizing troops. A hundred thousand soldiers will flood the mountains from all directions. That girl... she won't escape."
The monstrous figure ran a shriveled tongue across its bark-like skin, a sickly smile tugging at its lips.
"The Human Emperor is born under the protection of the Purple Star's true essence (Ziwei Zhenyuan, a royal-protective energy in cultivation lore). No cultivator can harm him. And the daughters of the Purple Star are rare treasures among mortals. Unlike that girl, they can be harvested safely. A shame, really. One of her would have sufficed, but now we'll need several Purple Star daughters instead."
"Hiss—"
The madam shuddered. She had grown up in Great Wei. To her, the idea of forcing the emperor himself to offer up royal bloodlines was so audacious it bordered on madness.
But her master? Her master thought nothing of it.
In the deepening twilight, tens of thousands of imperial soldiers began to march.
From every direction, a vast human tide surged toward Minshan.
The hunt had begun.