Tianci steps out of his room, the wooden floor creaking softly beneath his feet.
The morning mist curls through the forest, and beyond it, the faint hum of the array barrier ripples like a dream. He rises through it, his robes whispering in the wind, and lands atop the tallest tree—gazing out at the valley below.
There, coiling through the mountains like a wound of darkness, lies the Black Mist Weird Creature, its mass blotting out the horizon. It breathes like a storm, endless and hollow, and blocks the path to the Soul Well—his last hope for ascension.
He watches in silence, the weight of years pressing against his chest.
Now is the time. Either face that abomination for a sliver of hope or wither quietly, waiting for death next year.
Two presences descend behind him, soft and steady. His disciples.
"Master…" Meikou's voice trembles faintly, her spirit power suppressed out of respect.
Tianci doesn't answer. His gaze remains on the writhing mist. I am going to die anyway, he thinks. What difference does it make if it is today or a year later?
He lifts his hands, removing two space rings—thin circles of light glinting between his fingers—and turns toward them.
"Take these," he says, his voice calm, almost detached. "There are cultivation resources for both of you."
The rings leave his control, vanishing into theirs.
"Jinhou," Tianci continues, "I know you're ambitious. But don't be. When I'm gone, there will be no one to protect you."
A pause.
"Yes, Master," Jinhou answers, tone flat, eyes fixed on the horizon.
Tianci sighs inwardly. Ungrateful brat.
He turns to Meikou instead. "If you truly wish to honour me, then listen—do not sell the Soul Well's location until both of you reach the Pill Formation Realm. The Black Tower can wait."
Meikou's eyes soften. "Master… nothing will happen to you. You'll succeed—you'll become a Demigod. I believe it."
Tianci's expression shifts, a faint warmth crossing his face. A disciple who still cares. He glances once more at Jinhou, who doesn't even hide his boredom, staring at the black mist instead.
"Disciple," he says with a small smile, "then wait for me to return from my breakthrough."
"Master," Jinhou interrupts suddenly, "the weird—it's fighting someone."
Tianci blinks and turns back toward the valley. The Weird's enormous body twists and surges, obscuring his view, but through the mist, he feels it—two forces clashing within that darkness.
Within the mountain, months before this moment, Lin Yu's cursed energy heart had opened its eyes and mouth, becoming a true Tier Nine Extraordinary Heart.
He had seized it, letting the cursed power flood through his immortal body cultivation, pushing him to the peak of the Spirit Core Stage.
Now, his body teeters on the edge of transcendence. One last step remains—one more battle, one more surge of life and death.
"Advancing to the next realm," Lin Yu murmurs within the darkness of the mountain, "may be the key to breaking through the Demigod Stage."
He opens his eyes. Across the dimly glowing blood lake, Amelie watches him. Her silver hair clings to her shoulders, her eyes shadowed by worry.
"How far are you," she asks quietly, "from becoming a Demigod?"
The question hangs heavy in the crimson air. The lake's glow has dimmed—its once-limitless energy now a shallow whisper of power. Both of them can feel it. The blood essence that has sustained their cultivation for years is fading, and when it's gone, the Black Mist Weird will descend into the mountain.
They have no escape.
For years, they've cultivated within this sealed place, pushing their strength to the brink.
Now, both stand one step away from the Demigod Stage—but that step looms higher than every other combined. The gap between Tier Nine and Demigod is a gulf that has swallowed countless prodigies before them.
Amelie's eyes lowered. Her Cursed Extraordinary Path has only reached Tier Five, while Lin Yu, who began after her, has already reached Tier Nine.
The difference in their pace is a difference of worlds.
Lin Yu's voice breaks the silence.
"Very near."
Amelie rises from the lake, droplets of blood rolling off her body like fading light. "Then I won't cultivate further," she says, her tone firm despite her exhaustion. "You use what's left of the blood lake's power. Break through to the Demigod Stage."
Lin Yu studies her for a moment. There is no hesitation in her words. No trace of envy. Only determination.
He nods. "All right."
Breaking through with his physical body will be enough. Once he becomes a Demigod, even the Black Mist Weird outside will no longer be a threat.
He closes his eyes again, sinking into deep stillness—and far away, within the boundless thread that ties his souls, Jingxuan's spirit touches his.
The two halves of his being merge in thought.
Together, they begin to deduce the next realm of the Immortal Demon Body Refining Technique.
This step is critical—the final stage before the mortal cultivation path ends and the Demigod Stage begins. Both Lin Yu and Jingxuan have reached this same boundary, separated by space but linked in essence.
Jingxuan has already comprehended the Law of Positive and Law of Negative to Intermediate Stage Three, while his Four Elemental Laws—Fire, Wind, Water, and Earth—have all reached the Peak of Stage Three.
He can combine them, merge the polarities of creation and destruction, and forge the path to Demigod—but only if his cultivation catches up to his understanding.
And that is what restrains them both.
In the Divine Domain, Jingxuan's situation is growing dire. Since the battle with Wenrui, the Thousand-Year Tribulation has begun.
The heavens have turned against the world, and the Weirds swarm like a tide.
The Great Zhou Dynasty, once stretching across ten thousand miles, has fallen back to its heart. The Central Domain still stands—its lands encased in the Divine Domain's barrier, pulsing faintly like the last heartbeat of a dying world.
Beyond its glow, the rest of the empire lies in ruin—cities drowned in mist, plains swallowed by shadows, and mountains crawling with Weirds that whisper the hymns of extinction.
In this silence between life and collapse, Jingxuan and Lin Yu continue their shared deduction. Their spirits, though separated by worlds, move in perfect rhythm—each breath, each flicker of thought, mirrored through the thread that binds them.
Within their spirit spaces, their Spirit Cores shine like stars—burning, pulsing, alive. Around those cores swirl the fragments of their deduction, a thousand lines of law weaving into one truth.
Their result is the same.
The next realm is not to expand, but to transform.
To turn the Spirit Space into a Spiritual World, with the Spirit Core as its origin—its beating heart.
Such a transformation would grant them unparalleled power. A cultivator whose Spirit Space became a world would command the laws inside it, wielding authority equal to the heavens themselves within that boundary.
But the cost—
The cost was astronomical.
It would demand a hundredfold more resources for every step, every breath, every thread of cultivation. The time required would stretch beyond centuries, even for a genius of their level.
With the same time and effort, he could rise several realms higher—gaining not only combat strength but also longevity, the thing Jingxuan valued above all else.
Immortality was his obsession. His reason for existence.
So he does not reject the deduction. He simply alters it.
After the Spirit Core Realm, he will not create a world—but a Spiritual Heart Realm, mirroring the Extraordinary Heart of the Extraordinary Path.
This heart, however, will not be made of blood or energy. It will be forged from Law and Spirit, the two purest essences of existence.
They continue their deduction—beyond the limits of mortal cultivation—pushing into the threshold of Demigod.
To break through, a Law must reach Stage Four—the point where its structure begins to imitate the framework of creation itself.
Then, the Spiritual Heart must merge with the Spirit Core.
The three—Spirit, Essence, and Energy—must intertwine with that Law to form the prototype of a World Heart.
A nascent world. A seed of creation.
But Jingxuan will not fully form it. Not yet.
He will leave it dormant, a World Heart in embryo, waiting to awaken only when he chooses to create his own world.
Both he and Lin Yu begin their next step: the forging of Spiritual Hearts.
Jingxuan forms first the four elemental hearts—Earth, Fire, Water, Wind.
Each hums with its own pulse, its own will. Earth beats steadily, fire burns furiously, water flows softly, wind whispers freely.
Then, he merges them—four hearts fusing into one, their colours twisting into a single prismatic glow.
Next, he forges two more hearts—one woven from the Law of Positive Energy, radiant and still; the other born from the Law of Negative Energy, dark and eternal.
Now seven hearts beat within his spirit space, orbiting his Spirit Core like suns around a central star.
He raises his hand, and all seven begin to turn—drawn together by a force beyond element or law.
And above them all, as though whispered by something ancient within his soul, a concept begins to unfold—
The Concept of Immortality.
He guides the seven hearts into alignment beneath it, merging their rhythm into one.
And as they pulse in unison, his spirit space trembles—
not collapsing, not breaking,
…but ascending.
While Jingxuan forms his own Spiritual Heart, deep beneath the blood-red mountain, Lin Yu sits cross-legged within the fading glow of the blood lake.
The energy within it thins like a dying breath, but his focus sharpens, unbroken.
Before him floats the Death Extraordinary Heart—now reshaped, refined—its once grotesque form gleaming faintly with runes of black and silver.
He channels his comprehension of the Law of Death, fusing it into the heart, turning it into his first Spiritual Heart.
Then, he does the same with the Curse Extraordinary Heart, tracing the runes with his will, and it too transforms, its structure changing into a heart pulsing with the rhythm of malevolence and decay.
Next comes the Shadow Law—a cold, weightless darkness taking shape, becoming his third Spiritual Heart.
And finally, he forms a Life Law Spiritual Heart, vibrant and luminous, balancing the others with quiet resilience.
Four hearts now pulse in his spirit space—Death, Curse, Shadow, and Life—their laws resonating with power that shakes his soul. Combining them, he can break through to the Demigod Stage.
But Lin Yu's goal isn't the same as others. His main body seeks nine Spiritual Hearts—a full cycle of law and balance, the foundation for a higher existence.
Even after entering the Spiritual Heart Realm, his physical body still refuses to cross the final boundary into Demigod.
The last barrier holds strong, the flesh yet unbroken by divinity. And the blood lake's energy, nearly depleted, won't be enough to push him through.
Still, he doesn't falter. With the four Laws he already commands—each at the Peak of Stage Three—his combat power now exceeds even a Demigod's. He can face the Black Mist Weird and survive.
But survival isn't enough. He needs more.
With the last traces of energy from the blood lake, he decides to cultivate another Spiritual Heart.
At first, he intends to comprehend the Law of Soul. It aligns with his path, a natural extension of his mastery over Death and Life.
But then he pauses.
His Life Clone, back in the Extraordinary Heart World, would likely choose the same. Both share the same consciousness, the same thought patterns—the same logic.
Their comprehension of the Law of Soul would mirror each other, offering little gain when they finally reunite.
Two identical mirrors never expand each other's reflection.
He sits in silence, thinking. What law, if grasped, would help him build toward the Concept of Immortality?
And then the answer surfaces—dark and unsettling.
Weird Energy.
The Weirds born from it are creatures that defy death itself. They cannot truly die unless their core is refined, their essence eternal in its corruption.
If immortality is to be understood, it must be confronted where it is most distorted—within the Weird.
He opens his eyes, their glow turning faintly violet. To face the master of Weird Energy in the future, I must first comprehend his power.
And so he begins.
He sinks into meditation, diving into the trace of Weird Energy lingering within his body, dissecting its rhythm, its breath, its terrifying logic.
Around him, the blood lake churns with whispers, as though the world itself recoils from what he is learning.
Far away, in the Silver Mountain Fort, Jingxuan sits within a collapsing hall, seven Spiritual Hearts revolving above his head.
Outside, the fortress walls tremble under the siege of countless Weird creatures, their roars shaking the sky. Soldiers scream, fire burns, and the storm of madness approaches.
Jingxuan doesn't move. He has reached the final step—
to merge the seven hearts under the Concept of Immortality.
Outside the fortress, Li Niyue fights beneath the blood-red sky. The ground trembles with the weight of countless Weirds, their screams echoing through the blackened air. Her opponent—an enormous Blood Slime Weird—surges toward her, its surface glistening like molten flesh.
Though the creature's rank is high, she meets it head-on. Her Immortal Demon Body has already reached the initial Spirit Core Stage, and her power flows like a frozen storm. With each swing of her sword, shards of frost spiral through the air, forming a blizzard of cutting hail.
The storm tears through the Weird, shredding it into dozens of writhing pieces—but even as they fall, the red sludge gathers again, reforming its body, smaller but renewed.
She steadies her breath, eyes narrowing.
Its resilience intrigues her.
The Blood Slime's regeneration, its refusal to die—there is a law behind it. Perhaps the Law of Recovery, or something darker, is tied to the essence of Weird Energy itself. In this endless war, such an ability would be invaluable.
Her mind races, and she decides to push further. Using a Law Spell at her current exhaustion is reckless, but this battle has already forced her beyond the point of restraint.
Weird energy stirs around her, responding to her will as she dodges a whip-like tendril that lashes out from the slime's body, cracking the earth.
"Ice Goddess's Gaze."
Her whisper blooms into command. Behind her, twin eyes of glacial blue open in the air, unblinking and divine.
A beam of frozen light cuts forward. The air itself freezes solid, and in a heartbeat, the Blood Slime becomes a statue of scarlet ice, frozen mid-movement, its writhing form locked in silence.
She raises her sword.
"Ice Sword Light."
Her blade flashes once, then splits into hundreds of spectral arcs. The frozen creature shatters under the storm of light—breaking apart, scattering like ruby glass.
When the last fragment falls, only a core remains, faintly pulsing within the ice dust.
She moves swiftly, grabs it, and retreats toward the Silver Mountain Fortress walls.
All around her, the battle rages on. Weirds surge endlessly from the horizon under the dark sun, their bodies blotting out the light.
Her breath is ragged, her energy drained nearly eighty per cent, but she keeps moving. To stop is to die.
She lands atop the fortress wall, boots striking blood-soaked stone, and turns back to the battlefield below.
The Weirds keep coming—
a tide of madness that never ends.
Beside her, the deputy fortress commander descends from the air, his armour cracked and his aura flickering. He has just slain another high-level Weird, and the exhaustion in his eyes mirrors hers.
"Princess," he says, catching his breath, "when will the commander come out of retreat?"
Li Niyue doesn't answer immediately. She looks down at the warlocks and soldiers below, the defenders of the Silver Mountain Fort.
They fight knowing there is no victory—
cultivating the Immortal Demon Body Technique even as the Weirds devour them, pushing their limits to protect a world already half-fallen.
They die in droves, yet none retreat.
Because there is no retreat.
The Weirds do not spare the surrendered.
They devour everything that breathes.
She looks toward the horizon, where heaven and earth quake under a crimson sky.
"He's breaking through the Demigod Stage," she says quietly. "The fortress can fall—but his retreat must not be disturbed."
The deputy commander's jaw tightens. His heart rebels at her words, but reason silences him.
"…Yes, Princess."
He knows she's right. If Commander Jingxuan succeeds, his strength will no longer protect only this fortress—it will secure the entire western front. One man's breakthrough could shift the balance of a dying empire.
So he turns and flies back into the storm, joining the other warlocks in their desperate stand.
Days bleed together in endless battle. The sky never clears, the smell of ash never fades.
Then, one morning, the air itself changes.
The pressure that falls upon the fortress isn't from within the divine domain. It comes from the west—vast, oppressive, divine.
Every living being feels it.
The warlocks on the wall freeze mid-spell. The soldiers clutch their weapons and stop breathing. Even the Weirds themselves halt their slaughter, trembling as if in worship.
From the horizon, something approaches.
A shadowed colossus, walking through the air as though the sky were solid ground. Its body is immense and headless, its elephant head grotesquely embedded in its belly. Each step distorts the world, rippling through reality like waves across a broken mirror.
A Demigod-level Weird.
The battlefield falls silent. The Weird creatures kneel, their claws pressed to the ground, their black blood steaming in reverence.
The deputy commander feels his spirit shudder.
"Princess," he says, voice shaking, "we have to wake the commander."
Li Niyue nods, her expression pale but resolute. "We can't stop that thing. I'll go to him myself."
She turns and takes flight, vanishing into the fortress halls.
The deputy commander grips his sword and looks back just in time to see the Demigod Weird stop walking. Its trunk flares, and a low rumble fills the air, like thunder grinding against bone.
Then, without warning, it turns around.
A flash—silver, sharp, divine—streaks across the sky.
A beam of silver energy slams into the giant's side, and the explosion that follows swallows the western horizon. The shockwave tears across the battlefield, flattening armies, shaking the fortress to its core.
Stone walls crumble. Dust rains from the heavens.
Li Niyue rushes back to the parapet, her breath catching as the light fades.
In the distance, amid the smoke and ruin, two titans clash—one dark and headless, the other blazing with silver flame.
The deputy commander stares, wide-eyed, his voice a whisper lost to the storm.
"Who… who is it?"
And in the sky, the answer burns too bright to name.