Raven had been stuck on Tianxing for five hundred years now. Should've died centuries ago, moved on to whatever cosmic punishment or reward that awaited her next. That's how it worked—complete the mission, fulfill whatever purpose the universe assigned, then die. Sometimes, battle wounds. Sometimes poison. Hell, sometimes she just got tired and let go.
But not this time.
Something kept her anchored here, some invisible chain she couldn't identify or break. She'd worried about it initially, turning the mystery over like a coin in her pocket. But worrying about fate's whims was a luxury she'd long since abandoned. So she'd done something almost unthinkable.
She lived.
Just... lived.
Standing seven feet tall now, Raven drew stares wherever she went. Five centuries of cultivation had refined her into something between mortal and divine—all flowing silver hair and electric blue eyes that seemed to hold the weight of ages. Beautiful, terrible, impossible to ignore.
She'd spent the time learning things. Combat techniques that would terrify immortals, sure, but also scholarly pursuits that would've bored her younger self to tears. Libraries became refuges. Ancient ruins became puzzles. The political games of cultivation sects became entertainment for a mind that had navigated waters far more treacherous.
Then fate decided to collect.
The secret realm appeared like a heat mirage—a dimensional crack that most cultivators would miss entirely. But Raven's soul was older than this world's cultivation system, and she recognized the signs immediately. Space folding wrong at the edges. Reality getting... slippery.
She stepped through without hesitation.
What lay beyond defied every category she knew. Crystal formations jutted at impossible angles, surfaces reflecting memory instead of light. Moments from countless lives flickered in their depths like trapped fireflies. The air hummed with energy older than the current cosmic order.
At the center: a pedestal. On the pedestal: a golden blood essence bead, unlike anything in her collection.
She already carried nine such blood essence beads in her soul space, marks of victory from merit worlds that had tested her in ways that still left scars. But this one sang to her—not with sound, but with resonance that touched something fundamental in her being, her very soul seemed to resonate with it.
The moment her fingers closed around it, everything went sideways.
The realm collapsed. Reality crumpled like paper in an invisible fist, and she found herself tumbling through dimensions with the bead clutched against her chest. Colors streaked past. Sensations blurred. Then—
Tianxing's ascension platform.
She blinked, confused. The great stone circle had stood for ten millennia as a gateway between realms, but she hadn't been seeking ascension. Hadn't even been walking in this direction. Yet here she stood, and already storm clouds gathered overhead.
Purple lightning began to form. The color of transcendence trials.
Raven smiled grimly and settled into her stance. If the cosmos wanted to play, she was more than willing to oblige.
"Come on then," she murmured to the darkening sky. "I've weathered worse."
The first bolts struck like divine judgment. Purple fire cascaded around her as she drew on five centuries of accumulated power. Her robes—celestial spider silk woven with protective formations—began smoking under the assault. Blood welled where lightning carved furrows deeply within her flesh.
She stood firm.
This was nothing compared to some worlds she'd endured. Places where survival meant embracing pain as your oldest friend, where every breath was earned through suffering. Pain so severe that one can't even think of dying, you just exist, taking it one breath at a time.
Strike after strike hammered down, testing different aspects of her existence. Body. Mind. Will. The core of her Dao heart. Bones cracked under pressure that could pulverize mountains. Muscles tore. Skin charred.
She endured.
Then came the soul tribulation.
Red-black lightning descended, thick as a man's arm and carrying the weight of cosmic judgment. When it struck, something fundamental shifted. The world dissolved like watercolors in rain.
She stood in endless shadow.
"Mommy?"
The voice hit her like a physical blow. Small. Uncertain. Familiar in ways that made her chest clench.
She turned.
A child stood before her, maybe four years old, bathed in soft light that seemed to come from within. Dark hair fell in gentle waves around features that echoed Raven's own, refined into something almost celestial. But the eyes—clear, trusting, unmarked by pain—those eyes shattered her completely.
Novara.
For five hundred years, she'd kept these memories locked behind walls of will and necessity. The pain was too raw, too absolute to carry through trials that demanded everything from her.
Now those walls crumbled.
***
The charity hospital ward stank of desperation and human misery. Seventeen-year-old Mara Brenner—not yet Raven, not yet aware of what she truly was—lay alone on a stained mattress in the corner reserved for those who couldn't pay.
Her malnourished frame shook with each contraction. Nurses whispered cruel observations: "Seventeen and knocked up already... won't last the night... waste of space."
The doctor had glanced at her once, noted her poverty like a bad smell, and moved on to patients who mattered.
Hours blurred in haze of agony and abandonment. Kael, her forced husband, couldn't be bothered to attend. Selene, the woman she called mother despite years of neglect, had turned her away. She faced the greatest ordeal of her young life utterly alone.
Death circled like a patient scavenger. Her body weakened with each labored breath, vision darkening at the edges. But something deep inside her—some wellspring of strength she never knew existed—suddenly blazed to life in that moment of ultimate despair.
With desperate will, she pushed. Her scream echoed through the ward like a phoenix crying as it emerged from flame.
The baby came into the harsh world tiny and slick, first breath a piercing wail that cut through institutional indifference. Nurses grudgingly intervened, wrapping the infant in cloth better suited to mopping floors. They placed the child on Mara's chest with mechanical efficiency, already turning toward more profitable patients.
But when Mara's trembling hands rose to cradle her daughter, everything changed.
Pain vanished, swept away by love so pure it left her gasping. The ward's squalor faded as she gazed at the tiny face—wrinkled, red, blinking against harsh light, but perfect beyond comprehension. Tears streamed down her cheeks, not from sorrow but wonder.
"My Starlight," she whispered, the nickname flowing like a prayer. "You're my light in all this darkness."
The baby quieted at her voice. Tiny fingers curled around Mara's thumb with surprising strength. In that sacred moment, mother and daughter existed alone in the universe, bound by something stronger than fate itself.
For the first time in her life, Mara Brenner wasn't alone.
***
"Mommy, why have you forgotten me?"
Novara's voice pulled Raven back to the shadow realm, where she knelt, frozen in anguish.
"I never forgot," Raven's voice cracked. "I couldn't bear remembering. The pain was too much."
Novara tilted her head with wisdom no child should possess. "But you carried it anyway, Mommy. Through ninety-nine lives. It's been bleeding inside you."
Another memory rose unbidden...
***
Two-year-old Novara sat in Mara's lap in their cramped room above the tavern where Mara scrubbed dishes for scraps. The child's dark hair held copper highlights in candlelight, falling around features that refined Mara's own into something ethereal.
"Tell me about stars again, Mama."
Mara smiled despite bone-deep exhaustion, pointing toward their cracked window. "See that bright one? That's yours, Starlight. It's waited for you since before you were born, watching over you."
"Will it always be there?"
"Always. Even when the world goes dark, your star will shine. No matter what happens to me, I'll find you by following that light."
Novara twisted in her arms, clear eyes looking up with complete trust. "Promise?"
"Forever and always, my love."
***
"You kept that promise," Novara said softly as the memory faded. "You found me in every life. But you never let yourself grieve properly."
"I couldn't." Raven fell to her knees. "If I'd grieved—really grieved—it would've destroyed me. I would've failed."
"You're failing now, though." No accusation in the child's voice, just gentle observation. "The pain's eating you from inside. You can't ascend while bleeding souls."
The final memory crashed over her like a tsunami...
***
Rain fell like tears as twenty-year-old Mara stumbled through border district streets, her frame battered by two days of searching, voice hoarse from calling Novara's name.
She'd returned from degrading tavern work to find their room empty, Novara's belongings scattered like evidence of struggle. Kael's cold laughter haunted her: "The child needed medical attention. She's in good hands."
An old woman's pity led her to the abandoned clinic behind rusted gates. What she found shattered her world.
The room reeked of antiseptic and blood. Medical equipment was scattered across stained tables. In the corner, on an adult-sized bed, lay her three-year-old daughter.
Novara looked impossibly small, lost in sheets that had once been white. Tubes and crude bandages marked where they'd violated her tiny body, stealing blood and marrow for unspeakable purposes. Her chest moved in shallow gasps, skin taking on death's pallor.
"Starlight!" Mara collapsed beside the bed, gathering her daughter's fevered form. "What did they do? Mama's here now."
Novara's eyes fluttered open, hazy with pain. Seeing her mother, she managed a weak smile. "Mama... I knew you'd come."
"Always. Tell me what happened, sweetheart."
"Daddy came. Said we'd play a game. But then doctors hurt me so much, Mama. I tried being brave like you taught me."
Mara's body shook with rage and grief, but she kept her voice gentle. "You were brave. The bravest girl in the world."
"Mama..." Cold fingers found her cheek. "Why did Daddy let them hurt me? Did I do something wrong?"
The question broke something fundamental in Mara's chest. "No, love. You're perfect. Daddy's sick in his heart, but that's not about you."
"It hurts, Mama. Everything hurts."
"I know. But look—" Mara pointed to the window where a star showed through storm clouds. "Your star's still there, still watching. And I'm here too."
Novara's smile was like dawn through darkness. "I love you, Mama. Forever, even when I can't say it."
"Even then, Starlight."
The child's breathing grew shallow, eyes closing. "Will you sing the star song?"
Through tears, Mara sang the lullaby she'd created—soft melody about a little star shining bright enough to guide lost travelers. She sang until breathing stopped, until the small hand went limp, until only rain against glass remained.
Then Novara's body began dissolving—not into death but something else. Particles of light rose from her skin like scattered stars, drifting toward the ceiling in ethereal spirals.
Mara lunged forward, trying to catch dissolving fragments, hands grasping at light itself as her daughter's essence scattered.
"No!" She screamed as the last traces faded. "Come back!"
Nothing remained but empty sheets and echoes of her broken voice. Outside, she could hear the celebration—Amara's delicate performance, receiving comfort for her "son's" minor procedure.
The contrast sent rage blazing through grief.
They'd taken everything.
***
In the shadow realm, Raven collapsed, wracked by sobs that seemed torn from her soul. Pain fresh as open wounds, every detail crystal-clear, emotions magnified by centuries of suppression.
"I watched you die," she gasped, reaching toward Novara. "Watched you dissolve into light. Couldn't save you. I failed."
Novara stepped closer, ethereal form radiating warmth. "You didn't fail. You loved me. That's all I needed."
"But they hurt you because I was weak—"
"They hurt me because they were monsters. Never your fault. You were just a girl, trapped and alone. You did everything possible."
Another surge of darker memory...
***
The Brenner estate's dungeon was carved from living rock, a place where screams died unheard and mercy went to rot. Mara hung in iron shackles, feet barely touching slime-covered stones, body bearing three days of Amara's creative malice.
The woman who'd stolen her identity, claimed all her creations as her own, and then still convinced her own husband to enslave her to carrying creating paintings and designs, so that Amara could stand at the top, as a world renowned artist and designer, stood before her like a twisted mirror—where suffering had refined Mara into ethereal beauty, cruelty had marked Amara with satisfied sadism.
"Still asking why?" Amara laughed, holding a glowing iron. "After everything, you don't understand?"
"Why kill her?" Mara whispered through a raw throat. "She was just a baby."
"Because she was yours." Amara pressed the iron to Mara's thigh. Flesh sizzled, filling the air with burned meat stench. Mara's scream tore through stone, but Amara smiled wider. "Watching you break was worth everything."
Days blurred in endless torment. Hot irons, ice baths, flesh stripped layer by layer, bones broken and crudely healed to begin again.
Always the same question: "Why?"
Always the same answer, growing more elaborate: "Because I could. Because you existed. Because your breathing insulted my superiority."
The final horror came when Mara had been reduced to breathing wreckage, mind teetering on dissolution's edge. Amara approached slowly, hands bare, smile beatific.
"Final course time."
Agony beyond description followed. Amara's cultivation-strengthened fingers tore through skin like paper, cracking ribs with wet sounds. Blood flooded her vision as her hand closed around Mara's still-beating heart.
With savage yank, she tore it free.
Mara could hear it—frantic thumping in Amara's grasp, each beat echoing through her skull. Then came obscene sounds: Amara's pleasure moans as she bit into warm flesh, teeth tearing muscle with wet crunches.
"So sweet," Amara sighed, blood running down her chin. "Pain and fear season meat beautifully."
World fading, darkness creeping in, one thought blazed through her dying mind:
This isn't over. Can't be over. Someone must pay...
Something answered in that moment of absolute despair.
***
The Void Between Worlds
Mara's consciousness drifted in nothingness, soul tethered by rage alone. Should've passed on, found whatever peace awaited the wronged, but fury anchored her to spaces between worlds.
Ancient presence materialized—vast, patient as stone.
Child of sorrow. Your pain calls across cosmic winds. What do you desire most?
"Justice. They must pay."
Justice requires power. Power requires trials. Will you endure ninety-nine lives of suffering to earn strength for revenge?
Ninety-nine lives. Ninety-nine deaths. Each designed to break her further, forge her into something harder than diamond, sharper than obsidian.
"If that's what it takes. I'll endure anything."
Then let the merit trials begin.
***
In the shadow realm, understanding finally dawned. Every life, death, betrayal—building to this moment. But something had gone wrong. Rage that sustained her through ninety-nine existences had cooled to bitter embers.
"I've been holding onto pain," she realized, looking at Novara's patient form. "Thought I was carrying your memory. Really carrying guilt. My failure."
Novara stepped closer, small hand touching Raven's face. Contact warm, real, familiar.
"You don't have to carry it anymore. Don't have to keep bleeding. I never asked for revenge—just to be remembered with love instead of pain."
"They deserve to pay—"
"They will. But not because you're drowning in rage. Because you're strong enough to choose justice over vengeance, protection over destruction. That's who you really are."
As her daughter spoke, something shifted in Raven's soul. Ten blood beads in her spiritual space pulsed in harmony, power no longer constrained by emotional shackles forged from trauma. The golden bead blazed with divine light.
"I can let go without losing you."
"You could never lose me." Novara smiled, form beginning to fade. "I'm part of you now. Not the wounded part—the part that loves. That protects. That chooses to rise."
As her daughter dissolved into starlight, Raven felt the shadow realm cracking. Instead of desperate grasping, she opened her hands, letting light flow through her fingers, carrying twenty-three years of suppressed grief and guilt.
Light faded. She was alone but not empty. For the first time in millennia, she felt clean. Whole. Ready.
New presence materialized—tall, imposing, wrapped in authority without malice.
"You cannot ascend from this world. You're an alien soul, carried by forces beyond this realm's understanding. To complete your journey, return to your origin world."
Raven nodded, understanding flooding through her. "If I don't truly lay these demons to rest, I'll fail even there."
"Indeed. Ascension requires resolution, not just power. You've begun the process, but work remains incomplete."
The figure raised its hand. Dimensional travel's familiar pull began.
"When you face them again—and you will—remember: justice isn't revenge. One builds worlds, the other destroys them."
As her form dissolved, Raven caught a final glimpse of Novara's star shining above—not memory now, but promise. Reminder that love freely given never dies.
Tianxing faded. Her consciousness streaked across the cosmos like a golden comet, carrying the wisdom of ninety-nine lives, the power of ten blood beads, and for the first time in millennia—hope.
She was going home.
Not as broken Mara Brenner, but as Raven—tested by cosmic trials, tempered in suffering's forges, finally ready to choose light over darkness that had defined her.
Merit cycle complete.
Now the real test could begin.