Darkness.
Endless darkness.
Feng Jiuli felt as if she were falling, continuously plummeting with no end in sight.
She wanted to open her eyes, but her eyelids felt as heavy as mountains. She wanted to move a single finger, but she found that not a single part of her body would obey her command.
There was only pain.
An omnipresent, agonizing pain.
The forbidden curse coiled deep within her soul like a venomous snake, relentlessly devouring her lifeforce. Every breath she took felt like swallowing molten fire. Every beat of her heart felt like enduring a heavenly lightning strike.
She knew she was dying.
But before death could claim her, scenes from that fateful night relentlessly flashed through her mind.
The Divine Realm. The Holy Land of the Phoenix Clan.
That was three days ago.
Feng Jiuli stood at the highest pinnacle of the Divine Phoenix Palace, overlooking the sea of clouds beneath her feet. Golden sunlight spilled down, coating her silhouette in a layer of sacred radiance.
She was the Goddess of the Phoenix Clan, the supreme genius heralded as the most likely to break through to the Highest Realm in ten thousand years.
Across the entire Divine Realm, everyone knew her name.
"Jiuli."
A voice called out from behind her.
Feng Jiuli turned and saw her older cousin, Feng Wuji.
Feng Wuji was three hundred years older than her and was considered an outstanding talent among the younger generation of the Phoenix Clan. But in her presence, he was forever doomed to be second best.
"Cousin, what is the matter?"
"The clan has discovered an ancient ruin. It likely holds the inheritance left behind by the Phoenix Ancestor," Feng Wuji said, a warm smile on his face. "The Heavenly Lord sent me to invite you to explore it together."
Heavenly Lord Feng.
The true ruler of the Phoenix Clan, and her uncle in name.
Feng Jiuli frowned slightly.
Her relationship with Heavenly Lord Feng had always been strained. Ever since she displayed her astonishing talents, the way he looked at her had grown increasingly complex.
But the inheritance of the Phoenix Ancestor...
That was the highest glory of the Phoenix Clan, and the absolute key for her to break through to the Highest Realm.
"Alright."
She nodded.
The ancient ruin was located at the very edge of the Divine Realm, in a pocket dimension forgotten by time.
Feng Jiuli followed Feng Wuji into the ruin, maintaining her vigilance toward their surroundings the entire way.
The interior of the ruin was ancient and mysterious, covered in traces left behind from the Primordial Era. The faint, elusive aura of the Phoenix Ancestor guided her deeper inside.
"It's right up ahead." Feng Wuji pointed at a stone door in the distance. "The Phoenix Ancestor's inheritance is in there."
Feng Jiuli stepped forward and reached out to push the stone door open.
And then, she sensed danger.
"Cousin, watch out—"
Before she could finish her sentence, a dark shadow struck from behind.
Feng Jiuli abruptly spun around, only to see a sinister, chilling smile plastered across Feng Wuji's face.
"Cousin, you are far too careless."
"You—"
Before she could even react, a terrifying force blasted her away.
She crashed violently into the stone wall, coughing up a mouthful of fresh blood.
"Feng Wuji! Are you insane?!"
"Insane?" Feng Wuji stepped forward, looking down at her from a high horse. "I am simply doing what I should have done a long time ago."
"What do you think you are? The Goddess of the Phoenix Clan? A once-in-ten-thousand-years genius?" His face was twisted with jealousy and sheer malice. "You just got lucky to inherit that damned bloodline!"
"If it weren't for you, the position of the Phoenix Clan's Goddess would be mine!"
Feng Jiuli struggled to stand, only to realize that the power within her body was being suppressed by something.
"This is..."
"A forbidden curse," a hoarse, ancient voice echoed from behind the stone door.
Feng Jiuli looked up and saw the figure of Heavenly Lord Feng emerging from the shadows.
"Uncle..."
"Do not call me uncle." Heavenly Lord Feng's face was completely devoid of emotion. "From today onward, you are no longer the Goddess of the Phoenix Clan."
"Your Divine Phoenix Bloodline... is mine."
Feng Jiuli's eyes widened in horror.
The Divine Phoenix Bloodline was her innate inheritance; it was the very source of her power. If it was stolen...
"You can't do this!" she roared furiously. "The Divine Phoenix Bloodline is bound to my soul! Forcibly extracting it will make me—"
"Die?" Heavenly Lord Feng sneered coldly. "So what?"
"Why do you think I waited until today?" He stepped forward and slammed a hand against Feng Jiuli's forehead. "Because your bloodline has finally fully matured. As long as I take your bloodline, I can break through to the Highest Realm!"
"As for you..."
A flash of ruthless cruelty crossed his eyes. "Go to hell."
A terrifying, overwhelming power surged into Feng Jiuli's body, frantically tearing at her bloodline.
"Ah—!"
She let out a heart-wrenching scream.
That kind of agony was far more terrifying than death itself.
She felt her soul being ripped apart, her bloodline being forcibly stripped away; everything she was, was being violently stolen.
But right at that moment, something deep within her awakened.
An ancient, mysterious power.
That was... the bloodline of the Jiuli Clan.
Heavenly Lord Feng's expression drastically changed. "This is—"
BOOM—!
A pillar of golden-red light erupted from Feng Jiuli's body, blasting both Heavenly Lord Feng and Feng Wuji away simultaneously.
Seizing the momentary window, Feng Jiuli broke free from her restraints and fled toward the exit of the ruin.
"Chase her!" Heavenly Lord Feng roared. "Do not let her escape!"
But Feng Jiuli no longer cared about anything else.
Pushing the last remnants of her power to the absolute limit, she violently tore a rift in space and plummeted toward the lower realms.
She knew that by taking this fall, she might never be able to return.
But at the very least, she was still alive.
"Cough..."
Feng Jiuli violently snapped her eyes open.
Her vision was filled with a dim cave. A campfire danced nearby, casting flickering shadows across the rocky walls.
She was still alive.
That realization made her let out a faint sigh of relief, but immediately after, intense vigilance flooded her mind.
Where was she? Who saved her?
She tried to move her body, only to find that every single inch of her screamed in agony. The vast majority of her power had been sealed; right now, she only possessed the cultivation base of the first level of Qi Condensation.
And that forbidden curse was still relentlessly devouring her lifeforce.
"You're awake."
A voice drifted from the side.
Feng Jiuli abruptly turned her head and saw a young man.
He leaned against the stone wall, wearing a tattered gray uniform. His face was handsome yet somewhat haggard. A sharp, unyielding edge rested between his sword-like eyebrows and starry eyes, but his aura...
It was pitifully weak.
The first level of Qi Condensation? No, he was even weaker than that.
His meridians... seemed to be completely destroyed.
"Who are you?" Feng Jiuli's voice was hoarse and laced with heavy guard.
"Gu Changyuan," the young man answered calmly. "A servant disciple of the Profound Heaven Sect."
A servant disciple?
Feng Jiuli frowned slightly.
Although she didn't know much about the lower realms, she knew that servant disciples were the absolute bottom feeders of any sect. And this man before her, with his ruined meridians and lost cultivation, truly looked like a piece of trash.
Yet, it was this very piece of trash who had saved her.
"Why did you save me?"
"I don't know," Gu Changyuan answered honestly. "Maybe because I didn't want to watch a person die right in front of me."
Feng Jiuli fell silent.
She had lived for thousands of years and met countless people, yet she had never seen a gaze quite like his.
There was no greed in his eyes, no calculation. There was only an indescribable calmness.
"Aren't you afraid I'm a bad person?"
"I am." Gu Changyuan nodded. "But looking at the state you're in right now, even if you are a bad person, you can't hurt me."
Feng Jiuli: "..."
She didn't know what to say.
Was this man mocking her?
But looking at his expression, it didn't seem like mockery. He was simply stating a hard fact—she was currently so weak that she couldn't even defeat a piece of trash with ruined meridians.
"Your injuries are extremely severe." Gu Changyuan stood up and fetched a bowl of clean water from a corner. "I fed you a healing pill, but the effects were limited. That rune on your collarbone... I don't know what it is, but it seems to be constantly eating away at your lifeforce."
Feng Jiuli looked down at her collarbone.
The dark red rune of the forbidden curse had already spread to her neck. With every fraction of an inch it crept, she felt her lifeforce drain away.
At this rate, she could hold on for three days at most.
"It's a forbidden curse," she said softly.
"A forbidden curse?"
"A type of... curse." Feng Jiuli closed her eyes. "Unless a specific method is found, it cannot be broken."
Gu Changyuan was silent for a moment. "Is there a way to suppress it?"
Feng Jiuli opened her eyes and looked at him.
"Yes."
Her gaze swept over Gu Changyuan, a complex emotion flashing through her eyes.
"But I need your help."
Gu Changyuan raised an eyebrow. "Me? A piece of trash with ruined meridians?"
"Yes." Feng Jiuli nodded. "It is precisely because you are trash that I need you."
She took a deep breath and spoke the words:
"A Soul Pact."