Chapter 228: Origins Relived: Tian Yuexin's Ascension
On a desolate black mountain far from the tranquil valley, three figures stood atop a wide cliff in silence. A man, a woman, and their child—who rested calmly on a floating carpet, watching the world around him with wide golden eyes that held curiosity rather than the fear a typical newborn should have felt.
Tunlong Chenyuan. Tian Yuexin. And Su Tianhao.
Three days had passed. The time had finally come.
The sky above grew dark and foreboding, heavy with ominous clouds that gathered like the wrath of the heavens made visible—thick, suffocating, pregnant with divine judgment. Lightning tore across the sky like cracks in reality itself, while distant thunder rolled through the air as if the world was groaning under the weight of something inevitable.
This was the Profound Nether Mountain—one of the forbidden zones of the Black Tortoise Continent, home to multiple Emperor-level beasts called Beast Emperors. But even those ancient entities dared not stir before the presence of the three figures on the cliff. A Peak-stage Martial Saint whose soul power exceeded anything the mortal realm had ever produced. A Peak-stage Martial Saint standing on the threshold of Immortal Ascension. And a three-day-old infant whose very presence commanded reverence without announcing it.
The location was deliberate. No expert in the four main continents would willingly approach this place under any circumstances. The peak powerhouses of those continents were Martial Emperors—and even they feared what dwelled here.
"Are you nervous?" Tunlong Chenyuan asked quietly, noticing Tian Yuexin's expression.
She shook her head slowly. "No. I'm scared." A breath. "Scared of what might happen to our boy once I'm gone. Once we're both gone."
Tunlong Chenyuan's brows tightened. It would have been a lie to say he wasn't worried too. He stepped behind her and drew her into a careful embrace. "It's okay to be scared. I'll make sure no harm comes to him. I'll find somewhere safe—somewhere he can grow in peace, away from everything that would threaten him."
Tian Yuexin nodded quietly against him. "I trust you, Chenyuan."
He held her a moment longer. Then he released her and turned to face the storm clouds building above them. "We don't have much time."
He conjured a veil from thin air—the same one he had created three days ago, still holding the golden motes within its cosmic-purple depths. He allowed it to drift toward her. "Take it."
Her brows drew together. "Why? Aren't you even a little curious about it?" A pause. "Besides, that treasure came from our son. Shouldn't it be preserved for his future cultivation? It could help him reach us sooner."
Tunlong Chenyuan shook his head. "You need it more than he does right now. And we don't know how long its potency will last—I haven't determined what it truly is yet. There's no reliable way to preserve it."
"But—"
He cut her off, his expression completely serious. "Listen to me, Yuexin. The Immortal Realm is more dangerous than anything you've faced here. Even a beggar there might have the power to end you. You'll arrive without backing, without connections, without any of the foundations that protected you in the mortal world. What you carry now will mean nothing by comparison."
His voice drew heavier. "The challenges you'll face there are unlike anything you've encountered. The competition is fierce, and any mistake—any misplaced trust—could cost everything. Find one of the powerful Immortal Sects in whatever world you arrive in. Join it. It will give you a base of security. Then enter seclusion immediately and use those golden motes to cultivate in secret—they'll accelerate your strength and establish your standing faster than anything else available to you. But be discreet."
Tian Yuexin absorbed his words with the gravity they deserved. She couldn't afford to die before the reunion. That wasn't an option. It had never been an option.
"Endure for a few years," Tunlong Chenyuan said. "I will find you. I promise."
She smiled—small, certain, without a trace of doubt. She never doubted him. With a sweeping gesture she collected the veil and stored it in her spatial ring—not an ordinary one. A treasure that transcended dimensional barriers, designed to retain all its contents even after its owner crossed into the Immortal Realm. Normal spatial rings, regardless of grade, became inaccessible after ascension. This one wouldn't. A quiet testament to Chenyuan's mastery of the Heavenly Creation Art.
His voice pulled her back. "It's starting."
He could feel the seals he had placed in her body beginning to weaken. She could feel it too.
Her energy surged through every fibre of her being with sudden, relentless ferocity—thrashing against the seals like a tide that had been held back too long.
The Qi seal broke first.
The halted spiritual Qi transformation resumed at rapid speed. Without conscious thought, Tian Yuexin began to rise—her figure radiating a profound celestial halo as she left the cliff beneath her feet. Her meridians expanded and transformed. Her Qi veins grew denser, more resilient. The tiny calibration points hidden throughout her body began to open one by one as a new source of energy stirred within her.
Immortal Qi.
The vitality seal cracked next. An overwhelming current of life force flooded through her like a raging inferno—scorching every inch of her being while simultaneously rebuilding it. Her blood grew potent beyond mortal explanation. Her organs refined themselves. Her bones and muscles tempered to heights the mortal realm had no standard to measure. Hidden impurities she hadn't known existed were purged in a single violent sweep.
Then—
WHOOSH!
A wave of vital energy flooded the entire mountain. Trees grew fuller and stronger in an instant, their branches bearing fruit that ripened like stars blooming in the night sky. Flowers opened. Grass grew taller and finer. Spiritual herbs matured to harvest readiness in moments. Spirit beasts throughout the mountain felt their health surge and their lifespans expand—and the ancient entities that dwelled in its depths stirred, their eyes widening. But their instincts screamed warning, and fear overrode their impulse to investigate.
Tian Yuexin floated above the cliff, transformed. Her already ethereal beauty deepened into something that transcended the mortal world's vocabulary entirely—a moon goddess who had decided to briefly grace the earth with her presence, and whom the earth had no adequate response to.
Tunlong Chenyuan watched her with quiet, barely contained pride. Even now, he found himself measuring her against the celestial maidens of the Immortal Realm and arriving at an answer that satisfied him completely.
But it was only beginning.
The soul seal fractured.
A wave of soul power erupted from her—vast, ancient, transforming to immortal heights. Her primordial soul completed its transcendence in a single, violent moment.
An Immortal Soul.
The moment the transformation completed, Tian Yuexin's presence shifted so dramatically that the air itself groaned under its weight. Tunlong moved immediately—enclosing Su Tianhao in a sphere of crimson-purple. The shockwave that followed cut through the entire mountain like the slash of an invisible divine blade: clean, devastating, leaving a deep scar across the landscape that would remain for centuries. It struck the sphere—and passed directly through it, through the child within, emerging from the other side as though both were illusions cut off from the physical laws of the world.
Tunlong Chenyuan turned back to his wife, fists clenched, watching.
A crushing pressure descended on the mountain. Cracks split through the earth. Grass flattened. Trees trembled. Spirit beasts collapsed to the ground in fear and worship—and the ancient entities that normally knew no submission were no exceptions, their massive forms pressing low without having made the decision to do so.
Tunlong Chenyuan remained completely indifferent to the pressure, standing at the closest point to her without moving. It would have devastated an ordinary Martial Saint. But he was not ordinary. He was not even close to ordinary.
Tian Yuexin ascended higher into the sky, wrapped in celestial lunar radiance. The world trembled and roared around her—trees swaying across miles, rivers and seas growing restless, as though witnessing something they recognized from before time had a name.
Then the heavens answered.
A thunderclap split the sky—sharp, deafening, carrying the unmistakable fury of the Heavenly Dao. Not the sound of a storm. The sound of judgment.
'A heavenly tribulation.'
Su Tianhao recognized it without needing to be told.
Jagged blue lightning descended with enough power to obliterate an ordinary Martial Saint. It crashed against Tian Yuexin's elevated form in a brutal cascade of heavenly force.
She raised one hand to receive it.
The lightning struck—and instead of destroying, it dissolved. Tian Yuexin absorbed the entire attack the way moonlight absorbs a storm: serene, unyielding, converting fury into nourishment without effort. The violent heavenly lightning melted into her lunar energy and became part of her. A testament to her elevated mastery of the Moon Dao—the laws of reflection and absorption made perfect.
The heavens roared.
The second strike descended—a column of violent purple lightning aimed to annihilate her in a single merciless blow.
Tian Yuexin raised both hands as if welcoming it.
SPARK!
The collision produced a blinding flash that turned the world white. When clarity returned, she had absorbed that too—her aura rising with each tribulation rather than diminishing, the small smirk at the corner of her lips betraying the composure her expression tried hard to maintain.
The heavens grew furious. The roar that followed thundered across miles, rupturing the ears of countless beasts and cultivators throughout the surrounding countries and empires who had no idea what they were hearing or why.
This time the heavens didn't attack immediately.
It waited.
Patiently. Calculating.
Storm clouds gathered directly above her—darkening, thickening, rumbling with concentrated energy as though the heavens were brewing something within them. Which apparently they were.
A dozen breaths later, the third strike descended like divine judgment: hundreds of crimson lightning bolts writhing and entwining in a deadly dance that carried the full weight of heavenly killing intent.
KRRRRAAAAAACK—BOOM!!!
Crimson lightning crashed into her with absolute fury. The air screamed. The ground shook. A massive portion of the cliff fractured under the assault. Space itself seemed to tremble—and even Tunlong Chenyuan was forced to step back, shielding Su Tianhao with his body as the shockwave rolled outward.
The assault continued for several long minutes before finally ceasing—leaving behind an epitome of destruction. A crater spanning over a hundred metres had appeared directly below Tian Yuexin's feet, a massive hollow carved into the mountain itself. Smoke and steam rose from its unfathomable depths. Surrounding rocks had melted into molten lava. The air trembled with residual lightning.
Tian Yuexin stood at the centre of it all, completely untouched. Not a scratch on her jade-like skin.
Tunlong Chenyuan watched in silence, his expression carrying none of the relief one might expect. This wasn't just a breakthrough. It was a transcendence from mortal to immortality—and it demanded nine tribulation strikes. The nine-nine heavenly tribulation. If the third had already done this much, he could only calculate what was coming.
The tribulation continued.
Fourth. Fifth. Sixth.
Each strike more devastating than the last. Each one absorbed, redirected, converted—Tian Yuexin's mastery of the Moon Dao meeting every assault with the same unyielding serenity, her aura climbing higher with every exchange.
The seventh strike arrived like a dozen dying suns collapsing into a single spear of annihilation—screaming down from the void above with a force that cracked the foundations of the mountain range for miles in every direction.
The eighth arrived like the heavens committing to their own destruction—a cataclysmic deluge of pure divine wrath, as though the entire sky had decided to burn itself to ash just to take her with it.
Tian Yuexin absorbed them both.
Then the ninth.
---
The final strike descended without warning.
The sky went silent first.
Not the calm before a storm. Something worse—the kind of silence that falls when the world understands it has no right to breathe. Every cloud above the Profound Nether Mountain drained of color, twisting into a single spiraling vortex that revealed the void beyond the heavens themselves.
Then it fell.
A pillar of incandescent white-gold lightning—wide enough to swallow mountains, carrying the weight of every law, every judgment, every accumulated fury of the previous eight strikes. It wasn't lightning. It was judgment given form, the Heavenly Dao descending to address something it had not anticipated and did not know how to account for.
Tian Yuexin did not raise her hands.
She opened her arms.
The light swallowed her whole. For three breaths, there was nothing but radiance. The mountain vanished. The sky vanished. The concept of distance dissolved into that pillar of divine wrath.
BOOM!!!
The impact was cataclysmic.
The cliff beneath her feet disintegrated. The mountain groaned as a massive portion of its peak was vaporized in an instant. Shockwaves tore through the air for hundreds of miles—flattening ancient trees, shattering boulders, sending spirit beasts fleeing in blind terror. Tunlong Chenyuan erected multiple layers of protective formations around himself and Su Tianhao, his own body braced against the force.
When the light faded, the cliff was gone.
In its place, suspended a thousand feet above the shattered earth, stood a figure untouched.
Tian Yuexin's robes had burned away, replaced by gossamer garments woven from condensed moonlight and star-essence. Her snow-white hair flowed like liquid silver, each strand trailing faint constellations. Her eyes were closed—and when they opened, they were no longer the eyes of someone who belonged to the mortal world.
They were twin moons. Calm, deep, reflecting the entire cosmos within.
A single word left her lips, spoken in a voice that carried the resonance of something that had passed beyond the mortal realm entirely:
"Complete."
The heavens trembled once—as if acknowledging what they could not undo. The clouds scattered. The sun, hidden for hours, broke through in a single ray that fell only on her.
The nine-nine heavenly tribulation had failed.
---
Tian Yuexin descended slowly, landing before Tunlong Chenyuan. The aura of an Immortal clung to her like morning mist, bending the air gently around each step she took.
For a moment, the exhaustion and pain gave way to a soft, radiant smile.
"I did it," she whispered.
Tunlong Chenyuan exhaled—slowly, heavily—though his expression remained weighted. He already knew what came next.
Above, the sky had begun to change. A colossal vortex of golden light formed high above the mountain—the Ascension Gate, pulsing with an irresistible force that pulled at Tian Yuexin's newly ascended soul with the patient authority of something that had no intention of being refused.
Tian Yuexin felt the pull the moment it began. Her smile faded.
She looked at her son—still floating safely within his father's protective sphere, watching the sky with those wide golden eyes—and something in her expression broke quietly, without announcement.
"Tianhao…" Her voice came out barely above a whisper. "My precious son… I'm sorry I couldn't stay longer."
She turned to Tunlong Chenyuan. Tears glistened in her lunar eyes.
"Take care of him, Chenyuan. Promise me."
"I promise." His voice came out hoarse. "I will protect him. And I will find you—no matter how long it takes."
Tian Yuexin nodded, forcing a smile through her tears.
The Ascension Gate pulsed brighter. The pull grew stronger, no longer patient—insistent now, the Heavenly Dao enforcing its laws without room for negotiation.
With one final look at her husband and her son, Tian Yuexin allowed the light to take her.
Her form dissolved into countless motes of silver and gold, rising gracefully into the vortex—each mote a fragment of the person she had been in the mortal world, ascending to become something larger in the world above.
And then she was gone.
The vortex closed.
The sky returned to itself—slowly, without ceremony.
Silence fell over the Profound Nether Mountain.
Tunlong Chenyuan stood motionless for a long time, staring at the empty space where she had been. His fists were clenched at his sides. Blood ran slowly from his palms where his nails had cut through, though he hadn't noticed and wouldn't have cared if he had.
Only when Su Tianhao made a small, quiet sound from behind him did he finally move.
He looked down at his son. His golden draconic eyes softened—carrying something vast and complicated that resolved, after a long moment, into something simpler.
Love. And determination.
"It's just you and me now, little one," he said quietly.
The mountain stood scarred and silent around them.
Above, the sky was clean and clear.
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A/N: Hello everyone. Unfortunately, my contract got rejected. I would continue uploading Chapters until we hit Chapter 240. After that, I would be dropping the novel. I would be taking a break for a while, but I am coming back with a new novel. Thanks for your support throughout this journey.