As Su Min withdrew from her Solar Sovereign Physique state, the overwhelming sensation that had gripped the Golden Core Avenue vanished as suddenly as it had appeared. The golden radiance that had turned the cavern into a miniature sun bled away, leaving only the dim, blue-white flicker of the dying glacial structures.
The cultivators across the Avenue who had felt the world tremble were left bewildered, the phenomenon fading before any of them could trace its origin, leaving only a lingering sense of primal dread.
Inside the crumbling Lunar Sovereign Secret Realm, an absolute silence fell, heavy and thick with the scent of scorched stone and frozen air.
The earlier commotion had been too intense, startling even Su Min into an instinctive retreat. The moment she broke contact with Xie Yingying, the radiant white light around her shattered like thin ice, and the resonant, terrifying echoes of the Grand Dao faded into an abrupt and total silence.
For a long, heavy moment, the two women simply stared at each other.
Especially Xie Yingying.
Her expression was… complicated. Her dark eyes were wide, the pupils blown and swallowing the iris. Her lips were slightly parted, her breath hitching in her throat as her chest rose and fell just a fraction too fast. Her Lunar Sovereign Body was still vibrating, the silvery Taiyin Qi beneath her skin swirling in a frantic, demanding rhythm.
To her, the pull wasn't just a sensation; it was an agonizing magnetic force that made every cell in her body scream to close the distance Su Min had just created. It was a hunger so raw it threatened to dissolve her legendary frosty composure entirely.
"What was that?" Xie Yingying finally managed. Her voice was uncharacteristically unsteady, thick with a depth of emotion she couldn't hide. "And how did you break the 'Yin and Yang Shall Never Meet' curse?"
Just moments ago, the instant her inheritance had fully settled within her, an irresistible impulse had seized control. It was a pull so visceral it overrode all rational thought, a biological and spiritual siren call. She had lunged at Su Min without thinking, their palms meeting not in violence, but in something far more unsettling. There had been no force behind it, only a deep, compelling need to merge their essences. Even now, the spot where their skin had touched felt like it was still on fire.
Su Min exhaled sharply, trying to ground herself and steady her own racing heart. "Taiyang Qi. When I endured my tribulation, I was bathed in heavenly lightning for ten years. A wisp of it took root in me. Here, I activated it fully."
She flexed her fingers, as if testing the lingering remnants of that colossal power that had just flooded her. "I became a temporary Solar Sovereign Physique. But it's not the real thing. I can only hold it for a few minutes a day."
She didn't understand the complex look on Xie Yingying's face. To Su Min, it had just been power—raw and overwhelming, but ultimately just another tool in her arsenal. She hadn't felt the way the Grand Dao had sang between them, hadn't tasted the centuries-old longing etched into the very fabric of their compatible physiques.
If she had, she might have recognized the raw hunger in Xie Yingying's eyes for what it was. She might have seen that the other woman was barely resisting the urge to reach out and pull her back into that embrace of light.
But the roar of the Great Dao of Heaven and Earth had been too terrifying. If Su Min hadn't shut it down, the phenomenon would have rippled far beyond the Golden Core Avenue. Some long-sealed powerhouses might have even risked the Heaven-Man Five Decays to investigate. To hear the Dao in the morning and die at dusk, some would consider it a worthy trade.
"Do you know the true nature of the Lunar Sovereign and Solar Sovereign?" Xie Yingying asked. She forced her voice to gain a measure of control, though her fingers were still twitching at her sides, itching to feel that golden warmth again.
"Huh?" Su Min blinked.
In the game, physiques were just data entries and stat bonuses, nothing like this real, visceral experience. All she knew was that they were ridiculously strong and hit like a truck.
"Ugh, you—" Seeing Su Min's utterly blank look, Xie Yingying suppressed the strange feelings still rippling inside her. The frustration of Su Min's density was almost a relief compared to the terrifying pull of the Taiyang Qi. But it wasn't Su Min's fault that she was confused. Because this was also what she heard in the inheritance, compared with Su Min who wasn't loved by her family and was sent away with a sealed ancient book.
It was obvious that what Xie Yingying obtained was far more complete, including many inherited memories. She knew the legends. She knew the weight of what had just passed between them, a union that should have been impossible. And that made the other woman's ignorance all the more unbearable, almost insulting to the gravity of the moment.
"The Lunar Sovereign and Solar Sovereign Physiques are perfect opposites," Xie Yingying explained. Her tone was lecturing, but her eyes never left Su Min's face. "They are the only two physiques in existence that are completely opposed to each other. Do you know why?"
"No." Su Min answered without a shred of shame. She simply tilted her head, waiting for the lore dump.
"You—!" Xie Yingying rolled her eyes at Su Min's shameless ignorance, the silver light in her gaze flickering with a mix of affection and exasperation.
"It's because both are incomplete. They are two halves of a whole. Only by merging can they supplement each other, and that supplementation can only manifest in the next generation. But that's supposed to be impossible. The world itself forbids it."
"Why?" Su Min frowned, her logical mind engaging. "Yin and Yang merging births Chaos, shouldn't that work?"
"Because the Heavenly Dao fears it. Or rather, something fears it. According to my predecessor's research, an ancient and terrifying force paid an unimaginable price to cast a curse upon our bloodlines." Xie Yingying's voice was low, the Taiyin Qi coiling around her wrists like smoke.
"A curse?"
"The saying 'Yin and Yang Shall Never Meet' doesn't just mean the two physiques are once-in-ten-millennium rarities. It means only one can exist per era. The next can only be born after the previous one perishes completely. Something is afraid, truly terrified, of what would happen if they ever met. And just now, we proved them right."
Xie Yingying's voice was laced with a cold fury, until it suddenly turned into shock when Su Min uttered two simple words:
"Chaos Physique."
"???"
Xie Yingying's face was a perfect picture of confusion. She blinked, her intense focus momentarily broken by the sheer absurdity of the name.
Su Min sighed inwardly. In the game, the only T0-tier physique was the legendary Chaos Physique, a concept found only in datamined files and never officially released. The developers had always claimed, "The Chaos Physique is too overpowered. We believe such a supreme physique should require special conditions and questlines to unlock, making it truly legendary. It will be introduced in the upcoming DLC: Whispers of Chaos."
Which, in player translation, meant: "We are working on it, shut up and wait." Or more accurately, "Want to play Chaos Physique? Give us more money." But the DLC never came. According to the rumors, the game was meant to have three or four massive expansions, and the current world was only a small part of the whole. So Su Min only knew fragments of the lore.
"The Chaos Physique, from what I have heard, is a physique that encompasses all things," Su Min said, piecing together the scraps she remembered. "My Five Elements Holy Body, your Lunar Sovereign Physique, even that guy's Great Desolate Holy Body—they are all just components of the Chaos Physique."
Her knowledge was sparse, but the internal beta tests had leaked enough information to cement its status as the ultimate, unreleased physique.
"What is unreleased is always the strongest."
Hiss—
Xie Yingying inhaled sharply. Even that small piece of information was earth-shattering. Each of these physiques was a once-in-an-era treasure, many of them mutually incompatible. Yet the Chaos Physique could supposedly assimilate them all, and that was likely not even its true power. The thought sent a shiver through her, one that had nothing to do with the cold.
"A physique like that... I have never even heard rumors of it," Xie Yingying whispered.
"But it explained the terrifying Dao resonance earlier, the sense of Yin and Yang merging to birth something primordial and all-consuming."
"The inheritance is settled. Let's go. There's nothing left here. Time to prepare for the Golden Core Heavenly Ranking."
Su Min turned to leave, her boots crunching on the frost, but then she froze. Xie Yingying's fingers had closed around her wrist, stopping her in her tracks. The contact was electric. Su Min could feel the other woman's palm—cool yet pulsing with a frantic energy.
"Are you…" Xie Yingying's voice was rough, lower than usual, sounding almost like a growl. "Metamorph?"
Su Min's brain short-circuited. "The hell?"
She should have shaken her off. She should have snarled at the sudden intrusion. But the way Xie Yingying stared at her, with a gaze that was part revelation and part predator, rooted her in place.
"What do you mean?"
Xie Yingying stepped closer, bridging the gap until Su Min could smell the faint scent of winter and old ink on her skin. "A person consists of body and soul. Men are Yang, women are Yin." Her free hand rose, hovering near Su Min's collarbone as if pulled by an invisible magnetism. "But you, you have a Yin body and a Yang soul. Otherwise, you could have never activated the Solar Sovereign Physique. Isn't that like a tadpole, undergoing metamorphosis as it grows?"
"..."
Su Min had no immediate rebuttal. Her eyes tracked the movement of Xie Yingying's hand, her breath catching.
Damn, she has a point.
But since when did you study biology?!
Then Xie Yingying's thumb brushed the sensitive skin on the inside of Su Min's wrist, tracing the line of her pulse.
A spark. A jolt of energy, warm and unsettling, shot up Su Min's arm and settled in her chest. It wasn't just energy; it was a physical yearning that made her skin prickle.
Su Min recoiled as if scalded, her face flushing crimson. "The fuck is wrong with you?!"
Xie Yingying didn't retreat. If anything, her gaze grew hungrier, more intense, the silver light in her eyes flaring with a dangerous territoriality. She looked like she wanted to devour the very air Su Min was breathing. "Want to… try it again?"
Oh.
The realization hit Su Min like a thunderclap, though she tried to bury it under a layer of annoyance. This wasn't just curiosity. It was gravitational. The Solar Sovereign physique called to the Lunar Sovereign like the tide to the moon, and Xie Yingying was drowning in the pull, her crush on Su Min now amplified by a cosmic necessity.
Su Min bared her teeth in a defensive snarl, though her heart was hammering against her ribs. "Piss off. I get three minutes a day. You think that's enough to—"
"—To what?" Xie Yingying interrupted, her voice velvet-wrapped steel. She leaned in even closer, her presence a cold, beautiful weight.
"To survive the way you look at me," Su Min didn't say.
Instead, she wrenched her wrist free and shoved Xie Yingying back a step. "To cultivate, you lunatic. Now move. Before I move you."
The excuse rang hollow even to her own ears. Three minutes wasn't enough for any meaningful cultivation, and she knew it. But this was her trump card, something to be used sparingly and strategically. Not wasted on… whatever this unsettling, magnetic pull was that made her want to lean into the other woman's touch.
Xie Yingying let her go, her fingers lingering in the air for a second as if trying to catch the last of the warmth. Her spiritual Qi still churned violently, a silent testament to the storm within her. She adjusted her robes, her expression smoothing back into its icy mask, but the way she watched Su Min's every move made one thing perfectly clear: this wasn't over.
"How long were we in seclusion?" Xie Yingying's tone returned to its usual frostiness, though there was still a slight tremor in her hands.
"About… twenty-eight years."
Su Min pulled out a tiny hourglass pinned to her waist, a seemingly decorative trinket she always carried. It was a simple thing, carved from bone and clear crystal.
[Unending Timer (High-tier Yellow Grade)]
It was a simple timekeeping artifact that never stopped, powered by trace ambient spiritual energy. She had crafted it specifically to withstand extreme environments like this one, ensuring she never lost track of the long decades.
"Twenty-eight years... The Golden Core Heavenly Ranking isn't far off. Time to consolidate our gains. You have reached late Golden Core too."
Xie Yingying nodded, her watchful eyes still fixed on Su Min's profile. The realm's Yin-Yang energies had been mostly drained by the two of them, the garden now looking gray and spent. Reaching late Golden Core was one thing; at this stage, one could technically attempt Core Shattering to form a Yuányīng, but most wise cultivators waited until Great Perfection.
She thought of it like this: Mid-Golden Core was a container that could hold 700 units of power. Late-Golden Core was a larger container that could hold 1000. Great Perfection was the process of filling that 1000-capacity container to the very brim, ensuring the foundation was solid enough to survive the birth of the soul.
With her immortality talent, Su Min could probably shatter her Core right now and succeed through sheer endurance. But that would immediately eject her from the Golden Core Avenue. Appearing in the outside world as a brand-new early Nascent Soul cultivator would be far too conspicuous, like a single candle flame in a dark room.
Most Nascent Soul cultivators burned one to two hundred years of their lifespan just to resist the Heaven-Man Five Decays for a single decade. Su Min wasn't in a hurry. With a Nascent Soul Pill, her odds would be even better.
"No one complains about being too safe," she muttered to herself.
"Step on it," Xie Yingying said, gesturing impatiently at their crumbling surroundings. The ceiling was beginning to flake away in large chunks of ice.
Su Min summoned her shield artifact. It was a simple, flat disc of gray metal. It was too small for two people to stand on comfortably without their bodies pressing together, so without ceremony, she scooped Xie Yingying up into a princess carry.
The sudden contact made Su Min's heart jump, and she felt Xie Yingying's arms instinctively coil around her neck, the other woman's cool breath ghosting over her ear. Su Min ignored the sudden heat in her own face and activated the teleportation.
Then—
Splash!
A moment of disorientation, followed by the shock of cold, murky water.
"Su Min. Where the hell did you hide this thing?!"
The shield had one major flaw. It required pre-placing one end at the destination, a tether in the physical world.
Su Min's designated "safe spot" had been… "A dried-up well. I even made a stealth artifact to mask it."
"You call this a dried-up well?! Get your hand off my waist! It's disgusting in here. Let's get out first!"
"Uh…" Su Min chuckled awkwardly, her voice echoing in the stone cylinder. Clearly, the local water table had changed over twenty-eight years, filling the well back up to the brim.
Soon, the two women emerged from the well, drenched and disheveled, before cleansing themselves with a quick pulse of spiritual energy. As late Golden Core cultivators, purifying their clothes and bodies was a trivial matter, especially since their garments were treasure-grade to begin with. The water droplets vanished in a puff of steam.
She also retrieved the two shield artifacts, the metal cool in her hand. Though niche, they were still valuable, despite their inflexible teleport conditions.
"The Lunar Sovereign Secret Realm has closed for good," Xie Yingying observed. She looked back at the now calm and ordinary landscape where the entrance hadn't once been. Her voice was steady now, but her gaze lingered on Su Min for a second too long. "You still have the Solar Sovereign Ancient Scripture, right? Otherwise, with only a few minutes a day, you wouldn't be able to develop your abilities."
"I do, but it's incomplete. Probably to avoid capacity conflicts with my other methods. The Five Elements legacy is more important to me right now."
Su Min agreed with her own assessment. Whatever her true, underlying physique was, the Five Elements Holy Body offered the broadest and most stable path for growth.
As for the rest?
Well, the game had promised unreleased DLCs. Who knows what other legendary physiques were still out there, waiting to be discovered?
===
Anyway, I still stand on my opinions same like in the prev chapter. Before that, noted: it seems like this story is "narrated" by Su Min herself.. (In original novel most of narration is using "I" when narrating the story)
1) I believe that she in her original world is a person who doesn't care that much about "gender norm", or just very independent and strong woman. Coupled with the different perception and thoughts between "Ancient" and "Modern" woman also have role on this matter.
2) The "Player body" that also transmigrated with her also having important role in this matter. It can increase the possibility that she able to wield or have Solar Sovereign Body despite being a female.
3) "As for the eerie feeling of fate intertwining with Xie Yingyin"- It seems that her arrival (her transmigration) is detected by Yingying Elder's when they did Divination for Yingying. Sealing Xie Yingying on backwater place like Great Wei, and the Taiyin Secret Realm is too much of coincidence.
If she hadn't sealed on Great Wei, she wouldn't met with Su Min. Without meeting with her, she can't get the "Taiyin Ancient Scripture" as it need alchemist+Nanming Lihuo+Eastern Azure Wood. Even if somehow she met with other people who wield Five Elements Holy Body, she still can't get the scripture as Taiyang Qi in the secret realm is not absorbed (If you read the previous chapter and early of this chapter- to get the Scripture, the balance of Yin-Yang harmony must be broken). Certainly normal "Flame body" can't absorb that much of Taiyang Qi.
In conclusion, she need Solar Sovereign Body to get the scripture. Meaning, her elder knew that there's high probability of "Solar Sovereign Body" holder will appear at Great Wei.
4) From what I knew, physique is divided by 2, innate and acquired, much like the Divine Abilities. Certainly "primordial" physique like Lunar and Solar Sovereign Body, are innate and it impossible for someone to acquire it. But both innate and acquired physique usually able to be "upgrade" such as in Su Min case. From "Blazing Sun Body" to "Flame-wood Holy Body" which is part of "Five Elements Holy Body".
5) The last is because the "world background" itself. Let's skip about the truth or false about this world first. Focus on the "background" itself (from Su Min knowledge). It based on game "Path of Immortality" where "Player" is the heroes that thrown into this world. Meaning that they have "Plot Armor", and "Boost of advantage" compared to locals. In Su Min case, beside her Immortality talent, her innate divine ability (Heavenly Dao Insight), her "Player" body, and her knowledge that she get from the "game". Her new body as in her "High Innate spiritual potential" and "Genius in epochs" - guaranteed by by Demon Queen- she also have Five Elements Holy Body. She also get her Solar Sovereign Body from her own soul potential. Boosted by her "Player" body the impossible become possible. She is the "Hero" of this world, isn't it normal to get that much boost and able to break the "curse"?