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 cultivators who had felt the world tremble were left bewildered, the phenomenon fading before any of them could trace its origin.
Inside the crumbling Lunar Sovereign Secret Realm, an absolute silence fell.
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, her lips slightly parted. Her chest rose and fell just a fraction too fast. Something primal and utterly unreadable flickered in her gaze, a look that made Su Min feel abruptly, uncomfortably seen.
"What was that?" Xie Yingying finally managed, her voice uncharacteristically unsteady. "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. 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.
Su Min exhaled sharply, trying to ground herself. "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. "I became a temporary Solar Sovereign Physique. But it is not the real thing. I can only hold it for a few minutes a day."
She did not 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 had not felt the way the Grand Dao had sang between them, had not tasted the centuries-old longing etched into the very fabric of their physiques. If she had, she might have recognized the raw hunger in Xie Yingying's eyes for what it was.
But the roar of the Great Dao of Heaven and Earth had been too terrifying. If she had not 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, her voice gaining a measure of control.
"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. 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 was not loved by her uncle and grandmother 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. And that made the other woman's ignorance all the more unbearable.
"The Lunar Sovereign and Solar Sovereign Physiques are perfect opposites," Xie Yingying explained, her tone lecturing. "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. How the hell would I know?
"You—!" Xie Yingying rolled her eyes at Su Min's shameless ignorance.
"It is 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 is supposed to be impossible."
"Why?" Su Min frowned, her logical mind engaging. "Yin and Yang merging births Chaos, should not 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."
"A curse?"
"The saying 'Yin and Yang Shall Never Meet' does not 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."
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.
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.
"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.
"The inheritance is settled. Let us go. There is nothing left here. Time to prepare for the Golden Core Heavenly Ranking."
Su Min turned to leave, but then froze. Xie Yingying's fingers had closed around her wrist, stopping her.
"Are you…" Xie Yingying's voice was rough, lower than usual. "Metamorph?"
Su Min's brain short circuited. "The hell?" She should have shaken her off. She should have snarled. But the way Xie Yingying stared at her, like she was a puzzle, a revelation, prey, rooted her in place.
"What do you mean?"
Xie Yingying stepped closer. Too close. "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 never have activated the Solar Sovereign Physique. Is not that like a tadpole, undergoing metamorphosis as it grows?"
"..."
Su Min had no immediate rebuttal.
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 her wrist.
A spark. A jolt of energy, warm and unsettling.
Su Min recoiled as if scalded. "The fuck is wrong with you?!"
Xie Yingying did not retreat. If anything, her gaze grew hungrier, more intense. "Want to… try it again?"
Oh.
The realization hit Su Min like a thunderclap. This was not 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.
Su Min bared her teeth in a defensive snarl. "Piss off. I get three minutes a day. You think that is enough to—"
"—To what?" Xie Yingying interrupted, her voice velvet wrapped steel.
"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 was not 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.
Xie Yingying let her go, but the way her fingers lingered in the air and the way her spiritual qi still churned violently made one thing perfectly clear: This was not over.
"How long were we in seclusion?" Xie Yingying's tone returned to its usual frostiness, a mask over the turmoil.
"About… twenty-eight years."
Su Min pulled out a tiny hourglass pinned to her waist, a seemingly decorative trinket she always carried.
[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.
"Twenty-eight years... The Golden Core Heavenly Ranking is not far off. Time to consolidate our gains. You have reached late Golden Core too."
Xie Yingying nodded, her watchful eyes on Su Min. The realm's Yin Yang energies had been mostly drained by the two of them. Reaching late Golden Core was one thing; at this stage, one could technically attempt Core Shattering to form a Nascent Soul, 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.
With her immortal talent, Su Min could probably shatter her Core right now and succeed. 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 was not 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 surroundings.
Su Min summoned her shield artifact. It was too small for two people to stand on comfortably, so without ceremony, she scooped Xie Yingying up into a princess carry and activated the teleportation.
Then—
Splash!
A moment of disorientation, followed by 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.
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 is disgusting in here. Let us get out first!"
"Uh…" Su Min chuckled awkwardly. Clearly, the local water table had changed over twenty-eight years.
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.
She also retrieved the two shield artifacts. Though niche, they were still valuable, despite their inflexible teleport conditions.
"The Lunar Sovereign Secret Realm has closed for good," Xie Yingying observed, looking back at the now calm and ordinary landscape. "You still have the Solar Sovereign Ancient Scripture, right? Otherwise, with only a few minutes a day, you would not be able to develop your abilities."
"I do, but it is 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"?