"Lifespan Stripping... A time-based Law principle?"
Han Ling, the middle-aged man at the early Dao Comprehension stage, stared at Su Min with utter disbelief, his mind reeling from the impossible implication. Time-based principles were the stuff of legend, theoretical constructs discussed in ancient texts; no one he had ever heard of had managed to grasp even a fragment of one. The cost in lifespan was simply too great, a prohibitive price that made the pursuit suicidal. Though he didn't know how Su Min had somehow comprehended it, that eerie, unnatural temporal principle she had just wielded was undeniably real and utterly terrifying. His gaze flickered subtly toward the young man behind him. Compared to himself, the youth was in far greater danger. Han Ling had only lost a few precious years, but if this continued for another ten minutes, the young master would be drained, reduced to his withered twilight years right here on the battlefield.
"This is too overpowered. We cannot let this drag on. We must end this quickly."
Han Ling suppressed his rising shock, forcing his mind to focus on survival. That last attack had genuinely frightened him, touching on a primal fear of mortality. What he didn't know, what he couldn't possibly fathom, was that Su Min's ability was an unequal exchange, that she had just burned a thousand years of her own seemingly endless lifespan to strip away a mere decade and three years of theirs. But for someone with infinite longevity, a thousand years was trivial, a drop in an ocean of time. To even comprehend the time principle in the first place, she had already sacrificed tens of thousands of years in secluded cultivation, leaving even the ancient Medicine King's Cauldron that aided her baffled, constantly wondering just how long this woman's lifespan truly was.
Of course, Han Ling had no way of knowing this incredible truth. With a decisive clap of his hands, a peculiar, freezing ripple emanated from his body, the air cracking with the sound of forming ice.
"Ice Azure Holy Dragon, arise!!!"
With Han Ling's roared incantation, a violent blizzard erupted within a radius of dozens of kilometers, howling into existence. This wasn't just a simple elemental technique, it was the full, desperate manifestation of his core Law principle. Instantly, the surrounding air near solidified, the very moisture freezing into glittering, deadly dust. Clearly, he intended to bypass her tricky abilities entirely by flash-freezing Su Min into a solid statue, then delivering a simple, physical fatal blow. This was a logical, understandable tactic. Dragging out the fight against her bizarre time principle would force them to pay a terrible, irreversible price, even if they ultimately won.
The only problem was… he clearly didn't understand the fundamental nature of the Five Elements Holy Body. This wasn't entirely his fault, or even surprising. The constitution was phenomenally rare to begin with, and historical records suggested over 99% of those who possessed the latent potential for it could never actually activate it. Heavenly treasures were simply too scarce, the conditions too perfect. Even Su Min herself wouldn't have progressed without the unique, chaotic circumstances of her era and her transmigrator's knowledge. Take the Nanming Lihuo, for instance, if the true Vermilion Bird still existed in the world, she would never have obtained it.
The practical consequence was that almost no one alive truly understood this physique. Those in her own world had only begun to piece together theories based on her public battles, often learning the hard way after paying a heavy price, like those unfortunate, aspiring cultivators she had crushed on the Golden Core Avenue.
Han Ling, coming from a sealed minor world, clearly had no idea, foolishly trying to defeat her with ice. Ice and water shared the same origin, were two states of the same element. Due to her physique and her possession of the Northern Water's Profound Origin, her innate resistance to ice was extraordinarily high. The most effective way to fight her was through pure, overwhelming physical attacks, just as the assassin Liao Meng had correctly deduced.
"Legends say ice was born to counter fire. Yet ice melts under sufficient flame, while the water it becomes can extinguish the very blaze that birthed it."
As the temperature plummeted to absolute extremes and the freezing energy encroached, seeking to still her blood, Su Min mused silently on the irony. Ice wasn't one of the five core elements, so its interactions were different, more nuanced. But Water, which she commanded, held a special, inherent resistance to it. It was weak against pure fire, and more importantly... it was vulnerable to sheer, transformative power.
"So this is your final trump card? Then you've already lost. Azure Dragon, Vermilion Bird, come forth!!!"
Seeing him commit his entire being to this one glacial attack, Su Min had made up her mind. Since they had revealed their ultimate move, she no longer needed to hold back or test the waters. Two more colossal manifestations, similar in compressed size and intensity to the Black Tortoise already shielding her, materialized around her in flashes of emerald green and brilliant crimson. Now compressed to a fraction of their original, more cumbersome size, these three manifestations together far surpassed any power she had summoned before. Then, she began the final chant, her voice resonating with ancient power.
"By the name of Haotian, I command the Four Symbols, reverse annihilation!"
In the next instant, the three holy beasts erupted into full, vibrant existence around her, while the dormant Tiger Soul deep within her body, the seed of the legacy she sought, thrummed to life, completing the final, conceptual link. Though it paled in comparison to the true, living White Tiger's power, it was enough to serve as a conduit, a focal point to complete the sacred geometry of the Four Symbols. This time, Su Min wasn't relying on external pills to force the combination, she was unleashing this cataclysmic attack with her own refined power and deeper understanding. Her mastery over the Four Symbols had deepened significantly since her last major battle, making this her most controlled, and therefore most devastating, strike yet.
On the other side, Han Ling only saw four blinding streaks of light, azure, crimson, white, and black, streaking toward him in a perfect, harmonious formation before his world, his senses, and his very consciousness dissolved into nothingness.
A colossal shockwave, visible as a distorting ring of force, rippled outwards across the ancient battlefield, shaking the very foundations of the dead world. Every being still drawing breath, whether fortune-seekers hiding in ruins or the dormant undead experts slumbering in their tombs, instinctively turned their attention toward the source of the disturbance. At Su Min's full power, this strike carried a weight that could shake the confidence of seasoned Dao Comprehension experts and make the spatial fabric of minor worlds tremble on its axis.
It was commonly understood that Mahayana-stage battles couldn't be fought on a world's surface, that combatants of that cataclysmic level would instinctively ascend into the void to spare the land. A Unity-stage expert's full-force strike could shatter continents, reshape geography. Dao Comprehension, Unity, Mahayana, these were called the upper three realms of cultivation for a very good reason. Their destructive power grew exponentially with each step, capable of reducing all life in a vast region to ashes in moments. And Su Min's fused attack, fueled by three heavenly treasures and a supreme physique, had momentarily reached that apocalyptic level.
At that exact instant, Tian Hao and the two fallen cultivators, locked in their own fierce battle of golden fists against shadowy decay, paused mid-swing, their gazes irresistibly drawn to the distant, erupting light. A multicolored sphere of energy, roiling with conflicting elemental forces, had engulfed a vast area, its periphery warping and visibly fracturing the space around it. Even the flow of time within the sphere seemed to become erratic, flickering.
Su Min's all-out strike had fused every ounce of her available power into a single, universe-rending point.
"Hiss, "
The trio couldn't help but inhale sharply, the scent of ozone and death filling their lungs. They could easily guess who had unleashed this. Even they, at their powerful levels, would be in grave danger if caught directly in the heart of that blast, the best and only strategy was simply not to get hit.
"The soul oath's binding force... is gone?"
The two fallen cultivators exchanged a glance of sudden, dawning horror. Their former Mahayana-stage master had forced numerous complex and cruel soul oaths upon them, all intricately tied to that young man's wellbeing. Now, they could feel those magical bindings dissolving, unraveling like cut strings, and they knew with chilling certainty exactly what that meant.
"Damn it!!!"
They immediately tried to disengage, to rush recklessly into the still-stabilizing blast zone, a futile gesture of desperation. Among the many restrictions placed on them was one that magically linked their own lives to the young master's survival.
"That useless Han Ling, cough!!!"
They cursed inwardly, blood already beginning to seep from their lips. In their eyes, a genuine Dao Comprehension expert and a half-step Dao Comprehension cultivator against another half-step should have been an easy, decisive victory, or at the very least a stable stalemate. But they had overestimated Han Ling's competence and fatally underestimated Su Min's monstrous battle prowess. Now, the soul oath's inevitable backlash had arrived. The two elders coughed up great mouthfuls of black, viscous blood, their bodies instantly ravaged by fatal, internal wounds as the magic took its toll.
"The Great Desolate Heavenly Prison!!!"
Seizing the perfect opportunity, Tian Hao roared, his voice booming with authority. In a normal, fair fight, he would have had to chip away at their potent defenses slowly, a war of attrition. But now? The soul oath's backlash had crippled them from the inside, shattering their focus and crippling their energy flow. This was the moment for a clean, decisive killing blow.
Meanwhile, the several-kilometer-wide sphere of chaotic light gradually dissipated, its energy spent. Su Min had wisely compressed its power inward, creating a grinding mill of elemental annihilation for flesh and blood. When it finally vanished, the surrounding space remained unstable, shimmering like a heat haze. The young man whose face Su Min had shattered was gone without a trace, not even ash remaining. Only Su Min's own fading, cracked Buddha statue hovered in the sky, its task complete.
To ensure the attack landed with maximum effect and to control its spread, Su Min had remained within the blast radius, trusting her defenses. But with her extreme elemental resistances and the multi-attribute Buddha's immense protection, she had endured the titanic forces. Her face was slightly pale, however, beads of sweat on her brow. Though physically unharmed, her spiritual energy reserves were severely depleted, the effort leaving her dantian feeling hollow. Without a moment's hesitation, she popped a glowing pill into her mouth.
[Spirit Restoration Pill (7th-grade, lower tier): Rapidly restores large amounts of spiritual energy. Builds tolerance with repeated use, diminishing effects over time.]
As a master alchemist, Su Min had enviable pill reserves that most cultivators could only dream of. With the pill's potent effect already coursing through her and the Northern Water's Profound Origin's passive energy regeneration, she quickly regained her steady breath.
"A Heaven-grade high-tier life-saving treasure? A fine treasure, too bad its ultimate effectiveness depends entirely on the user's own cultivation. You could only protect yourself, not your charge."
Su Min smirked coldly at the middle-aged man kneeling before her. A crumbling, jade-like disk, now grey and lifeless, hovered feebly in front of him before clattering to the ground. Her point-blank explosion had shattered all his other defenses and overwhelmed this final, precious artifact.
"Cough, you..."
Han Ling spat out a mouthful of bloody ice shards, his body trembling uncontrollably. His late, mighty master had left him and the young master with two such Heaven-grade high-tier protective treasures, one for each, as a final insurance. But neither of them could fully unleash a true Heaven-grade treasure's complete defensive power. Su Min's point-blank, fused-element blast had simply overpowered and obliterated them. He had barely survived by sacrificing the treasure and pouring all his energy into it, but that was all. The explosion had also ravaged his meridians and, he could feel it with dread, stripped away a massive, irreplaceable chunk of his remaining lifespan. The young master, less protected and weaker, had been utterly vaporized, reduced to atoms.
Worse, he had sworn a much stricter, deeper blood oath to protect the young master with his own life. The two fallen cultivators hadn't pledged their very lives, so the backlash hadn't killed them outright, only inflicted near-permanent, crippling damage. But for Han Ling, bound by a blood oath, there was no escape, no loophole. The sentence was death.
"Oh? Your blood oath is activating. I can see the curse taking hold. No need for me to finish you off, then. Farewell."
Seeing his ashen complexion and the dark, spider-web-like lines of the curse beginning to spread across his skin, Su Min knew the outcome was sealed. She turned and fled without a second glance or a moment of hesitation. A man who was already dead, who just didn't know it yet, was at his most dangerous.
But what would a doomed expert with one last, desperate breath do?
Almost instantly, a violent, unstable energy the color of blood began to gather with terrifying speed right where she had been standing. Su Min accelerated to her absolute maximum speed, augmenting her flight with her nascent time principles, covering thousands of kilometers in the blink of an eye, a speed that far surpassed even the fastest supersonic aircraft from her old world.
The area where she had stood was instantly engulfed in a cataclysmic, sun-bright explosion of self-detonation. A Dao Comprehension expert's final, willing dissolution was a terrifying thing, a release of all their cultivated power at once. Su Min had no desire whatsoever to experience that blast wave firsthand.
"Good. Let's see who dares challenge me now."
Su Min sneered, looking back at the expanding fireball now far behind her. The greatest immediate obstacle had been eliminated. The remaining independent experts scattered across this dead world posed no real threat to her, as none had reached the Dao Comprehension stage. As for those half-dead ancient beings slumbering in their tombs? If she couldn't defeat them in their lairs, she could certainly avoid them. Besides, the White Tiger's legacy site itself was surrounded by truly dead corpses, long-dead, harmless remains that held no lingering will.
A few minutes later, after ensuring the coast was clear, Su Min returned to the inheritance site near the bone mountain.
Tian Hao was just swallowing a Spirit Restoration Pill of his own, facing two massive, smoldering craters that reeked of a nauseating, burned-flesh and ozone aura. His expression wasn't one of victory, but of mild displeasure.
"I suppose I should thank you. If you hadn't killed that pretty boy and triggered the soul oath backlash that crippled these two, I wouldn't have finished them off so quickly or cleanly."
Tian Hao sounded resigned, almost frustrated. He had finally reached the Dao Comprehension stage, temporarily surpassing Su Min in raw cultivation level. Yet he still needed her, directly or indirectly, to handle his most dangerous opponents, a bitter pill to swallow for his pride.
But it was just frustration, a competitive grumble, with no real resentment behind it. He knew the reality of their partnership.
"A happy accident. People from sealed minor worlds, for all their power, often lack real combat experience against true elites."
Su Min chuckled, not minding his tone. Clearly, these two from another world had never witnessed the kind of brutal, no-holds-barred battles between true elites that defined the main cultivation world. They hadn't participated in anything like the Golden Core Rankings, nor seen the complex, large-scale tactics of sect wars. They had no frame of reference for the kind of unpredictable, overwhelming strength someone like Su Min could bring to bear. Back then, the assassin Liao Meng had studied her techniques and history for weeks before attempting his assassination, specifically sealing her greatest trump card, gathering powerful allies, and setting a perfect ambush. These two, and their master, had just charged in recklessly, assuming raw power would suffice. A small world, it seemed, bred a dangerously narrow vision.
"If experts from our world wanted to ambush me now," she mused aloud, "they'd need at least two stable Dao Comprehension experts, likely with imperial artifacts in hand." Not that she truly feared such a scenario, but faced with those odds, her most logical move would be to simply flee, to live and fight another day. Though she could theoretically summon the Golden Crow Ancient Bell through her contract with Little Golden Crow, wielding an imperial artifact keyed to a specific bloodline would put immense strain on her, a non-Golden Crow. Fighting multiple powerful enemies on two fronts, while sustaining such a treasure, would be suicide. Unless her enemies could guarantee such overwhelming, instant force and perfectly isolate her, no one in their right mind would even try.
"The White Tiger's legacy seems to have sensed the battle's fluctuations," Tian Hao said, nodding towards the pulsating rift below. "The killing intent is condensing. It's about to emerge fully. I'll stand guard while you inherit it. Go."