Su Min was genuinely quite surprised by the presence of this divine flame. Heaven and Earth Divine Flames were unique phenomena, only one true manifestation of each kind could exist in a cosmic sense. Though they weren't strictly ranked in a hierarchy of superiority, each possessing its own unique properties, they were exceedingly rare, seeds of primordial power scattered across the multiverse.
Almost immediately, driven by curiosity and a thread of concern, Su Min's figure vanished from the sky.
When she reappeared, she stood before a massive, heavily fortified military base built into a cliffside facing the polluted ocean. With a simple, sweeping pulse of her spiritual sense, she detected numerous Foundation Establishment-stage mutated beasts lurking in the toxic waters nearby, their chaotic auras clashing with the base's ordered defensive energy.
"A designated training ground and monster-clearing operation, huh? So she's here on assignment. Let's see how my little investment is really doing."
Her figure dissolved into the air, her form becoming one with the light and shadow, effortlessly slipping past the base's layered energy defenses and motion sensors. The complex detection arrays, the pride of this world's formation masters, were useless against her Dao Comprehension-stage perception; they might as well have been made of glass. This world's foundational knowledge was weak, these formations had been set up by Nascent Soul cultivators at best, making their workings as transparent and simple to bypass as a child's puzzle to her.
But soon, her observational stroll was interrupted by a familiar, if dramatically changed, voice.
"Hmph, still not convinced? We were recruits in the same batch, yet you're still stuck at late-stage Foundation Establishment. Pathetic. And the rest of you, stop cowering! Come at me together! Show me what you've got!"
A cold, almost gleefully taunting voice rang out from a training arena, followed by a chorus of very real, pained screams.
A truly bizarre scene unfolded before Su Min's eyes.
A curvaceous, formidable figure hovered mid-air, legs crossed casually as if sitting on an invisible throne, wielding a vicious-looking spiritual whip that crackled with ghostly blue and violet fire, its tip resembling sharpened thorns. Around her, a dozen or so cultivators in military training gear lay sprawled on the scorched ground, their uniforms torn and bodies crisscrossed with deep, thorn-like lacerations, bleeding profusely but, Su Min noted with a clinical eye, far from fatal.
For ordinary people, such wounds would be disastrous, possibly lethal from blood loss or shock. But these were Foundation Establishment cultivators, their vitality enhanced. Superficial injuries like these, however painful, would heal completely within a day with basic medical pills. Their agonized howls, therefore, were more theatrical and humiliated than genuinely life-threatening. What truly left Su Min momentarily speechless was the source of the laughter, Lin Yao, cackling with unrestrained glee like a tyrant from a stage play.
"Since when did she turn into such a sadist? Tch, and she's grown quite a bit in certain... dimensions."
Back when they first met, Lin Yao had been a scrawny, undernourished teenager. Now, after years of growth, proper nutrition, and Su Min's seclusion, she had truly blossomed into a striking young woman.
Her cultivation wasn't bad either, a stable early-stage Golden Core, a blistering pace for this resource-poor world. She'd even survived the legendary Nine-Nine Heavenly Tribulation to get there, a feat that would've immediately marked her as a core disciple in any major immortal sect back home, worthy of elite nurturing and protection.
Not that Su Min particularly cared about taking on disciples. Her own sect's sole purpose, in her mind, was gathering resources for her. Her Medicine King's Cauldron's internal space now brimmed with neatly organized, high-grade medicinal herbs, carefully cultivated over centuries. A significant portion had been procured at great cost and effort by her loyal sect members, ensuring her personal alchemical stockpile remained plentiful. For a master alchemist, lacking ingredients was the only incurable ailment.
"So she's an instructor here? A thirty-year-old Golden Core, no wonder the military is grooming her for leadership. Let's see how her foundation is holding up under the hood."
Su Min didn't reveal herself immediately. This fortress had no Divine Transformation experts stationed here; the strongest aura was an early-stage Nascent Soul cultivator, utterly incapable of detecting her. She was more interested in silently observing Lin Yao's conduct and control.
~
"Another day done. Another batch of cocky juniors put in their place."
Lin Yao slipped back into her private quarters within the officer's barracks, drawing the reinforced doors closed behind her with a practiced, quiet click. Her fingers instinctively brushed the simple, unadorned ring on her hand, a plain thing to look at, but she knew it was far from ordinary. For over a decade, she had guarded its secret like her life depended on it. And until she solidly reached the Divine Transformation stage, she dared not attempt to unlock its deeper compartments, let alone speak of its existence aloud.
"I wonder where she is now…" she murmured to the empty room, almost absently. "And Father… I wish you could see…"
She didn't finish the thought. Instead, she gave a dry, humorless chuckle. "… Well, at least those brats are still fun to whip into shape. Lets me blow off some steam."
Her gaze drifted to the small, framed portrait hanging on the far wall. It was a family photo, taken before everything changed.
There were five happy figures in the painting once.
Now only two remained, her and her mother.
Her father had passed years ago, after a long, slow battle with a degenerative illness. Though Su Min had extended his time significantly, staving off the inevitable with medicine no mortal doctor could have ever conceived, some endings could not be postponed forever. His spirit had simply withered as gently and inevitably as a candle guttering out. No medical force in this world, no matter how advanced, could alter the fundamental truth, without divine bloodlines or heaven-defying fortune, even the most cherished people would eventually slip away.
Lin Yao was now left to confront the cultivator's first true, internal trial, the Tribulation of Longevity. In a mortal-grounded world like this, without ancient bloodlines or heavenly favor, one could only watch, again and again, as loved ones aged and faded… while the cultivator themselves stood untouched, unaging, a spectator to time's passage.
Not everyone could be like Su Min.
A transmigrator, yes, but more than that. She was someone whose path was already carved into her bones, whose eyes looked forward with a focus that seemed to bypass the present entirely. Who walked forward not with longing for what was behind, but with a detached acceptance. Who kept others at a careful arm's length, not out of cold arrogance, but out of a profound, unspoken necessity.
Because she had truly chosen the path of Immortality.
Time meant something fundamentally different to Su Min. Where others counted years in handfuls and clung to fleeting mortal bonds, she measured in centuries, in the steady, patient unfolding of a future far beyond the mortal span. To her, closeness was a danger, not to herself, but to those who couldn't follow. It was easier, cleaner, to hold the entire world at a distance than to watch it crumble to dust, one beloved face at a time.
Lin Yao couldn't live that way.
She couldn't bear the thought of spending decades in secluded cultivation, only to emerge and find her mother's hair gone completely silver, her voice thin with age, her memories of her daughter fading. She wanted to stay present. To live these years while they still belonged to her, while her mother was still here.
To cherish what Su Min, perhaps, had long since learned to let go.
A few years ago, she'd gone into a short seclusion to finally refine the strand of Netherworld Ghostfire she had miraculously encountered. When she emerged, triumphant and stronger than ever, her father was already gone, having passed peacefully in her absence. So now, she vented her frustrations and lingering grief in the only way she could, by beating up unruly recruits, holding back just enough to avoid permanent damage, convincing herself it was "training."
It wasn't the most efficient path to power, but it was the one she could live with. Because power, no matter how vast, meant nothing if she lost everyone she still had left in the pursuit of it. Just as she was about to speak another self-deprecating remark to the empty room,
Everything turned gray.
Sound ceased. The air stilled. Her body froze in place, mid-step. Only her consciousness remained active, whirring in panic.
She knew exactly what this meant. There was only one person who could do this.
"Well, well. Living the good life, Instructor Lin? Quite the performance you put on out there."
A playful, familiar voice echoed in the frozen silence as a figure materialized before her, stepping out of nothingness. A slender, pale finger reached out and lifted her chin, the touch sending an involuntary shiver down her frozen spine. Joy surged within her, after years navigating the treacherous waters of the cultivation world, she'd learned that nearly everyone wanted something from her, her talent, her future, her loyalty.
Except Su Min.
No demands for servitude. No requests for favors. Just resources given freely. No life-threatening tasks assigned.
But her elation faded as quickly as it came, replaced by a knot of tension in her stomach.
Su Min's sudden appearance, after all this time, undoubtedly meant serious business.
And as a Golden Core cultivator who'd survived the Nine-Nine Heavenly Tribulation, Lin Yao now occupied the upper echelons of this world's power structure, privy to more secrets. She knew the only reason global society hadn't collapsed into warlordism was the constant, external threat of the corrupted beasts, forcing the great families to pool resources and nurture more cultivators for collective defense.
Especially after that Dao Comprehension-stage monstrosity had appeared decades ago, its shadow still loomed large in military strategy sessions.
"You know why I'm here. Any leads on what I asked you to look for?"
Su Min released the temporal restraints with a snap of her fingers, restoring color and sound to the world. A subtle, soundproof spiritual barrier shimmered into existence around the room, ensuring absolute privacy.
"No concrete traces of the Kirin. No historical records, no folk legends, no archaeological finds. It's as if they've never existed here, Senior."
"Hmm? No remains? No whispers? That doesn't make sense. The resonance was clear."
Su Min's brow furrowed in genuine confusion.
"But you were right about one thing," Lin Yao continued, her voice holding a newfound respect. "There is a hidden faction operating in this world. Deep in the shadows."
Back when Su Min first mentioned the possibility, Lin Yao had privately thought she was being paranoid.
Now, after reaching a higher level and seeing classified briefings, she knew better. This shadowy organization's strength was rumored to rival, or even surpass, that of the public Five Great Families.
"Oh? Tell me."
Su Min's brow furrowed deeper. If nothing about the Kirin had surfaced openly in all this time, it had to be buried much, much deeper. For the Five Families, who controlled nearly all public resources and information, to have failed in eradicating or even fully exposing them was, in itself, highly unnatural.
"They call themselves the 'Chosen of the Abyss.' They worship some sleeping 'god,' awaiting its descent. They're locked in a secret, brutal death feud with our global cultivator alliance. Every few years, we find an outpost, a cell, but the core remains elusive."
"I see… A cult waiting for their deity to awaken."
Su Min's expression darkened. In her home world, truly reclusive powerhouses were rare. Cultivation left too many spiritual traces, and major breakthroughs, like her own, were impossible to fully conceal. But these hidden actors, where did their resources come from? Their advanced techniques?
"What are you thinking, Senior?" Lin Yao studied the grimace on Su Min's face.
Bound by their soul oath, she couldn't lie, and she'd genuinely scoured all available intelligence. This organization operated at a level most Golden Core cultivators, even high-ranking ones like her, couldn't truly fathom.
"Possibly a Fallen One. And if it hasn't descended yet, but is only sleeping… At its peak, before its fall, it was at least at the Unity-stage, maybe even Mahayana."
Su Min's face turned gravely serious.
"That level of power… could have been more than enough to devastate an entire Kirin clan and hide all evidence."
This was very, very bad news.
The smart, logical move would be to leave now, to abort the mission. A Fallen One of that caliber, even dormant, was a lethal threat.
The petrified Mahayana corpses she had seen in the ancient battlefield were proof that such beings could absolutely kill someone of her current strength.
But if the clues to the Kirin's legacy were tied to this entity, then direct conflict was inevitable if she wanted to complete her Five Elements Holy Body.
"Damn it. Back home, I'd just call for backup. Mobilize the sect, contact the Golden Crows, have Yao Xian'er on standby."
Her lips twisted into a wry, frustrated line. Her home world's biggest issue with Fallen Ones was pinpointing their locations. They struck fast and vanished into the void. Unless one was stumbled upon by chance, like she had done before, they were nearly impossible to hunt down proactively. That's why they generally avoided the core territories of major sects, fearing coordinated ambushes by multiple experts.
At the first confirmed sign of a waking Fallen One, forces could be rallied, experts like Yao Xian'er or the Great Thunder Temple's founder, both peak Dao Comprehension experts wielding Emperor Artifacts, could be brought in to surround and suppress it.
But Su Min alone, in a foreign world?
The outcome was far from certain.
And then there was the matter of collateral damage.
At the Dao Comprehension stage, if she were forced to go all-out, the resulting energy release might very well trigger a mass extinction event in this spiritually fragile world. Even in her more robust home realm, Dao Comprehension marked the ceiling for conventional warfare on the continent itself. Unity-stage and above took their battles to the stratosphere, or the moon, or beyond. Mahayana and the legendary Ascension-stage experts, the future Great Emperors, fought their duels in the depths of space to avoid shattering worlds.
"Senior, what's wrong? You look… troubled."
"Your world might be hosting a sleeping catastrophe. If it awakens fully, it'll devour the bio-energy of this entire planet. Few, if any, will survive."
"Impossible! That can't be!"
Lin Yao's face paled, all the blood draining away.
From anyone else, she'd have dismissed it as alarmist nonsense.
But this was Su Min. She didn't joke about such things. She stated facts.
"The rift, the monsters from the sea…?"
"No. Those are just Dao Comprehension-level nuisances at best, and their threat is scattered and thin. You just got cosmically unlucky with that one big one. Their overall threat is limited, a constant pressure, not an existential wipe. Let me tell you what a true Fallen One is…"
Su Min sighed, a heavy sound, and began recounting their known horrors, their methods, their goals. With each passing word, Lin Yao's expression twisted further into a mask of dread and disbelief, especially upon learning her entire world was but a speck, a single grain of sand, compared to the vast continents and populations of Su Min's home.
This was her first true, terrifying glimpse beyond the edge of her well.
Staying here forever, she realized, would have made her a frog blissfully ignorant at the bottom of a very, very deep well.
"Your world is that strong? Divine Transformation cultivators are everywhere? Golden Core is worthless?"
"Not that exaggerated. But yes, tens of thousands of Divine Transformation cultivators across the four continents, and even more Nascent Souls. Though that's thanks to far deeper spiritual foundations and populations in the hundreds of billions."
"Then, Senior, you must—"
"Focus. This is critical. The threat is here and now."
Su Min cut off her burgeoning curiosity, forcefully laying out the sheer scale of the Fallen Ones' atrocities, the worlds, no smaller than this one, that had been devoured, stripped of all life until they were barren, silent rocks floating in the void.
Lin Yao's face contorted with a mixture of terror and revulsion.
Compared to them, even the worst human tyrants in history seemed almost saintly.