Lin Wei was still unaware of the changes that he is undergoing.
He hadn't yet stepped into the Sky Realm.
He was in the midst of a painful, slow breakthrough but fate had other plans.
That day, he broke through again—Level 17 Body Tempering.
His body was changing.
His face grew sharper, more structured. Handsome—but not the gentle kind. It was a devilish allure, reminiscent of the dark being he once encountered.
His muscles refined, his aura thickened with savage pressure. He was taller now, broader. His blood surged through him like a beast on the hunt, boiling with ancient ferocity as impurities fled from every pore.
A week passed.
Level 20 Body Tempering.
A feat unheard of in the history of cultivation, at least from what Lin Wei had ever known.
The cauldron wasn't just refining a weapon anymore—it was refining him, hammering him and breaking him. His bones cracked and restructured themselves.
The pain never faded, only grew more familiar. He had grown little used to agony.
But today, he decided to push further—recklessly.
From his storage ring, he brought out the blood of the unknown beast—the same one he'd once poured into the cauldron.
He opened five different sealed boxes, each holding a rare blood essence, and began mixing them together.
Without hesitation, he drank the resulting concoction a mouth full but didn't finished it.
Regret hit instantly.
The tattooed eye of an unknown beast on his left chest immediately changed Color to a violate red color, and the strange tattooed veins extending across his right chest to his torso were absorbed by the beastly mark but not all, only one of the hundreds.
His aura surged chaotically. The cauldron, sensing danger, starting absorbing some of the power from Lin wei that was leaking as if aware that Lin Wei was walking a path beyond his mortal limit.
His body melted, literally liquefied—before being sealed inside a cocoon. Pain drowned his consciousness even in his liquefied form. Heat and cold ravaged him at once.
He prayed for death, just to escape the torment which seems not to come, it seems like his body started berating him for thinking of dying for just a little pain he is currently undergoing.
But his cultivation also soared.
Level 21... 25... 30.
At level 30 Body Tempering, his body began purging impurity like waterfalls. His muscles boiled, His bones steamed.
He was being cooked raw.
Outside the smithing hall, clouds gathered. Every beast in the realm raised their heads in alarm, The sky turned black, Thunder cracked.
Bolts of heavenly lightning descended toward Lin Wei.
But the cauldron sentient, ancient—defended him. It drank the lightning like wine and funneled only the essence into Lin Wei's cocoon.
Inside, he was still liquid, undergoing rebirth.
Weeks passed.
The cocoon cracked.
Inside, curled like a sleeping child, was Lin Wei—but not as before.
The hall dimmed.
"Sky Realm—Level Seven." he whispered.
He stood up fully naked, from head to toe like a god unchained.
His body shimmered in the dim light, sculpted like an ancient scripture, every muscle carved with precision, as though the heavens spent eons perfecting him, then abandoned him to chaos.
He was the beauty of a woman who could fell nations, yet unmistakably male—his face too sharp, too cold, too untamed.
High cheekbones, a wicked jawline, lips curled in a knowing smirk, and skin that seemed kissed by firelight.
But it was his eyes that made the world hold its breath.
They blazed like molten lava trapped in the sockets of a wild beast, untamed, unblinking.
A predator's gaze—half man, half something else. They looked through you, not at you. Ancient, Eternal, Dangerous.
His hair flowed down his shoulders like strands of night. Windless, yet it danced as if the darkness itself served him.
His chest rose and fell with quiet strength, veins coiled like sleeping serpents beneath skin tight over brutal muscle.
His waist was narrow, his frame powerful—agile, deadly, almost inhuman in its grace.
There was no weakness, Not a scar, Not a flaw.
He didn't look born. He looked forged—by wrath, by lust, by war.
And though he bore no horns, no wings, no claws, everything about him screamed devil. The kind of devil whose beauty was a curse, whose voice could twist fate, and whose presence made even gods hesitate.
He was not simply handsome.
He was divine ruin wrapped in flesh.
A temptation so perfect, it had to be fatal
He is leaning towards the handsomeness of where is darkness power comes from, "Az'rethul ", the living devil himself.
Then he noticed it.
He wasn't alone.
A presence stirred.
He turned toward the staircase at the edge of the hall and saw her.
A girl, Maybe twenty, Maybe more, Standing silently. Watching.
He couldn't sense her cultivation which meant one thing: she was beyond him.
The world seemed to hold its breath.
He stood there—bare, carved like divine scripture, forged rather than born.
But even his unearthly beauty faltered beneath the weight of what stood above him.
She was on the stairs, Watching, Expressionless.
Her presence was like moonlight in a world of dusk—quiet, still, and absolutely overwhelming.
A savage beauty, Wild, Elemental and not of this world.
Her skin held the soft glow of pearls left beneath the ocean for centuries. Her hair shimmered like woven silver, cascading down her back like a waterfall caught between light and shadow. It moved even without wind.
And her eyes—oceans captured and frozen in sapphires.
Deep, ancient, knowing. Looking through him, not just at him.
She didn't smile, She didn't frown. She simply observed—as though he were a rare artifact that had finally been uncovered after ten thousand years.
He stared back, frozen, heart pacing despite his beast-like calm.
There was something… different about her. Something he couldn't explain.
He had seen beauty. His late bride to be then had been flawless in his eyes but this woman… she was not meant for mortal eyes. There was no shame in admitting it.
She descended the staircase slowly. Each step she took was soundless, yet every movement seemed to echo through reality, rippling like silk across a still lake.
When she reached the final step, she stopped before him. The air between them shimmered faintly. Her gaze moved from his face to his chest, then lower not with lust, not with disgust, but curiosity.
Cold and calm. Kind, in a way only something ancient could be.
And then, in a voice soft as falling snow, she asked:
"What is your name?"
He couldn't speak. His throat tightened. His instincts screamed that she wasn't ordinary.
She smiled gently when he didn't answer. A harmless smile.
From her storage ring, she summoned a robe—black, silk-like, lined with celestial threads. Without a word, she handed it to him.
He took it with cautious hands, his fingers brushing hers and the world felt strangely warmer for a single heartbeat.
Then, without waiting, she turned and stepped past him, her bare feet gliding over the floor.
She moved to the massive cauldron, older than memory, the heart of the chamber, and drew something from within: a small, glimmering earring, glowing faintly with unknown runes.
She returned to him, now clothed and standing still.
Her scent hit him—the sweet danger of flowers that bloomed under the moon, hypnotic and pure. She raised a hand to his face.
Her eyes met his, Endless and Unreadable.
She whispered something he couldn't understand. A soft language. Old and lost.
He nodded anyway, entranced.
Then, without hesitation, she pierced his ear with the glowing earring. He flinched slightly, but she only smiled, Not wickedly, Not kindly. Just… perfectly.
Returning to the cauldron, she summoned a bell from her ring and rang it gently. The sound was haunting, not loud, but heavy—like time itself had answered.
The cauldron shrank in on itself, folding impossibly small, then landed in her palm like a feather.
Turning again, she brought forth a massive book from her ring—so large it covered half her body, bound in dragonhide and etched with golden ink that pulsed with life. Yet she held it like paper.
She handed it to him.
He took it, his voice finally breaking free.
"Thank you."
The sound of it was like warm smoke, soft thunder, and silk all at once.
It sent a strange shiver through the air.
She smiled faintly once more, the kind of smile that kingdoms could go to war for, and then she vanished.
No wind, No flash.
Just… gone.
As if she'd never been.
And in that silence, in that moment stretched thin across eternity, he stood alone again—book in hand, earring glowing faintly, robe resting against his skin.