For a moment, the heavens were perfect.
The new arrivals stood beneath the twin suns of the Astral Vein, gazing across floating peaks and rivers of light. The world stretched endlessly, glittering with divinity and promise. The air was thick with vital energy, humming through their meridians with every breath.
Elder Yuan turned his gaze upon the young cultivators. "We will return to the Pavilion shortly. Do not wander—this is still foreign ground."
Renji nodded, eyes still tracing the horizon. His golden hair seemed to catch the twin suns as he spoke, his tone steady and proud. "So this is the heaven our ancestors spoke of…"
Even Su Liana allowed herself a small, rare smile as she hovered nearby, gazing at the distant waterfalls of light. "It's beautiful," she murmured, her voice softer than the wind.
Renji turned slightly, his lips curling with practiced charm. "It suits you."
Su Liana offered a polite smile but immediately glanced toward Karma, who stood a little apart from the others—silent, eyes wide with awe as he watched spirit beasts glide through the skies like living comets. He was barely out of the Qi Condensation Realm, yet the vastness of the Upper Realm seemed to hold his complete, unwavering focus.
Su Chen chuckled under his breath, noticing the direction of both their eyes. "Why bother with him? He's barely out of the Qi Condensation Realm. A single beast's roar would turn him to mist."
Karma heard, but he didn't respond. The insult rolled off him like passing wind.
"The density of qi here is nearly tenfold that of the Dao Realm," Elder Yuan continued, drawing their attention. "Even standing still, your bodies are cultivating. But remember, the Astral Vein is not a realm that welcomes outsiders. We'll head east to the Azure Edge Pavilion's outpost. Stay alert."
The light wind brushed through robes and hair, carrying a faint, melodic hum of spirit resonance.
Then the melody shattered.
A sudden shiver ripped through the air. The skies dimmed as if a vast veil had passed over the twin suns. Elder Yuan's brows furrowed instantly.
"Wait. Do you feel that?"
The qi in the atmosphere thickened abruptly, no longer calm but violent—spiraling, chaotic, and enraged. The mountain beneath them groaned.
"Get ready," Yuan said, his tone turning sharp.
A colossal surge of destructive energy tore across the horizon—a torrent of blinding light that tore apart the air itself as it fell. It struck the ridge's perimeter like a divine hammer.
Renji reacted first, throwing up a golden barrier before Su Liana and Su Chen. It shattered before it even fully formed. The others screamed, their low-level qi shields crumbling like paper.
Only Yuan moved with grim precision. His fingers blurred through dozens of seals, layers of crystalline runes flaring into being before him. A thick, opaque wall of pure qi rose just as the blast hit.
The impact was deafening. Light swallowed the world.
When the dust cleared, Yuan was still standing—but barely. His robes were torn, his arm trembling. The crystalline barrier had cracked down the middle, runes flickering like dying embers. He took a deep, ragged breath, steadying his aura.
That power… impossible. Even at my peak, I couldn't release such force from this distance.
"Elder Yuan… that wasn't aimed at us, was it?" Renji choked out, clutching his chest.
Yuan's gaze lifted. His pupils contracted. "No," he commanded, his voice edged with steel. "That was not an attack—it was an aftershock. Something's fighting nearby."
Before the others could respond, the ground shook violently.
A low, earth-rumbling roar echoed through the skies, so deep it made their bones vibrate. From the distant horizon, two immense, terrifying shapes surged through the clouds, moving at impossible speed.
One soared high, a vast serpentine form whose scales reflected molten light. This Sky Serpent's cry split the air like thunder, lightning coiling around its body as it dove.
The other erupted from below, a creature of the land so vast it reshaped the terrain wherever it passed. Its back was a forest of jagged spines that glowed with inner magma—a Molten Behemoth.
They were two ancient bloodline beasts of the Astral Vein, and they were fighting for dominance.
Yuan's face paled as he took in the sheer scale of their power. His divine sense screamed a warning. Those two… even a single one could annihilate a sect. And even at my limit, I am but an insect before them.
He turned, his voice booming across the shattered plateau.
"Everyone, scatter! Get away from the ridge—now! You are not their target, but if you stay, you'll be swept away!"
The disciples hesitated, fear momentarily freezing their movements.
"Move!" Yuan bellowed, unleashing a pulse of energy that pushed them backward. "Go! Head east—find cover and suppress your aura!"
The young cultivators finally obeyed, qi flaring as they scattered like falling stars. Renji grabbed a stunned Su Chen and leapt across the shattered terrain. Su Liana turned and ran, her focus set on escape.
Karma, still reeling from the shockwave, followed their lead, running purely on instinct.
Another collision ripped across the sky. The serpent's tail lashed out, slicing through a floating island miles away. The wave of energy that followed was beyond mortal comprehension.
It struck the fleeing group like a tempest of divine wrath.
Karma felt the ground vanish beneath him. The shockwave hurled him through the air, his body spinning helplessly as the world dissolved into noise and color. He saw glimpses—Renji shouting, Su Liana's hand reaching toward him, the ground fracturing into endless fissures—then blinding light consumed everything.
He crashed, landing far from the others, silence following the chaos.
Scattered Across the Heavens
The once-bright plateau was gone, reduced to broken islands of floating rock drifting amid smoke and ash. Survivors clung to whatever ground remained.
Renji crawled from beneath a collapsed outcrop, his sword broken in half, his clothes torn and scorched. He coughed, spitting dust and blood, but his eyes burned with furious clarity. He was alone.
"Su Liana!" he shouted, his voice hoarse. No answer.
He looked toward the distant horizon, where the battle still raged, the shockwaves distorting the sky itself. Even Elder Yuan couldn't stop that… He clenched his fists, the blood on his knuckles tightening. Su Liana is alive. She has to be.
His thoughts drifted to the one person he couldn't sense. "Karma, you reckless fool—you better not have died before I surpass you." The bitterness was a shield for the deeper, unwanted feeling that he had lost ground with Su Liana because of the low-ranked cultivator. He's a Qi Condensation brat. He should have evaporated.
Far south, Su Chen limped through a valley of molten cracks, face pale and drenched in sweat. He watched a pack of scorched, lesser spiritual beasts flee past him, running from the titans above.
"Curse this damned place," he spat, ducking behind a jagged rock. The sight of the two battling monsters made his knees weak; even their stray aura made his meridians ache.
He couldn't sense anyone's qi, having little skill with divine sense, but he didn't care. I need to live.
He managed to think of the others. "Hmph. That low-realm cultivator probably evaporated in the first blast. At least one less burden to carry," he muttered, though the fear in his voice made the boast hollow.
Elder Yuan stood atop a fractured peak, surrounded by shattered stone. He had barely managed to shield a few of the disciples who fled east, but they were now scattered further. His chest rose and fell with heavy breaths, qi flickering weakly.
He sent his divine sense outward—a painstaking process with his qi so depleted—reaching for familiar signatures.
Renji—alive. Su Chen—alive, barely. Su Liana—alive but moving west, chased by beasts drawn to the chaos.
And Karma…
Nothing. No aura. No pulse. Only silence.
Yuan exhaled slowly, pain flashing across his face. "So the boy fell first."
He shut his eyes briefly. "A pity. He had Heaven's favor around him. I could feel it—the strange flow of fate that gathers around chosen lives." He shook his head, half in regret, half in resignation. "Perhaps that luck ran out, a cruel welcome to this realm."
He straightened, blood trickling from his lip, and turned toward the east. "Survive," he murmured. "That's all we can do now."
Among the Ruins
Su Liana stumbled through a forest of floating debris, her robes tattered, her jade hairpin cracked. The world around her was chaos, and she suppressed her qi to a whisper to avoid detection. Every breath was agony, but her heart refused to give in.
He's alive, she told herself, again and again. He has to be.
The others had seen Karma vanish in that final blast—but Su Liana refused to accept it. She could still remember his expression just before the shockwave hit—calm, defiant, eyes burning with a determination that belied his weak cultivation. That wasn't the gaze of someone about to surrender to death.
"That fool…" she whispered under her breath, dodging behind a broken pillar as a scorched spiritual beast prowled past. "If you die now, I'll never forgive you."
She waited until the beast vanished, then pressed forward through the shattered valley, her thoughts whispering like a prayer.
Live, Karma. Please… live.