The skies shimmered faintly with the pale light of dawn as a spiritual vessel descended through the clouds. Its hull gleamed with faint blue inscriptions, engines humming with restrained power. The sigil of the Monarch Spirit Sect glowed proudly upon its prow—a promise and a warning to all who looked up from below.
Standing quietly among the passengers, Yang Yin Long adjusted his gray traveling robe and looked down at the sprawling world beneath. It had been decades since he left the sect's peaks, and the mortal lands below seemed almost unreal in their color and noise.
At the vessel's helm, a sect official announced, "We are arriving at Monarch Fall Market City. Please keep your sect tokens visible when disembarking."
Yang Yin Long exhaled softly.
"So this is Monarch Fall Market…"
---
Monarch Fall Market City spread across the valley like a vast serpent—stone streets and jade roofs winding around the central mountain where a faint spiritual light pulsed day and night.
This was no ordinary mortal city.
It was one of the Nine Spirit Markets, founded by the Monarch Spirit Sect to anchor trade and stability across the region. Cultivators, merchants, and mortal nobility all gathered here under its protection.
And high above them all, stationed within a secluded temple near the city's heart, resided a True Lord—a cultivator at the Nascent Soul Realm, known in the sect as the Fourth Order of Cultivation Realms.
Rumor said that even a whisper of the True Lord's will could suppress all conflict within the city.
Yang Yin Long stepped off the vessel and was immediately swallowed by noise—criers shouting prices, cultivators bargaining for beast cores, and spiritual beasts caged in glowing nets.
He walked slowly, eyes wandering from stall to stall.
Fine robes, spirit talismans, and shining ores—all glittered in the morning light, promising a life of power.
He slipped a hand into his sleeve and felt the modest weight of his coin pouch. A few low-grade spirit stones clinked faintly inside.
After twenty-four years of cultivation, he realized with faint amusement that he was still poor.
He had chosen the path of patience and purity, and patience, it seemed, was not lucrative.
He stopped at a stall selling mid-tier spiritual weapons, each one pulsing with thin waves of qi. The vendor smiled toothily.
"Senior, looking to buy a blade? This one's forged from Blue Flame Steel—excellent for mid-stage cultivators!"
"How much?"
"Just three hundred mid-grade spirit stones."
Yang Yin Long smiled faintly.
"I see. Then perhaps next life."
The vendor blinked as the robed cultivator walked away.
---
After gathering supplies—food talismans, wound ointments, and two defensive charms—he left the market behind.
The road west led toward the shadowed expanse of the Monarch Fall Valley.
For cultivators, the valley was both legend and warning.
It was said that two Monarch-level cultivators and a Monarch-ranked Beast Lord had perished there centuries ago, shattering the heavens above and saturating the land with residual Monarch qi.
That qi made the soil rich and dangerous, birthing countless Demon Beasts of peculiar strength.
Yang Yin Long stood at the edge of the forest line.
The air was thicker here, heavy with both vitality and menace.
The trees grew tall as towers, their bark etched with faint natural runes. In the distance, roars echoed like rolling thunder.
"Even after all these years," he murmured, "this place still feels alive."
He adjusted his satchel, stepped into the wilderness, and disappeared among the vines.
---
In the outer layers of the valley, he began his work.
His first target was a Wind Wolf, a sleek beast of the Wood attribute known for its agility and sharp wind blades. The fight was brief—its movements fast, but predictable. Yang Yin Long's Stone Skin Technique absorbed its initial strike, and his Metal Palm Seal crushed its skull in the next moment.
The beast collapsed with a sigh. Its core pulsed faintly green.
He sealed it away and moved deeper.
The next day, a Flaming Tiger pounced from the trees, its claws blazing with fire qi. He evaded, cast the Water Curtain Barrier, and let the tiger's flames sputter harmlessly against it. With practiced calm, he guided a whip of fire—his Flame Whip Art—to strike the beast's chest, twisting the tiger's own attribute against it.
The tiger fell, smoke curling from its fur.
By the fifth day, he faced a pair of Earth Boars, lumbering monsters whose hides gleamed like bronze. Their power was great, their defense immense.
The first he dispatched through patience—circling, evading, striking at the eyes with Wood Step's darting movements.
The second, however, was different.
Larger. Smarter.
A late-stage Earth Boar, perhaps centuries old, its body radiating a dense, crushing qi.
The battle stretched through the afternoon.
His defenses cracked; his robes were torn. Each of the boar's charges sent tremors through the forest.
In the final moment, he gathered every drop of his qi into the Flame Whip, compressed it until it blazed white, and cast it downward into the beast's throat.
The boar fell, the ground shuddering beneath its death.
He leaned on his sword, panting, bloodied but calm.
"Nine years of patience… for this."
He collected its core and sat down to recover.
The forest around him was silent except for his breath.
Until the silence broke.
---
A sound rippled through the forest—deep, ancient, and vast.
From every direction, beasts began to roar and cry, their qi surging in violent chaos. Birds fled, spirit beasts howled, and even the ground seemed to tremble.
Yang Yin Long's eyes snapped open.
"Beast tide?"
But no—this felt wrong.
The qi wasn't coordinated. It was fear, not fury.
Something else was happening.
He rose instantly, preparing to retreat toward the city. Yet in his disorientation—half exhausted, half dizzy from blood loss—he turned in the wrong direction.
Instead of heading east, he ran west.
Deeper into the valley.
Past the outer forests.
Past the inner domain.
Into the core—a forbidden region where even seasoned cultivators rarely dared tread.
---
Elsewhere, at the valley's heart, the sky itself was tearing.
A woman hovered above a shattered lake, her robes scorched and torn, her long black hair whipping in the wind. Each breath she took exhaled waves of terrifying pressure—the aura of a Nascent Soul Realm cultivator, a True Lord of the Monarch Spirit Sect.
Opposite her loomed a colossal beast—a Crimson-Eyed Basilisk, its scales gleaming like molten copper, its gaze filled with hate.
Between them floated a delicate, otherworldly bloom—a Heart Bewitching Lotus, its petals the color of dawn and its fragrance intoxicating.
The air trembled as they fought.
Sword light clashed with poison fog; spiritual fire collided with divine venom.
The woman's voice was calm, resolute.
"You've guarded this lotus for centuries. Today, I end it."
Her sword cut through the basilisk's neck in a blaze of purple fire. The beast screamed, its death echoing through the valley.
She extended her hand, and the Heart Bewitching Lotus floated toward her.
It pulsed once—twice—then shattered.
A burst of pink flame exploded outward, scattering lotus fragments and a cloud of shimmering dust.
The True Lord staggered, qi flaring wildly. She instinctively drew in the fragments before they dispersed, absorbing both their essence and their corruption.
Her body glowed crimson. Her aura spiked. Her technique completed.
And then, agony.
"No—what—"
The lotus's aphrodisiac nature had merged with her essence. She could feel the poison of desire spreading through her meridians, searing her core, twisting her mind.
Her spiritual fire flared uncontrollably, scorching the air itself.
---
End of Chapter 4.
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