The underground cavern reeked of thick blood, mud, and shattered bone.
Where the natural rift to the Secret Realm once glowed, only a wall of damp, lifeless rock remained. The Dragon-Turtle, the millennium-old calamity of the Celestial Mirror, lay scattered across the floor and stalactites like a carpet of minced flesh.
Sect Master Zhào Fēng stopped a few steps from the blind stone. His Nascent Soul aura fluctuated unstably around his body. The spiritual connection anchoring the mountain to the Stagnant Water dimension had vanished completely. The ancestral paradise… no longer existed.
Beside him and the other Elders, Elder Bai was drenched in cold sweat. His trembling hands gripped the hilt of his sword as his eyes scanned the darkness with ease, observing the remains of the once-feared guardian of the sect.
The air cracked.
A silver rift tore open in the void with a dry sound, splitting the center of the stone tunnel. A faint light leaked through for a moment before fading.
A man in a charcoal-gray robe stepped onto the blood-stained gravel. He adjusted his collar with slow, disinterested movements. There was no fury, no killing intent, and no oppressive aura coming from him. Just an ordinary cultivator with average looks and forgettable features.
Right behind him came a woman in navy-blue silk, moving in complete silence. Her face was pleasant but unremarkable. Next to her, another girl in a golden dress yawned loudly and stretched her arms as if she had just woken up. The third one, with white hair, carefully fixed the sash of her hanfu, looking like a common servant dressed in expensive clothes.
At last, one final figure stepped through the rift.
A young woman with pale, almost sickly skin and long brown hair that reached her back entered the cavern. Her face was ordinary, with soft and gentle features, but nothing that drew attention.
The silver rift collapsed behind them with a dull, hollow sound, completely sealing the void and erasing the Secret Realm from existence.
The silence in the cavern lasted only a heartbeat.
Zhào Fēng fixed his gaze on the group. The Karmic Veil was working perfectly. The Sect Master didn't see untouchable goddesses. He saw only five average-looking cultivators with weak auras and forgettable faces, walking calmly over the remains of his sect's guardian beast.
The leader's mind worked quickly. None of those ants could have destroyed the foundation of an entire Secret Realm. A calamity had passed through here, and these five were just opportunistic rats spat out by the collapse of space. But they knew what had happened.
"Filthy rats," Zhào Fēng's voice echoed off the damp stones, trembling with hatred. "What happened in there? Who killed our guardian? Speak now, or I'll peel the skin off your bodies."
The Nascent Soul Qi erupted.
The blood on the ground froze. Chains of ice formed in the air and lashed out like whips, targeting the gray-robed man and the women around him.
Yù Méi took a step forward. She raised her right hand and grabbed the tip of an ice chain mid-air. The attack stopped instantly. The youngest tightened her fingers. The ice exploded into fine white powder. She wiped her hand on her skirt with a bored expression.
"You're wasting energy throwing ice at us?" Yù Méi clicked her tongue. "What trash. I swear I'll rip your legs off if you try another cheap trick."
Zhào Fēng froze. The elders recoiled, their confidence shaken after seeing a Nascent Soul technique dismantled so easily by a girl who looked harmless.
Before the leader could react, Mò Yán moved.
The white-haired woman stopped beside her husband. The offense in Zhào Fēng's tone had deeply irritated the Law that had just been born inside her. The newly formed Law Sea spun.
"You are in the presence of my god," Mò Yán's melodious voice cut through the cavern. The Law of Mandate seeped into her words, bending reality around them. "Kneel in the mud and beg for mercy."
The command met no resistance.
It subjugated Zhào Fēng's Nascent Soul and those of all the elders at once. Their knees buckled. They fell face-first into the pools of blood and mud, their mouths opening against their will. Unable to resist the Law's power, the Sect Master and the elite of the Celestial Mirror began to cry and scream in despair, crawling through the filth.
"Mercy! Have mercy! Forgive us!" the old men sobbed, humiliated and forced to beg like beggars.
The noise turned into a hysterical chorus that echoed through the stalactites.
Zhì Yuǎn sighed. He looked at the whimpering old men and waved his hand lightly.
"Enough of the screaming," his rustic voice sounded practical and tired. "Shut your mouths."
The crying stopped instantly.
His command shattered the dramatic effect Mò Yán had imposed. The elders remained glued to the ground, trembling and drooling in their own blood, but absolute silence fell over the cavern.
A few steps away from Zhào Fēng, Elder Bai coughed up blood onto the gravel. The old man forced his neck up, his desperate eyes sweeping across the group in search of his granddaughter. His gaze stopped on the young woman accompanying the others.
He did not see blue hair. He did not see emerald reflections. The Karmic Veil hid all of that. What he saw was an ordinary face with soft features and rounded cheeks, and a height that was painfully familiar. The young woman wore an elegant pearl-blue dress, clean and well-tailored, featuring wide detached bell-sleeves that weren't connected to the garment and a daring neckline that plunged all the way down to the sash at her waist — quite bold for someone with such a petite and delicate frame. It looked completely out of place on the ordinary, timid-looking girl wearing it.
The old man's blood ran cold.
"Wǎn… Wǎn'er?" his voice came out as a ragged hiss, disbelief clashing with the terror of kneeling in the mud.
The long-haired young woman stopped beside Zhì Yuǎn. Her calm, clear eyes descended upon the leaders of her former sect. When she opened her mouth, her voice came out clean, gentle, and strangely serene.
"Grandfather is looking for something that no longer exists," Bái Wǎn said, with a sweet smile that didn't reach her eyes. "That weak, dirty girl was cleansed. My husband washed away everything that remained of her."
The word "husband," spoken with such reverence by someone who had barely raised her voice before, hit the old men like a hammer.
Zhào Fēng coughed blood into the mud, his eyes wide with terror.
"Bái Wǎn… what did he do to our Secret Realm?!" he growled, his voice hoarse with desperation.
Bái Wǎn took a step forward. The pearl-blue dress didn't touch the filth on the ground. She didn't shrink back, didn't look away, and showed no hesitation. She simply stepped forward, shielding the man behind her with blind devotion.
"Your paradise was nothing but a filthy, stagnant pool," she replied, her voice firm and full of conviction. "Our sect lived trapped inside it, worshipping dead water. My husband broke that. He threw away all that filth and gave me something real. I belong to him now. I am his."
The shock of that declaration was violent.
Zhào Fēng and Elder Bai trembled in the pool of blood, staring at the former academic who had once been the sect's rising star, now turned into a fanatical servant of the invader. The dogma they had carried their entire lives collapsed along with their sanity.
Right behind her, Yù Qíng smiled beneath her veil. The first wife silently approved of the work she had done on the newcomer's mind over the past few hours.
Zhì Yuǎn lowered his eyes to the men kneeling in the mud.
"Your water dimension is gone," he said, his rustic voice tired. "And the resistance you put up was nothing but useless noise. My family wants silence."
He paused briefly. His apathetic gaze made the elders hold their breath.
"Because my wife comes from your sect, I'll only charge a toll. Bring all the sect's ancient records, the maps of the other sects, and any scrolls you have about the structure of this world. Hand everything over, and your sect will continue to exist when the sun rises."
Yù Méi, who was wiping her hands on the stone wall, let out a snort.
"But if you try to hide even a single useful page…" the youngest said, her eyes gleaming in the dark. "I swear I'll rip your spines out and use them to build a ladder back to the top of the mountain."
The silence that fell over the cavern was heavy and funereal.
Without a shred of pride left, his knees sunk into the remains of his own guardian beast, Sect Master Zhào Fēng lowered his head until his forehead scraped the filthy stone.
"We will obey, Venerable One," he whispered, his voice defeated.
The terror of seeing his lineage wiped from the map forced the leader to attempt one last bargain. He still didn't understand the depth of the abyss he had fallen into.
"Our mountain borders directly with the other three Great Southern Sects…" Zhào Fēng stammered, cold sweat running into his eyes. "If the Venerable wishes, we can use our contacts to map their weaknesses and resources. We'll hand over the keys to the other foundations, to save you the effort…"
Zhì Yuǎn didn't respond.
The gray-robed man's gaze had already left the kneeling elders. He swept the dark tunnel with boredom, his mind already turning toward the road home. His patience for listening to promises from extras had run out.
Yù Qíng noticed her husband's disinterest. The woman in blue took a step forward, stopping exactly between the prostrated leader and Zhì Yuǎn.
"My husband doesn't waste time picking up crumbs from the dirt," Yù Qíng's voice came out velvety, yet loaded with icy disdain. She looked down at the top of the Sect Master's head. "Do you really think the neighboring sects are any kind of obstacle to him?"
Zhào Fēng held his breath.
Yù Qíng continued, her tone sharper now:
"Instead of staying quiet and thanking my heaven for the mercy you received, you still try to use his strength to solve your own problems." She paused briefly, then pointed at Bái Wǎn with her chin. "It was this one here who begged our husband to spare your lives. And even so, you still haven't learned to stay quiet."
The silence that fell over the cavern was dense.
Yù Qíng took a step to the side, returning to stand beside her husband.
"Gather the maps and records before dawn," she continued, her voice now practical. "And from today onward, any matter, tribute, or request from this useless sect must be handled directly with our butler. Do not dare speak to my husband again."
The Sect Master of the Celestial Mirror swallowed hard. The highest authority in these lands had just been reduced to reporting to a servant.