Although she didn't know what these guys were up to, their sudden, frantic retreat was a clear sign of panic, and Su Min had no reason to pass up the opportunity to beat a drowning dog. Since they had so foolishly exposed their undefended backs to her, she didn't hesitate, her body becoming a blur as she thrust her sword straight in, the Chaos Sword piercing through their spiritual defenses with ease.
In the blink of an eye, two more immortals perished, their forms dissolving into motes of light before being collected. This smoothness, this utter lack of a final, desperate struggle, was so bizarre that even the onlookers from the celestial palace were stunned into silence, let alone Su Min herself, who had expected at least a token resistance. At the same time, inside the spatial tunnel, the remaining three individuals waiting for their turn were equally dumbfounded as they watched a small, temporary crack tear open in the fabric of the passage in front of them, a final desperate act from their comrades.
Then, a fragmented, near death message, imbued with the last wisp of spiritual energy from the fallen immortals, reached their ears, freezing them in place. The content was just one sentence, but that one sentence was enough to make their expressions change drastically, all color draining from their faces.
"The Chaos Body is unfathomable, don't engage. The Zhexian Curse missed its mark. Report back immediately."
The three exchanged horrified glances. Though the message was brief, it filled them with a soul deep dread they hadn't felt in millennia.
"Don't engage."
These three words spoke volumes. They were not a suggestion, they were a final, desperate warning from beyond the grave.
Seven of them had already gone out, which meant all seven had fallen to the Chaos Body. Aside from the first one who had been ambushed, the rest were all true immortals, six in total. And yet, the Chaos Body was only at the Mahayana late stage. They hadn't participated in the great war of the past, nor had they witnessed the terror of the Chaos Body firsthand. The survivors of those three cataclysmic eras were long dead, so they had no real, personal understanding of its power. When they had learned that Su Min hadn't died from the curse, they had been secretly eager, even arrogant, to test their own strength against her legend. Now, they had tested it, and they had perished. The message before them was nothing short of a death note, a final plea of despair from their comrades. The implications were terrifyingly clear.
So, without a single word of discussion, the three made a unanimous decision.
Run.
They turned tail and fled back down the tunnel, not daring to look back, their immortal pride completely forgotten. But soon, their faces twisted in fresh horror. The arrival of ten immortals, combined with their earlier infighting and the massive energy release from Su Min's attacks, had stirred up a violent, chaotic storm of energy within the tunnel. Retreating the way they came was now impossible, the path blocked by swirling spatial tempests. But these three weren't trying to escape back to their world, they only wanted to live long enough to deliver the message, to warn their clans.
When the tunnel opened again for its next cycle, Su Min was slightly surprised to find it completely empty, no new figures charging out.
"Those three must have charged back in, but the path ahead is now filled with that chaotic energy. If I were to follow them in now, it would be extremely dangerous. More importantly, if I were to enter the Nether Prison itself, I would be facing enemies on all sides with no support, certain death." Narrowing her eyes, Su Min coolly assessed the situation. This battle was over. Pursuing them now was unrealistic and foolish. With a wave of her hand, the seven immortal corpses materialized before her, floating in the void.
"This sword strike will be enough to sever the ages... No, it will buy this world tens of thousands of years of peace." Facing the raging spatial storm at the tunnel's mouth, Su Min steadily drew her weapon. Taking a deep breath, she channeled her immense power into the blade. Her sword now radiated an extraordinary, sharp aura, one that had surpassed even an Emperor's weapon. It had finally become a true Immortal Artifact, baptized in the blood of seven true immortals.
"Time. Space. Karma."
She whispered, pushing her comprehension of the three great laws to their absolute limits. Then, using the residual energy of the seven immortal corpses as fuel, she unleashed a single, devastating slash aimed not at a foe, but at the fabric of the passage itself. In an instant, the spiritual coordinates of the rift were completely obscured and tangled by the interplay of the three laws.
Even if the storm subsided millennia from now, no one would be able to trace the path back to this universe. For anyone in this universe to break through Su Min's complex seal, they would need power surpassing her own, meaning at least a high tier immortal, and not just any ordinary one. From this moment on, this world would be isolated from the outside, safe behind a wall of her making.
Soon after, having returned to the heart of the allied forces...
"This is roughly what happened. For now, everything is over, at least temporarily." Upon returning to the universe, Su Min relayed the events to the others, her tone matter of fact.
"Huh?" They were stunned. Even after Su Min's calm explanation, their expressions remained grim, the weight of the long term threat settling upon them.
"If the Nether Prison itself is not destroyed, won't they just return eventually?"
"Yes. So from now on, everyone should focus on their own cultivation and try to survive and grow as strong as possible for as long as possible. My sword strike has bought us tens of thousands of years, perhaps even a hundred thousand. Use it well." Shrugging, as if she hadn't just reshaped the fate of their world, Su Min vanished from the assembly, taking only Xie Yingying with her. The two soon returned to the quiet familiarity of the Immortal Gate.
"What are you planning?" Xie Yingying asked warily the moment they were alone in Su Min's private chambers, sensing from Su Min's unusually solemn mood that she was about to do something drastic, something final.
"My path has reached its limit. As a Chaos Body, I haven't achieved the Transcendence stage, and I can't. The next step is a direct ascent to true immortality. But just like the Golden Core Tribulation, the Immortal Tribulation has different levels of severity. The one I am destined to face is the highest, the Annihilation Tribulation. And as I am now, attempting it would mean certain death." Su Min stated this with a chilling calmness.
"What?" Xie Yingying was stunned, her mind reeling. For Su Min, who could already so casually slay true immortals, to feel a sense of despair before the Immortal Tribulation... How was that even possible? What kind of heavenly trial could threaten someone like her?
"The Chaos Body, despite its immense power, has now become my shackle, a ceiling I can't break through from the inside. I have decided. I will sever my cultivation entirely, and I mean entirely, even the Chaos Body itself." This was an extremely dangerous, nearly suicidal path, so Su Min had no intention of telling anyone else, trusting only Xie Yingying with this ultimate secret.
"Hiss."
Xie Yingying inhaled sharply, a cold dread gripping her heart. Clearly, Su Min didn't plan to undergo this process within the safety of the Immortal Gate. With so many eyes and powerful spiritual senses here, it wasn't safe for such a vulnerable state. This was not like Yao Xian'er's era, the world was more connected now, and the potential dangers, both from residual dark influences and from internal greed, were far greater.
"I've already chosen a relatively isolated planet in a forgotten corner of the cosmos. I've prepared a temporary barrier around it. Now, I need your personal jade slip, as a final safeguard, a last resort." Su Min extended her hand.
"Take it." Without a moment's hesitation, Xie Yingying handed over her most precious jade pendant, one that contained a wisp of her soul and could summon her full Mahayana stage power at will. For Su Min in a mortal state, it would be an absolute lifeline.
—
"What comes next will be a long and lonely journey. Yao Xian'er's self severing techniques were truly formidable. Now, I must abandon everything and return to my origin, to the state of a blank slate." With that, Su Min, there in the privacy of her room, ruthlessly severed her own profound cultivation foundation, using a secret art to seal its immense power deep within the core of her being, where it couldn't be accessed.
Then, her visible cultivation level plummeted, first to the Divine Transformation stage, then to the Golden Core, the Foundation Establishment, and further, until she was nothing more than a mortal, devoid of any spiritual pressure.
Lifting her head, she gazed with new, mortal eyes at the towering, snow capped mountains visible through her window, a preview of the world she had chosen, a remote, underdeveloped planet in the distant cosmos, untouched by higher civilizations or major sects. Its spiritual energy was thin, almost negligible, but it was slowly growing as the universe's energy continued to recover. Thousands of years had passed since the world's rebirth after the Age of Decay, and only now had the subtle changes reached this backwater place.
"Another familiar journey ahead. A completely mortal body, it feels like I've returned to the very beginning. It's just a pity that those from back then, the faces I knew at the start, are all gone now." Taking a deep breath of the mundane air, Su Min recalled her most vulnerable moment, when she had first crossed into this world, nearly sold into a brothel, and then hunted by an army of hundreds of thousands.
"At least this time, I won't start off so wretchedly. It's time to cultivate anew. But now, I don't just lack the Chaos Body, I don't even have the Five Elements Holy Body. The five divine artifacts have also been returned to the world, to form a new legacy." Looking at her now ordinary body, Su Min mused. Once she had become the Chaos Body and condensed the primordial Chaos Flame, the five elemental divine artifacts had become useless to her.
So she had left them in the sect, forming a unique inheritance ground for future disciples. This time, Su Min had severed herself completely, a clean slate. But since she had no lifespan limit, time was ultimately meaningless to her. By the time the spatial tunnel reopened in tens of thousands of years, she would have long since regained her peak strength, and then some. With that thought, Su Min stepped into a prepared cave deep in the mountains of that remote world.
Here, she had prepared her starting resources, a small, concentrated spirit vein abundant enough for a mortal to begin with, and a low level protective formation to keep out wild beasts. Then, she entered seclusion, not as a powerful cultivator, but as a mortal seeking the path. A mortal body was the most malleable, the most receptive to new foundations, but it was also the hardest to use, fragile and limited.
First, Su Min needed to forge a new, suitable cultivation method from scratch, one that wouldn't rely on her previous physiques. Given the vast, encyclopedic knowledge in her memories, this was not difficult, merely time consuming. In just a month, she had crafted a basic, yet perfectly efficient technique tailored to her current state.
A full year later, without the aid of any pills or external resources, she painstakingly reached the first step, the Body Tempering stage, her muscles and bones aching with the unfamiliar strain. As the low level protective formation finally crumbled, its energy spent, Su Min stepped out of the cave and into the local society.
Before her was a world in chaos, a mortal dynasty in its final years, plagued by natural disasters and banditry. Now, with nothing but a battered iron sword and her own wits, she would have to carve a new order from the madness.
While Su Min advanced with agonizing slowness by her previous standards, the rest of the universe had settled into an uneasy peace. Though everyone in the know understood it was temporary, peace was still peace. For most mortal beings, and even for many cultivators, tens of thousands of years was an unfathomably long time, spanning countless generations. Even long lived Mahayana or Transcendence stage cultivators couldn't realistically live to see the end of it.
"After I'm dead and gone, let the floodwaters rage." This was the prevailing attitude. Many forgot the looming threat, focusing instead on their own lives, ambitions, and conflicts. This was not entirely a bad thing, as it allowed the new generation to cultivate and grow without the paralyzing pressure of an inevitable apocalypse.
But soon, people realized Su Min had vanished again, and this time, not even the higher ups of the Immortal Gate had any idea where she was. At first, no one was too concerned. Su Min had disappeared for decades or even a century before, she would surely return in a few centuries, her power greater than ever. But this time, a thousand years passed with no sign of her, no word, no ripple of her immense power.
Suspicions began to grow, especially when the world's Heavenly Mark, the symbol of the universe's favor and the key to reaching the Transcendence stage, naturally manifested in the cosmic void. No one dared covet it at first. Everyone, including Tian Hao, assumed it was reserved for Su Min. She was unrivaled, the only one who could slay immortals, the only one truly qualified to reach Transcendence and beyond. Anyone else who tried would've surely been crushed by her upon her return.
Yet the Heavenly Mark lay there, untouched, shimmering in the void. Years passed. Decades. The temptation grew. Finally, after a full century of it sitting unclaimed, someone made a move. By now, many powerful experts had reached the Mahayana stage. Every cultivator dreamed of Transcendence, of becoming the universe's new supreme being, of standing at the very peak.
Like vultures circling a dying king, they began to fight for the crown, for the right to claim the Mark and take that final step. A brutal, sect spanning war began, shaking the foundations of the major powers. Mahayana was the acknowledged peak of this world. To go further, one had to fight, to seize the Mark and prove their worth against all challengers.
The Immortal Gate, under Xie Yingying and the Little Golden Crow, remained aloof, making no attempt to claim it, their silence a mystery to all. Even Xie Yingying and the Little Golden Crow, both having reached the late Mahayana stage, stayed out of the conflict, watching from the sidelines with unreadable expressions.
After centuries of bloodshed and the fall of several mighty sects, a new monarch finally emerged from the carnage. On this day, the very universe seemed to tremble, its laws resonating. The Great Desolate Holy Body, a peerless physique of immense power, had ascended to the throne, becoming the new Great Desolate Martial Sage.
The moment Tian Hao fully claimed the title and the Heavenly Mark, Su Min, on her distant, backwater planet, opened her eyes from her deep meditation.
"So it is him. A good choice. But this so called Mark means nothing to me anymore. It's a crutch." Rising to her feet, Su Min felt her cultivation, rebuilt from the ground up over millennia, finally return to the Mahayana stage. And the moment she solidly reached it, her previously severed foundation reintegrated seamlessly, the seal breaking. Her power surged back in an instant, not just to the late Mahayana stage, but carrying a new, profound depth from her millennia of foundational rebuilding. But she knew this new accumulation was still far from enough for her ultimate goal.
"I must continue this cycle. Next time, I'll try severing my very meridians, starting from an even more fundamental level. But first, I should return and show my face. If I stay gone too long, people will think I'm truly dead, or worse, they might guess what I'm doing. My reappearance will serve as a necessary warning to keep the peace. Besides, it's only been a few thousand years. There's still plenty of time before the seal weakens." Stretching lazily, her joints popping after such long seclusion, Su Min reflected on the past millennia spent in obscurity.
"Xie Yingying stayed with me through the first century of this, guarding the mountain. She could've left. She should've, to focus on her own cultivation. But she didn't." No one in their right mind would bring a Mahayana cultivator to act as a mere bodyguard on such a desolate, low energy planet.
But Xie Yingying had stayed, for a full hundred years, quietly guarding her mortal form, refusing to leave her side despite the immense opportunity cost to her own progress. But she couldn't stay forever.
The demands of the Immortal Gate and her own path had eventually called her back. And now, as Su Min sensed through their bond, Xie Yingying had reached her own limit, the peak of what her ordinary Lunar Sovereign Physique could achieve. Her path, too, had ended.