The Nether Prison Burial Ground wasn't a universe in the conventional sense, but an unimaginably vast, flat continent, its edges bordering the formless, devouring primordial chaos. Here, even ordinary, powerful cultivators dared not tread near the borders, let alone the more cautious immortals.
Yet now, every single living being across the entire breadth of the Nether Prison Burial Ground was staring in utter shock and terror at the scene unfolding before them in the sky. Though the Nether Prison Burial Ground housed countless immortals, its land was so mind bogglingly expansive that even the entire Heavenly Continent from Su Min's home was but a drop in the ocean by comparison.
The vast, overwhelming majority of its inhabitants were simple mortals, living their lives completely unaware of the immortals or the intricacies of cultivation that governed their world from the shadows. Now, these mortals watched in awe and horror as myth and nightmare unfolded before their very eyes. Immortals, beings of legend, fell from the sky like common birds, their divine blood staining the earth for thousands of miles, their flesh and bones turning into spiritual nourishment that revitalized the very land. Under the continuous crimson rain, all plant life flourished in an instant, growing to monstrous sizes.
Above, the war, or rather, the one sided slaughter, continued unabated. The Chaos Body of the past had once made the very foundations of the Nether Prison Burial Ground tremble, but Su Min was now demonstrably, terrifyingly stronger. To her, these so called immortals were no different from the mortals below. None could withstand a single, casual blow from her sword, not even the revered, feared high ranking immortals, who now scrambled and cowered like whipped dogs, their dignity forgotten in the face of annihilation.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity of carnage, the last resistance crumbled. "There're no more left." As the final high ranking immortal was torn apart by a flick of her wrist, his essence scattering to the winds, Su Min ceased her movements. No immortals remained on the battlefield, but she noted the absence of the patriarchs of the five great families. Yet Su Min paid them no immediate mind. After this grand slaughter, her cultivation had churned and advanced, finally breaking through to the next, legendary realm.
The Immortal King.
Now, with but a thought, her divine sense expanded, enveloping the entire Nether Prison Burial Ground in an instant, and she instantly locked onto the last five immortals hiding in a deep sanctum. Their presence was too vast, their karma too heavy to hide from her now. In a flash, Su Min traversed time and space, appearing directly before them in their sealed chamber.
"Of all the immortals in the Nether Prison Burial Ground, only you five remain." She spoke calmly, her voice utterly indifferent, as if stating a simple fact of the weather.
"Hahaha, I know. But they've fulfilled their purpose. Woman, we may not be your match, but our master's coming. Your end's assured." With those final, defiant words, the five figures dissolved before her eyes, their bodies and souls turning to ash in a final, sacrificial art, their energy funneling into a complex formation in the center of the room.
Su Min paused, observing the process, but in the very next moment, the sky above the sanctum, and indeed the entire Nether Prison Burial Ground, split open with a soundless tear. A river of shimmering stars poured down from the heavens, enveloping her position. Yet this was no ordinary river of energy, it was the very River of Time itself, its currents visible and palpable.
This time, Su Min didn't hide or resist. She raised her head and gazed downstream, to the future, where a single figure cloaked in profound black robes trudged forward with heavy, labored steps. Each step he took bore the visible weight of immense, crushing karma, the price for moving against the natural flow.
"Are you the one the Sinful Buddha spoke of?" Su Min's voice was calm, almost conversational. The Sinful Buddha had once glimpsed the River of Time and tried to send a wisp of consciousness back, but the anchor he provided was too weak, allowing Su Min to repel him easily. But now, the five family patriarchs had sacrificed more than just their lives, they'd offered their entire bloodline's fortune and legacy.
Their offering had created a far stronger, clearer anchor. This being was physically advancing through the River of Time, enduring the horrific backlash of karma with each step. Su Min didn't strike immediately. She wanted to see how far he could actually go, to measure his resolve. With every step, his majestic aura weakened, his form becoming more hunched and withered.
Finally, after an agonizingly slow march, he stood before her on the solid ground of the present. His once majestic form was now withered and ancient, his back hunched under the unbearable weight of the price he'd paid. Yet even now, in his severely weakened state, his cultivation base matched Su Min's new Immortal King realm.
"I see. So you were prepared for this." Su Min remained composed. Time was her ally, every passing second weakened him further as the karma continued to eat at him. His peak strength must've been truly terrifying, enough to make the ruling families of the Nether Prison Burial Ground and the Skeletal Emperor himself call him "master."
"You shouldn't exist. This world was never meant to have someone like you." The old man spoke coldly, his voice raspy and full of ancient malice, and then he struck without another word, wasting no energy on conversation. His palm descended, a deceptively simple movement that carried unimaginable, world ending power within it.
Su Min met it head on with her own palm, a direct contest of fundamental power.
BOOM—
The impact shook the very heavens. The vast Nether Prison Burial Ground, a continent capable of hosting battles between thousands of immortals without major damage, trembled violently from the force. A single exchange nearly shattered the entire realm's foundational laws.
"You truly don't care about the billions of mortals living here?" Su Min frowned, genuinely perturbed by his wanton release of power. She hadn't yet decided what to do with the Nether Prison Burial Ground itself. Ninety nine percent of its inhabitants were ordinary, innocent mortals, with the dark cultivators making up only a tiny fraction.
But in the next moment, another, even more devastating strike came from the old man, aimed not just at her, but at the continent itself.
This time, Su Min didn't block it directly, allowing the force to be dispersed.
BOOM—
The Nether Prison Burial Ground fractured along countless fault lines. Mountains crumbled into dust, the massive continent splitting apart into several large fragments and countless smaller ones. The old man coughed up black blood as the backlash of karma struck him with renewed fury for damaging the timeline's integrity. The once unified realm was now divided, its gaps immediately filled with swirling, dangerous chaotic energy.
"For the safety of the myriad worlds, this may ultimately be a good thing." Su Min sighed, a touch of regret in her voice. The Nether Prison Burial Ground had been too powerful, too centralized, its existence a constant, looming threat to all other universes. Now that it had shattered, its cohesive power broken, the immediate danger was gone.
She refocused her mind and clashed with the old man once more. Their battle was no longer a simple exchange of blows, but a contest of laws, of comprehension, of sheer endurance. Time passed in a blur, days, months, then years. Though Su Min had newly reached the Immortal King realm, her opponent had dwelled in it for eons. At this ultimate level, innate physiques no longer mattered, only one's comprehension of the Dao and the depth of one's power. Every strike between them shook the heavens and distorted space.
Finally, in the tenth year of their continuous battle, with one last, perfectly executed palm strike, the old man's body finally collapsed, unable to sustain itself any longer. It wasn't that Su Min was inherently stronger, but the accumulated, unbearable weight of karma had finally crushed him, leaving his defenses utterly broken.
"Hah..." Su Min exhaled a long, weary breath, gazing down at the shattered remains of the Nether Prison Burial Ground below. The broken continents now drifted aimlessly through the primordial chaos, no longer capable of producing immortals or concentrating such immense power. The existential threat to the myriad worlds had finally ended.
"But this isn't enough. Merely destroying the threat isn't a solution. I'll forge a new Immortal Realm, a proper home for those who ascend." She raised her hand, summoning forth the concentrated essence of countless devoured worlds, the very resource the Nether Prison Burial Ground had hoarded and used to nurture its immortals. The largest fragment she collected was the core of the Nether Prison Burial Ground itself, the source of its power. Without it, no ordinary realm could ever hope to birth immortals again.
"The power of immortals's too great for a single world to contain. I must create a new order, a separate plane of existence."
Su Min inhaled deeply, drawing in the chaotic energies around her, and then glanced at the immensely powerful corpse beside her, the old man. She didn't know what future, what desperate circumstance had driven him to defy all reason and karma to ascend the River of Time, only to die here. But even in death, his body radiated a potent, deathly aura that corrupted the space around it.
Only Su Min, with her perfected Chaos Body, could withstand it, any other immortal would've been corrupted and driven mad instantly. She had to dispose of it properly, to neutralize its malevolent influence. There was still so much to do. She'd venture deep into the primordial chaos, carve out a stable pocket of existence, a new Immortal Realm, and establish a system where cultivation could flourish without the need for plunder and destruction.
Immortals were simply too powerful for ordinary worlds to contain, hence the Heavenly Dao naturally suppressed them. Now, Su Min would create an exception, a designated place, allowing future generations to rightfully ascend through tribulation and continue their path.
With that thought, she flew into the endless, turbulent chaos beyond the shattered realms. Only someone of her Immortal King level could hope to traverse it and survive, not even a standard Chaos Body could endure the formless dissolution here. Soon, finding a relatively stable void of nothingness, Su Min released the collected world essences and the terrifying corpse. Left to its own devices, the corpse would've festered and bred new calamities, so Su Min spent a full year using her Chaos Flame to carefully purify it, burning away the malice and leaving only the pure, immense energy.
She then fused the purified energy and the world essences into the nascent land she was creating. As she did so, a profound change rippled across the countless universes. Every Mahayana stage cultivator suddenly sensed the restrictions on their cultivation had loosened, a new path had opened, they could now advance further. But with this new path came a new, absolute condition, upon becoming immortals, they must leave their home worlds forever, drawn to the new Immortal Realm.
Before undertaking any other task, Su Min's first act was to return to her own home universe. She went directly to the Immortal Gate and, with immense care, uprooted the entire back mountain containing the sealed chambers. She took everyone within, Xie Yingying, the Little Golden Crow, all her disciples and comrades in stasis, and transported them directly to the new continent. This new land was infinitely richer in spiritual energy and resources, a perfect place for them to awaken and continue their cultivation.
Before departing her home universe for the last time, she held a grand assembly, projecting her will to all powerful cultivators, revealing the truth of the path beyond immortality. She declared that no matter one's physique or talent, to advance beyond the immortal realm, one must endure the newly established Nirvana Heavenly Tribulation. Otherwise, their cultivation would've been forever locked at the basic immortal stage. Whether they chose to remain content as immortals or strive for the greater heights was no longer her concern, she'd provided the path.
Time flowed on in its relentless course. In the new Immortal Realm, a mere thousand years passed before the first new immortal, a prodigy from a forgotten universe, successfully transcended his tribulation and arrived.
Then the second came, and the third... Yet it took a full million years before Yao Xian'er, having rebuilt her foundation to absolute perfection, finally stepped into the Immortal Realm, her aura sharp and formidable. She'd spent eons accumulating strength, overcoming the brutal Nine Nine Heavenly Tribulation to become only the second existence in the new realm to reach Su Min's initial level of power.
But when she arrived, seeking her old friend and rival, she found that Su Min had long since grown restless and had ventured further into the depths of the chaos, seeking the next realm, the next challenge.
Over the eons, Tian Hao, Tian Yang, and other figures from that golden age arrived one by one. The once empty, nascent Immortal Realm slowly flourished, becoming a true nexus of power and a new beginning for all cultivators.
The End.
===
As I mentioned back in the chapter The Turbulent Heavenly Continent, I wrote six extra chapters about Su Min and Xie Yingying, and I also put together six chapters explaining the changes I made. Those explanation chapters include bits of the original text and my thoughts on why I edited certain scenes. They're based on my first rewrite, and I'm keeping them that way.
For the deep dive chapters, I didn't change them much, I just made them easier to read, the same way I polished the rest of the chapters in this update. So if you already read them in the first version, you might want to check them out again.
I don't plan to update the explanation chapters to match the second rewrite because the core ideas didn't change. I just expanded the narration and added more detail. For example, a chapter that used to be around 2888 words jumped to about 3798 in the second version. Some chapters grew by two or three thousand words, maybe more. There's no way I'm redoing all of that again for the explanation chapters.
But don't worry, the heart of the story hasn't changed. This new version just reads smoother, feels fuller, and is easier to follow. The only chapter with significantly different or extra content is The Turbulent Heavenly Continent. Everything else stays the same.
If you want to see the original version and my first rewrite, I uploaded them to Google Drive and Terabox. You can access both links through my Carrd
https://rikhi.carrd.co/
Besides those six extra chapters about my choices, I'll also include the original version of the chapter Goodbye. Yes, that NSFW chapter was written by me, and you'll find the original version after the six additional chapters. There are also two or more extra chapters I wrote myself that take place after the main story ends. I really hope you'll read all of it, and thank you so much for following this novel. If you enjoy my translation style, you can follow me on AO3 (Rikhi). See you later~
Oh, and I made a Discord server. It's still pretty empty though.
https://discord.gg/75sprU6DdD