The Kun Peng's remnant will began to radiate an aura that transcended mere spiritual pressure. It was as though reality itself was bending around the figure, warping and distorting in response to its fundamental nature. Su Chen's dual pupils struggled to maintain focus as the entity before them shifted through countless forms in rapid succession—fish becoming bird becoming something entirely other, then cycling back through variations that had never existed in any natural ecosystem.
"**Observe,**" the remnant commanded, and suddenly the transformation slowed enough for mortal perception to track. "**This is not shapeshifting. This is not disguise. This is the rejection of singular existence. To truly become the Kun Peng is to abandon the concept of 'being' and instead embrace 'becoming' as your fundamental state.**"
Su Chen watched with absolute concentration as the remnant demonstrated what it meant to exist in perpetual transition. The creature's scales rippled and flowed like water, hardening into feathers before dissolving back into scales, never settling into either form completely. Its fins extended into wings that remained simultaneously aquatic and aerial, occupying both states through some incomprehensible manipulation of quantum probability. Even its size fluctuated—one moment appearing small enough to cup in one's hands, the next moment vast enough to swallow mountains, yet somehow always remaining the same distance away from the observers.
"The transition state itself becomes the stable form," Su Chen murmured, his analytical mind piecing together the underlying principle. "It's not about moving between fish and bird. It's about existing in the moment of change, extending that infinitesimal instant into a permanent condition."
"**Correct,**" the remnant acknowledged. "**Most beings experience transformation as a journey from point A to point B—a process with clear beginning and end. But I learned to inhabit the journey itself, to make the process my destination. In doing so, I gained access to the properties of all forms simultaneously, limited by none, defined by all.**"
Bibi Dong's expression had become intensely focused, her twin martial spirits manifesting partially as she attempted to grasp the concept being demonstrated. Her Death Spider Emperor and Soul-Devouring Spider Emperor began to flicker, their forms unstable, as she tried to apply the principle to her own abilities. Sweat beaded on her forehead from the mental strain of maintaining two separate entities in flux simultaneously.
Xiao Yi Xian's approach was more intuitive. Her Poison Body had always existed in multiple states—solid particulates suspended in liquid medium, capable of vaporizing instantly. She simply extended that natural multiplicity, allowing her entire being to oscillate between different expressions of toxicity. Her skin took on a rainbow sheen as various poisons manifested and disappeared across her surface in waves, each one present for just long enough to be identified before transforming into something else.
Su Chen activated the Primordial Metamorphosis Sutra he had acquired from the previous trial, combining it with his deep understanding of the Origin Mirror's nature. The artifact existed in precisely this kind of liminal state—neither fully real nor purely conceptual, simultaneously being a tool and an abstract principle. If he could synchronize his existence with the Mirror's fundamental nature, he might be able to achieve what the Kun Peng demanded.
He closed his eyes and turned his perception inward, examining the countless modifications and enhancements that comprised his current form. The T-Virus modifications that granted regeneration, the Dragon Blood that enhanced his genetic structure, the Lich Bloodline that provided death immunity, the Indestructible Diamond Body that reinforced his physical form, the Supreme Sword Bone that had been integrated into his skeletal system, the psychic enhancements from Tatsumaki, the cultivation foundation from Perfect World—all of these were distinct elements that he had grafted onto his original human baseline.
Until now, he had treated them as separate tools in his arsenal, things he possessed and utilized. But the Kun Peng's trial demanded something different. He needed to stop being a human who had acquired various abilities, and instead become a unified existence where all these elements existed in constant flux, none dominant, all present.
Su Chen released his rigid control over his physical form and allowed the various bloodlines and modifications to express themselves freely. The response was immediate and chaotic. His left arm dissolved into spatial distortion as the dimensional manipulation aspects of his abilities manifested unchecked. His right leg crystallized into living metal as the T-Virus and Dragon Blood attempted to reconstruct him according to their own templates. His torso began to flicker between solid flesh and spectral essence as the Lich Bloodline asserted itself. His head split into multiple overlapping versions as his psychic abilities created quantum superpositions of his consciousness.
Pain lanced through his entire being—not physical pain, but something deeper, the agony of a unified self being torn into constituent parts. Every cell in his body was simultaneously trying to be a dozen different things, and the contradictions were literally ripping him apart at the molecular level.
"**Do not fight it,**" the Kun Peng's remnant advised, its tone almost gentle. "**The pain comes from your resistance, from your desperate attempt to maintain coherence. Let go of the need to be a single, defined thing. Accept that you are all of these aspects simultaneously, and none of them individually.**"
Let go. Easy to say, impossible to do. Su Chen's entire cultivation journey had been built on accumulating power and integrating it into a cohesive whole. The Origin Mirror allowed him to copy abilities, but he was the one who had to incorporate them, to make them part of himself rather than just external tools. His sense of identity was the bedrock upon which everything else was built.
To let go of that bedrock was to risk complete dissolution.
But wasn't that exactly what transformation demanded? The caterpillar had to dissolve into genetic soup inside its chrysalis before it could reconstruct itself as a butterfly. The old form had to be released before the new form could emerge. And the Kun Peng existed in a state of perpetual release, never holding onto any single form long enough for it to become fixed.
Su Chen stopped fighting. He released his death-grip on his singular identity and allowed himself to fragment. The pain intensified briefly, reaching a crescendo that whited out all other sensation, and then suddenly... stopped.
He was no longer Su Chen, singular human who had acquired various abilities. He was Su Chen, probability cloud of possible existences all manifesting simultaneously. His body stabilized, but in a form that defied conventional description. He was flesh and energy and void and concept all at once, his physical presence flickering through dozens of states per second yet somehow remaining coherent enough to maintain agency and awareness.
Looking down at his hands—except he had no hands, or rather he had hands and claws and fins and pure force manipulators all occupying the same space—Su Chen saw reality through new eyes. His dual pupils had evolved into something beyond mere enhanced perception. He could see the transformation pathways connecting all possible states of existence, the threads of causality that linked what-was to what-could-be, and by seeing them, he could navigate them.
"**Good,**" the Kun Peng's remnant declared, genuine approval in its voice. "**You have taken the first step. Now maintain this state for one hundred breaths while I test your stability.**"
Before Su Chen could respond, the remnant attacked. Not with physical force or spiritual techniques, but with conceptual pressure designed to force him back into a single stable form. It was like being compressed from all directions by invisible forces that demanded he choose—be this or be that, exist as one thing or another, but stop being everything simultaneously.
Su Chen's instinct was to resist, to push back against the pressure. But he caught himself before falling into that trap. Resistance implied a fixed position to defend, a defined form to protect. Instead, he flowed with the pressure, allowing it to compress him into a more defined state before immediately rebounding into multiplicity when the pressure passed. Each wave of compressive force simply became another transformation in his continuous cycle of change.
"One breath," he counted silently, tracking time through the fluctuations of his existence rather than conventional chronology.
Bibi Dong was struggling. Her twin martial spirits had always been separate entities, distinct aspects of her power that she wielded with precision and control. But the trial demanded that she blur the lines between them, that she become both the Death Spider Emperor and the Soul-Devouring Spider Emperor simultaneously without being fully either. The two spirits were fighting each other, each trying to assert dominance, and the conflict was tearing her spiritual foundation apart.
"Stop treating them as separate," Su Chen called out, his voice emerging from multiple points in space simultaneously as his vocal cords existed in several states at once. "They are both you. You are both of them. There is no division except the one you create through your perception."
Bibi Dong's eyes snapped open, purple and green light blazing in alternating pulses. She stopped trying to control her spirits and instead surrendered to them, allowing their essences to merge with her own. Her body became translucent, her form shifting between human and arachnid, solid and spectral, living and undead. The transformation was grotesque and beautiful simultaneously—she was becoming a true hybrid, something that transcended the normal boundaries between human cultivator and martial spirit.
"Two breaths," Su Chen counted.
Xiao Yi Xian was making progress through an entirely different approach. Her Poison Body had always operated on principles of adaptation and change, so the transition to perpetual flux came more naturally to her. She had dissolved the boundaries between different types of toxins, allowing acids and venoms and neurotoxins and blood poisons to all exist in her being simultaneously. Her form was now more chemical than biological, a walking laboratory where countless reactions occurred in perfect harmony despite their mutual incompatibility.
The rainbow sheen on her skin intensified, becoming almost blindingly bright as she achieved full synchronization with the trial's demands. She smiled—or what passed for a smile on a face that was simultaneously solid flesh and gaseous vapor—and her eyes met Su Chen's with something like recognition. They were no longer entirely human, either of them, but perhaps that was the price of true power. Humanity was just one more limitation to be transcended.
"Three breaths."
The Kun Peng's remnant increased the pressure, and the conceptual attacks became more sophisticated. It began targeting their memories, attempting to force them to remember a time when they had been singular, stable beings. The nostalgia and certainty of past identity became weapons, hooks designed to drag them back into fixed forms.
Su Chen felt the pull of his original human life, the memories of being an ordinary person before the Great Convergence had transformed the world. Those memories carried the weight of simplicity, of having a defined place in a comprehensible universe. Part of him wanted desperately to return to that state, to be just Su Chen, not this fragmented probability cloud that existed in too many states simultaneously.
But he had learned something from absorbing the Primordial Metamorphosis Sutra. Memories were not fixed truths but rather current interpretations of past events. The Su Chen who had lived before the Convergence and the Su Chen who existed now were both real, both valid, and both could be true simultaneously if he stopped insisting they had to be sequential states.
He was the weak human who had struggled to survive the initial apocalypse. He was the cunning survivor who had exploited the Origin Mirror's abilities. He was the dimensional traveler who had conquered multiple realities. He was all of these Su Chens at once, and he was none of them individually. They were all facets of a greater whole that existed in permanent transition between states.
"Ten breaths," he counted, noting that his companions had also weathered the memory-based assault. They had their own pasts to reconcile, their own journeys from simpler existences to their current transcendent states.
The attacks continued to escalate. The remnant began manipulating the spatial environment, creating zones where only specific forms could exist. Underwater regions where only fish-forms were viable. High-altitude areas where only flight-capable bodies could survive. Extreme temperature zones that would incinerate or freeze anything that couldn't adapt instantly.
But Su Chen and his companions had achieved the state the Kun Peng demanded—they were no longer bound by singular forms. When forced into the underwater zone, Su Chen didn't transform into a fish. Instead, he became a being that was simultaneously aquatic and terrestrial and aerial, occupying the underwater space with aspects of his existence that were fish-like while maintaining other aspects that existed in different environmental contexts entirely.
"Twenty breaths."
Bibi Dong was surrounded by her twin spirits, except they were no longer separate entities but rather extensions of her own continuously transforming essence. The spiders wove webs of soul energy and death essence that created stable spaces within the environmental chaos, pockets where she could exist comfortably regardless of external conditions.
"Thirty breaths."
Xiao Yi Xian had become almost invisible, her form so diffuse and distributed that she existed more as an atmospheric condition than a discrete being. Only the occasional rainbow shimmer in the air revealed her presence as she flowed through the various environmental zones like a toxic gas, unaffected by conditions that would have destroyed her original physical body.
"Forty breaths."
The trial had reached its halfway point, and Su Chen could feel the strain beginning to mount. Existing in perpetual transformation required constant expenditure of spiritual energy to maintain coherence. His Cave Heavens were burning through their stored power at an alarming rate, and he could sense similar drainage occurring in his companions. If they couldn't complete the trial before their energy reserves depleted completely, they would lose control of their transformations and dissolve into the pure potential the remnant had warned about.
"**Impressive,**" the Kun Peng's will acknowledged. "**You have exceeded my expectations. But the trial is not complete. The final test approaches—can you maintain transformation even when facing absolute cessation?**"
The environment suddenly inverted. Instead of zones demanding specific adaptations, the space became a void of pure negation. It was not darkness or vacuum or any specific hostile condition—it was the conceptual absence of existence itself, a zone where being was not permitted. To exist within it in any defined form was to be immediately rejected and erased.
Su Chen felt his various forms beginning to collapse, each stable state being negated the moment it manifested. His flesh dissolved, his energy dispersed, his spiritual foundation crumbled. He was being systematically destroyed, every aspect of his being targeted for erasure in sequential waves that left no room for recovery.
And in that moment of total destruction, Su Chen finally understood the deepest secret of the Kun Peng's transformation technique.
It wasn't about being able to change between multiple forms. It wasn't even about existing in multiple states simultaneously. The true secret was learning to transform into nothing, to become pure potential itself, and then reconstruct yourself from that void. The Kun Peng had mastered death and rebirth, dissolution and reformation, making the cycle so rapid and seamless that it appeared as continuous existence despite being actually a series of destructions and recreations.
Su Chen stopped trying to maintain any form at all. He allowed the void to erase him completely, accepting total dissolution without resistance. For one infinite instant, he ceased to exist in any meaningful sense. He was not Su Chen, not a cultivator, not even a consciousness—he was simply undefined potential, the raw material from which beings could be constructed.
And then, because potential inevitably manifests when given opportunity, he reconstructed himself. Not as the exact same Su Chen that had been erased, but as a Su Chen who remembered being that person. The distinction was subtle but critical—he was not persisting through the erasure, but rather being destroyed and then recreating himself from memory, making the cycle so fast that continuity of consciousness was maintained despite technical death occurring thousands of times per second.
"Fifty breaths," he counted, and realized that his voice now carried the same resonance as the Kun Peng's remnant will. He had synchronized with the fundamental principle the ancient entity embodied.
Bibi Dong screamed as the negation void tore through her existence, and for a terrible moment, Su Chen thought she would fail. Her twin spirits were being erased, her physical form was dissolving, and her consciousness was fragmenting under the assault. But then, just as complete dissolution seemed inevitable, she made the critical breakthrough.
Her spirits didn't reconstruct separately—they reconstructed as a unified whole, a single entity that combined both aspects into something new. Bibi Dong reformed not as a human wielding twin spirits, but as a genuine hybrid being where the distinction between wielder and weapon had been abolished. She was the Spider Empress in truth now, no longer merely a title but a description of her fundamental nature.
"Sixty breaths."
Xiao Yi Xian's transformation was even more dramatic. When the negation void erased her physical form, her Poison Body's adaptive nature allowed her to exist as pure toxicity itself, a conceptual hazard rather than a biological entity. She reconstructed herself not from flesh and bone, but from the accumulated poisons that had saturated her being over years of cultivation. She had become a living poison in the most literal sense—a substance that happened to possess consciousness and will, rather than a conscious being who wielded poison.
"Seventy breaths."
The three of them existed now in the same state as the Kun Peng's remnant—creatures of perpetual transformation, beings defined not by what they were but by their constant process of becoming. The void continued to erase them, and they continued to reconstruct themselves, creating a rhythm of destruction and recreation that became as natural as breathing.
"Eighty breaths."
Su Chen felt something shift deep within his being. The Origin Mirror, which had always been a tool he utilized, was now becoming integrated into his fundamental nature. It was no longer something he possessed—it was something he *was*. The ability to copy and recreate had become his core identity, and he realized that this was what the artifact had always been leading him toward. Not to use its power, but to embody its principle.
"Ninety breaths."
The strain was immense. Even with their breakthrough understanding, maintaining this level of existence required resources that were rapidly depleting. Su Chen's Cave Heavens had exhausted their stored spiritual energy and were now drawing on his life force directly. His body—in the moments when it possessed enough stability to be called a body—was aging rapidly, cells dying and being replaced at accelerated rates that would have reduced a normal cultivator to dust within minutes.
But he had walked through death and rebirth so many times in the past few minutes that one more transformation held no terror. If his current body failed, he would simply reconstruct a new one from the pattern stored in his consciousness. He had become, in essence, immortal—not through invulnerability, but through infinite regeneration at the conceptual level.
"Ninety-five breaths."
Bibi Dong's form had stabilized into something truly magnificent. She appeared as a woman carved from purple and green crystal, her twin spirits manifesting as a crown of spectral arachnid limbs that crowned her head and formed a cape of woven soul energy across her back. She had achieved perfect unity, transcending the normal limitations of martial soul cultivation.
"Ninety-eight breaths."
Xiao Yi Xian had become something that would have terrified her former self—a being of pure lethality, every atom of her existence saturated with poisons that could kill gods. Yet despite this deadliness, she maintained perfect control, her consciousness clear and focused even as her form existed in perpetual toxic flux.
"Ninety-nine breaths."
The void intensified a final time, attempting to erase not just their current forms but the very concept of their existence, to remove them so thoroughly that even the possibility of their reformation would be negated. It was the ultimate test—could they reconstruct themselves even when the universe itself tried to forget they had ever existed?
Su Chen dove into the erasure willingly, allowing himself to be forgotten by reality. And in that moment of absolute negation, he remembered himself with such clarity and conviction that the universe had no choice but to acknowledge his existence once more. He reformed not through any external power or technique, but through sheer insistence that he was real, that he existed, that he mattered.
"One hundred breaths," he declared, his voice resonating through the void with absolute finality.
The negation zone collapsed. The environmental chaos ceased. The conceptual attacks stopped. The three of them stood in the center of the atrium, their forms flickering through countless states but maintaining coherence and awareness through it all. They had passed the trial.
The Kun Peng's remnant will manifested before them, and for the first time, something like satisfaction appeared in its ancient features.
"**You have succeeded,**" it declared. "**You have proven yourselves worthy to inherit my complete legacy. More than that, you have understood the principle underlying my power—the rejection of static existence in favor of perpetual transformation. You are no longer merely cultivators seeking techniques. You have become embodiments of change itself.**"
The figure raised one limb—fin or wing or claw, impossible to tell—and three streams of light emerged, flowing toward each of them. Su Chen felt the final inheritance entering his consciousness, completing the fragments he had gathered from the earlier trials. This was the Kun Peng's true technique, the culmination of an ancient entity's lifetime of research into the nature of transformation.
**"The Grand Peng Soaring Through Nine Heavens—Final Movement: The Eternal Transformation."**
As the technique integrated into his being, Su Chen understood that he had gained more than merely a powerful ability. He had fundamentally altered what he was, transcending normal categories of existence. He could never return to being a simple human, even if he wanted to. That option had been forever closed the moment he accepted perpetual transformation as his fundamental nature.
But looking at Bibi Dong, who stood taller and more confident than he had ever seen her, her hybrid form radiating power that dwarfed her previous capabilities... and at Xiao Yi Xian, who smiled with genuine happiness despite having become a being that would terrify most of the cultivation world... Su Chen felt no regret.
They had paid the price of their humanity. In exchange, they had gained something far more valuable—the freedom to be anything they chose, unbound by the limitations of singular existence.
The atrium began to brighten as the Kun Peng's remnant will prepared to dissipate its final energy in granting them passage back to the outside world. But before they departed, Su Chen had one last question.
"Why did you create these trials?" he asked. "You must have known that very few would ever succeed. What was the point of leaving an inheritance that almost no one could claim?"
The remnant smiled, an expression that was somehow both sad and content.
"**Because I was lonely,**" it admitted. "**For countless years, I existed at the peak of this realm, unable to share my understanding with anyone who could truly comprehend it. I created these trials not to hoard my knowledge, but to find others who might one day reach the same heights I achieved. To ensure that the principle of transformation would survive beyond my death. You three have granted my final wish—you will carry forward what I learned, and perhaps teach it to others in turn. For this, you have my gratitude.**"
The light intensified, becoming blinding. When Su Chen's vision cleared, he found himself standing outside the Kun Peng Nest, back on the rocky outcropping above the North Sea. Bibi Dong and Xiao Yi Xian materialized beside him moments later, both looking dazed from the transition.
The nest itself was beginning to fade, its structure becoming translucent as the formation arrays powered down. They had been the last challengers—with the inheritance claimed, the ancient sanctuary had no further purpose.
In the distance, Su Chen could see the Black Dragon Fortress hovering in position, exactly where they had left it. No time had passed in the outside world, despite the subjective hours or days they had spent within the trials. Temporal dilation, one final gift from the Kun Peng.
"We should return to the ship," Bibi Dong said quietly, her new voice carrying harmonics that suggested multiple entities speaking in unison. "The others will want to know what we've gained."
Su Chen nodded, but his attention was already turning toward the future. The Kun Peng's inheritance had been merely one objective among many. He had other targets in this realm, other resources to acquire. And now, with the power of transformation fully mastered, his options had expanded exponentially.
But first, they would rest. Even transcendent beings needed time to integrate new capabilities and adjust to transformed existences. The conquest of the Perfect World's Lower Realm could wait a little longer.
He opened a spatial portal, and the three of them stepped through, leaving the North Sea behind as the Kun Peng Nest finally faded from reality, its purpose fulfilled after ten thousand years of waiting.
The legacy had been claimed. The inheritors had been chosen. And somewhere in the depths of the cosmos, the true Kun Peng's spirit perhaps rested easier, knowing that its wisdom would live on in those who had proven themselves worthy of carrying it forward.