A streak of light cut across the dim Nether sky.
At first it was only a pale scratch on the underside of eternity—one thin thread tearing the heavy clouds. But in the Sacred Nether World, where sun and moon were only distant, sickly smudges, that single line of brilliance was like a sword splitting open a coffin lid.
Bone lanterns along the road guttered and flared. Nether winds howled, then held their breath.
The Snow-Shadow elites tensed as one.
Ghostly armor creaked. White shadows under their feet stretched, then tightened like drawn bows. Instinct honed by generations in the Nether Border screamed that anything that dared to shine in this place was not simple.
"Careful—!" Peng Zhuang's halberd swung up, tip tracing a wary arc.
Bai Jianzhen's fingers fell onto her sword hilt with the ease of habit. That single motion—quiet, without flourish—sent a faint ring through the air like the first note of an execution bell.
Su Yonghuang's lashes lowered, sun dao within her body stirring like a rising dawn. Beside her, Bing Yuxia's fan snapped shut, the flippant smile on her face fading into focus. Chi Xiaodie's blood energy surged like a war drum, while Xu Pei's storm qi coiled at her fingertips, ready to turn the wind itself into blades.
Qiurong Wanxue's white shadow flared. With one thought, the Snow-Shadow formation shifted—white silhouettes flowing like frost, moving Ling Feng and his companions into the center of a protective crescent.
Only Ling Feng didn't move.
He stood with one hand behind his back, the other loose at his side, head tilted slightly as he watched the falling light with half-lidded eyes. Nether qi, Yin streams, ghostly whispers—everything seemed to slow around him, as if the world itself was holding still to see what he would do.
"…Don't panic," he said lazily, as if commenting on the weather. "If it wanted to kill us, it picked the wrong target."
The streak of light plunged.
Pressure slammed down like a falling mountain. Many Snow-Shadow elites felt their knees go soft; weaker disciples' souls trembled as if some distant Heaven had suddenly turned its gaze upon them.
At the last moment, the blinding glare folded inward, shrinking, compressing until it was no larger than a thumb.
A soft chime rang out—like jade kissing porcelain—just as Ling Feng lifted his hand.
The tiny object dropped neatly into his palm.
Warm.
Clear.
Alive.
His fingers closed around it in one smooth motion.
The violent radiance vanished as if it had never been. The Nether wind resumed its low, mournful howl. Bone lanterns steadied, their ghost flames swaying gently instead of thrashing.
Only then did everyone breathe again.
"What was that?" Chen Baojiao demanded, battle intent still boiling in her blood. "Some ghost ancestor's sneak attack?"
"An immortal tool?" Bing Yuxia muttered, eyes sharp with a trace of greed that she didn't bother to hide.
Chi Xiaodie's gaze stayed on the sky. "It cut straight through the firmament… even a Heavenly King's true treasure should not pierce the Nether sky so casually."
Ling Feng uncurling his fingers.
A jade pendant lay quietly in his palm.
It was not ostentatious. No tyrannical dao pressure surged from it, no grand dao runes danced on its surface. It was simply a piece of warm, moist jade—the kind that seemed to have been rubbed by a hand again and again over the years, polished by body heat and prayer.
A single character had been carved into its face with meticulous care.
Bamboo.
The strokes were steady yet not rigid. Each cut carried a trace of stubborn patience, as if a girl had gritted her teeth and poured every vow in her heart into that single word.
Ling Feng's eyes narrowed.
His Chaos-refined perception sank into the jade like spring rain into parched earth.
In an instant, another scene bloomed in his mind.
A tree.
An ancient, quiet tree whose trunk had watched countless seasons rise and fall.
Branches heavy with old talismans and faded wooden pendants. A village beneath that canopy, houses hugging the roots like children clinging to a mother's sleeves. A girl in blue robes standing under the tree, fingers white-knuckled around this very jade.
She bit her lip until it almost bled.
"Dream Wishing Tree…" her heart whispered, though her lips barely moved. "If there is someone in this world who can walk beside me to the end of my dao, then… please… choose for me."
She threw the jade.
It did not fall.
An invisible hand caught her vow.
Higher, higher, past clouds and rivers, through layers of unseen worlds—until now.
And above the entire scene, there was a will.
Not human. Not ghost.
Like an old, slumbering god who had long since merged with the fate of that village, stretching out a single, lazy finger across the river of time to flick a piece of jade into the distant Nether Border.
Ling Feng's lips curved.
"So that's how it is," he murmured.
"Young Noble?" Qiurong Wanxue's voice was soft.
She could feel nothing from the jade—no ghost qi, no malice—yet the way it had split the sky made her skin crawl. Snow-Shadow chiefs did not survive by ignoring strange omens.
Xu Pei stepped closer, storm qi still coiled, her eyes full of worry. "Feng…"
Chen Baojiao crossed her arms, expression sour. "Don't tell me some random woman's trinket just dropped out of the sky into your hand."
Bing Yuxia snorted. "With his luck? It would be stranger if the heavens didn't throw women at him."
"A little gift," Ling Feng said, rolling the pendant between his fingers. "From a very special woman."
He said it lightly.
Bing Yuxia's fan almost snapped in half.
"A very special—" she started, voice rising.
Chen Baojiao clicked her tongue. "He sees one ghost chief and his mouth gets sweeter. Now even the heavens are delivering 'very special women' to him…"
Chi Xiaodie muttered, "Someone really needs to hit him."
Xu Pei tugged his sleeve once, the faintest complaint hidden in her eyes: You already have us… how many more hearts do you want to poke at?
Li Shangyuan only smiled, serene and resigned. She had long understood that wherever Ling Feng walked, fate itself started rearranging people around him.
Bai Jianzhen said nothing. Her clear eyes moved once—from the jade, to Ling Feng's face, to the fading scar in the sky—then back to the road. Her hand, still resting on her sword, relaxed just a fraction.
Qiurong Wanxue lowered her gaze.
"Special…" she repeated inwardly, a faint, unfamiliar ache brushing her dao heart.
She wanted to ask what kind of woman. She did not.
Snow-Shadow's chief did not lightly question another's fate.
Ling Feng chuckled as he felt all their gazes pressing in on him.
"Don't make those faces," he said lazily. "You all know the kind of girl who could throw something like this at my head and get away with it won't be simple."
He flicked a thread of energy—a thin strand of emerald Chaos—around the pendant. Dao light condensed into a simple, elegant chain, and he hung the jade casually around his neck, as if it had always belonged there.
Then, deep within his True Fate, a purple Chaos Emerald flickered to life. Soul, consciousness, causality—those foreign lines to this world's Heaven unfurled in a single, quiet breath.
He brushed that breath across the jade.
No one saw anything.
No divine ring manifested, no beam shot to the sky.
But far away, above a small village beneath an ancient tree, the Dream Wishing Tree's branches rustled once, leaves shivering in faint amusement.
Ling Feng felt the connection settle.
Not a mark on the jade.
A mark on the wish buried inside it.
"If you're going to throw your heart this far," he thought idly, "I might as well leave you a road to follow, girl."
He tucked the pendant against his chest and clapped his hands once.
"Alright," he said, voice once more light. "Show's over. We keep moving. Necropolis won't crawl all the way out here to greet us."
The Snow-Shadow elites exchanged uneasy glances, but they obeyed.
They resumed their march through the tomb-riddled land, bone lanterns swaying behind them, the karmic echo of that falling light lingering above like the last trembling note of a bell.
...
At the same time, in Distant Cloud, under the Dream Wishing Tree.
Lan Yunzhu's breath hitched.
The moment the jade left the branches, something inside her chest… moved.
Not pain.
A pull.
As if an invisible thread tied her heart to that piece of jade—and now, at the instant when another hand closed around it, that thread tightened.
Her slender fingers curled unconsciously around nothing.
"…Grandpa Yang," she whispered.
Venerable Yang stood with his hands clasped behind his back, white hair fluttering gently in the wind. His eyes—old, yet incomparably clear—remained on the sky where the jade had vanished.
He felt it too.
Not as she did. For him, it was not a tug in the chest, but a subtle shift in the currents of karma. The roots of the Dream Wishing Tree twisted deep beneath the village; he had watched them for a lifetime. Now, one root stirred, extending through distant layers of the Sacred Nether World, reaching toward a region shrouded in heavy Yin and gathered murderous fate.
His brows knit slowly.
"The tree made a decision," he murmured.
Lan Yunzhu looked up, anxiety plain in her eyes. Unlike the lofty daughters of other emperor lineages, she did not hide her emotions before this elder. To her, he was not only a high elder of Thousand Carp River, but the elder from her village—the one who had watched her grow over the years.
"Is… is this rejection?" she asked softly.
"If it rejected you," Venerable Yang said, voice calm yet firm, "the jade would have shattered at your feet, or fallen like dead stone."
He turned his gaze back to the Dream Wishing Tree.
"Instead," he continued, "it took your vow… and sent it away."
The Dream Wishing Tree's bark was rough and scarred, the trunk wrapped in talismans from generations of villagers. Even the air beneath its canopy felt heavier, as though countless unseen eyes watched and weighed every wish made here. To outsiders, it was only a strange spiritual tree with lingering legends.
To Venerable Yang—who was born here, who had sat under this tree long before he stepped into the realm of Heavenly Kings—it was a guardian that saw further than many Immortal Emperor lineages.
He closed his eyes briefly.
Where?
His Heavenly King's fate palaces opened a slit; threads of fate spun. The subtle tug in the air resolved into a direction, a point in the vast Sacred Nether World marked by heavy ghost qi and the converging karmas of countless young geniuses.
Nether Border.
Near Necropolis.
He exhaled slowly.
"It seems," Venerable Yang said, "that your jade has fallen into the Nether Border."
Lan Yunzhu's heart skipped a beat.
"Nether… Border?" she repeated.
That was a far cry from Thousand Carp River's quiet waters. That was a region where ghost tribes, old powers, and ambitious monsters from all races gathered like vultures around a corpse.
"It could be trickery," an elder behind her said nervously. "Perhaps some evil expert seized the jade and is tugging at your soul to lure you—"
"If it were a trick," Venerable Yang cut in mildly, "would the tree have let go?"
The elder fell silent instantly.
Venerable Yang stepped closer to Lan Yunzhu.
His gaze was not that of a cold sect elder, but that of an old villager looking at a junior who had just made a stubborn wish.
"Yunzhu," he said.
She straightened subconsciously.
"This old man trusted the Dream Wishing Tree long before he trusted his own cultivation," he said quietly. "In all these years, I have never seen it choose wrongly."
He looked at her deeply.
"You stood here and made a vow," he reminded her. "You asked the tree to choose. If it found no one suitable, your jade would still be hanging from that branch."
He pointed at the empty space where the pendant had rested.
"But it did not stay. It did not fall and shatter," he said. "It left."
Lan Yunzhu's throat tightened.
…Someone.
Her thoughts tangled together.
Duty.
Thousand Carp River's elders, their endless discussions about alliances and Heaven's Will. The weight of "prime descendant" pressing on her shoulders.
Curiosity.
The way the jade had shot into the sky without hesitation, as if eager. What kind of man could catch something sent by the Dream Wishing Tree in the Nether Border of all places?
Stubbornness.
If he is unworthy, the quiet, fierce voice inside her said, I'll take the jade back with my own hand.
Venerable Yang watched the changes in her eyes and smiled faintly.
"You wished," he said. "The tree answered."
He turned to the Thousand Carp River elders standing nearby. On normal days, they commanded rivers and armies; here, under this tree, they seemed almost cautious.
"Prepare the best flying treasures," Venerable Yang said. "You will escort her to the Nether Border."
The elders' hearts shook.
"Senior Yang—" one began. "The Nether Border is chaotic. All kinds of powers are rushing there. If we go personally—"
"If she doesn't go," Venerable Yang said evenly, "then what was the point of her vow?"
His gaze sharpened.
"This is not about Thousand Carp River's gains," he added. "This is about Yunzhu's dao heart. If she cannot even walk one road chosen by her own wish, then what Heaven's Will does she plan to fight for in the future?"
Silence.
Lan Yunzhu's fingers clenched.
He looked at her once more, voice softening.
"Go," Venerable Yang said. "Follow your jade. See with your own eyes whether the one holding your vow is worthy or not."
Lan Yunzhu drew a long breath.
"I understand," she answered.
Her voice was calm. Inside, her dao heart surged like a river after a storm.
Soon after, Thousand Carp River's treasures filled the sky—ancient river boats woven from dao water, flying carps made of light, jade platforms blooming like lotus leaves. The quiet Soaring Remembrance Village suddenly showed the faint shadow of an emperor lineage's true power.
Lan Yunzhu, clad in blue, stepped onto the foremost treasure ship.
As the protective formation activated and the vessel rose, she looked back once more at the Dream Wishing Tree.
Old talismans on its branches swayed gently, as if sending her off.
"If you chose wrongly," she thought, feeling the faint tug that connected her heart to that distant pendant, "then I'll still walk this road to the end… and break your choice with my own hands."
The ships turned.
They flew toward the distant Nether Border, cutting through the clouds like schools of radiant fish moving toward a bloody sea.
...
Days passed in the Nether Border.
The land changed in subtle ways as Ling Feng's group walked deeper into ghost territory. Tombs grew larger. Some had half-collapsed stele leaning like broken teeth; others were small hills with bone pillars rising from them like pale spears. Yin qi seeped from every crack in the earth, mingling with the heavy ghost qi unique to the Sacred Nether World.
On one such day, Ling Feng walked beside Qiurong Wanxue as she guided the tribe through a grave valley where Yin streams pooled thick like stagnant water.
"Your dao light earlier," he said casually, tapping his sleeve with two fingers. "That crescent."
Qiurong Wanxue's steps paused for half a heartbeat.
"You saw," she said quietly.
"Hard to miss," Ling Feng replied. "It was cracked before. Now the crack's almost gone. It held even when those idiots' pressure was more than you should have been carrying."
He raised his hand and pointed—not at her forehead or chest, but at a seemingly empty point of air beside her, as if tracing something only he could see.
"There," he said. "Fourth Fate Palace, already solid. Next time you go into seclusion and actually push, the fifth door will open."
Her pupils shrank.
"…Young Noble can see that far?" she asked before she could stop herself.
"Your dao flow isn't that complicated," he said easily. "With your shadow dao and the way your palaces turn, anyone with eyes can guess. I'm just not lazy about it."
There was no arrogance in his tone. Just a flat, matter-of-fact confidence.
Her dao heart stirred.
For years, Snow-Shadow's elders had told her she had already walked as far as her talent would allow. Four palaces, maybe five, then stop and be content. Chief of a tribe in the Nether Border—that was 'enough'.
But ever since this human appeared, that ceiling had started to crack.
She said nothing, yet the faint "door" deep within her True Fate—once only a distant flicker—now felt closer, as if his earlier touch had tapped it awake. Snow-Shadow dao circulated more smoothly; the carousel of her palaces turned with a new, subtle rhythm.
That night, when the Nether wind grew colder, they camped among broken tombs.
Ghost fires flickered in the distance.
Ling Feng sat by one such pale flame with his women.
Xu Pei leaned against him, storm qi calm, letting his warmth anchor her in this land of death. Li Shangyuan rested her head on his shoulder, expression serene, jade eyes half-closed as if listening to some quiet melody only she could hear. Chen Baojiao sprawled nearby with all a tyrant valley princess' lack of restraint, tossing pebbles at ghost lights.
Bai Jianzhen sat cross-legged with her sword across her knees, meditating. Yet every time Ling Feng's gaze brushed over her, her fingers tightened almost imperceptibly around the hilt.
Bing Yuxia fanned herself, feigning nonchalance, pretending not to look whenever Ling Feng teased someone else—only to bristle the most when he called another woman "cute".
Chi Xiaodie alternated between cold snorts and quietly inching closer until their shoulders brushed.
Sometimes, Qiurong Wanxue watched all this from a short distance, her white cloak fluttering in the Nether breeze.
She was not a naive girl.
She had seen men use affection as chains, seen "love" become another form of control. In the Nether Border, 'romance' often meant ownership.
But these women…
They bickered. They teased each other and him. They rolled their eyes when he got too outrageous.
Yet when he placed his hand on Xu Pei's head and said, "You worked hard today," the stormy woman's eyes melted into water.
When he tucked Li Shangyuan's hair behind her ear and murmured something too soft for others to hear, the always-composed jade fairy's cheeks flushed like early dawn.
When he slung an arm around Chen Baojiao's shoulders and said, "Princess, your punch today could flatten a mountain," the proud girl would glare away, lips twitching in a smile she pretended not to have.
There were no chains.
Only threads. Chosen, not forced.
Snow-Shadow disciples whispered among themselves when they thought she couldn't hear.
"The chief is walking closer with that human…"
"Our chief actually laughs sometimes now…"
"…His dao is terrifying, but the way he calls her name—"
At the same time rumors spread faster than footsteps.
"A crazy human walking with Snow-Shadow."
"He crippled Yin Moon Prince and Black Chaos Young Lord with one hand."
"He stepped on two major tribes' heirs like insects, then leisurely strolled away."
"In Necropolis, even the young lords are paying attention. Hundred Bones Sacred Tribe's Golden Child, Ghost Zen Tribe's Ghost Monk, Hundred Gods Country's Hundred Clans Child… even Divine Spark Country's prince is said to be watching."
By the time Necropolis' full silhouette finally rose on the horizon like a city built atop the backs of countless corpses, Ling Feng's name had already circled through the Nether Border like a ghost wind.
...
On a ridge overlooking the burial plains before Necropolis, Qiurong Wanxue stopped.
Snow-Shadow's formation halted with her.
The city in the distance looked as if it had been carved from black stone and accumulated karmic debt. Layers upon layers of walls encircled it like rings of a tree that had survived too many winters. Ancient runes crawled over every surface. Yin qi and ghost qi spiraled above it into a massive, invisible vortex that seemed determined to swallow the sky.
"Necropolis," Peng Zhuang whispered, throat dry.
Memories stirred in the Snow-Shadow tribe.
This was where they had traded under pressure, where they had bent their heads under other tribes' banners, where they had watched opportunities slip away because their fists were not big enough.
Qiurong Wanxue looked at the city for a long while.
Then she turned to Ling Feng.
"Young Noble," she said.
Her voice was gentle, but there was a faint firmness beneath it.
He glanced over, hands folded loosely into his sleeves.
"Mm?"
"Snow-Shadow often trades at Necropolis," she said slowly. "We have accumulated resources that must be exchanged for supplies. And…"
She hesitated.
"It would be poor hospitality," she finished softly, "to part ways on a roadside after receiving such great grace. We should at least enter the city, replenish what we can, and… offer proper thanks."
The words were reasonable.
Her dao heart whispered something else.
The Nether Border is about to boil. Yin Moon and Black Chaos will not swallow that humiliation. Their backers will move.
If he walks away now, where will Snow-Shadow find another hand that will casually support them against the sky?
And beneath that…
If we part here, will this human simply vanish into some other storm, leaving only his shadow in my dao sea?
Ling Feng studied her.
Under the dim Nether light, Qiurong Wanxue's features were calm and clear—white brows, snow-cold aura, quiet determination.
He smiled.
"Qiurong Wanxue," he said, deliberately using her full name.
Her heart skipped at the sound of her name in his mouth.
"If you insist," he drawled, "how could I refuse? Giving up such dazzling company at the gate would be stupid."
Color rose beneath the pale of her cheeks.
Behind him, reactions exploded at once.
"…Poisonous mouth," Bing Yuxia muttered, tapping her fan against her palm.
Chen Baojiao snorted, half amused, half annoyed.
Chi Xiaodie clicked her tongue, though her eyes slid sidelong toward Qiurong Wanxue with complicated scrutiny.
Li Shangyuan's lips curved, an almost invisible smile blooming at the edges.
Su Yonghuang shook her head lightly, equal parts helpless and entertained.
Xu Pei's fingers curled around his sleeve, but she said nothing. She had long known that wherever this man walked, destinies tangled.
Bai Jianzhen watched in silence, memorizing the small changes in Qiurong Wanxue's expression and the nuance in Ling Feng's tone. Her sword heart did not only remember enemies; it also recorded the roads a man chose.
Ling Feng pretended not to hear any of their muttering.
He looked back over his shoulder.
"Any objections?" he asked lazily. "Pei-Pei, Shangyuan, Baojiao, Yonghuang, Jianzhen, Yuxia, Xiaodie. Anyone dying to go somewhere else before Necropolis?"
Chen Baojiao's eyes gleamed. "With all the ghosts gathering there… if we're going to trample people, this is perfect."
Bing Yuxia flicked her fan. "Necropolis is Necropolis. If you stir up trouble, at least the scenery will be new."
Chi Xiaodie snorted. "If you walk away now, you'll just stir up trouble somewhere else. Might as well be here."
Xu Pei smiled faintly. "Where you go, I go," she said softly.
Li Shangyuan nodded. "I am also curious to see this city of graves."
Bai Jianzhen didn't speak. Her thumb brushed the hilt of her sword once, a silent answer.
Ling Feng spread his hands.
"Look at that," he said. "Unanimous."
Qiurong Wanxue lowered her gaze, hiding the small, uncontrollable easing in her chest.
"Then," she said, bowing slightly, "Snow-Shadow will lead the way."
They descended from the ridge.
The plains before Necropolis opened like a scar—vast burial fields stretching right up to the city's outer gates. Here, graves had been forced into more orderly lines, roads cut like old blade marks through the dead earth. Bone lanterns lined those paths. Ghost stele, covered in faded runes, jutted from the soil like broken bones.
Caravans of merchants, sect entourages, and ghost tribes moved along the roads like sluggish rivers of life between seas of graves.
But today, the air felt wrong.
As Snow-Shadow and Ling Feng's group approached the main road, the usual roar of bargains, insults, and laughter seemed… distant. Suppressed. The closer they walked, the quieter it became.
Qiurong Wanxue's steps slowed.
"…No," she whispered.
The space ahead of them was not empty.
A single figure stood alone in the center of the road, blocking the way to Necropolis.
He was tall even by ghost standards, his frame like someone had carved a mountain into the shape of a man. Muscles knotted beneath dark, devil-etched armor. Two radiant rings circled his body like revolving halos, and above his head a tri-colored aura—gold, crimson, and black—twisted together into a savage crown. Blood energy roared from him like a flood bursting through a dam; the ground beneath his feet cracked, the very air shook.
His presence alone felt like a devil king descending into the mortal world.
"The Sky-Devil's Mo Lidao…" Peng Zhuang swallowed, face turning ashen.
Sky-Devil Tribe—one branch of the Heavenly Devil race. Their bodies alone could crush armies; when they cultivated grand dao on top of that, each genius became a walking calamity. Mo Lidao was their blazing star in this generation, a Heavenly Sovereign who had risen through blood-soaked battles, his fame spreading from Distant Cloud to the Nether Border.
Today, his gaze locked onto one person.
Ling Feng.