Two months passed in a blink.
In that brief span of time, Divine Phoenix Island and the Seven Profound Martial House quietly became something the South Horizon Region had never seen before.
…
On Divine Phoenix Island, the training fields were rarely silent now.
Phoenix cries echoed over the sea at all hours—sometimes Vermillion Bird flames roaring skyward, sometimes Blue Luan frost sinking into the ground in sheets of glittering ice. The island's protective array no longer felt like a simple barrier. Under its surface, faint dark-rainbow lotus patterns pulsed in rhythm with the island's breath, woven into every mountain vein and flame spring by the man the elders now called "Guest of Fire".
Each pulse drew in heaven and earth origin energy, refined it, and breathed it back out through the disciples' meridians. Vermillion Bird flames burned thicker, heavier; Blue Luan frost carried a weight that made even Revolving Core elders pause. The island's old foundation had not been replaced—it had been fed, dyed in grandmist.
Far away, in Sky Fortune Kingdom, the Seven Profound Martial House changed in quieter ways.
There, the lotus patterns didn't run through stone and sea. They lurked in flesh—hidden along meridians and dantians, tattooed into blood and bone. The modified Heretical God Force Art Ren had given them reshaped every circulation loop, every breath of true essence. Even the most ordinary disciple could feel that something had shifted.
Their bodies remembered force more easily. Their meridians learned to carry Laws that would have been forever out of reach in the old world. The Heavenly Demon Lotus Art sat at the base of this new road, its dark petals opening in every disciple's Spiritual Sea, tugging their Dao Hearts toward distant horizons they could not yet name.
The results were… obscene.
On the inner platforms of the Martial House, Bone Forging disciples—once the backbone of the inner sect, sturdy but unremarkable—found themselves doing the unthinkable.
A young man with sweat-dark hair clenched his fist, breath moving through the modified Heretical God circulation. The first Heretical God Seed in his dantian spun slowly, shedding faint sparks of Fire Law that stained his true essence an aggressive crimson. Around his heart, a small, half-formed lotus rotated.
Facing him was an elder at peak Pulse Condensation, a man who had lectured on foundations for thirty years, his true essence thick and stable.
"Don't be nervous," the elder said kindly. "Just attack as you normally—"
The disciple punched.
Dark-rainbow lotus lines flickered along his arm. True essence roared up, not as a wild surge, but as a controlled flood, guided through spirals Ren had carved into the art. The Heavenly Demon Lotus opened a little wider, devouring the pressure and spitting it back out with a sharper edge.
His fist crashed into the elder's guard.
The sound was like a boulder slamming into a cliff.
The elder's eyes widened as his true essence barrier dented under that blow, then buckled entirely. The force lifted him clean off the platform. He flew backwards, cloak snapping, and smashed into the stone pillar behind him, leaving a spiderweb of cracks that climbed nearly to the top.
Silence.
The Bone Forging disciple stood there dumbfounded, fist still extended, true essence wrapped in a faint dark-rainbow halo. The lotus at his heart spun down, petals slowly closing.
The elder coughed twice, dust sliding from his shoulders, then laughed bitterly.
"…You little beasts," he muttered, hauling himself out of the stone. "At this rate, this old man is going to be forced to retire."
It didn't happen once.
It kept happening.
One platform over, a girl who had only just stabilized Bone Forging used a single palm strike to send a senior Pulse Condensation instructor skidding back three steps, blood churning. In the outer courts, a sparring match between two inner disciples ended with an elder referee hurriedly putting up a barrier as the loser's defensive technique collapsed like rotten wood.
The rumors spread faster than Ren could be bothered to stop them.
"Bone Forging suppressing peak Pulse Condensation…"
"Is it the lotus… or that strange circulation he forced us to learn…?"
"Even the elders say their meridians feel… young again…"
Under the Heavenly Demon Lotus' First Layer, even ordinary foundations could leap four great realms when pushed to their limit. Ren had carefully carved limiters into the art, side channels to keep weaker meridians from tearing, but the core remained: a lotus that remembered a higher Heaven and dragged everything around it upward.
And above that layer, the true monsters emerged.
Ling Sen, Ta Ku, and the other Heavenly Abode disciples had always been feared within the Seven Profound Martial House. That fear belonged to the old Heaven.
On the new road Ren had laid down, their foundations turned into something else entirely.
Lotus marks opened in their dantians like slow, dark flowers. Heretical God Seeds—Fire, Wind, Thunder—condensed one after another, each seed reshaping their inner world, thickening their true essence, imprinting Law into every breath. When they walked, the air felt denser around them, as if unseen gravity followed their steps.
Half-step Houtian juniors now stood before early—and even middle—Xiantian opponents without flinching.
During an "exchange" with an allied sect, the Heavenly Abode disciples finally stopped pretending.
The sparring platform was crowded. Disciples from the allied sect stood around its edge, arms folded, expressions faintly disdainful. Elders from both sides watched from the stands, interest and wariness mixing in their eyes.
A Xiantian elder from the visiting sect stepped onto the platform, hands clasped behind his back. His aura surged—solid, heavy, the kind of strength that had once made Ling Sen clench his teeth.
He smiled faintly at the young man in front of him.
"I heard Heavenly Abode produces experts," he said. "Let this elder see just how high your talent really is."
Ling Sen drew his sword.
The blade left its sheath with a low, resonant note. Heaven-Piercing martial intent stirred around him, not as a violent storm, but as a sharp, invisible line stretching from his heart to the elder's throat. Dark lotus lines crawled faintly along his wrist, petals opening around the back of his hand; Heretical God Seeds flared in his dantian like small suns.
He didn't offer a greeting.
He stepped forward.
His first slash seemed simple: a downward cut, no flashy arcs of light, no thunder rolling. But under that motion, Fire, Wind, and Thunder Laws compressed together. Heaven-Piercing intent folded space along the shortest path, shaving away wasted movement. The sword tip arrived a heartbeat earlier than any reasonable calculation.
The elder met it with a relaxed palm, true essence surging to form a bright shield.
He expected the usual clash of force.
Instead, he felt his true essence vanish.
Forty percent of his Law defense simply dropped out of existence—as if the world had forgotten it. The remainder of his barrier shuddered, then was torn apart like thin paper as Ling Sen's sword pierced through.
The edge stopped a finger's width from the elder's throat.
A thin line of blood appeared, then slowly ran down, staining his collar.
Ling Sen's gaze remained calm.
The elder looked down at the cut on his neck—clean, straight, so deep that bone gleamed faintly beneath—and swallowed his words along with his pride.
"His strike… ignored my defense…?"
That was only the beginning.
In the next match, Ta Ku—massive, grinning, aura roaring like an ancient beast—stepped up against a Xiantian expert. The Heavenly Demon Lotus on his back flared; Heretical God Seeds thundered in his dantian. He met the elder's full-force blow head-on and sent him flying off the platform in three exchanges, laughter echoing.
Within days, words like "Heavenly Abode" and "Seven Profound Martial House" no longer meant "good seedlings for Divine Phoenix Island" in the mouths of minor sect leaders.
They were spoken with weight now.
Cautious weight.
As if one might accidentally summon something by calling the names out loud.
On Divine Phoenix Island, similar scenes played out.
Special disciples like Mu Dingshan, who had once stood at the peak of the younger generation yet saw Revolving Core as a distant mountain, now discovered that with the lotus and Ren's altered Heretical God Force, they could easily suppress late Xiantian experts, even threaten early Revolving Core if they dared to open their lotus marks wider.
None of these battles were truly publicized.
They didn't have to be.
Rumors didn't walk in the cultivation world.
They flew.
Within a month, the South Sea and South Horizon Region whispered of a fourth-grade sect whose disciples could fight like third-grade Heavenly Abode elites, of a kingdom's Martial House whose juniors casually stepped across great realm gaps as if they were puddles.
Some scoffed.
Some grew wary.
A few, far away in Divine Kingdom palaces, quietly added "Divine Phoenix Island" and "Seven Profound Martial House" to lists that already included names like "South Sea Demon Region".
Those careful eyes would matter later.
For now, the most frightening progress did not come from armies.
It came from Ren's women.
...
Murong Zi. Bai Jingyun. Qin Xingxuan. Na Yi. Na Shui.
Once, they had simply been top talents of a small kingdom and two strange witches from the wilderness. Murong Zi and Bai Jingyun were the "Seven Profound Proud Pair," beauties and geniuses both; Qin Xingxuan was the kingdom's "Spear Fairy"; Na Yi and Na Shui carried secrets from the Witch Tribe, their eyes always half-shadowed by the weight of exile and blood.
In this new Heaven, they became something else.
Their joint closed-door cultivation took place in a valley Ren had personally reworked—half training ground, half quiet sanctuary. Vermillion Bird fire veins threaded one side, Blue Luan frost seeped through the other, while in the depths, lotus lines Ren had carved into stone and air pulsed like a second heartbeat.
They sat in a circle around him.
Murong Zi and Bai Jingyun mirrored each other on his left, backs straight, long legs folded. Qin Xingxuan sat directly opposite him, spear across her knees, eyes closed but spirit as sharp as if she were on a battlefield. Na Yi and Na Shui took the remaining spots, the witch sisters leaning slightly toward one another as if they'd learned long ago that the world could disappear without warning.
"Relax," Ren said, voice light.
He sat with his usual lazy posture, one knee up, one hand resting on it, as if he had wandered into this cultivation session by accident. Yet the moment he spoke, the valley's origin energy gathered around them in slow spirals, pulled by a will that didn't need to shout.
"This road isn't about straining until you crack. Let the lotus do the heavy lifting. You just breathe."
His origin energy blended with theirs, not overwhelming but omnipresent, a calm, deep ocean under the surface of every meridian.
The Heavenly Demon Lotus Art responded.
For Murong Zi and Bai Jingyun, it bloomed along their backs first.
Murong Zi's lotus opened like a spear thrust. Dark petals unfurled along her spine, each rimmed with dim red-gold light. Behind her, Fire Martial Intent rose in the shape of a burning wheel, runes rotating slowly like suns. Every breath she took compressed flame origin energy around her into a higher, purer state. The Azure True Dragon Infinity Seed coiled in her bloodline drank it in, greedily refining and regenerating, her vitality surging to match.
Beside her, Bai Jingyun's lotus bloomed with a calmer dignity.
Red-gold light wrapped her back as well, but the aura was different. Her flame did not roar; it burned in steady layers, like a forge that had been refining metals for a thousand years. The Azure True Dragon Infinity Seed in her body pulsed in quiet rhythm, turning every new wisp of true essence into deeper reserves instead of simple flashy bursts.
Na Yi's lotus opened like a storm cloud.
Dark petals unfolded across her shoulders and ribs, edges tinged with faint green and blue. Wind and lightning Laws stirred in her body, remembering every resonance trick Ren had hidden in her bones when he rewrote her Chaotic Virtues Combat Meridians. Each circulation sent waves of vibrating pressure into the air, as if the world itself were an instrument she'd begun to pluck.
Na Shui's lotus felt like the ocean at night—deep, flowing, dangerous.
Her petals carried a heavier blue, thunder flickering along their edges. Every heartbeat pulled in surrounding origin energy, drowned it, then returned it with the Witch Tribe's strange flavor, their ancestral rhythm now dyed in grandmist.
Qin Xingxuan's lotus bloomed with the sharpness of a spear.
Petals opened along the line of her spine and right arm, edges traced in fine, invisible lines that cut the air itself. Her true essence turned lean, compact; Fire, Wind, and Thunder braided in her meridians, guided by the Heaven-Piercing Elemental Canon Ren had given her. Behind her, a red-gold rune wheel turned in silence, compressing every flicker of flame in the valley into a higher order, feeding her spear intent.
By the time the two months were over, all five of them stood at varying levels of Houtian. Their cultivation bases had bloomed several small realms, but more importantly, their foundations had changed.
Their dantians held Heretical God Seeds—Fire, Wind, Thunder, even weapon Concepts. Their lotus marks sat at rudimentary success, yet the Heavenly Demon Lotus' realm-leaping ability, combined with Heretical God Force, the Heaven-Piercing Elemental Canon, and the Azure True Dragon Infinity Seeds, meant that their combat strength brushed close to three major great realms above their apparent cultivation.
They did not confirm this with theories.
They tested it the only way that mattered.
Against Revolving Core.
Houtian vs Revolving Core
The first time Qin Xingxuan stepped onto a Divine Phoenix sparring platform opposite a Revolving Core elder, the watching disciples nearly choked.
The arena stood near the island's inner mountains, an open stone dais surrounded by layered protective arrays. Flames flickered along its edge, shaped like small phoenixes; above, the protective barrier shimmered faintly, reacting to the aura of the two people at its center.
On one side, Qin Xingxuan in simple battle robes, spear in hand, eyes calm.
On the other, a Revolving Core elder, an old man with years of battle in his bones, true essence heavy and thick.
"Is Divine Phoenix Island crazy?"
"That's a Revolving Core elder… she's just Houtian—"
"You say 'just'… have you seen her lately?"
Their whispers cut off as Qin Xingxuan inhaled.
Dark-rainbow lotus lines crawled faintly across the back of her hand, petals opening around her wrist. Her true essence surged, quality shooting upward as the modified Heretical God Force Art opened in a smooth, practiced wave. Fire, wind, and thunder Laws braided through her meridians, compressing into a single, razor-thin stream. Behind her, a red-gold rune wheel of Fire Martial Intent spun to life, compressing every flame in a thousand-foot radius into a tighter, brighter state.
The elder smiled kindly, intending to go easy on her.
That intention lasted until her first step.
Heaven-Piercing martial intent flashed.
An invisible line stretched from Qin Xingxuan's heart to her target—no curves, no wasted distance. Space along that line folded inward. For a heartbeat, forty percent of the elder's Laws and true essence simply lacked the right to exist.
Her spear thrust out.
To the naked eye, it was just a straight, precise stab. To the cultivators watching with their senses open, it was as if a thin, multicolored awl of Fire, Wind, and Thunder had drilled through the elder's aura, compressing its own power to the limit as it punched forward.
The elder's barrier shattered.
His arm went numb from the impact. His robe tore open along the side as the spear stopped just short of his ribs, heat licking at his flesh. Every instinct screamed at him that if she had wanted to kill, that single thrust would have pierced his Revolving Core and snuffed his life out.
He stared.
Qin Xingxuan gently withdrew the spear and saluted, cheeks faintly flushed from exertion but gaze steady.
"…Accepted," the elder murmured, voice hoarse.
Shock ran through the onlookers like a wave.
From that day onward, it became… normal.
Murong Zi strutted up next a week later, spear slung over her shoulder, grin loose and lazy.
"Elder, don't hold back too much," she said with a wink. "Otherwise I'll get bored."
The chosen elder snorted and resolved to teach her humility.
Five exchanges later, he lay flat on his back, staring up at the sky as Murong Zi's spear tip lightly pressed against his throat. Her lotus had flared with every sweep; the Azure True Dragon Infinity Seed in her bloodline turned each burst of true essence into deeper reserves instead of fatigue. Her Fire Martial Intent wrapped her spear in a swirling ring of compressed flame that tore through his defenses and threw him off balance.
"See?" she sighed. "Boring."
Bai Jingyun's duel was quieter.
She stepped onto the platform like water, calm and straight-backed. Her opponent, a Revolving Core elder known for his flaming sword, greeted her with a nod.
When their powers collided, there were no wild shockwaves—only pressure.
Bai Jingyun's flame Laws pressed down with steady, suffocating weight, refined by her rune-wheel of Fire Martial Intent. Every arc of the elder's flaming sword melted as it entered her domain, its heat turned back on itself and devoured. Her lotus mark pulsed like a quiet heart on her back, raising her realm step by step until their clash felt less like "junior vs elder" and more like two equals meeting.
In the final exchange, her simple, heavy palm strike knocked his sword aside and sent him skidding to the edge of the platform, clothes smoking.
Na Yi and Na Shui took the stage together once, twin storms walking side by side.
One Revolving Core elder agreed to "spar a little" with both at once, thinking it would be good practice in crowd control.
Within moments, wind and lightning turned the platform into a howling maelstrom.
Na Yi's fists traced arcs that left invisible cuts in the air, Thunder Laws snapping with each impact. Na Shui's blade moved with wave-like rhythm, every slash sending sheets of pressurized wind that crashed into the elder's defenses from impossible angles. The modified Chaotic Virtues Combat Meridians in their bodies sang, cycling true essence and battle intent in brutal loops; their Heavenly Demon Lotuses devoured the stress and spat it back as raw power.
Every time their blows landed, they did not simply push.
They drowned.
The elder's true essence sea—once an ocean towering above juniors—felt like a puddle in comparison.
He yielded with damp hair plastered to his face, robes torn, heart pounding.
Every time it happened, the crowd's screams and gasps grew louder.
Every time, the elders lost a little bit more of their inherited arrogance in the face of "juniors."
Soon, the phrase "Houtian juniors who can suppress Revolving Core" stopped sounding like a wild exaggeration.
It became a fact.
...
For Ren's Divine Phoenix women, the breakthroughs cut even deeper.
Mu Qianyu. Mu Bingyun. Mu Yuhuang. Mu Qingyi. Mu Xiaoqing. Mu Fengxian.
These names had long carried weight within Divine Phoenix Island and the South Sea. Saintesses, Island Masters, Ancestors—women who had borne sects, burdens, expectations.
Under the Heavenly Demon Lotus, they became pillars that even Divine Kingdoms would hesitate to test.
Mu Qianyu, Mu Bingyun, and Mu Qingyi had already reached Revolving Core before Ren's arrival. Their realms were solid but nearly stagnant, progress slowed by bottlenecks in Laws and chains of responsibility.
The new Heaven tore those chains apart.
With rudimentary success in the lotus and Ren's modified Heretical God Force coiling through their meridians, their true essence roared forward like a flood.
For Mu Qianyu, the Vermillion Bird origin flame that had once felt like a blazing river now felt like a tame, furious dragon circling inside her Revolving Core. Fire, Wind, and Thunder Laws condensed one after another, each seed stabilizing as the lotus pulled them into clear orbits. Every time she circulated her true essence, grandmist brushed through it, tempering, stripping away impurities, compressing power.
Mu Bingyun's Blue Luan aura iced deeper.
Ice, Wind, and Thunder seeds crystallized in her dantian, spinning around a core of cold so pure it made ordinary ice seem like lukewarm water. Her lotus mark opened along her back, petals shimmering with pale blue and soft violet light. Her every step could freeze the air into mirror-like plates; her every breath spread fine snow that sliced like blades.
Mu Qingyi's progress looked different.
Responsible, careful, used to balancing accounts and elders and crises, she had never truly thrown herself into the mad freedom of cultivation. Under Ren's guidance, sitting in a courtyard she knew down to the last cracked stone, she finally let go.
Her lotus bloomed along her spine and waist, petals edged in frost and wind. Her Ice, Wind, and Thunder seeds formed in quiet succession, each one taking pieces of her old tension and grinding them into fuel. Her aura grew more composed, more dignified—but under that poise ran a current of power that made elders avert their eyes.
In just two months, the three of them surged to peak Revolving Core.
They weren't just "peak" in name.
Every thread of their true essence had been tempered by grandmist, their meridians thickened to rival Saints, their bodies refined on a level Divine Phoenix techniques alone could never have reached. In a direct clash, any one of them could crush any Revolving Core elder, even those half-step away from Life Destruction.
Mu Xiaoqing did what the island had long thought would take her many more years.
She stepped into Revolving Core.
Her breakthrough came beneath the flame-shadowed tree where Ren liked to lounge. The evening sea breeze carried salt and heat; phoenix cries echoed in the distance.
Mu Xiaoqing knelt barefoot on the warm stone, lotus lines along her back blazing. Her Revolving Core formed inside her dantian with a solidity that made even Mu Yuhuang and Mu Fengxian exchange a glance.
Her true essence rushed, crashed, coiled. Ordinarily, this juncture would have been dangerous—a misstep could leave cracks in the core, flaws that would haunt her for the rest of her life.
Ren sat behind her, one hand resting lightly between her shoulder blades, fingers splayed over her lotus mark, the other hand hovering near her lower back. His grandmist seeped in, not controlling, but nudging, smoothing turbulence, opening side channels whenever pressure spiked.
"Breathe," he said softly. "You're not forcing your way through a wall. You're letting the wall remember it was sand once."
She laughed breathlessly at that, shoulders relaxing despite herself.
The Revolving Core in her dantian spun, then locked into place with a deep, resonant hum. Lotus petals along her back rippled; side channels guided the shock through her meridians instead of letting it explode in random directions.
By the end of her breakthrough, Mu Xiaoqing's aura was already no weaker than ordinary peak Revolving Core elders. When she tested her blade against them days later, she found she could spar evenly—and if she let the lotus open and used her full power, she could defeat them outright.
Mu Yuhuang and Mu Fengxian's steps shook the foundation of the island itself.
Life Destruction.
The words alone made most Revolving Core martial artists' hearts tighten. In the old Heaven, this stage meant gambling everything—body, Laws, future—for a chance to build a new foundation.
Your body disintegrated.
Flesh, bones, meridians, blood—all broken down to their most fundamental essence, then rebuilt by true essence and Law into a new spirit body. If your Laws weren't stable enough, your Dao Heart wavered, your control slipped for a single breath…
Ruined.
Mu Yuhuang chose one of Divine Phoenix Island's deepest flame chambers. Vermillion Bird origin flame surged in a sealed sea around a central platform. Lotus lines Ren had carved into the chamber walls glowed faintly, hidden beneath the roaring crimson light.
She stood in the center, lotus blazing on her back, long hair loose down her shoulders.
Outside, elders watched via projection arrays, faces pale.
They had seen Life Destruction before. They had seen geniuses scream as their own power turned on them, seen bodies twist, fail, fall.
What they saw this time did not match their fears.
Ren stood behind Mu Yuhuang, one hand pressed over her lotus mark, the other at her dantian.
When her body began to disintegrate—flesh turning to pure flame and essence, bones cracking into glittering dust—grandmist flowed from his palm, wrapping every fragment, holding every Law thread together. The Heavenly Demon Lotus patterns along her meridians shone like guiding stars, ensuring no piece of her Dao was lost in the sea of transmutation.
The Vermillion Bird origin flame surged, trying to burn her old self away. Instead of resisting, the lotus devoured portions of it, dyeing the flames dark-rainbow, feeding that power back into the process.
What should have been a terrifying, chaotic ordeal became… structured in its own wild way. Not gentle—Life Destruction could never be gentle—but guided.
Dao lines that would've taken decades to settle for most Life Destruction experts compressed into stable forms over the span of a single night. The lotus "remembered" the arrangement of her old body and Dao, then adjusted it according to Ren's Heaven.
By dawn, the flames parted.
Mu Yuhuang stepped forward.
Her new body glowed faintly with Vermillion Bird fire and dark-rainbow lotus light. The sluggish heaviness of someone pressing against a wall was gone. Her aura was clean, sharp, like a blade drawn from a furnace and quenched in a sea of stars.
First stage Life Destruction.
She didn't faint. She didn't stagger. She simply flexed her fingers, feeling the new weight in her bones, the expanded sea of true essence in her dantian, and understood on a visceral level that her road had bent in a new direction.
Mu Fengxian crossed her second Life Destruction mark in much the same way.
For her, the danger should have been worse—her body older, her foundations carrying the accumulated scars of too many battles, too many night watches, too many years of bearing Divine Phoenix Island on her shoulders.
Grandmist and the lotus ignored those problems.
Age was just another impurity to be stripped away.
In a chamber laced with both fire and frost, her body dissolved. Bones sang with remembered injuries, scars burned bright as they were undone. The Life Destruction core in her dantian blazed; lotus petals along her limbs opened wide.
"You brat," she cursed through gritted teeth as her flesh broke apart into pure Law and blood essence. "If this fails, this old woman will come back to haunt you—"
Ren's hand tightened slightly on her shoulder.
"Then I'll just have to make sure it doesn't fail," he murmured, tone maddeningly calm.
Grandmist wrapped her disintegrating body. The Heavenly Demon Lotus spun, drawing stray Dao fragments into its orbit. The Asura fierceness and Death God chill embedded in Ren's Heaven surfaced faintly, cutting away weakness, freezing her wavering thoughts, forcing her Dao Heart to stand naked in front of itself and decide.
Fengxian snorted once, deep in the core of that storm.
"Afraid? Of a little rebirth? This old woman still hasn't beaten that brat bloody in a duel," she thought, stubbornness hardening.
Her second Life Destruction mark shattered.
By the time it was over, her aura had transformed. The faint scent of death and stillness that clung to many Life Destruction experts faded; in its place burned a fierce vitality, as if she had stepped back into her Saintess years but brought all her accumulated experience with her.
Wrinkles at the corners of her eyes softened. The fire in her gaze burned brighter than ever.
Ren watched them both, eyes half-lidded.
Just from the density of their true essence, the depth of their Laws, the stability of their realms, he could judge.
Mu Yuhuang and Mu Fengxian, even at "only" first and second stage Life Destruction, could crush the so-called Divine Sea Supreme Elders of the Divine Kingdoms like they were misbehaving juniors.
That thought made him smile.
The world, on the other hand, shivered without knowing why.
Far to the north, in a Divine Kingdom palace, an old Supreme Elder who had long since stopped paying attention to fourth-grade sect news suddenly opened his eyes from meditation, feeling an uncomfortable weight.
"…South Sea?" he muttered, frowning.
He dismissed it.
For now.
...
Compared to Ren's other women—those who had long since grown used to miracles that shattered common sense—even Mu Qianyu and the rest were shaken by how smoothly everything went.
No bottlenecks that refused to budge.
No months of painful stagnation.
Just breakthrough after breakthrough, Law seeds condensing one after another, comprehension of Concepts rising as naturally as breathing.
It was the kind of cultivation that countless martial artists dreamed of, that sects would slaughter each other for.
Mu Qianyu, Mu Bingyun, Mu Yuhuang, Mu Qingyi, Mu Xiaoqing, and Mu Fengxian all felt the same thing deep in their hearts:
If not for Ren, none of this would exist.
They were women who had carried sects, burdens, expectations. Formal gratitude came as naturally to them as breathing.
So one evening, under the flame-shadowed trees of Ren's courtyard, they tried.
The courtyard sat halfway up a cliff, overlooking the sea. Flame trees lined its edges, their leaves a deep scarlet even at night. Lotus patterns Ren had carved into the stones glowed faintly when the moonlight hit them, making the whole space feel like a quiet pocket cut out of the rest of the world.
Ren lounged on a low stone platform, the one he always seemed to end up on, one ankle resting over his knee, back braced against the trunk of a flame tree. Vermillion Bird fire-patterns pulsed lazily under him, responding to his presence like a purring beast.
Mu Qianyu stepped forward first.
Her phoenix robe fluttered—red silk catching the light of the hanging lanterns, Vermillion Bird embroidery almost seeming to move on its own. Her eyes were clear, but complicated: gratitude, relief, a stubborn pride that refused to entirely bow even now.
"Ren Ming," she began, tone unconsciously slipping into the dignified cadence of an Island Master's consort. "For these opportunities, for this Dao you have laid before us, this Mu Qianyu…"
Ren reached out and, very simply, hooked a finger under her chin.
Her words stumbled to a stop.
He tilted her face up a fraction, his own expression relaxed but his eyes firm.
"Careful," he said lightly. "If you start calling me 'benefactor', I might actually get annoyed."
Her phoenix eyes widened. "I—"
He leaned down and kissed her.
No hesitation. No restraint.
It wasn't the chaste brush of lips an elder might allow in public. His mouth pressed firmly to hers, one hand sliding around her waist, pulling her flush against his chest. The Fire and Vermillion Bird Laws in her body responded instinctively; phoenix flame rose behind her like a halo, then softened as his grandmist aura wrapped it, taming it without smothering.
Her thoughts scattered like a flock of startled birds.
For a moment, the Saintess's composure vanished. She was just a woman standing in front of the man who had changed the sky above her.
By the time he finally let her go, Mu Qianyu's face was flushed with a shade of red that had nothing to do with phoenix fire. Her breathing had gone unsteady.
"This is how I say 'you're welcome,'" Ren murmured near her ear, voice low, teasing. "If you really want to thank me, then live well. Walk this road with me until the end."
Her answer came soft, almost inaudible, but solid.
"…En."
Mu Bingyun had watched all of this with her usual calm, fingers folded in front of her, Blue Luan aura cool and composed. Now she stepped up, expression controlled, eyes like a quiet winter sky.
"Ren Ming," she said. "Our Blue Luan Faction, this Bingyun… owes you an—"
He didn't let her finish either.
He simply stepped close, arm sliding around her slim waist with the easy, unhurried confidence of someone who had long since decided where he stood.
"Bingyun," he said quietly, looking down at her with that infuriatingly relaxed smile. "I don't collect debts from my women."
Her heartbeat jumped.
The words "my women" crashed against the careful walls around her heart like stones thrown into a frozen lake. Cracks raced through the ice before she could stop them.
He kissed her too.
Where Mu Qianyu's kiss had been fire, Bingyun's was snow slowly melting.
She stiffened for half a breath, then relaxed, fingers unconsciously clutching at his robes as the cool Blue Luan aura around her mingled with his heavy, reassuring grandmist. The lotus lines along her back glowed faintly in response, tiny currents of grandmist running through them as if to say, "Yes, this is included in the Dao as well."
Mu Qingyi stepped forward next, shoulders square.
"This elder," she began, already slipping into the tone she used for sect meetings, "is simply… grateful that—"
Ren caught her wrist, chuckling.
"You're not an elder with me," he said. "You're Qingyi."
Her face tightened, unused to being pulled out of her role so bluntly.
He sat her on his lap in one smooth motion, ignoring her small gasp of protest. One arm wrapped around her waist; the other tilted her chin.
"Relax," he drawled. "Your paperwork isn't going to run away while you take one evening off."
Then he kissed her until the last trace of elder composure dissolved into a rare, unguarded smile—the kind that made her look younger, like the girl she'd once been before the title "Elder" settled onto her shoulders.
Mu Xiaoqing was already pink to her ears before she even stepped forward.
She bowed deeply, hands clasped so tight her knuckles were white.
"Ren Ming, this disciple—"
Ren laughed and caught her mid-bend, one arm sliding around her back, the other under her knees. He lifted her off the ground in a hug so tight her feet left the stone.
"Xiaoqing," he said, forehead resting against hers. "You worked hard. That's more than enough."
Her lashes trembled.
Her answer wasn't words.
She buried her face against his chest, ears blazing, hands gripping the front of his robe as if the flame tree behind him might vanish if she let go.
Mu Yuhuang, newly stabilized at first stage Life Destruction, approached with measured steps. Her aura was different now: deeper, sharper, Life Destruction's pressure coiling under Vermillion Bird flames. She should have been the picture of an Island Master—regal, untouchable.
"Ren Ming," she began, voice hoarse from her recent tribulation. "This Yuhuang has taken your grace and—"
He stepped behind her, wrapped both arms around her waist, and kissed the side of her neck.
Her body trembled.
"Yuhuang," he murmured, breath warm against her skin. "You already gave me your heart. There's no need for this many words."
His hands were gentle, careful of her new body's sensitivity, but there was no distance in his touch. No hint that he saw her as anything but a woman he cherished—not just an Island Master or a senior.
For a long moment, her fingers hovered in the air, unsure where to go. Then they settled over his forearms, holding him in place.
Finally, Mu Fengxian.
She came forward last, cane tapping sharply against the stone, eyes narrower than usual.
Her Life Destruction aura had grown deeper. The wrinkles at the corners of her eyes seemed lighter somehow, but the fire behind them burned hotter than many young women's.
"You brat," she grumbled as she approached. "Helping this old woman cross a second Life Destruction… do you even know how great a favor that is? If I were anyone else—"
Ren closed the distance in two lazy steps and pulled her into his arms.
He didn't flinch from the cane, didn't treat her like fragile glass, didn't handle her with the over-careful distance of a junior who saw only "Ancestor" and not "woman."
His embrace was firm, unhesitating, like he saw no difference between hugging a nineteen-year-old genius and the High Ancestor who had guided Divine Phoenix Island for decades.
Mu Fengxian stiffened as if struck by lightning.
"Y–You…" she stammered, utterly unlike her usual sharpness.
Ren smiled, that calm, maddeningly gentle smile, and pressed his forehead to hers.
"Fengxian," he said quietly. "I don't care how many winters you've seen. You're beautiful. You're mine. That's all that matters to me."
Her throat worked.
He didn't let her gather her defenses.
He kissed her.
Not rushed, not pitying. Deep, steady, as if he had all the time in the world and no intention of letting her escape.
Her heart—one that had long since sealed itself against such things—lurched violently, then began to beat with a forgotten rhythm. Memories of long-ago suitors, of a Saintess who had once wanted a different life before duty took her, flickered and were devoured by the present warmth of his arms.
When he finally let her breathe, her eyes were a little wet.
"…Brat," she muttered, voice hoarse. "You really don't let an old woman keep her face."
Ren chuckled and hugged her tighter.
"Good," he said. "I don't like distance between us anyway."