Qingzhao hesitated at the door.
Just for a heartbeat.
Then she pushed it open and stepped inside, robes flowing, every line of her body a weapon honed over two thousand years. She had sacrificed cultivation for beauty once; now, under his touch, she had reclaimed both.
This time, she didn't sit facing him.
She sat with her back to him, between his legs, spine a straight, elegant line.
"Forward, hm?" she said lightly. "What are you planning to do to this poor woman's body now?"
"Fix the parts you carved up for stupid reasons," he said without mercy, amusement threading through the criticism.
She snorted.
"If you keep talking like that while touching me, it will be hard to decide whether to kiss you or stab you."
"That's half the fun."
His arms slid around her.
One palm settled low on her abdomen, over her Dantian. The other pressed flat against her sternum, over her heart. He drew her back against his chest, chin brushing her shoulder, breath warm at her ear.
Her body tensed at the intimacy.
She forced herself to relax.
Inside her, the lotus she'd already used to reclaim her Divine Sea realm flared again.
It shone over the places in her cultivation she had shredded to maintain a flawless face—shortcuts taken, essence siphoned into skin and bones, techniques warped to feed her allure instead of her Dao.
Ren's voice murmured at her ear, gentle but unyielding.
"You used your Dao to survive in a cage," he said. "Let's see what it does when the door's open."
"If you're lying," she replied, breath shaking despite her best efforts, "I'll make you regret every word."
The lotus didn't erase the scars.
It mapped them.
Petals unfolded along her Darkness and Asura Laws, tracing the routes where charm arts had overridden killing forms. Heaven-Piercing lines slid in between, cutting out the waste, the distortions, the parts that served nothing but vanity.
Her allure didn't vanish.
It deepened.
Instead of being a layer painted over her techniques, it became the front edge of her blade. Darkness Law condensed, turning from diffuse haze into razor-thin veils that could blind divine sense, hide killing intent, then flicker aside just long enough for a Heaven-Piercing thrust to lunge through.
Her Divine Sea, once slightly hollow where she'd carved herself up, filled.
Power surged, not in a chaotic rush but like water finally being allowed to flow into long-empty reservoirs. Early Divine Sea foundations reshaped themselves to match middle Divine Sea heights, this time without cracks.
Her lotus sigil took on a strange elegance.
Dark petals laced with faint, alluring patterns; centers coiled with dense killing intent. The more beautiful it looked, the more dangerous its judgment felt.
Her external aura changed subtly.
The hollow tightness behind her smile melted. When she called up a mirror of Darkness Law and looked at her reflection, the woman staring back was still breathtaking—but now, behind her eyes, there was a depth that matched the power humming in her veins.
Ren's hands splayed wider across her abdomen and chest, feeling the way her meridians adjusted.
"Good," he said softly. "Your beauty's finally listening to your Dao instead of the other way around."
"Flatterer," she murmured.
She didn't move away.
They stayed like that for an entire day—lotus currents circulating, Heaven-Piercing lines slowly threading through every technique she'd ever practiced, turning charming smiles into killing arrays, turning every flutter of lashes into a potential Dao strike.
By the time they rose, Qingzhao's eyes had the calm glitter of someone who had finally stopped begging the mirror for approval and started enjoying the look of her own blade.
...
Bi Ruyu didn't bother pretending to be shy.
She stepped into the chamber, blew out a slow breath, and shrugged off her outer layers with a roll of her shoulders. The body revealed beneath was younger than it had been weeks ago thanks to his earlier help—muscles firm, joints straighter, skin no longer paper-thin—but the marks of age and battle still traced her: lines at the corners of her mouth, faint scars where curses had once chewed.
She caught his eye.
"Last chance to pretend you were joking," she said, lips curling.
Ren didn't even blink.
He sat down on the cushion, legs open.
"Come here," he said. "I told you. I like how you look. Now stop stalling."
She laughed, low and rough.
"Bossy little brat," she muttered—but she crossed the distance anyway.
He pulled her into his lap like it was the most natural thing in the world, one arm circling her waist, the other hand enclosing hers. Old fingers, callused from inscriptions and curses, disappeared in his grip.
The lotus in her marrow, already awakened once during her Life Destruction, flared brighter under the new contact.
Dark-rainbow light pulsed through her skeleton.
It ran along bones that had been etched with Nether Bone Claws, seeped into joints that had ground for centuries, traced the paths of curses permanently carved into her flesh. Where it met backlash loops—those vicious spirals that had always turned part of her own art against her body—it bit.
The loops snapped.
Curse backlash rerouted.
Instead of chewing on her joints and lifespan, excess malice was redirected into closed circuits that spun just outside her core, burning themselves out harmlessly while strengthening her techniques.
Ren's free hand pressed flat against her sternum, thumb brushing the pulse point there.
"Breathe," he said. "You've lived so long with pain that you don't know what to do without it. Let the lotus show you."
She snorted.
Then her breath caught as the ache in her back eased another notch, as her knees warmed, as the constant grinding in her shoulders faded into a dull memory.
Rudimentary Success Heavenly Demon Lotus rooted itself deeper into her body.
Heaven-Piercing intent slid into her curses, sharpening their trajectories. Where her arts had once spread like wildfires—devastating but wasteful—they now formed spears, needles, threads that could slip through a Divine Emperor's defenses, coil around their Life Destruction, and crush it with minimal effort.
Her blood circulated with renewed vigor.
Color returned more strongly to her cheeks. Her eyes, always sharp, gained a new clarity.
"Damn you, Ren," she laughed, a sound that held more life than it had in centuries. "You might actually keep me around long enough to see those so-called upper realms everyone's always whining about."
He just chuckled and held her tighter.
"If you're still around," he said, "it's easier to use you as a hammer."
She barked another laugh.
She didn't move away from his lap for a long time.
...
Weeks later
By the end of those sessions, the pattern was clear.
One by one, day after day, he drew them into his Heaven and pressed his Dao against theirs. Skin to skin, lotus to lotus, Heaven-Piercing to Darkness, curses, allure, battle-formed pride. He didn't micromanage. He didn't stand over them lecturing.
He laid foundations.
He nudged at key moments.
The rest, he left to them.
Under his Grandmist Heavenly Demon Heaven, the five women of the Asura Divine Kingdom's upper echelon—genius, cousin, princess, witch, scholar—moved.
They bled, suffered, laughed, cursed, threatened to stab him, and came back the next day anyway.
—
In his private chamber, some weeks later, the air felt different.
Lotus light stained it.
Yaoyue stood near one wall, eyes closed, one hand raised.
Her Extreme Violet Domain uncurled with almost lazy ease. Heavy Darkness flowed from her Dantian, but instead of blotting out everything indiscriminately, it focused into a field no larger than the chamber—and inside that field, the Grandmist walls groaned.
In that compressed space, the outline of a Divine Emperor's aura appeared, conjured by Ren's powerful soul as a test—Giant Demon shadow, battle intent, old, proud.
With his Immortal Soul Bone and control over soul and Dao Laws, it was easy for him to recreate the power of a so-called Divine Emperor in several phantoms, which was just a Sevenfall Middle Stage Divine Sea expert.
Yaoyue's lotus sigil flashed.
She extended a finger.
Her Domain snapped.
A thin, dark beam of violet light—Heaven-Piercing lines woven through Darkness Law—stabbed forward. The conjured Divine Emperor's Law structure folded. Its battle body, made of true essence and concept, shredded silently.
The phantom exploded into motes.
Yaoyue opened her eyes.
"…Hn," she said softly. "Not enough."
Meiyue snorted from beside her.
She had her foot braced on a conjured stone platform, arms folded, watching. Her own lotus pulsed at her heart, more aggressive than Yaoyue's.
Without warning, she flicked her wrist.
A spear of compressed violet-dark power punched through another summoned Divine Emperor phantom. There was no flourish. Just a straight, piercing thrust that ignored the giant's defensive layers and blew a hole through its Life Destruction in a single, brutal line.
"See?" she said, chin up, cheeks flushed with exertion and pride. "One thrust is enough."
"You two are going to start a competition in my living room?" Ren drawled from his cushion, watching with obvious enjoyment.
Qingzhao stood a short distance away, her darkness gathered in a delicate-looking veil around her.
She smiled.
"With this," she said softly, letting her fingers trail through the air, "even those so-called top supreme elders of other Divine Kingdoms would have trouble seeing whether I came to tease them… or kill them."
She took a step.
Her figure blurred.
Lotus-enhanced allure and Darkness Law wrapped around a conjured Divine Emperor's perception, distorting its senses. To it, she seemed to be at its front, smiling sweetly. In reality, Heaven-Piercing threads guided her killing intent along a path that brought her behind it, her Dao slipping through gaps in its consciousness.
She extended two fingers.
Invisible blades fell.
The phantom Divine Emperor's soul was sliced into neat, dissolving fragments before the rest of its body even realized she'd moved.
Yaoxi watched all this, expression unreadable.
Then she closed her eyes.
Curses poured from her fingertips—not as wild smoke, but as fine, dark threads, each one carrying a lotus mark. They drifted toward another Divine Emperor phantom, ignored its desperate shielding, and vanished under its skin.
A heartbeat later, its aura popped like an overinflated balloon.
If that had been a real enemy, its Dao would have been shredded from the inside, curses following Heaven-Piercing's invisible lines straight into the heart of its Law foundation.
Bi Ruyu didn't bother with subtlety.
She grinned, spat once at the ground out of old habit, then snapped her fingers.
Lotus-enhanced curses exploded into being around the last phantom Divine Emperor—loops, sigils, seals. They didn't touch her. They didn't backlash. They simply locked onto the phantom and compressed.
In the chamber, the phantom shrank.
Crushed.
A Divine Emperor level of energy compacted down to a little, writhing ball of darkness the size of her fist.
She held out her hand.
The ball drifted over, trembling helplessly, and settled in her palm.
"…Easy," she said, voice low with savage satisfaction. "Too easy."
The ball shattered into harmless light.
Silence settled.
All five women, gathered again in his private chamber, could feel it.
The shift.
The lotus sigils at their hearts, in their Dantians, in their Soul Seas, all pulsed in quiet harmony. Heaven-Piercing lines threaded through their arts, making every technique bristle with piercing inevitability.
They could all feel it:
If a Divine Emperor of this kingdom's old level walked in right now…
A finger's flick would be enough.
Yaoyue flexed her hand slowly.
"With this," she murmured, eyes narrowing as she remembered the other Divine Kingdoms, "…I could stand alone against supreme elders as well."
Meiyue inhaled, violet eyes gleaming.
"For the first time," she said, voice soft but fierce, "I don't see only Yaoyue's back when I look forward. I can see my own path."
Yaoxi lifted her hand, studying the faint curse lines under her skin—now straight, clean, ready to be loosed.
"If another Divine Emperor dares to threaten the kingdom now…" she said quietly, "I'll show them what a thousand years of 'wasted' talent can do."
Qingzhao's smile curved, soft and dangerous.
"I didn't lose my face," she mused. "And I gained my strength back. Truly… you're a terrifying man, Ren."
Bi Ruyu snorted.
"You're all too polite," she said. "I'll just say it. If an enemy Divine Emperor shows up now, I'll curse his bones into fertilizer and still have time to drink tea."
Ren stretched on his cushion, folding his hands behind his head, watching them with that lazy, satisfied smile.
"Mm," he said. "Not bad."
They all turned to look at him.
"You're all moving faster than a lot of my personal disciples," he went on, eyes gleaming. "Quite a bit faster, actually."
There was a beat of silence.
Then:
"…Personal disciples?" Yaoyue repeated slowly.
Meiyue's eyes narrowed.
Qingzhao's smile sharpened.
Yaoxi's curses stirred.
Bi Ruyu's eyebrow twitched.
"You say that like they aren't all women," Bi Ruyu drawled.
Ren didn't even try to deny it.
"They are," he said cheerfully. "All very talented. And cute, in their own ways."
He watched the flicker of jealousy ripple through the room—the slight tightening at the corners of Yaoyue's mouth, the way Meiyue's jaw clenched, the subtle frost that slipped into Qingzhao's eyes, the tiny spike of killing intent from Yaoxi, the dry, dangerous glint in Bi Ruyu's gaze.
His smile turned wicked.
"You're all cute too," he added, absolutely shameless.
Before they could explode, he stood in a single smooth motion, crossing the distance in a few steps.
Yaoyue opened her mouth to scold him.
He caught her by the waist, drew her in, and kissed her.
Not a peck.
A slow, steady, unhurried kiss pressed full against her lips, one hand at the small of her back, the other cradling the back of her head. His lotus aura wrapped around her, stirring the one in her Dantian, making her Darkness Law hum in a way that had nothing to do with battle.
Her fingers dug into his shoulders.
When he finally drew back, her eyes were wide, pupils blown, cheeks blazing.
"You—" she began, voice rough.
He just smiled.
He turned before she could regain her composure and stepped over to Meiyue.
She had both hands raised, ready to yell.
He caught her wrists, tugged her forward, and kissed her too—deeper, perhaps, because she pushed back, because her Dao burned hotter, because she'd been glaring at him like she wanted to bite.
Her knees almost gave out.
"H-Hey—!" she choked when he pulled back, face red to the tips of her ears.
Next was Yaoxi.
She tried to snort and look unimpressed.
He took her hand gently, lifted it, and brushed his lips over her knuckles first—old-fashioned, almost courtly. Then, when her curses didn't flare, he leaned in and stole a brief, firm kiss from her mouth, one hand steady at her waist.
Her heart, hardened over a thousand years, skipped.
She glared at him afterward.
She didn't pull her hand out of his.
Qingzhao met him halfway.
She tilted her head, eyes filled with a mix of amusement and dangerous warmth, and let him kiss her deeply, her lotus-touched allure wrapping around both of them. For a moment, the air in the chamber tasted like dark wine and thunder.
Bi Ruyu just laughed when he approached.
"If you think an old woman like me—"
He cut her off with a kiss that didn't treat her like she was old at all.
When he drew back, her eyes were bright, a little wet at the corners from some emotion she would curse herself for naming.
"Hmph," she muttered, looking away. "Still a dangerous brat."
The jealousy in the room dissolved.
Not completely—but it softened, melted into something more complicated: heat, affection, a sense of being chosen, not just used.
Ren stepped back, looking at the five women whose Daos now carried his lotus marks.
"Good," he said, tone quietly satisfied. "Now that you've all calmed down a little, we can talk about the next part."
Yaoyue narrowed her eyes.
"…Next part?"
He smiled, and in that smile there was a hint of something colder—a flash of Emperor Domination's ruthless edge, of a man who didn't recognize the word "untouchable."
"You've played with phantoms," he said, gesturing at where the conjured Divine Emperors had fallen like straw dolls. "That's nice. But Dao doesn't grow on toys."
He lifted his hand.
Grandmist curled around his fingers, and the ceiling seemed to lift, the entire Asura Divine Kingdom's sky shivering as his Heaven stirred.
"How about," he said softly, "we test your newfound power against real targets?"
The lotus sigils in their bodies flared.
"Targets?" Meiyue repeated, eyes gleaming.
"A Divine Kingdom," Ren said simply.
Ren's words hung in the air like a thunderclap that hadn't decided whether to fall.
"A Divine Kingdom," he'd said, as if he were talking about a hunting trip instead of toppling a pillar of the Sky Spill Continent.
Silence stretched.
The five women looked at him.
Lotus light still clung to their skin. Their Domains, just moments ago crushing Divine Emperor phantoms like bugs, had settled back into their bodies—but the memory of that power was fresh, wild, restless.
Instinct stirred.
All five turned their thoughts outward, toward the Four Divine Kingdoms.
Killing intent sharpened like a blade turned toward prey.
Ren watched it happen, half-lidded eyes amused. He could feel their instincts reaching: Yaoyue's judgment searching for the greatest threat, Meiyue's battle-hunger hunting for the hardest wall to break, Yaoxi's curses tasting for old grudges, Qingzhao's allure weighing strategic advantages, Bi Ruyu's witch-mind already thinking about which kingdom's bones would make better fertilizer.
He chuckled.
"We'll start with Sublime Smelting," he said lazily. "Their so-called Grand Uncle and his friends will make decent whetstones."
The term "Grand Uncle" hooked into their memories at once.
Sublime Smelting's Imperial Grand Uncle—Ouye Hua. One of the ancient pillars that had allowed that kingdom to stand shoulder to shoulder with Nine Furnace, to stand in front of Asura in the old balance of the Four Divine Kingdoms. A man spoken of alongside Yang Laotian, their names enough to make the Central Region tremble.
Meiyue, still a little flushed from cultivation and kisses, was the first to snap.
"Why start with Sublime Smelting?" she demanded, brows drawing together. "Nine Furnace is the strongest now. Shouldn't we cut off the head first?"
Her violet sea stirred under her skin, temperament as straightforward as her spear.
Qingzhao's lips curved, amused. Yaoyue's gaze went deep and thoughtful. Yaoxi and Bi Ruyu both glanced at Ren, weighing how serious he was—how far he intended to walk this road.
Ren didn't bother to stand.
He just shifted on his cushion, stretching lazily like a big cat, and looked at them one by one. His eyes were calm, but behind that calm was the quiet arrogance of someone who had already weighed Divine Kingdoms and found them light.
"Nine Furnace?" he said, voice light. "Any one of you can swat that kingdom like an ant now."
Their expressions all shifted, just a little.
Ren went on, unhurried.
"Their Highest Divine Emperor used to be 'highest under the heavens'. A mountain no one wanted to provoke." His smile deepened, almost lazy. "To you five? He's a durable training dummy with a fancy title."
The words dropped like stones into a still lake.
They all knew Nine Furnace's status. Knew how the continent had once spoken of their Highest Divine Emperor and Sublime Smelting's Imperial Grand Uncle together—existences "close to the highest under the heavens," names that had stomped through all four Divine Kingdoms for thousands of years.
To have that old terror written off as a "training dummy" so casually…
Even with their Daos transformed, it shook something in them.
Ren let that implication sit for a heartbeat.
Then his eyes softened, a faint, almost fond warmth shading his tone.
"But I've got other lovers who deserve their turn on the dance floor," he added, voice dropping slightly. "Phoenix girls, golden fiery foxes, devils… I want them fighting Divine Kingdoms too. Better if you work together instead of hogging all the big kills."
The chamber's temperature changed.
"…Other lovers, huh," Meiyue muttered under her breath, expression souring.
The moment those words left his mouth, the Asura women bristled as one.
Yaoyue's eyes narrowed, the corners of her lips flattening. She didn't speak, but her silence cut sharper than a blade. Darkness brushed the edges of her pupils, Extreme Violet Dantian turning faster in her core.
Meiyue clicked her tongue, violet true essence roiling. She hated competition—even more when it was over Dao and affection at the same time.
Yaoxi snorted outright, curses stirring in her Soul Sea like snakes awakened from sleep. Her expression said clearly she did not like the idea of "sharing" Divine Kingdoms as whetstones.
Qingzhao's smile thinned; the frost in her alluring eyes could have frozen molten steel. Being balanced against other harems, even if they belonged to the same man, rubbed every old scar in her heart the wrong way.
Bi Ruyu gave him a sideways look, half-laughing, half-dangerous.
"So your little harem wants to divide up kingdoms like tea snacks," she drawled. "And we're supposed to share the plate?"
Ren laughed quietly.
Instead of soothing them, he reached out and fanned the flames.
"You don't have to play nice," he said, utterly straightforward. "Cooperate when I say so, but if you want to fight with them, fight. Just don't kill each other. I'm not raising widows."
Their expressions twitched.
Before that could settle, he leaned forward slightly, eyes gleaming. The air around him shifted, subtle, a hint of bedroom warmth mixing with the killing intent in the room.
"If you go too far, though…" he said, voice low and calm. "I'll have to punish you for being naughty girls."
He smiled, shameless and honest.
"And that's where my true expertise shines. In bed."
He said it like he was discussing cultivation regimens.
Which made it worse.
Yaoyue's breath hitched; the lotus in her Dantian flared, petals stirring in time with her heart. Her face stayed composed, but her ears reddened just a shade.
Meiyue's heart punched against her ribs. Being dragged into his lap mid-cultivation, his hand over her Dantian, his voice at her ear—that memory crashed down on her like a violet wave.
Yaoxi, who had spent centuries half-numb from self-curses and backlash, felt a dangerous warmth unfurl through her chest, loosening knots that had been tight for so long they had become part of her.
Qingzhao, who had once carved up her own cultivation for beauty, felt that same body answer his promise too easily, pulse skipping traitorously.
Bi Ruyu's blood, which had been dry and cold for years before he touched it, stirred. Joints that no longer ached tingled; for a heartbeat, she felt almost like the witch she'd been in her prime.
Outwardly, of course, Asura dignity had to be maintained.
"…You overestimate yourself," Yaoyue said coolly, chin lifting.
"Pervert," Meiyue snapped, cheeks a little too red.
"Little beast," Yaoxi said sharply, "don't say such things like you're inviting us."
"If you fail to impress," Qingzhao murmured, eyes narrowing, "you'll bleed."
Bi Ruyu snorted.
"Hah. You think these old bones can still be 'punished'?" she said, voice mocking.
Ren just smiled.
He didn't pull back.
He stepped into their space, one by one, like this was the most natural thing in the world.
He hooked an arm around Yaoyue's waist and tugged her a breath closer. Darkness and violet true essence brushed against his chest. His mouth dipped near her ear.
"You're glaring," he murmured, his breath warm against her skin, "like a wife whose husband came home late."
Her heart stumbled.
Her hand almost went for her sword.
Almost.
Meiyue tried to sidestep away before he reached her.
He ruffled her hair instead, fingers sliding through violet-black strands, then pulled her firmly against his side despite her sputtering complaint. Her fist thumped his chest once, not nearly as hard as it could have.
"You—don't touch me so casually—"
"Mm. You say that," he said lazily, "but you always lean back when I do."
She went scarlet.
Yaoxi opened her mouth to curse.
He didn't let her.
He came up behind her, arm looping over her shoulders, chin lowering until it hovered just above the side of her neck. His presence wrapped around her like a second, warmer curse.
"Yaoxi," he said softly. "You're frowning again. That face suits you better when you're laughing."
She froze.
"…Who asked you," she muttered, voice rough.
Qingzhao's smile was already sharpened when he turned to her.
He ignored the danger.
He draped an arm lightly over her hips, drawing her in just enough that her back brushed his chest for a heartbeat.
"Zhao," he murmured, eyes half-lidded. "When you glare at me like that, it just makes me want to kiss you until you forget why you were angry."
Her lips parted.
She didn't answer.
Bi Ruyu raised a brow, fully expecting him to keep a bit of distance.
He didn't.
He simply reached out, grabbed her by the waist like she was twenty again, and pulled her flush against him.
"Ruyu," he said easily. "I told you before. I like how you look now. If someone has a problem with that, I'll break their bones for you."
Her laugh came out, low and genuine, betraying just how deeply that hit.
"Look at you," he said finally, gaze sweeping slowly over all five. "Not brutal demonic cultivators… just a bunch of spoiled wives."
The line sank in like a blade.
"Let go!" Meiyue yelped.
"Who's your wife?!" Yaoyue snapped, darkness flickering.
"You—!" Yaoxi choked, curses sparking.
Qingzhao's eyes flashed.
Bi Ruyu clicked her tongue, torn between laughing and biting him.
But for all the shouting, for all the glares…
None of them truly tried to break free.