The massive Gate Guarding Spirit wildly swung the spear-halberd clutched in its hands.
As the gatekeeper for an Immortal, this phantom possessed extraordinarily fierce combat prowess.
Its face flushed bright red. It opened its massive maw, and scorching flames came surging out. Xian Yuan and Black Peach dodged just in time, leaving the ground scorched black in their wake.
Yin Luan and Su Paopao hurriedly scrambled aside.
Their guiding principle was simple: when danger reared its head, put as much distance between themselves and it as possible…
“This is getting interesting.”
Black Peach’s expression grew serious. She raised her arm, and a globe of green light coalesced out of thin air before shooting toward the Gate Guarding Spirit.
Boom!
The green light struck the enemy and detonated with ferocious force. Long tendrils like vine tentacles rapidly snaked over the Gatekeeper Spirit’s entire body.
“Mere parlor tricks!”
It bellowed, flames erupting across its form and incinerating the green vines to ash.
“Sword Control Slash!”
Xian Yuan seized the opening. The instant the Gatekeeper Spirit’s flames guttered out, she flung her Spiritual Longsword. It transformed into a streak of cold light, hurtling toward the spirit’s brow.
Whoosh!
The longsword struck with pinpoint precision, yet it made contact with nothing substantial. It passed straight through the body, leaving the Gatekeeper Spirit utterly unharmed.
Both attacks had proven completely ineffective!
“Neither spells nor sword strikes can hurt it?” Su Paopao exclaimed in astonishment from her corner hiding spot. “Is this thing invincible?”
They were all cave spirits, yet the ones wandering outside would be cleaved apart by sword strikes and scatter into nothingness under spell barrages.
Why was this Gatekeeper Spirit any different?
“Hey,” Black Peach called out with a frown, “you’re not like those other cave spirits outside, are you? Let me guess… you were transformed from a human?”
The Gatekeeper Spirit offered no reply and pressed its assault on her.
“This kind of transformation isn’t any good,” Black Peach said while evading the attacks. “Do you remember anything from your life before? Do you remember your birth? Can you leave this Cave-Heaven?”
“You’re called a spirit, but in truth, you’re nothing more than a pitiful soul, imprisoned here by an Immortal—unable to transcend for centuries or even millennia.”
“Shut your mouth!”
The phantom roared, twin beams of golden light lancing from its eyes to blast deep craters into the ground.
“Now that the Immortal is dead, what are you still hung up on?” Black Peach pressed. “Is it the Immortal’s rules that keep you from choosing for yourself? If so, we can help you!”
“Shut… your mouth!”
The Gatekeeper Spirit’s voice was deafening. Its roar set the entire space trembling, as if on the verge of collapse.
“Say that again,” it bellowed, its face flushed crimson. “Immortals do not die! They do not simply perish like you mortals!”
“You mean,” Xian Yuan interjected, “the person dies, but the laws endure? I’ve heard tales that in certain spaces, even if a Dao Achiever falls, the effects they’ve wrought can persist indefinitely.”
“What do you think an Immortal is?” The Gatekeeper Spirit sneered down at them. “Just a slightly more powerful mortal? Within their own Cave-Heaven, they are the sole sovereign, the creator, the eternal one. Things aren’t nearly as simple as you imagine.”
“Sounds pretty mystical,” Black Peach chuckled in response. “Let’s confirm one thing first: you can’t do anything that violates the Immortal’s rules or harms the Immortal, can you?”
The Gatekeeper Spirit gave no answer, nor did it resume its attacks.
“Even your attitude can’t show otherwise—that confirms my guess,” Black Peach nodded. “Then let me give you a little reminder… even if its influence lingers, dead is dead. It can’t intervene in everything anymore. If you don’t believe me, go ahead—call out its name and see what happens.”
“You say it.”
The Gatekeeper Spirit glared.
Black Peach turned to Xian Yuan.
“Your friend’s life is in my hands, so I figure…”
“I’m not saying it.”
Xian Yuan replied flatly.
Black Peach gritted her teeth. From behind her came coquettish whines: “Wah wah wah, how can you be so heartless?” “Urgh, I’m gonna die!” “So unhappy, super unhappy!” After a moment’s hesitation, she steeled herself and spoke up.
“You bunch of cowards. Fine, I’ll say it: the Immortal ‘Jing’ is deader than dead. What do you have to worry about?”
Rumble!
The instant the word “Jing” escaped her lips, a golden thunderbolt as thick as a person’s waist came crashing down from overhead.
Thunderclap and bolt arrived in unison. In that moment, everyone present felt their minds blank out—they couldn’t think, couldn’t remember, as if their very souls had departed their bodies to drift into the void.
The thunderbolt lanced straight for Black Peach, but a split second before it struck her, it veered sharply aside and slammed into the ground at her feet.
“Damn it!”
Black Peach snapped back to her senses and cursed. Cold sweat drenched her as she desperately backpedaled, fleeing the strike zone.
The others gradually snapped out of their shock—some quicker than others—each one gripped by a chill of lingering fear.
“Just saying a name out loud brings down heavenly punishment?”
Yin Luan couldn’t help but grumble.
“This is the Immortal Cave-Heaven, the place closest to the Immortals,” Xian Yuan said, her voice tinged with residual dread. “It’s the most heavily influenced by the rules here.”
“Heh, heh heh.” Black Peach forced out a stiff laugh, her lips barely twitching. “See that? If the Immortals were still alive, that strike would’ve ended me for sure! Happy now?”
“Bold as brass… truly bold as brass…”
The Gatekeeper Spirit stared at Black Peach, muttering the phrase over and over.
“Now you’ve got two choices,” Black Peach declared arrogantly, her tone aggressive. “Keep fighting me, or team up. Open the gate to the Immortal’s home, and I’ll free you from being a Gatekeeper Spirit!”
“Free?” The majestic Gatekeeper Spirit asked. “How exactly?”
“I’ll take you to the outside world,” she replied. “Show you the vast expanse beyond these walls. Who knows? We might even find a way to reverse your transformation.”
Lies.
The Little Snake Demon flicked out her tongue from behind.
Not a word from this wicked woman was true. She was purely bluffing the simple-minded Gatekeeper Spirit.
Yet Yin Luan didn’t call her out.
The Gatekeeper Spirit’s power was downright freakish. She reckoned that even if Xian Yuan and Black Peach ganged up on it, victory wasn’t guaranteed.
With it standing guard, no one was getting through.
Brute force wouldn’t cut it—they needed to outsmart it.
“You mean that?”
The Gatekeeper Spirit seemed tempted, asking hesitantly.
“What’s in it for me to lie?” Black Peach crossed her arms, smirking with disdain. “You people are all the same—too chicken to take a real risk, but desperate for the rewards. As if the world hands out freebies like that. Why not take a page from my book? Be bold! Haven’t you heard? ‘The timid go hungry; the daring stuff themselves silly.'”
The group fell silent, at a loss for words.
Love her or hate her, the woman’s guts were beyond question…
The Gatekeeper Spirit wavered for a long while, agonizing right up until impatience crept across Black Peach’s face, before finally steeling itself.
“The only thing I can do is open the gate for you. What you find inside… that’s on you.”
It turned, swung its spear-halberd with a flourish, and bellowed.
“Bottle Pure Heaven, open!”
At its command, the mountain wall ahead warped and twisted, gradually revealing a towering gate several zhang high.
Creeeak—
The gate swung slowly open.
Black Peach shot Xian Yuan a glance, her tone sharp. “Well? Want to go first?”
She paused, then added, “If your friend’s life means nothing to you, I can take her out right now. Save you the headache.”
“Nooo, I wanna live a few more years!” “Senior, why’s your life gotta be so rough, Senior!”
“Then I’ll take the lead.”
Xian Yuan didn’t argue this time.
Gripping her spiritual longsword, she retrieved a small gem from her storage ring and clutched it tightly in her other palm. She advanced cautiously at the front of the group.
Black Peach, Yin Luan, and Su Paopao followed close behind. Under the Gatekeeper Spirit’s watchful eye, they passed through the gate one by one.
~~~
Verdant green grass stretched out beneath a brilliant blue sky.
Stepping into the Immortal’s “home,” the sight that greeted them differed from everyone’s expectations.
“That’s it?” Su Paopao’s brows knitted into a tight figure-eight. “Where are the treasures?”
Forget treasures—there wasn’t so much as a single thing besides grass in sight.
“Let me give it a shot.”
The Little Snake Demon flopped onto the ground and rolled around spread-eagled, but this time she neither sank in nor triggered any traps.
“I can’t sense the outside world at all in here,” Xian Yuan said after a deep breath. “This whole space is shrouded in some incredibly powerful energy.”
“So suffocating,” Black Peach muttered with a frown. “I can barely catch my breath. Are all Immortal homes like this?”
“Of course not.”
An unfamiliar voice rang out abruptly from directly ahead.
A hazy orb of pale golden light materialized out of nowhere, vague and indistinct, with the silhouette of a seated figure within.
“You’re feeling oppressed because you barged in without permission. Trespassing in someone’s home and escaping punishment is mercy enough—comfort was never on the table.”
“You are…?”
Xian Yuan asked softly.
“Little girl, can’t you sense who I am?” The voice of this figure was somewhat androgynous—not particularly icy, yet far from warm. “You have an item belonging to another immortal in your possession. It should have told you plenty already, hasn’t it?”
“You are… the master of the cave-heaven.”
Xian Yuan, unlike Black Peach, didn’t dare address the Immortal Lord by name directly.
“Immortal Lord?” Black Peach jumped in shock. “H-how is that possible? Didn’t you die? Died completely and utterly. Was the information I got all fake?”
“You were boldly calling my name just moments ago—whatever happened to that courage?” The Immortal Lord didn’t sound angry at all. “I did die, fell completely from the world. But that doesn’t mean every trace of me has been wiped clean, does it?”
The two experts who had forced their way into the Immortal Cave-Heaven for the very same purpose now fell utterly silent, behaving like perfect little cherubs.
One could disrespect immortals behind their backs, but pulling that stunt right in front of one? That was just begging for death…
The golden light drifted slowly toward them, coming to a stop before the pair of wide-eyed onlookers.
“Th-that…” Su Paopao’s eyes darted about frantically as she let out a pitiful wail. “I was kidnapped and brought here! I never meant to trespass in any Immortal Cave-Heaven looking for treasure! I have the utmost respect for the Immortal Lord! My admiration for you is like…”
“Enough. I can tell you have no faith in immortals.” The Immortal Lord gave her a glance before turning to Yin Luan. “You, on the other hand… You carry two strands of immortal aura. One living, one dead. Counting me, that’s three immortals you’ve encountered?”
“Uh, yes…”
The Little Snake Demon didn’t dare act out of line and answered honestly.
“And all in such a short span recently, one after another.” The Immortal Lord’s tone grew a touch more serious. “When I fell, nearly every immortal in the Eastern Wastelands had already secluded themselves from the world…”
She nodded slightly and waved her large hand. The golden light erupted violently, swallowing the Little Snake Demon whole.
Surrounded by the golden radiance, Yin Luan gazed toward the Immortal Lord, who remained shrouded in glowing mist, her true features hidden from view.
“You’ve cultivated the Qi Concealment Technique to hide your real identity,” the Immortal Lord said. “Now tell me—what is your true form? I’ve sealed the others outside; they can’t hear or see a thing.”
“Mm… Silver Snake.”
The Little Snake Demon replied.
“Snake Demon?” The Immortal Lord sounded surprised. “A Teng Snake? Ba Snake? Xiangliu? Or some other mythical bloodline?”
“No, I’m just an ordinary little silver snake…”
While cultivating at Ren Tan’s place, Yin Luan had read through some mythical chronicles—especially tales of mythical demons.
If she had any of those signature traits of legendary snake demons, she wouldn’t be scouring the world for clues to her origins right now…
“An ordinary little silver snake… Were it not for the earnest tone in your voice, I’d swear you were pulling my leg.”
The Immortal Lord pondered for a moment, her gaze drifting down to Yin Luan’s lower body.
“Let me have a look.”
“No can do,” the Little Snake Demon refused, a bit embarrassed. “I don’t even know if you’re male or female yet. And even if you were a woman, we girls can’t just throw propriety to the wind like that…”
“…First off, I am female. Second, I’m not the pervert you imagine me to be.”
Though she couldn’t see the Immortal Lord’s face, the Little Snake Demon could practically feel the urge to give her a good thrashing radiating from her…
“I meant your snake tail. Different demons have different ‘cores’ after transforming. For snake demons, the tail is the key anchor between humanoid and true forms.”
“You want to see my human-faced, snake-bodied form?”
The Little Snake Demon asked.
“Yes.”
The Immortal Lord confirmed.
“But I can’t…”
Yin Luan spread her hands helplessly.
“…You’re truly not messing with me? Isn’t shifting to a human-faced snake body pure instinct for snake demons?”
Yin Luan was certain now that the Immortal Lord wanted to beat her senseless… but she answered truthfully anyway.
“I really can’t. I’m an amnesiac snake—I’ve forgotten so much.”
The Immortal Lord stared at her in silence for a moment.
“I see,” she said. “Then just revert to your true form. That should be simple enough, right?”
“Of course! I’ll do it right now!”
Determined to reclaim some dignity as a snake demon, Yin Luan immediately began her transformation.
She drew in a long, deep breath. Her belly swelled slightly. Then her legs parted, arms stretched out wide, cheeks puffed, face turning a deep crimson.
“Mmph—!”
The Immortal Lord, wreathed in golden light, watched the performance in silence.
One breath, two breaths… Nothing changed. Right before their eyes stood the same beautiful young maiden with her slender figure.
“Mmmph—!”
Little Snake Demon’s face grew redder and redder, looking as if it might explode at any moment.
Immortal Lord saw her in this state and was just about to call it off.
Suddenly.
Rumble—
The space began to tremble.
This was a Cave-Heaven world created by the Immortal, one with clear skies stretching endlessly in all directions. Yet dark clouds now gathered from every side.
At the same time, Yin Luan’s eyes underwent a transformation.
Those bewitching, profound vertical pupils of a snake, brimming with majesty, turned toward the figure ahead that radiated golden light.
The next moment…
The golden light faded away!
