"Tch—"
Watching the pristine crystal shatter into a thousand glittering fragments before her eyes, Su Min couldn't help but draw in a sharp, frustrated breath. The shards caught the ambient light, scattering diamonds of cold brilliance across the dark altar. The situation had just escalated far beyond a simple cleanup operation.
"Hahaha! Once I free the mighty senior sealed inside, they will owe me a life debt and kill you for me!"
"Idiot!!!"
Su Min cursed inwardly, her mind racing as Cao Dinghua laughed with an arrogant, blood-flecked triumph. She watched the madness in his eyes as he clutched at his final hope. Yes, this was a sealing crystal, but its energy signature was clearly one of self-imposed hibernation, not an enemy's prison. The spiritual energy of heaven and earth hadn't fully recovered to its ancient peaks yet. This was categorically not the right time for such a being to awaken. And yet, this shortsighted fool had forced a premature awakening. Was he actively trying to get everyone in the vicinity killed?
She quickly retreated several paces, her boots skidding on the stone as she put distance between herself and the altar. A five-star hidden difficulty was bad enough. If the system had rated it six stars, she would never have set foot in this mansion in the first place.
CRACK—
As the fissures spread across the crystal's surface like lightning frozen in ice, a low, ominous hum began to emanate from the core. It was a sound that vibrated deep in the bones of every cultivator present, a frequency that made the very air feel heavy and thick.
"Hahaha! Come out, great senior! I have freed you! Now kill her! Rip her apart for me!"
The Demon Crown Prince's voice was shrill, hysterical with mad triumph and the belief that he had just gained an unstoppable ally. He reached out toward the light, his fingers trembling with anticipation.
BOOM—!
A deep, resonant explosion, like a mountain cracking open from within, echoed through the sanctum as the crystal fully disintegrated. From within the shimmering cascade of fragments, a slender, elegantly proportioned figure stepped out. Her form coalesced from motes of light that tasted of winter air and ancient incense.
At the exact same moment, the entire Xuantian Mansion trembled violently. Its spatial structure groaned under a sudden, immense release of power. Before Su Min could even process the woman's appearance, her vision blurred and twisted. The next moment, she found herself hurtling through the air, unceremoniously ejected from the mansion by an invisible, overwhelming force.
Su Min didn't panic. Tumbling through the sky, she executed a few light, precise steps mid-air. She used the motion to gracefully dissipate the momentum, her robes snapping in the wind, and landed on the grassy ground below as lightly as a falling leaf.
The others weren't so lucky or skilled. Dozens of Qi Refining cultivators were spat out by the mansion, crashing into the ground around her like sacks of potatoes. They groaned in pain and disorientation, some struggling to even sit up.
"Huh. That Tianjiao is surprisingly kind," Su Min murmured. She brushed a speck of dust from her shoulder, her eyes fixed on the structure high above. "Throwing everyone out instead of slaughtering them on the spot for trespassing."
She exhaled a quiet sigh of relief. That was a far better temper than she had anticipated. If she were the one who had woken up to find a horde of rats rummaging through her pantry and fighting in her halls, she would have probably incinerated the lot of them immediately.
"Cough, cough… Senior, these are the herbs we managed to gather before… well, before that."
While Su Min was staring up at the mansion, which was now visibly shrinking in the sky, Cao Yuanmu and the others limped over. They presented a respectable pile of spiritual plants they had harvested. Clearly, while she had been occupied with the Demon Crown Prince, they had been efficiently looting the outer gardens. But before anyone could say another word, the ground quaked violently once more.
Another figure was violently hurled out from the shrinking estate. He shot through the air like a cannonball before slamming into the earth not fifty feet away with a sickening, bone-shattering crunch. If not for his previously strong cultivation, he would have died instantly on impact. As it was, he was barely clinging to life. His eyes were wide with utter confusion and betrayal as he stared up at the sky.
"Why… why would you kill me…? I freed you…"
"Tsk, tsk… What a pathetic end."
Su Min walked over, a look of cold amusement on her face. She could tell at a single glance that he was finished. Only one tenuous breath remained in his body.
"You absolute moron. You couldn't even tell the difference between a self-imposed preservation seal and an enemy's confinement seal? With judgment that poor, how dare you call yourself a crown prince? She wasn't ready to wake up yet, and you forced her hand, disrupting her cultivation. Who else would she vent her initial, disoriented fury on but you?"
"You—!"
The prince's head twitched weakly toward her in his final moment. His dying eyes locked onto her mocking, pitiless smile. Then, his pupils dilated into fixed, glassy orbs. His head lolled to the side. He was utterly, finally dead.
"Satisfying," Su Min mused to herself, a genuine smile touching her lips. "Killing someone's body is one thing. But destroying their pride and delusions first—that's true, artistic joy."
She nodded, quietly pleased with herself. Behind her, Mo Shaosheng and the others from Prince Yong's manor swallowed hard and instinctively edged a few steps further away. They realized that it was best not to provoke this woman on any level.
But Su Min's moment of smug satisfaction vanished as instantly as it had appeared. A bone-chilling, profoundly powerful aura descended from the sky above, pressing down on the entire mountain clearing like a physical weight. The hundred-meter-tall mansion had completely disappeared. In its place, hovering serenely in the air, was a woman clad in elegant, flowing black robes. Her mere presence made everyone's faces bleach of color—including Su Min's.
"Late-stage Foundation Establishment…" Su Min's expression darkened into a grimace. "This is real trouble."
A normal, average late-stage Foundation Establishment cultivator would be annoying, but perhaps manageable. But this woman was anything but normal. One glance at the profound, perfectly balanced density of her spiritual pressure and Su Min knew she was a Heavenly Path Foundation Establishment cultivator, just like herself. They were true peers in terms of quality, if not quantity.
Worse, Su Min was only at the early stage. She might not win a direct confrontation, especially since the woman still had her manifested mansion as a treasure. For all she knew, the stranger could just drop the entire spatial structure on her head and call it a day.
Then the woman in black raised a slender, pale hand, pointing directly at her.
"Shit! Everyone, get back, now!"
Su Min's eyes narrowed to slits. She didn't hesitate. With a sweeping motion of her arm, she swatted Cao Yuanmu and the other companions near her away, launching them out of the immediate danger zone. In the same instant, the full power of the Vermilion Bird Spirit erupted from within her core. Wings of blazing, serene azure flame unfurled behind her as she rocketed toward the sky. She was a brilliant streak of red and blue light surging straight at the woman in black. The next second, the heavens themselves seemed to erupt in chaos.
Scarlet flames clashed violently with shards of glacial black crystal that materialized from the woman's fingertips. They created a deafening, visible cyclone of destructive energy in the sky. The opposing forces of extreme heat and profound chill surged against each other, twisting into a strange, suffocating storm that warped the air. For a moment, every cultivator on the ground felt a bizarre, unbearable duality. They were scorched and frozen all at once. They immediately dropped to the ground and activated their inner spiritual energy to form the strongest shields they could muster against the leaking, deadly force.
BOOM!
A loud, concussive crash followed. A figure was struck down from the heavens, trailing smoke. It was Su Min. She slammed into the earth like a meteor, carving a deep, smoldering crater with the impact of her body.
"A yin attribute physique..." she coughed. She pushed herself up from the rubble, her mind working furiously to analyze the opponent's power. "No, this is far purer… the Xuan Yuan Yin Physique? Or could it be the legendary Nine Nether Constitution? Wait—no. The chilling aura lacks the corruption of the Netherworld. It's the Taiyin Physique—one of the absolute peak Tier 1 physiques, a constitution that can truly rival a complete Five Element Holy Body?"
As she stood up, Nanming Lihuo blazed around her in a controlled inferno. It violently purged the invading, paralyzing cold energy from her meridians.
"The Blazing Sun Body, combined with the Nanming Lihuo…" the woman in black observed from above. Her voice was as cool and undisturbed as a mountain lake. "To think a mortal-grade physique can achieve this level of flame manifestation. A genuine pity your cultivation is still too weak to fully utilize it."
"Talk to me again when I reach the late stage of Foundation Establishment. You have got a clear level advantage right now, that's all," Su Min shot back. Her voice was steady and unbowed despite the dirt on her face and the ache in her bones.
The spectators on the ground wisely kept their mouths shut, not daring to even breathe too loudly. That single, sky-shattering exchange had taught them one undeniable thing: these two women existed on a level of power that was monstrous and utterly beyond their comprehension.
"Enough posturing. State your business," Su Min demanded, her gaze locked on the woman hovering above. She had sensed it clearly; there was no genuine, deep-seated killing intent in that earlier strike. It had been a test, a probe of her capabilities. And Su Min knew, with cold certainty, that if they truly fought to the death here and now, her chances of winning were dismally slim.
"You are an alchemist, aren't you?" the woman stated. Her tone left no room for doubt. "Only a master alchemist would dismiss a Foundation Establishment Pill, even a degraded one, so casually and completely."
Her logic was impeccable. Even though the pill was useless to those who had already established their foundation, no ordinary cultivator would simply ignore such a treasure. It could be traded for other resources or given to a disciple for immense political value. The only ones who would brush it off were those who could make their own with relative ease.
Besides, though she had been sealed, her spiritual awareness hadn't been completely dead to the outside world. The distinct, masterful interplay of fire and wood elemental energy in Su Min's sword arts during the battle in the garden had been impossible for her refined senses to miss.
===
The Grand Debut of our Female Lead !!! The slumbering Tianjiao, a possessor of the supreme Taiyin Physique, has officially entered the stage
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Taiyin Body (太阴之体): A top-tier yin-attribute physique, rivaling the legendary Five Elements Sacred Body in potency. Later I wil call it with "Lunar Sovereign Body"