"Are you a ghost?"
Tian Hao stared dumbfounded at Su Min's outrageous actions. The turbid qi in his own body had already pushed him to the brink of danger after years of careful balancing, yet Su Min was even more exaggerated, her casual, open-mouthed devouring of the qi had triggered a localized turbid tide, a whirlpool of dark energy that visibly swirled around her.
"So refreshing."
Su Min stretched lazily, a genuine, unfeigned sigh of relief escaping her lips as she savored the sensation. Ever since reaching this level, she'd felt a constant, gnawing emptiness inside, a void that the clear qi of her home universe couldn't fill. Now, bathed in this dense atmosphere, she finally felt somewhat filled, the raw power seeping into her and soothing that persistent ache.
Of course, that fundamental emptiness was still there. It wasn't something that could be resolved in a short time. The amount of energy required to satiate a Chaos Body was astronomical.
"The turbid qi here is extremely dense. Why did you bring me here specifically?" Su Min asked, feeling incredibly comfortable in this oppressive environment, like a fish returned to water.
"Because someone's trying to open a stable passage between this place and our universe," Tian Hao explained, his expression grim. "If they succeed, hundreds, if not thousands, of crazed Mahayana Stage and Unity Stage cultivators will flood into our world. It'll be an invasion of madmen."
"Ugh..."
Su Min's lips twitched at the thought. If those thousands of cultivators surrounded and attacked her all at once, that would be one thing, a battle she could potentially manage. But if they scattered upon entry, spreading out like a plague across the countless stars? She wouldn't be able to stop them all. The chaos and devastation that would ensue was unimaginable. These cultivators, though corrupted by turbid qi, weren't native dark cultivators bound to the Dark Starry Sky. They could leave that region without issue and rampage through the clear qi universes. Just thinking about the logistical nightmare of containing them gave her a headache.
As the two spoke, they landed in a small, hidden village tucked within a canyon of black rock. At a glance, Su Min noticed many people, most of them possessing the formidable auras of Mahayana Stage cultivators, but their conditions were far from ideal. They looked drained, their faces pale and gaunt, their eyes hollow, as if their very vitality had been sucked dry. This level of exhaustion wasn't something you'd expect from cultivators of this legendary stage.
"Didn't you take them back to our universe to recover?" Su Min was puzzled. Shouldn't they be resting and recuperating in a place filled with clear, nourishing spiritual qi? Why were they still stationed here in this desolate, energy-sapping prison?
"That passage between worlds has an immense, crushing gravitational pressure," Tian Hao explained, frowning at Su Min. Clearly, she hadn't even noticed the pressure. Her perception shouldn't be that weak, which meant she simply wasn't affected by it at all. This was bizarre. He'd tried bringing people through before, but even storing them in a pocket dimension or a spirit treasure didn't work, the pressure seemed to penetrate everything. Yet Su Min could ignore it entirely. It had to be related to her current strange state.
Honestly, the aura she gave off now was peculiar, almost as if she carried an undeniable authority over the very fabric of energy around her. This was new. When they'd met before, she hadn't felt like this. It could only mean one thing, Su Min had undergone some kind of profound breakthrough.
But now wasn't the time to dwell on that. They had to deal with the immediate crisis, the fate of their entire world was at stake.
"Let's set that aside for now. What's the plan?" Su Min's eyes gleamed with a calculating light, but she didn't explain her condition further. Undoubtedly, this immunity was related to her physique. She wasn't foolish enough to ask about it now and reveal her ignorance. The priority was figuring out what to do next.
"Kill the Four Guardians," Tian Hao stated bluntly, pulling out a rough leather map and laying it flat before Su Min. "Each of them's equivalent to a Transcendence Stage cultivator." But as he spoke the words, his own confidence wavered slightly. He was asking an early Mahayana Stage cultivator to face a Transcendence Stage existence, what their world called a Half-Immortal. It was no small request.
In terms of pure combat power, these Half-Immortals were generally considered weaker than the veteran Great Emperors who'd fought their way up through the tribulations in their home universe. But it was still an outrageous demand. He had no choice, though. The situation was urgent, and Su Min was the only one he could turn to for this, mostly because he wasn't familiar enough with Yao Xian'er to make such a request.
"That's troublesome."
Su Min's brows furrowed deeply. A Half-Immortal's base cultivation was on par with a Great Emperor's. But she'd never actually fought one before, having always avoided direct confrontation with the Great Emperors back home, so she didn't know their true, practical strength.
"These four are stationed at the Four Directions Formation of the Nether Prison, anchoring the ritual to open the gate," Tian Hao continued, pointing to four marked locations on the map. "Killing one delays the opening of the gate by a hundred years and shrinks its size significantly. If we kill all four, the gate'll be so unstable it'll only allow one or two Mahayana Stage cultivators through at a time. We can easily blockade it then."
"What about the True Immortal? Will he intervene?" This was Su Min's primary concern.
"No. He's currently deep in the ritual's core, presiding over the ceremony himself. He's the main conduit and anchor. He won't be able to act or even move during this critical time." Tian Hao's certainty on this point reassured Su Min slightly. She wasn't too worried about the Half-Immortals themselves. She was over ninety percent confident she could kill them with a combination of her strength and wits. But if the True Immortal got involved? She'd rather let the gate open. Even if countless maddened cultivators poured in, she could at least protect a portion of the world, maybe carve out a sanctuary. Fighting a True Immortal and a Half-Immortal head-on was practically suicide. But under these specific circumstances, her chances of success were much higher.
"I can only handle one at a time. What about the rest of you?" After a moment of silence, Su Min nodded, accepting the mission.
"Are you sure? You're only at the early Mahayana Stage." A mid-Mahayana Stage cultivator nearby, a man with a scar running down his cheek, voiced his concern. Though his words were few, the deep-seated hatred and killing intent simmering in his eyes were palpable.
"We'll deal with their subordinates and garrisons," Tian Hao answered, ignoring the man's doubts. His expression brightened when Su Min agreed. If she said she could do it, then she must have absolute confidence. He knew Su Min was always cautious and never boasted, no matter how strong she appeared. "The Four Guardians are stationed separately at the four nodes of the formation, so they won't be able to reinforce each other. Besides the Half-Immortals themselves, there are also many high-level Mahayana and Unity Stage cultivators stationed at each fortress."
"Don't rush into action just yet," Su Min said, her eyes scanning the weary faces of the rescued cultivators. "If they're really in the middle of a complex ritual, waiting a month won't change the outcome. Let me help you all recover first."
Her eyes gleamed again as she soared into the air above the village. In an instant, she began actively devouring the surrounding turbid qi, drawing it in like a vortex. The action shocked everyone present. They quickly sat down in meditation, seizing the precious opportunity to recover. With the oppressive turbid qi being actively drawn away, the remaining, thinner clear qi in the atmosphere was perfect for cultivation and healing their depleted cores.
Tian Hao nodded in satisfaction. He could help these people expel the corrosive dark energy from their bodies, but he couldn't restore their spiritual qi or their vitality. The ambient turbid qi here was simply too dense, they couldn't draw in enough clear qi to recover on their own. Now that Su Min had created this temporary pocket of relative purity, none of them dared slack off, desperately cycling their cultivation techniques.
A week passed in the blink of an eye, the tense atmosphere marked by the silent, focused recovery of the cultivators.
Su Min now stood atop a naturally formed obsidian altar, narrowing her eyes at the distant fortress. It was a massive, brooding stronghold carved from black stone, covered in glowing, intricate formations that pulsed with a malevolent light. It was clearly a heavily fortified base teeming with powerful figures. But "powerful" might not be the right word. Even from this distance, the sound of agonized, soul-wrenching wails never ceased, a constant, horrifying chorus.
"What's going on there?" Su Min's frown deepened. In the cultivation world, one rule was absolute, never enter a place with active, unknown formations lightly. Never fight a formation master on their home turf unless you had overwhelming, crushing strength. She'd expected a simple altar or a ritual site, but this was something else entirely, a fortress of despair.
"That's a prison fortress where the dark clans imprison powerful cultivators they capture," Tian Hao explained, his voice low and hard. "When they conquer a universe, they transform all its inhabitants into dark beings. Those who resist conversion the longest, especially the strongest, are brought here and imprisoned. They're continuously injected with concentrated turbid qi to break their wills and control them."
"How did you manage to rescue these people, then?" Su Min was puzzled. She didn't know the specifics of this place, but Tian Hao had gathered so many people, he must have a deep understanding of its workings and security.
"Heh, you're asking the right person."
Tian Hao smirked, a flash of grim pride in his eyes. He'd spent centuries navigating this hellscape, hiding, fighting, and learning. He knew these prison fortresses inside out, making him the perfect guide for a raid.
"I infiltrated these places carefully, over many attempts. These massive fortresses have a critical flaw, they're designed to hold powerful prisoners in, so their most formidable defenses are all focused inward. Escaping triggers a violent, automatic backlash, but sneaking in from the outside, especially during a shift change or by exploiting a blind spot in the outer sentry formations, isn't that hard if you know what you're doing."
"Alright."
Su Min didn't press for more details, simply nodding for him to lead the way. Without another word, Tian Hao guided a select group of over a dozen of the strongest recovered cultivators towards a seemingly solid section of the fortress wall. With a few precise touches, a hidden doorway shimmered into existence, and they slipped inside. The moment they entered, Su Min expanded her spiritual sense, enveloping everyone in a bubble of perfect concealment. With her current, monstrous soul power, even a true Half-Immortal or a crippled immortal wouldn't detect them unless they walked right into them. But soon, her expression turned icy. The moment they stepped inside, the muffled sounds from outside became a deafening storm of countless screams of agony that assaulted her senses.
"Late Mahayana Stage... So this's what they've done..." she murmured, her voice cold.
Inside a vast chamber to their left, she saw a colossal figure, a giant from some conquered world, covered in pulsing black streaks, writhing in agony on a stone slab. For ordinary cultivators, turbid qi eroded the mind, amplifying desires, fears, and regrets to unbearable, torturous levels. This soul-deep corruption could break even the staunchest Mahayana Stage cultivators. Many of the figures they passed had been reduced to mindless husks, their eyes empty, moving mechanically as if puppeteered by the dark energy.
These were cultivators who'd endured countless heavenly tribulations, trials that tested both body and soul to their absolute limits. Their wills were supposed to be indomitable, forged in celestial fire. Yet they'd been broken to this extent. The suffering they'd endured here was unimaginable.
"Those bastards..."
The mid-Mahayana Stage cultivator with the scar beside Su Min gritted his teeth so hard it seemed they might crack. Clearly, he'd experienced this torment himself. He'd been rescued by Tian Hao just before losing his humanity completely, but his home universe was already gone, devoured by the dark.
Cultivators ultimately faced the tribulation of severing mortal ties, much like her own disciple Lin Yao had to learn. But that didn't mean they lacked emotions or attachments. Their hatred for the invaders who'd destroyed their homes and tortured their comrades ran deep and hot.
"Where's that Half-Immortal guardian?" Su Min asked, her voice all business.
"The core of the fortress, the central control chamber. There are countless enslaved cultivators like these there, guarding him. Unlike the fallen or the native dark beings from the Dark Universe, they retain almost all their original strength and combat instincts and have been further enhanced by dark modifications. In this plane, saturated with turbid qi, they're even more terrifying."
"Hmm."
Su Min acknowledged this but wasn't particularly interested in the philosophical conflict. She no longer cared about the so-called clear and turbid worlds or their eternal struggle. The power of the Chaos Body lay in its ability to harmonize and balance everything, to rise above such dichotomies. Achieving it postnatally was nearly impossible, but she'd done it, and her perspective had shifted accordingly.
Soon, they reached the heart of the fortress, a vast, circular chamber with a sky-spanning dome that stretched tens of thousands of meters overhead. At its very center, floating cross-legged in the air, was a solitary figure shrouded in a cloak of shifting shadows. Just sitting there, the pressure he exuded was suffocating, pressing down on the very air. In this world, he was known as a Half-Immortal. In Su Min's universe, he'd be called a Quasi-Immortal, one who'd half-stepped into the Immortal Ascension Realm.
The moment Tian Hao saw him, his body tensed, and he instinctively raised his hand, gathering energy for a strike. But Su Min stopped him with a sharp gesture. As a seasoned veteran who valued survival above pride, Su Min lived by one principle, if there was an advantage to be taken, not taking it made you a fool. So she quietly popped a specific pill into her mouth and vanished from sight, her presence dissolving into the ambient shadows.
[Shadowmeld Pill (Eighth-Grade, Three-Colored): Enhances stealth capabilities, bending light and shadow around the user and masking all aura.]
Back when she first entered Yao Xian'er's secret realm, the first thing she encountered was a law entity specializing in assassination. She was simply following its pragmatic example now. And in her current state, her control over energy was even more refined and absolute than that entity's had been. Under the stunned, disbelieving gazes of the group, Su Min disappeared without a trace, without a ripple of energy.
Then—
"AHHH!!!"
A bloodcurdling scream of shock and agony erupted through the chamber as the floating figure was violently thrown from his meditation. He coughed up a torrent of black blood, his spiritual energy fluctuating wildly as he was sent flying across the chamber to crash against the far wall.
"Does she have no pride as a powerhouse? If she can ambush, she won't fight fair?" one of the cultivators whispered, his voice a mixture of awe and disbelief.
Though they were all shocked by Su Min's raw strength, an early Mahayana Stage cultivator had just broken a Half-Immortal's innate defenses, what truly left them speechless were her shameless, overwhelmingly effective tactics. Only Tian Hao wore a knowing, slightly weary smile. He thought to himself that he should be grateful Su Min hadn't ever seriously set her sights on him as an enemy. At the same time, the entire fortress seemed to shudder at that scream, alarms beginning to blare deep within its structure.
"Move out according to the plan!" Tian Hao yelled, snapping everyone back to the present. "Now!"