Among the gathered crowd, the older ones — the ones who had lived long enough to know names that younger cultivators only read about — recognized her immediately.
The Silverleaf Fox Enchantress. The Foxcrown Empress of the Silverleaf Clan.
Even a powerhouse from the Silverleaf Clan had come. Whatever was inside that mountain, it was no ordinary occurrence.
The logic of the situation resolved itself quickly. Fighting among themselves was pointless — they were all emperors, all capable, all wary of one another, and a battle of that caliber fought at this proximity would level the mountain and everything in it. The stalemate would only attract more parties the longer it held.
So they agreed. Enter together. Find the source. Decide by strength when the time came.
To the fated one goes the treasure.
It was the most sensible option available, and everyone knew it.
---
Inside the mountain, Ethan had been watching all of it with mild interest from his rocking chair.
He had half expected them to fight. He had prepared himself for the inconvenience of having to do something about it.
Instead, they had looked at each other, calculated their odds, and arrived at a compromise.
Every single one of them was playing the long game. Each one wanted to be the last predator standing, letting the others exhaust themselves first.
It was, he had to admit, efficient. And it saved him the trouble of intervening, which suited him fine.
*Acting is very troublesome.*
But more surprising than any of that — Seraphine had come.
He sat up slightly in the rocking chair.
He was, objectively, in the wrong. He knew that. The circumstances of what had happened between them were complicated and he bore his share of the responsibility for how they had unfolded, regardless of the System's role in it. They had barely spoken. They had a four-year-old daughter. The situation was, to put it plainly, a mess.
He didn't know how to face her.
He thought about it for a moment.
Then he slapped himself.
*Pull yourself together.*
It was at that moment that the sky changed.
The dark clouds broke apart. A column of light erupted upward from the large pot in the courtyard — clean and white and enormous, shooting straight through the cloud cover and into open sky. Above the mountain, the eight divine beast phantoms dissolved one by one, scattered like smoke.
Ethan was on his feet before he'd made the decision to stand.
He crossed to the pot in three steps and looked down at his daughter, who was sitting cross-legged in the cooling liquid with her eyes still closed, her small face perfectly calm.
Something in his chest did something complicated.
*My daughter. She actually did it.*
*Ding. The host's daughter has successfully awakened the innate dao body. Mission complete.*
*Obtained: ascendant emperor-level cultivation technique — Record of the Great Dao's Simplicity.*
*Obtained: Emperor Sword, Dawnedge.*
He stood there for a moment, processing.
*Record of the Great Dao's Simplicity.* A cultivation technique — clearly intended for Sera, given the innate dao body's natural alignment with the Great Dao. The name alone told him enough.
*Dawnedge.* That was the one that caught his attention.
He summoned it from his storage space without thinking.
It appeared in his hand lighter than he expected — almost weightless, the way a truly well-made thing sometimes was. The hilt was carved with a small green lotus, precise and delicate. The scabbard was silver-blue, shimmering with a pale jade luminescence that shifted as he turned it, a dragon motif embroidered along the shoulder guard in thread that seemed to catch light from somewhere it shouldn't.
It was beautiful. Simply, straightforwardly beautiful.
Dawnedge — the personal sword of the Slaughter Ascendant, ten thousand years ago. The man had entered the ascendant emperor realm and been immediately ambushed by his enemies, who had hired three veteran ascendant emperors to ensure the job was done. He had fought them alone, one blade against three, and none of the three had managed to land a mark on him.
After that, the Slaughter Ascendant's name had traveled across every realm.
And Dawnedge, as his sword, had been named Emperor Sword. It was said that on the day of that battle, every sword in the world had felt the call — had *wanted* to fly to it. Even the Divine Sword of the Myriad Blade Sanctum, which no cultivator in recorded history had ever drawn, had trembled in its stone. Only the intervention of whoever guarded the Sanctum had kept it in place.
Ethan turned the sword over slowly, admiring it.
*"Old Dad."*
He came back to himself.
Sera was standing in front of him, fully dressed, hair slightly damp from the pot, looking up at him with an expression that was trying very hard to be casual.
*"What is that?"*
*"Ah — this?"* He looked at the sword, then at her. *"One of your birthday gifts. But you can't have it just yet."*
He put Dawnedge away and reached back into his storage space. He set the *Record of the Great Dao's Simplicity* down, then considered for a moment and pulled out several more — a small selection of cultivation techniques he'd accumulated over the years that he'd always felt were particularly suited to her, though he'd never said so.
She hadn't chosen her path yet. He didn't want to choose it for her.
*"You haven't taken up a cultivation technique yet,"* he said. *"I have three that I think would suit you. The choice is entirely yours."*
He held up the first.
*"The Record of the Great Dao's Simplicity. You have an innate dao body — you're naturally aligned with the Great Dao in a way that makes comprehension almost instinctive. This technique was built for someone like you. Study it, and your path forward will be clear and unobstructed. Reaching the peak is simply a matter of time."*
He set it down and picked up the second.
*"The Pill Canon. This one follows the path of a Alchemist — proving the Dao through refining, earning the respect of every cultivator who ever needs a medicinal pill, which is most of them. It's difficult, but a skilled Alchemist is sought after everywhere they go."*
He picked up the third.
*"The Frostmoon Immortal Scripture. An extremely powerful technique. How powerful, exactly—"* he paused. *"I genuinely don't know the ceiling. I've never needed to test it."*
He truly didn't. At his level, the distinctions between powerful things had become somewhat academic.
Sera stared at the three techniques laid out before her.
*These are all stronger than my immortal king method from my previous life.*
*Every single one.*
She had known her father was not ordinary. She had suspected it since the night she saw him dismiss a heavenly tribulation with a word. But this — handing her ascendant emperor-level techniques like they were pamphlets, mentioning them without drama, without pride, without any apparent awareness of how impossible it was —
*He's definitely an ascendant emperor. He has to be.*
She pressed the thought down and focused.
She thought of what she had spent her previous life chasing. The endless struggle toward the ascendant emperor realm — the years of cultivation, the risks taken, the Ascendant Emperor's Vault, the Legacy she had fought so hard to reach. And then the ambush. Five eternal lords who had decided it was easier to take what she had found than to find it themselves.
*Dorian Ashvane. Eternal Lord Aurin. Eternal Lord Maren. Eternal Lord Draveth. Eternal Lord Ossian.*
*You stole my path. I'll build another one. And then I'll come for you.*
*"Is the innate dao body powerful?"* she asked, keeping her voice small and childlike.
*"Very. The most powerful physique there is. An innate dao body is aligned with the Great Dao from birth — comprehension that takes others decades comes to you the way breathing does. The realm of Emperor is not a possibility. It's a certainty."*
She couldn't suppress the expression that broke across her face then. She tried. She failed.
She had walked into this life with the experience of an eternal lord and none of the resources. She had been gambling on her father. She hadn't known the odds.
The odds, apparently, were extraordinary.
She chose the *Record of the Great Dao's Simplicity* without hesitation. It matched her physique perfectly. There was no reason to refuse it.
Ethan nodded. He had no preference himself — whichever she chose, he would support it. He would step in at whatever moment mattered most.
*It doesn't matter. I'll be there when it counts.*
He was about to say something else when a figure dropped into the courtyard from above.
She landed without sound. Fiery red dress. A golden jade crown. A veil that covered everything below her eyes.
Ethan's expression, for the first time that day, showed something other than calm.
*She got here fast.*