Phoenix Flame soared across the ninth heaven, like fire set to burn the sky to parchment.

Nana Toki’s eyes filled with déjà vu, the same dreamscape she once drowned in.

A boundless blaze of crimson stretched ahead, a scarlet sea without shores.

Beside her, Jiang Chen’s heart trembled first, then his hands. Even behind Nana’s barrier—really the System’s—he felt terror coiled beneath the fire.

Boom!

Boom!

Suddenly, clouds packed the heavens like iron scales, thunder bellowing from their belly.

From afar, it looked like heaven’s soldiers in black armor descending; Spirit Pressure gripped his throat like a cold iron hand.

The air thickened with Spirit Energy, fog curdled into syrup.

Cold sweat beaded on Jiang Chen. These gathered clouds and converging energies were the prelude to a Heavenly Tribulation.

Judging by the ferocity, the transcender was close, a storm at his doorstep.

To challenge tribulation now was courting death, dancing on a blade’s edge.

Jiang Chen sent out a thread of divine sense, like a fishing line across dark water.

He circles once and finds no one; doubt rippled through him.

As his brows knitted, a blue-white bolt fell from cloud to sea.

Boom—it slammed beside him, spraying steam like geysers.

Jiang Chen froze, stunned like a netted fish.

“Miss Phoenix, you—”

He stared blankly at Nana Toki, emotions pitching like a roller coaster over cliffs.

Nana hadn’t expected the lightning to pick her, so she yanked out her Black Great Axe and braced like a mountain.

She blocked two bolts in a row, then realization struck like another flash.

“Holy— I’m starting my tribulation?!”

Jiang Chen: “...”

It wasn’t really Nana’s fault.

Who knew Nesting Phoenix’s nirvanic fire would drag in Spirit Energy thick as a monsoon?

She only sipped a little, and Heaven threw a storm; she hadn’t asked for this.

Before Jiang Chen could complain, the sky flicked blue again; well-thick bolts kept hammering Nana’s body.

Jiang Chen darted away to avoid sharing her doom, like a leaf fleeing a wildfire.

Sure enough, Nana and the Phoenix’s descendant were bound deep; even tribulation knotted them together.

From afar, Jiang Chen watched the two women ride the storm, his mood a tangle of brambles.

Are they insane!

Synchronized tribulation gets people killed; does no one read the old scrolls?

The Demon Lord felt worn thin, yet helpless; he still needed Nana’s Phoenix Flame.

If she died, his plans would tangle like broken nets.

He spread a large barrier round them, then played bodyguard, eyes skimming for anyone closing in.

Elsewhere in the storm, perhaps because Nana had refined Nesting Phoenix’s flame, the tribulation’s bite outstripped the Phoenix’s own pressure.

Old texts whisper: the stronger you are, the fiercer the bolts. Nana fit that blade-cut mold.

Each strike slapped onto her like a falling mountain; she yelped, pain cracking like ice.

If not for the Fusion Flame Art fortifying her spiritual roots, a few bolts would’ve shredded her like wet paper.

This lightning hit harder than the Heavenly Dao’s bolts from the last realm, thunder with teeth.

Bolt after bolt crashed into her roots; her body felt near tearing, a drumskin stretched too far.

Her robes hung in tatters; pale skin flashed, scorched black like burned rice.

She had a hunch her hair would suffer another “Heavenly Lightning perm,” frizzed by fate.

Gritting through the rain of fire, Nana still siphoned Spirit Energy to watch overflow from Nesting Phoenix’s nirvana, wary of stray tides.

After a time that felt like seasons, the crimson pillar dimmed like sunset bleeding out.

Within, Nesting Phoenix floated above the crystal coffin; red eyes flickered, embers darting in ruby pools.

Clang— A phoenix cry rang like bright steel; Spirit Pressure burst from her core like a storm.

Jiang Chen saw the world flare a peerless red, dawn poured from a blade.

Then, in the next breath, everything jolted.

The molten blaze underfoot winked out, like coals drowned.

The South Sea returned to its old face, waves smoothing their hair.

Jiang Chen turned, and the light pillar faded; out stepped a cold, proud, dustless beauty.

Hair fell like a waterfall, red robes billowed like flame; skin like polished jade, lotus rising from clear water.

So this was the Phoenix’s descendant?

Though it was his second meeting, the Demon Lord was stunned again, wind knocked from his chest.

With such cultivation and steel, few women in the Demon Realm could stand above her.

A pity—she had a mirror-polishing quirk, a love of her own reflection.

“Luoluo?!”

While Jiang Chen drifted in awe, the reborn Nesting Phoenix saw Nana weathering the storm and cried out, worry sharp as a blade.

“Don’t come near me!”

Teeth clenched against lightning, Nana sent her voice across the air like a wire.

Nesting Phoenix knew not to approach a tribulating cultivator’s field, yet worry pooled in her eyes as blue-white sheets kept falling.

The tribulation stretched long, nearly twice the time of her nirvana; thunder was greedy tonight.

Below, Jiang Chen and Nesting Phoenix kept silent; their eyes fixed on the storm’s heart, like hunters on a flame.

Only when the last bolt fell did Nana’s aura surge, towering like a red mountain.

It held for a heartbeat, then thinned, dew vanishing at dawn.

Jiang Chen’s vision blurred; a red figure streaked toward the woman drifting down from the sky.

“Luoluo!”

Nesting Phoenix caught Nana’s falling body, arms like wings, worry bright in her eyes.

“Are you alright? I’ll heal you in a moment.”

“Uh... I’m fine...”

Fresh from tribulation, Nana felt weak as a kitten, fingers heavy as stone.

Yet relief washed her clean; with Nesting Phoenix back, her heart finally unclenched.

“Can you stop worrying me?” Nana’s weak hand clutched the robe, breath thin. “My chest feels tight.”

She was using Nesting Phoenix’s heart; emotions rippled through her like shared tides.

They still had time to bicker; that meant she’d live.

Nesting Phoenix carried Nana far off, cleaned the soot, changed her into fresh red, then drifted back to Jiang Chen.

“Hmm. Miss Phoenix, heaven’s chosen indeed. You tanked such a storm. I, this king, approve.”

Nesting Phoenix stepped through the air, each step a petal. Jiang Chen hid his gaze and offered praise.

“Chosen my ass. Get me back to the Purple Bamboo Grove.”

Jiang Chen: “...”

By the time they reached the Purple Bamboo Grove, night had folded its wings.

On the way, they met Chiliao and her forces rushing for the flank like a flood turned back.

To solve that mess, Nana had Nesting Phoenix spend a little time, a spark turned wildfire.

Chiliao feared a rear encirclement and pulled back in haste, a serpent doubling on itself.

She never expected the anomaly-makers were Nesting Phoenix and Nana, the pair who beat her centuries ago and set her realm back.

Before Chiliao could speak, Nesting Phoenix, eager to get home, torched her without looking back, a line of fire across the sea.

After bathing in phoenix fire’s nirvana, Nesting Phoenix’s flames had grown fiercer, a crown of sun.

Chiliao lasted only a few exchanges; she severed an arm to live another day, blood hissing like steam.

Nesting Phoenix didn’t chase. Nana had said:

The heroine isn’t dead yet; leave Chiliao breathing, and the later play will be blood-boiling.

Since Chiliao was crippled, sparing other sea beasts felt wrong; so Nana spent time culling along the South Sea, saving the world between footsteps.

Other sects still gave her looks, vinegar in their eyes; Nana didn’t care, wind on stone.

On the road home, she demanded a hefty save-the-world fee from each sect, palm up and smile bright.

Jiang Chen stood there gaping, mind stalled like a broken cart.

He truly couldn’t follow these two women’s logic; it zigged like lightning.

“Host, there’s a side quest about Nesting Phoenix to do here.”

On the way back, the System piped up in her mind, voice crackling like static.

Nana was busy collecting Cloudpeak Sect’s protection fee; she laughed, dry tinder catching.

You pest. Every realm you stack two, three side quests—go die.

Scram.

She was about to ascend to the Immortal Realm, and the System wanted more? A trap dressed as silk.

She wouldn’t bite. The hidden quest just needed Nesting Phoenix to have a celestial title; grab the prize, move on.

No need to waste time on a side quest that did nothing.

She still had to accompany her master; main quest mattered more than detours.

“There are rewards, Host!”

The System dangled bait, coins chiming like rain. “Rewards guaranteed to please the System.”

Nana saw through the crappy System’s habits; its tricks were old smoke.

Rewards? Ha. Bet it’s another hourglass.

Not doing it. Bye.

System: “...”