...

Inside the Heaven-shrouding Veil, the silence lay like winter frost, heavy enough to make a heartbeat stumble.

The Heavenswallow Serpent’s seven massive heads fixed on Nana Toki, eyes like cold moons. Its voice came like ice over stone. “What’s this got to do with a mortal brat like you?”

“Of course it’s my business.” Nana squeezed her little sister’s hand, a smile like silk hiding a blade. She looked straight at the Heavenswallow Serpent. “I’m her big sister now. No blood ties, sure. But everything about her is within my right to know.”

“Ridiculous! What status do you think you have?” Contempt rippled like dark water through the Serpent’s tone. Seven maws opened like crimson caverns, showing rows of knife-white fangs. “My lady is a Fairy of the Immortal Realm. You, a mortal, dare call yourself her elder? I’ll spare you for guarding her these years. If you don’t want to die without a clue, return my lady and leave at once. I’ll keep you safe in this Desolate Domain for half a year.”

Annoyance flared in Nana like flint catching tinder. She saved this beast and got no thanks, and now it dreamed of taking Blue Magpie back? What a sweet little fantasy.

“She’s in my hands, so she’s mine. Want her back? Fine—kill me. Otherwise, don’t even think about snatching her.”

Her last words landed like sleet on steel. Cold surged up from her bones and burst outward like a winter gale.

Damn it—did this thing really think she’d be scared? The Veil she’d bought from the System still had plenty of time left. Even if this Serpent broke tribulation on the spot and rocketed upward, she wouldn’t blink.

“You’re courting death!”

Impatience skittered like knives through the Serpent’s gaze. It was badly wounded, and outside the Veil waited Immortal Realm cultivators like wolves at night. Priority was escaping with My Lady, not playing house with a Foundation Establishment chick.

“Try me.” Nana drew her Colossal Axe from the hidden pocket-space, the iron edge drinking the light like dusk swallowing day. Her stare went hard as hammered iron. “You won’t tell me? Then we stall. When they break in, live or die, it’s on our own heads.”

Boom—

Before her words finished falling, the coiling Serpent snapped a tail like a falling mountain. This strike carried real wrath. The chaos of the Three Realms was a storm without shore. What waves could a mortal girl stir?

“That all you got? Put your back into it.” Nana’s voice came cold as winter rain, laced with mockery. “If word spreads that a Hollow Void Heavenswallow Serpent couldn’t kill a Foundation Establishment, won’t your lady’s face, and your own, be dragged through the mud?”

Her taunt rose from under the Serpent’s tail like mist off a river. Slender, milky-white ribbons slid up from the ground like moonlit silk and braced the tail from below. No matter how it pressed, it couldn’t lower a hair’s breadth.

What artifact was this—so eerily strange?

Before the Serpent could think it through, Nana seized the opening and rushed in with her axe. The iron swept out with a whoosh, carving a black arc through the air like a raven wing under lightning. The afterimage flicked past, too sharp to look at. At the same time, a dense killing intent roared off her like a sandstorm blown from a dead land.

Inside the Veil, the Serpent’s heart tightened like a drumskin gripped too hard. A mortal body-refiner at Foundation Establishment stirring such killing intent—unexpected. Yet the ripple faded like a pebble’s ring on deep water.

Even with aura, it’s useless. A cliff is not bridged by momentum.

Clang—

The shrill scrape rang far through the muffled Veil. The Serpent watched the Colossal Axe bite into its scales, and a rare flicker of surprise flashed like lightning in its eyes. That broad black blade had cracked its defense, leaving a not-deep, not-shallow axe mark on one scale among ten thousand.

This little one is not simple.

They traded a few more blows like flint and steel. The Serpent flicked its tongue, eyes turning thoughtful as night over the axe in Nana’s hands and the Veil wrapping the world. Its attacks slowed, then stilled.

“I take back my earlier disrespect,” it said, voice like a cave wind. “You have some interesting skills.”

Few in the Three Realms could scar its scales. Yet this mortal girl had, at Foundation Establishment—terrifying as a blade hidden in prayer beads.

“So you’re ready to drop the act and talk?” Seeing the pause, Nana let her stance soften. She lifted the axe and rested the haft on her shoulder like a black mountain carried with ease.

People with high cultivation always played that same tune. Only when she put down something that made their hearts throb did they choose to bow.

The Serpent had eyes. It saw the axe was no common thing. But beyond the external aid, Nana’s own strength was no straw dummy. That naked killing will earlier made it wonder if she wasn’t an ancient powerhouse reborn in a mortal shell.

But.

“No need to talk it through. You walk the body-refining path. If you were on the qi path, I might’ve asked your help.”

Body-refining devoured time like a glacier grinding stone. The rebirth seed of the Azure Crow Fairy was exposed. The Immortal Realm would come sooner or later. The Serpent couldn’t wait for Nana to grow in slow seasons.

“What’s there you can’t wait for?”

Nana understood the subtext, and her smile curved like a crescent blade. “You’re dragging that idiot Blue Magpie across the world, ducking Immortal hunters. So why not come with me? When I ascend and attain Truehood, I’ll go to the Immortal Realm myself and twist off their heads.”

...

Silence pooled like ink. Seven heads watched Nana, eyes fixed like stars over a cold lake. Even it couldn’t guess what storm-clouds lived in this woman’s skull.

“Ascend and attain Truehood—that’s the dream of countless mortals,” it said, voice low as thunder beyond mountains. “It doesn’t happen just because you say it.”

“How do you know if you don’t try?” Her smile stayed unreadable, like mist over a ravine. “Sure, body-refining is hard. But it’s not my first time. I’ve got experience.”

Experience? The words pricked like thorns. A strange scent rose in the Serpent’s heart. This mortal girl carried a faint wickedness, a temperament askew, like a blade smiling. Maybe she really was some ancient power reborn.

“Even if you can’t wait for me,” Nana pressed, voice steady as a river current, “with those wounds, when Immortal Realm hounds close in, you and Blue Magpie won’t get far.” Her gaze tapped the Serpent like a hammer on steel. “In reason and sentiment, you can’t slip away now. Follow me first. Heal. Then go.”

...

Her words set its thoughts moving like leaves in wind. Old injuries from trespassing the Immortal Realm gnawed like buried thorns. Add the recent siege—without a stretch of quiet time, recovery was impossible.

“Fine. I’ll follow you for now.” When it spoke, its eyes settled on Blue Magpie like a guardian watching a candle.

Nana said nothing, but the slight lift at her lips shone like a hidden ember. Good mood, undeniable.

“Since it’s settled, we leave.” The Veil’s duration thinned like melting ice. If they stayed, even running would be too late.

She hadn’t forgotten the hostile Immortal cultivators waiting beyond, eyes like knives in the dark.

“Leave? How?” The Serpent watched Nana pull several Amber Talismans from her sleeve and slap them on it and the others. One head tilted, puzzled like a bird hearing snow. “You have other methods?”

“Of course. Otherwise, how would I dare, with just Foundation Establishment, to find you?” Nana finished pressing the amber slips. Then she called the nearly-forgotten System, voice brisk as a snapped twig. “Alright, showtime. You’re a high-tier System now. You’ve got fixed-point teleport, right?”

“...” The System’s silence felt like a sigh.

“Yeah, I’ve got it,” it muttered, grumbling like a creaky door. “But each plane only once. You have a teleport talisman—why not use your own?”

“If I can freeload, why wouldn’t I?” Nana’s answer came sunny as a stolen peach.

“...” The System paused. “Hard to argue.” It grumbled under its breath like a storm cloud with nowhere to go.

“Don’t look so put-upon. When this plane’s over, I’ll give you a five-star review.”

“Cut it out,” the System huffed. “We don’t even have after-sales ratings.”

It knelt and scratched a crooked hexagram into the ground, lines wobbly like a drunk spider. With a grunt, it pushed itself up and stood in the array, then held out a hand toward Nana. “Give me your hand.”

This System’s about to take you flying.