“Tsk. That came fast.” The plot god swung the scythe without hesitation, and Nana Toki’s temper kicked like a table begging to be flipped.

“Looks like the Protagonist Lord’s cheat won’t snap anytime soon. We bail.” Her heart beat hard like a drum under storm clouds; behind her, the Heavenswallow Serpent’s aura frayed like wind-torn silk. Lucky for them, the white-robed cultivators stepping from the white light pillar didn’t glance their way, a rain of knives passing just a hair from their sleeves.

Revenge can simmer like winter wine; ten years isn’t late. But surviving the Immortal Realm’s hunt wouldn’t be easy. To keep the street-lamps of Netherworld City from tilting toward them, Nana slipped with the System and the others into a shadowed corner like moss under eaves, then burned through talismans one after another, vanishing like sparks swallowed by night.

They had fled, yet the city’s cold bones still wrapped them. Netherworld City stands above the Ming River like a black lotus over deep water; her talismans lacked distance, and their edge couldn’t bite across realms.

“Take these talismans. Don’t peel them off unless the fire’s at your throat.” Nana flicked from her sleeve a breath-hiding talisman for Blue Magpie and another for the Heavenswallow Serpent, each like a leaf masking scent in the rain. “We eat this loss. If Immortal Realm people squat in Netherworld City and won’t leave, our days will curdle like sour milk.”

Regret pricked like a thorn under a nail; Nana shouldn’t have left the Serpent’s scale in the city’s central auction. With that scale shining like a beacon, finding her trail would be a matter of sand slipping hour by hour.

And whether she could break through to Nascent Soul by then was still mist on a river.

“Gods damn it, Trollop—that idiot never lets me breathe.” Her teeth ground like millstones; next time, she’d use all thirty-two homebrew tortures she’d carved like runes on bone.

Her plan had been clean as frost: temper herself in the mortal world to the Void Refining stage, then enter the Immortal Realm and unlock the hidden quest. Now, thanks to Trollop’s loose bolt, the Immortal Realm quest had kicked open like a trapdoor—irreversible, direct. For a Golden Core Stage Nana, it was hell with iron walls.

“If only I had a cheat that sped cultivation.” A memory rose like steam—she missed that body-tempering pool in the Wildbeast Wasteland.

She practiced body-refining, slow as stone weathering under rain, while qi cultivators flew like swallows. With Immortal Realm hunters netting the alleys of Netherworld City, her training hours thinned like candle wicks.

The Heavenswallow Serpent felt it too; as she took the yellow talisman, her expression clouded like dusk. If the pace stayed this sluggish, the day they faced Immortal Realm cultivators, Nana wouldn’t be a blade—she’d be a weight on the boat.

“What are you brooding over?” Nana waved a hand before the serpent’s face, a half-smile poised like a knife balanced on a finger. The Serpent couldn’t fathom that calm—confidence coiled like a spring even when the road ahead looked like a cliff.

Maybe she could conjure a miracle from thin air like a crane from fog.

“Nothing.” The Heavenswallow Serpent’s mask smoothed like still water. “You asked about the War of the Three Realms. I’ll tell you now why the three realms tore open.”

The turn surprised Nana; she’d thought she’d need to stage a few life-for-Blue-Magpie heroics, stack favor like stones, then earn the truth. Being handed the hidden pre-quest felt unreal, like a door opening with no knock.

Still… emmm. If it sped the pre-quest and popped the hidden one, Nana was happy as a cat under sun.

It happened five thousand years ago, in mortal dust further back than old maps. Back then, the Azure Crow Fairy wasn’t called a fairy—call her Azure Crow. She wasn’t born of the Immortal Realm; she was mixed blood of Immortal and Demon, two rivers meeting in one body, raised for unknown reasons among mortal roofs.

The Serpent first met Azure Crow the day she ascended to the Immortal Realm. It was the first time a mortal ascendant drew such favor from the Emperor Immortal—Four Immortal Beasts cleaved the road like thunder, divine steeds pulled a palanquin like stars towing a moon. It was pomp reserved for the emperor himself, used to welcome Azure Crow’s rise.

Back then, the Serpent wasn’t yet the terror whose name made banners tremble. Like other beasts of the Immortal Realm, she endured a long life of immortal breath in a mortal husk, living like river stone under sky.

She became of the Heavenswallow Serpent lineage thanks to Azure Crow’s guidance, a lantern lit in a cave.

In the Immortal Realm, common beasts have spirit sense but no cultivation; unless they learn to take human form, they remain shadows. Once they manage it, they open a dantian like a well in rock, condense a Golden Core like amber, transform into a Nascent Soul like a chrysalis, and slice straight through to the Great Vehicle Stage, then ascend like a crane into clouds.

So did the Serpent.

But just as she broke into Great Vehicle, war blew in like black sand. The Human Emperor of the mortal world and the Demon King of the demon world refused to let the woman the Immortal Realm called Azure Crow Fairy stay aloft among immortals.

Azure Crow was a prodigy, no half-measure—a blade forged by lightning. Before she ever touched the Immortal Realm, she climbed from qi training to ascension in ten years, step by step like stars lamping a sky path; she was barely twenty springs.

It sounds like a tale told by wine, but the Serpent believed it in her bones—if Azure Crow wished to train, she could surpass anyone in the Three Realms faster than fire eats dry grass.

That “anyone” included Emperor Immortal, Human Emperor, and Demon King alike.

Plainly, a woman like that, no matter where she nested, cast a shadow on the other two realms like a mountain on a valley.

“So to claim a woman who might become sovereign of the three, the Immortal, Demon, and Mortal realms started a war?” Nana’s voice fell like a pebble into still water.

“Exactly.” The Heavenswallow Serpent watched Blue Magpie playing with the System, eyes warm like embers. “But they never understood—my lady never sought to sweep the nine heavens or press gods underfoot. From first to last, she wanted a quiet life, a small fire behind a simple door.”

“How did the Azure Crow Fairy end up as a soul embryo?” Nana asked, the question a thin blade.

“She took her own life.” Each word landed like a bell strike. “No matter who won, the War of the Three Realms would shatter the ancient balance. To hold the pattern together, my lady chose self-destruction.”

“But schemers in the Immortal Realm wouldn’t accept that. Year by year, with treasures rare as phoenix feathers, they cultivated the sliver of soul she left into a reincarnation embryo, a seed cradled like glass. They wanted to preserve her rebirth and craft a puppet sovereign to dominate the five elements and the three realms.”

“So then you, unwilling to see her turned into a doll of strings, broke into the Immortal Realm, stole the reincarnation embryo, and sent it down to mortals?” Nana arched a brow; a rare trace of regret touched her face like cloud shadow.

This wasn’t a dog-blood triangle dressed in cultivation robes. Bad review.

System: “…” Uh, host, why are you hung up on toxic triangle romance?

Mind your own courtyard.

[Ding! Hidden Quest Triggered: War, At Last]

[Quest: Maintain balance among the Three Realms. Survive with Blue Magpie until this quest ends.]

The emotionless chime rang in Nana’s head like iron on stone; for a breath she froze like a deer under torchlight.

What kind of description was that?

Main quest had her protect Blue Magpie until the plane ended—fine. Now the hidden quest demanded she keep the Three Realms in balance and still survive with Blue Magpie till the end? That’s the kind of flag that calls lightning; set it wrong and people die.

She knew this pattern too well. If it doesn’t appear, it never appears. If it appears, it’s a big show with drums and knives.

“Looks like this hidden quest will be rough.” At some point, the System had drifted from Blue Magpie’s play like a leaf on a breeze and sidled up.

The sudden pop startled Nana; then a thought sparked. She grabbed the System by the scruff like a cat and asked “kindly,” voice sweet as poison. “Good. You know it’s rough.”

Those Immortal Realm clowns were Great Vehicle Stage monsters; she was a small Golden Core, easy to pinch like an ant.

“Personal suggestion—give me a cheat. Best kind, make me unstoppable till this plane bows out.”

Nana dreamed wild as lantern festivals.

System: “…” There’s no such cheat!

“Well… given Trollop’s interference, your plane difficulty did climb like a cliff. I’ve reported it to the System’s master. Until we get a reply, please do your best to stay alive.”

Nana: “…”

You’re asking me to hold back a flood with a paper fan.