“Didn’t expect that serpent demon to rebound this fast.” Chen Youxian’s gaze went cold, like frost creeping along a knife. “Give her more time, and even our Great Vehicle Stage elders won’t pin her down.” His eyes slid, like a hawk changing thermals, toward Nana Toki standing off from the Heavenswallow Serpent. “Go. Clean up those people over there. Dead or alive, I don’t care. The Azure Crow Fairy’s Spirit Energy flared here again. One of those mortals might be her reincarnation seed.”

“Understood!” Two white-robed cultivators peeled off like shards of moonlight and knifed toward Nana’s position.

“Don’t even think about it!” Sister Swallow’s voice cracked like thunder over black water. Purple demon miasma surged from her, a tide under a storm. Her true form unfurled—ten-thousand-foot coils like mountain ranges, nine serpent heads roaring over Netherworld City like thunderheads splitting.

“Damn it, she revealed her true form!” Chen Youxian and the white-robed crowd jolted, like birds blasted from a tree. “Form up! Stop her! The rest, seize the Azure Crow Fairy’s reincarnation seed and return to the Immortal Realm!”

Bang! A white figure cartwheeled back past Chen Youxian, like a kite cut from its string. In the next breath, another white figure tumbled through the air, blood like red rain trailing.

“Wang Sheng? Cheng Zhi?” Chen Youxian’s pupils pinched to pins of ice. He’d sent them to grab mortals moments ago. How did they get swatted like flies? Could one of those mortals match two Great Vehicle Stage elites from the Immortal Realm?

A shadow knifed across his vision, like a raven falling toward a battlefield. A heroic woman came straight at his face, left hand hefting a black greataxe like a night crescent, right hand clutching a little girl’s collar like a cat carrying a kitten. “Golden Core?” He felt a flash of contempt, like sparks on wet wood. “Here to die?”

He didn’t think. He shoved Spirit Energy through his meridians, a flood through a gorge. Immortal might rolled off him like a collapsing mountain, flattening nearby ridgelines beyond Netherworld City like paper in a press.

“Die for me!” Nana Toki’s steps kicked up spirals of wind, like dust devils in a desert. Her Golden Core aura looked like an egg hurled at a boulder in that tidal immortal qi. But the instant that crushing spirit pressure brushed her skin, it vanished, like mist meeting noon sun—gone as if it had never been.

“What?!” He had no time to harden defenses, panic rising like ice water up his spine. The axe flashed, a black arc like a new moon, and blood scattered in the air like falling poppies.

“Tch. As expected of a Great Vehicle Stage powerhouse.” Nana’s eyes cooled, like rain on hot stone. She stared at the gash at Chen Youxian’s waist as he blasted backward like a falling star. “Even with all my toys and a blindside, the level gap is a wall.” She sighed, a small wind through bamboo. “Great Vehicle folks are slippery.”

Her axe was a stubborn thing, a reaper that ignored shields and bit straight into flesh. He survived by pure cultivation and reflex, dodging a waist-severing cut by a hair, like a fish slipping a net.

The System dangled from her grip in silence, like a lantern with its wick snuffed. If he hadn’t dodged, you’d have butchered a Great Vehicle too, it sulked like thunder without sound.

Across the battlefield, shock froze the white-robed cultivators like frost on reeds. In that heartbeat’s gap, Sister Swallow, besieged from all sides, threw her giant body forward like a tidal whale breaking harpoons. She burst their encirclement and thundered toward Blue Magpie, whom Nana had left standing far off like a lone willow.

“Stop her! That woman is the Azure Crow Fairy’s reincarnation seed!” Panic ripped through the white robes like wind through sails. They gathered immortal qi to chase, light streaking off like meteors.

But behind the Heavenswallow Serpent, a black-robed woman appeared, cold as a winter raven—left hand with the black axe, right hand still gripping the little girl’s collar—blocking the path like a gate of night. “Want to pass? Try.” Her aura read as Golden Core, a candle in a storm. Yet her stance was a mountain pass, one person holding back an army like a dam before a flood. The Great Vehicle Stage cultivators stalled, feet heavy as stones.

“Die!” One white robe, unconvinced, sent his solemn immortal might crashing down like a landslide. Just like with Chen Youxian, the pressure unraveled on touching Nana, vanishing like foam on a shore.

This woman was wrong, like a mirror that swallowed reflections.

“What are you doing?!” Chen Youxian’s face was seething wind over ice. “Even if she’s got weird treasures, she’s still just Golden Core! If you can’t handle her, chase the serpent!” His roar cracked like a whip. “Do you really think a mere Golden Core can kill a Great Vehicle?!”

The words hit like cold water. The white-robed cultivators blinked awake, releasing Great Vehicle Stage might like a forest of spears. They turned to light and looped around Nana in clean arcs, racing toward the Heavenswallow Serpent and Blue Magpie like a storm front rolling in.

“Damn!” Nana’s power was only Golden Core; her speed was a river, theirs a lightning bolt. Frustration boiled up like oil. She cut Chen Youxian a glare sharp as sleet, then whipped her Spirit Energy into a spiral underfoot like a cyclone. With the System in one hand and the black axe in the other, she lunged for him, a knife of shadow after a retreating wolf. She’d almost stalled those morons—and then a wild card crashed the board.

“Die for me!”

Chen Youxian knew her stacked strange treasures like hidden blades under silk. He refused a head-on clash. He tangled for a few breaths, feints like reeds in water. Then his immortal might surged like a breaker, he shook her off like rain from a cloak, and he sprinted after the serpent in a streak of pale light.

He even flicked her a taunting look as he fled, like a fox glancing back from the brush.

Nana Toki stood there for a beat, anger fizzing like soda in a hot bottle. “...Damn. He actually taunted me?”

In any cliché story, these clowns should get beaten back by a mere Golden Core rookie, swallow the shame, and brain-dive a hundred points to brawl me to the death, like moths to a torch. Why are they all smart here, like wolves that won’t take bait?

“Uh... maybe that’s the Protagonist Lord’s exclusive perk?” The System’s voice popped like a bubble.

Nana blinked, then grimaced, like a cat smelling vinegar. “You know... that actually tracks.”

Her mood cracked, a clay cup hit by a pebble. “Whatever. I’ll go find those idiots.” A small cannon-fodder like her didn’t deserve main-character treatment; even thinking it felt like smoke in winter lungs. Obviously, this was her trash System’s fault.

“...” the System sulked like a cloud with no rain. How was this my mess? And if you got main-character plane perks, you’d break the sky, it mumbled like distant thunder.

She found Sister Swallow and Blue Magpie on a broad plain outside Netherworld City, the earth split like a spiderweb, fissures clawing in every direction. The air still throbbed with residual spirit pressure, like drums fading after a war dance. Sister Swallow stood behind Blue Magpie, face painted with shock, a rose suddenly rimed with frost. Nana had never seen her like that. Her heart pricked, like a thorn under silk. Did her silly sister change again?

White-robed cultivators lay strewn around like dead dogs after a storm, groaning through clenched teeth. Nana’s eye caught a familiar figure—Chen Youxian down on the ground, clutching a bleeding severed arm, blood pooling like a red crescent. He stared at Blue Magpie with a face pale as paper.

“...Holy crap.” Nana’s scalp tingled like snow on the neck. Did her silly sister just explode and delete the field?

She stepped to Sister Swallow’s side to ask, but the straight-backed Blue Magpie, aura raging a moment ago like a sea squall, suddenly lost all strength and toppled backward like a felled willow.

“Miss!” The Heavenswallow Serpent jolted, hands rising like a wave to catch. Nana moved first, arms steady as a beam, and took Blue Magpie’s weight.

“Immaculate Body Art?” The rhythm of that Spirit Energy cycle felt familiar, like a forgotten song heard across fog. Nana looked at Blue Magpie’s unconscious face, blank as a new page. Her mind snagged. How did this ding-dong master the Immaculate Body Art? That technique needed time like mountains need snow to cap them.

It had been only a few years, a handful of leaves in a stream. How did it finish?

Wait. This wasn’t the Immaculate Body Art’s exact circuit. Nana had studied that loop like a map before teaching it. Blue Magpie’s circuit was almost the same, like a twin with a scar—yet tiny nodes differed, sparks where there should be calm. Worse, it felt more tyrannical, like iron under silk, stronger than a so-called Great Vehicle completion of the Immaculate Body Art. What was this Spirit Energy circuit?

“System, get over here and take a look.” Nana yanked her System closer like a doctor dragging a lantern to a wound.

“Uh... this Spirit Energy circuit inside Blue Magpie is a first for me too.” The System rifled its depths like wind flipping a library. “I scanned my creator’s plane database. Nothing matches this pattern. It might be a new plane-derivative code, or a physique that only lives in this plane’s legends, which is why my database’s blank.”

“...” Nana’s silence spread like ink in water. So what the hell is it?

She turned to Sister Swallow, eyes steady as stars. “Do you know what happened here?”