Malcolm dropped to one knee. Icy sweat streamed down his brow. He had kept the Door for years, yet he had never truly met the master behind it—until now.
It was only a concept, a symbol of the Laws of Reincarnation... Or so I thought.
Morven
nearly sixty millennia old and undefeated by even High Immortal Realm Level Four cultivators-stood rigid. Confronted by those eyes, even defiance refused to form.
This was oppression at the level of existence itself. No thought of resistance could survive beneath it.
Again, the voiceless voice rolled through every heart. "Why have you gathered here? State your desires."
The voice of the Lord of Reincarnation rolled across the sky like distant thunder, solemn and unhurried. Those ash-white eyes-vortices that seemed to drink in all light—drifted over the sea of cultivators below, counting every trembling soul one by
one.
For a heartbeat, the Wailing Soul ins fell into a silence soplete it felt funereal. Then, somewhere in that ocean of fear, one desperate throat found its courage and split the hush.
"Immortality! We want immortality!"
"Resurrection! Bring my beloved back from the grave!"
"A breakthrough! I want to break through the bottleneck!"
The cries multiplied until they rose in crashing waves. Every defector dropped to both knees, foreheads pounding the soil as they worshipped the burning silhouette hanging in the heavens.
The Lord of Reincarnation remained in silence, his me-rimmed form perfectly still.
Within those swirling eyes flickered, for the briefest instant, something that looked suspiciously like amusement.
"Your wishes are simple," he said, the words cold as winter steel. "But they demand a price."
Before the final syble faded, he lifted a single arm forged from ghostly me and made the faintest downward sweep.
There was no earth-shaking roar, no cataclysmic burst of force-only a soft
resonance.
Buzz!
Reality itself shuddered as thews governing the Wailing Soul ins rewrote themselves in an instant.
Gray-white currents poured from the Door of Reincarnation like billions of hair-thin tentacles, darting forward to stab with cruel precision into the forehead of every kneeling follower.
"Ah!"
Agonized screams erupted, climbing higher until even the clouds seemed to tremble from the sound.
Each person felt a cial force invade the very seat of the divine soul, tearing through meridians, burning flesh, remolding foundations. The pain was akin to ten thousand ants gnawing at the heart, and it didn''t take long before weaker cultivators dropped into merciful unconsciousness.
Just as torment crested, the heavens detonated with three thunderous booms.
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
Before long, bursts of breakthrough aura speared skyward like pirs of pale fire, one after another.
"I-I''ve done it! I''ve attained Heavenly Immortal Realm Level Eight! Three millennia of shackles, shattered!" a white-haired elder howled, tears streaming down his face.
"So have I! I''ve gone from Top Level Heavenly Immortal Realm Level Five to Level Seven!"
"My hidden wounds... Every injury I got from three hundred years ago is gone! I''ve recovered fully!"
"Lifespan! I''ve gained at least five hundred more years to live!"
Shouts of wonder, sobs of relief, and wildughter braided together, ringing across the ins in an unbroken chorus.
Those who had reeked of decay only moments earlier now stood reborn-withered skin plumped, gray locks turned glossy ck, the stoop of age reced by the vigor of youth.
Yet even more astounding were the old elites who had lingered for ages at Top Level Heavenly Immortal Realm Level Nine, fiends whose every breath once made lesser cultivators tremble. What happened next shattered every concept sacred.
held
A thunderp ripped across the void. In its wake rolled a pulse so savage and vast that space itself seemed to buckle.
That shockwave burst from deep within Morven''s chest. For nearly ten millennia, he had wed at the iron wall of his own bottleneck, trapped a heartbeat short of High Immortal Realm Level Four.
Now-under a single, unseen stimulus—the barrier splintered like ss. He did not merely step across the threshold. He vaulted straight into High Immortal Realm Level Four middle phase, power roaring through veins that glowed the color of fresh magma.
Morven stared down at his hands.
ck pupils widened with incredulity as he tested out his demonic
techniques. Every facet of his
arcane cirction, the
being realm ar
very purity of his demonic aura, even
his grasp of thews of nature-had
leapt an entire order.
"H-How is this possible?" he whispered, voice quivering, terror and awe braided so
tightly they were indistinguishable.
Around him, the other Top Level
Heavenly Immortal Realm Level Nine cultivators-elites once hailed as untouchable elders-did not breakthrough the final wall, yet each ascended half a step. They now hovered a single breath from the
High Immortal Realm, senses
ringing with unbelieving joy.
It had taken only one casual sweep of an unseen hand for tens of thousands of
cultivators to level up together.
In that instant, every doubt, hesitation, and hidden scheme dissolved like mist struck
by the burning sun.
A dull crack echoed as knees mmed the frozen floor.
Morven dropped first, forehead thudding against the icy stone. When he spoke, fervor zed hotter than the fava now coursing through his meridians. "Long live the Reincarnation! I-Morven
lovord of
Bloodshade of the Ninefold Nether Pce sweareternal fealty.
Command me through me or
abyss. I shall face death a thousand
times without regret!"
The sound spread like falling dominoes. Tens of thousands copsed in unison, their
prostrations swelling into a tidal roar that seemed ready to upend the heavens.
"We pledge eternal allegiance to the Lord of Reincarnation!"
"We will brave any danger, face a thousand deaths without hesitation!"
"Long live the Lord of Reincarnation!"
Malcolm also knelt, but the ze in hispanions'' eyes never touched his own. There, only cold dread flickered.
This power had shattered every paradigm he understood. With a flick of the wrist, it
had rewritten the cultivation of tens of thousands—a feat even legends of the Golden Immortal Realm might fail to match.
If a gesture held such force, what magnitude of reality hid behind the Lord of Reincarnation?
A deeper chill crawled across his spine. Within that effortless wave, Malcolm had sensed a familiar cadence—the aura of the three ashen humanoids who guarded the Reincarnation Pool-but magnified beyondprehension.
Could a presence more terrible than those wardens stand behind them?
High above the ruined hall, the Lord of Reincarnation hovered like a living eclipse. Those eyes—twin gray-white vortices-drifted across the ocean of kneeling souls before, atst, pinning Malcolm to the stone.
In that single nce, thetter''s spirit iced over. Every buried secret, each half- formed scheme, every yesterday he hoped to forget unfolded-naked, helpless— inside the entity''s indifferent stare.
Before he could react, the voice of the Lord of Reincarnation echoed deep within his soul. "You have done well. Continue to harvest divine souls. When the moment is ripe, I will bestow upon you true immortality."
With those words, the zing outline of the entity dissolved, ember by ember, into the weary sky.
The swirling eyes lingered on the world onest heartbeat, then shuttered, and the Door of Reincarnation fell silent. The blue mes inside the skull-crowned arch sank back to a sullen whisper, yet Malevolent Path Hall would never again be the same.
Tens of thousands of cultivators remained prostrate, unable or unwilling to rise. New power coursed beneath their skin; age spots vanished, flesh tightened, and tears gleamed on faces suddenly made young.