Chapter 83: Her Legacy
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The heavens above rumbled, trembling as rainbow-colored lightning constantly surged, zapping through its endless white clouds, which sometimes changed in color. An overwhelming and all-encompassing presence, a being that dominated it all and that represented the very laws of everything, roared with anger.
He had been in such a state for several years now, lamenting the departure of the only thing he had grown interested in these last eleven thousand years. A woman who ended up landing here from another dimension, a faraway world, weak and powerless, known as Earth,.
Surprising him time and time again, her survival instincts surpassed all his expectations, as did her endless resolve and her incredible mental strength, coupled with the morality and righteousness she carried from a weak and pathetic world to this one.
A world dominated by men and their power, where women were nothing but servants and slaves due to ancient traditions forced into them by their first-ever ancestors.
Yet she broke through all conventions, became truly free, and defeated even the oldest man who created all people in this world—she, the human woman born in another world, Katherine.
The people of the Central Continent glanced into the skies, concerned. Almost 83 years have passed since the Heavenly Martial Empress of Light, Bing Xue, their supreme leader, left for the stars to never return.
The governor of the Heavenly Court left everything to her precious disciples, the strongest women and men she raised by herself, teaching them everything she could and leaving the world in their hands.
Fen Chun, one of Bing Xue’s closest disciples, a beautiful woman with long blonde hair and sapphire-colored eyes, looked into the skies. As a Rank 19 Primordial Immortal, she was the closest to becoming a new Venerable, but she had yet to fully comprehend her Dao to reach such a height.
Without her beloved master, the cold yet always attentive Bing Xue, she felt lost. 83 years for an immortal were but the blink of an eye, but to her, they felt like very painful years.
“Master… When will you return?”
She looked at the rumbling, furious skies, noticing how annoyed the Heavenly Will was; it had been the same for the last few years. He had not even attacked anybody either; he simply couldn’t. The Heavenly Will, although it possessed an ego, was impartial to all things.
Only when they would attempt to breach the walls of the world and tear through space to escape is when he would truly act, because it was against the laws of the world’s pillars to do such a thing.
However, the Heavenly Will was cunning and vicious; it could play in different ways, twisting the world and nature itself to go against those it targeted.
But none of such things have happened yet.
Fen Chun still remembered his master like yesterday: her bright rainbow eyes, her long silvery-white hair, and her radiant aura of supremacy.
And her cold eyes, always sorrowful.
Even after 83 years, she can still recall their last interaction before she flew into the heavens to never return.
“Master, please don’t leave us! We need you. Without you, how will we be able to manage the Heavenly Court? How will we be able to have a leader to guide us?”
Fen Chun prostrated herself in front of Bing Xue, asking her to stay with her, with the big family they had made together, with all her disciples, and with the many immortals that had sworn their eternal loyalty.
Yet Bing Xue only looked with sorrowful, yet cold, and different eyes, detached from everything. She helped her stand back up and then held her disciple’s hands.
“Fen Chun, you know, everyone here knows. I am not from this world. My world is named Earth, and I am a human named Katherine. It has been more than eleven thousand years since then." Bing Xue sighed. “Yet the only thing I always think about nowadays is returning to see my family. My mother and my sister... more than anything in the world. I am selfish and self-centered. I am not fit to lead you or guide you. This is not my world; I don’t belong here. This is your world; you were born here; it is yours to lead, yours to guide, and yours to grow.”
“B-But master…” Even after living for one thousand years, Fen Chun was crying like a little girl in front of Bing Xue. “You’re the one that helped me... You’re the one that gave me a new life after living as a beggar my entire life… I thought… we would be a family.”
“I am sorry, but I cannot see any of you as my family,” Bing Xue said coldly. “And I must return, no matter what. You have yourselves to rely on. I’ve taught you enough; I’ve left everything you need to lead this world to prosperity. My disciples, the future is in your hands, not mine.”
Her disciples, human men and women, stone men, mermaids, intelligent martial beasts, and more, all watched as Bing Xue flew into the skies with only her sword in her hands.
And he did what no other Venerable has ever dared to do.
She clashed against heaven itself.
They watched in silence; her battle lasted for a whole year. Explosions of divine and primordial Ki constantly clash against one another.
The heavens slowly became more and more conscious as they battled her, to the point everyone could hear and see their battle.
The heavens revealed themselves to be an intelligent entity, a being that could even take upon forms and shapes.
Yet Bing Xue was unmoving, unfazed; she battled without end, trying to ascend into her Immemorial Primordial Void Realm.
But she failed.
However, that never stopped her either; even if she failed, so what?
She kept fighting and ascending further; using her sword, she cut through space and escaped, even as the heavenly will raged and tried to tear her to shreds.
Bing Xue was strong enough to resist the wounds for a whole year before finally escaping.
It was a spectacle nobody would ever forget.
But even now, they were still sorrowful, lamenting her departure into another world, perhaps to never see her again.
Their master was someone incredible, but her personality... Although she often showed great care, warmth, and love, she would always force herself to be distant.
It was as if she didn’t want to become close to them, even after spending so many years together.
The door of Fen Chen’s room opened as a tall man with short silver hair and azure-colored eyes entered, wearing regal silver and golden clothes.
“Fen Chen, for how long are you planning to cry, my sister?” he sighed. “Enough is enough, please; you must behave as the new leader of our sect. If the other disciples, or even the leaders of the allied sects, see you in such a state, what will they think of the master's legacy?”
“Big brother Yun...” sighed Fen Chen, looking at her adoptive brother. “I apologize, I have... I still lament her departure. I still miss her. She was… like a mother to me.”
“She was for all of us.” Yun nodded. “But that doesn’t mean we have to weep every day because she’s gone. There are many things we must do. Maintaining the peaceful world she left behind is not easy. If we want to maintain and keep this harmony, we must show our resolve and strength.”
“I understand,” said Fen, quickly standing back up. “Is the meeting now?” She cleansed her tears with a handkerchief.
“Yes, the Elders of the Sect Alliance have arrived just now.” Yun nodded. “Come on, we can’t start without you, Radiant Star Princess.”
“Ah, that’s the Title master gave to me…” she sighed as Photon Essence surged from her hands, forming countless small stars.
It was a title given to her by Bing Xue, who had taught her how to cultivate Photon Essence due to her high affinity with the stars and light elements. After learning such power, she managed to obtain her own version of it, Radiant Star Essence.
It was one of the powers that made her so strong and capable of overpowering any other primordial being that ever dared to stand up against her. However, Fen Chen had the weakness of being a girl with a delicate and gentle heart.
Because of this, she needed the support of her siblings to keep on living after Bing Xue’s departure.
Walking across the Heavenly Court’s golden corridors, she arrived at a huge hall where many Elders sat down over their own floating thrones.
Every one of them was a Primordial Immortal who led the strongest Immortal Sects in the world. Below Bing Xue’s strength, they created a powerful Alliance, and even now, the Oath they took to maintain this alliance forever remains, as Bing Xue has not died yet, even if she’s far away.
“The spoiled princess is finally here…”
“It took her long enough.”
“Her master might be gone, but that shouldn’t give her justification for this insolence.”
The Elders were merciless. Not many of them ever appreciated Bing Xue, simply feared her power. But now that she was gone, they were slowly getting cockier, even against her powerful disciples, whom she left to rule the world in her stead.
“Silence, you dare talk insolently against the leader of the Supreme Court?" Yun asked. “Do you have a death wish?”
“There goes her dog…”
“…”
“I apologize.”
The elders clicked their tongues and then remained in silence, abusing the fact that Fen Chen was too soft-hearted to retaliate against their remarks.
However, that was about to change now.
“You… I can’t believe you act like this after everything Master did for all of us,” she sighed. “Unifying the five regions, stopping poverty, slaying all evil, and creating a new and prosperous world. Yet you think that now that she’s gone, her legacy and everything she left behind can once again be violated and destroyed? I could just kill all of you right now, but I know Master wouldn’t approve of that. She never appreciated needless violence, but I suppose you insolent old men would love that, right? You have learned not a single thing from her... Parasites.”
“Y-You dare…?!”
“How could you say this to us?!”
“We are the Elders of the Nine Primordial Sects!”
“Disciple of the Heavenly Martial Empress or not, you must watch your tongue, you filthy little woman!”
“There they go again, looking down on me because I am a woman,” sighed Fen Chen. “My master has worked so hard, but as long as old men like you remain alive, the world cannot heal... Maybe I should kill all of you now? Yun, what do you think?”
Her aura of gentleness and delicacy completely disappeared, and murderous intent akin to that of a monstrous beast surged from her body.
The other disciples quickly sighed, noticing she had “switched” again.
“Fen Chen, calm down; there is no need to harm them; they’re bound by the master's oath; they can only talk, nothing else,” said Yun. “Calm down; your Murderous Intent is not needed.”
“But…” muttered Fen Chen, her Aura of bloodlust slowly disappearing. “Is that right? I suppose… I still have a lot to learn.”
“Yes, luckily for you, I am here with you.” Yun sighed.
Although she had not hurt them at all, the elders were left flabbergasted. Her Intent alone suppressed their entire Cultivation Levels and weakened them tremendously.
They were unable to even process what had happened before the “switch”!
But this was one of Fen Chen’s abilities.
{Mirroring Yin and Yang Physique}
It created two versions of herself, one gentle and nice, and another murderous and almost evil. It was a power she was born with, and one she had taken a very long time to harness.
Only Bing Xue was ever able to tame her powers and allow her to control them completely.
“Now, let’s begin our meeting. I suppose all of you came here for the issue at hand, the Heavens,” Fen Chen said. “The non-stop rains, storms, and snowstorms have caused large damage to the Five Regions. And this hasn’t stopped for 83 years since Master left.”
.
.
.
Above the heavens of Murim, the Heavenly Will kept roaring in anger, frustration, and even sorrow.
“My Bing Xue! Where are you?! Where did you go?!”
His powerful Primordial Heavenly Eyes pierced through the Cloud of Chaos into the Outer Cosmos.
He kept looking and looking, without an end in sight.
There were only endless stars and nothing else.
“Is she truly gone? What can I do to find her? How can I find her?!”
His obsession only grew as he started to spread his eyes outside of Murim, something the Heavenly Will had never tried.
However, because of how obsessed they were with her, they had to do it, even if it meant forcing their own existence to stretch and suffer pain.
“Hm?”
The Heavenly Will, however, saw something else through his countless eyes.
Something is slowly approaching Murim.
A giant floating spire made of black stone travels across the stars themselves.
It looked like a gigantic… tower.
“A moving relic from an otherworldly realm? Do you truly believe that, below my supreme watch, you can dare enter my world?!”
The Heavenly Will’s giant hands stretched out of his own world through the hole Bing Xue left behind, enormous, they stopped the tower from even getting closer!
CRASH!
The tower started to gain countless cracks as his supreme hands pressed against them, even as his own essence was burning due to the Chaos and the Cosmos disrupting him.
Yet, a sudden tremor produced by the tower sent his hands back to him.
RUMBLE!
“What?”
From within the cracks, a black-colored ooze started leaking, slowly forming into a large, strange, and amorphous entity made of black tentacles and covered with red eyes.
It slowly flew towards Murim, entering through the cracks. The Heavenly Will allowed the entity to enter to better study this alien being.
“Greetings, Supreme Entity of Universe-111. I am a representative of the Supreme Entity of Universe-112. Due to the Alliance between Supreme Entities, it has been stated that you have accomplished all the qualifications necessary to join the Alliance. However, the master does not approve of you breaking the tower he-”
CRUNCH!
Before the little eldritch entity could continue speaking, the heavens transformed into a gigantic jaw and devoured it.
His entire body was crushed and digested as the Heavenly Will swallowed this alien entity to absorb its power.
Its strange soul was assimilated as memories, and countless pieces of information about the Outer Cosmos entered his gigantic mind.
He learned countless things he never knew: the existence of Supremes, the power of the Cosmos, the Towers, the Worlds, Mana, Magic, Skills, and the System!
However, the thing he was most fascinated by was something else.
A small bit of information he found about a certain woman from a world known as Earth that has wreaked havoc within a certain tower.
Universe-1702.
“I’ve finally found you... You’re there! Bing Xue…!”
His countless eyes, full of obsession, spiraled across the entirety of Murim, forming endless storms of all colors.
“If she’s there and alive, then there’s always a chance of rekindling!”
His giant hands erupted from Murim’s boundaries once more, slowly approaching the tower.
“And you’re going to get me there... You want it or not.”
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