Goodbye, I Am Now a True Immortal

"Shut up! I'm going to kill you!"

Ziyao had gone mad. Unable to accept that the truth had been exposed, she lunged at Li Tianxing again, wanting to tear his mouth to pieces.

"Bang!"

With a casual wave of his hand, Ye Xuan sent her flying.

He turned to look at the Old Demon Venerable, who had been silently coughing up blood, and sneered.

"That's not all."

"Li Tianxing, don't you find it strange? You possess a special demonic physique and outstanding talent. Yet, ever since you began dual-cultivating with Ziyao hundreds of years ago, your cultivation has regressed instead of advancing. Why is that?"

Li Tianxing froze, his expression changing drastically. "How... how did you know? I always thought I had hit a bottleneck..."

"A bottleneck?"

Ye Xuan scoffed, his eyes full of pity.

"What Ziyao practices is a secret devouring art I taught her. On top of that, in order to break through, she secretly practiced some sort of dark harvesting art."

"You weren't harvesting her."

"She treated you as a supreme medicine!"

"She was using your lifeblood and your demonic essence to fill the bottomless pit of her own inadequate aptitude!"

"You thought you were the master playing with her? No, in her grand scheme, you were nothing but a stepping stone, a human cauldron she could discard at any time!"

"Pfft!"

Overcome with sudden rage and anguish, Li Tianxing violently spewed a mouthful of blood three feet into the air.

"Bitch!"

Li Tianxing's eyes were bloodshot; he looked as though he wanted to eat her alive.

"I treated you so well! I gave you whatever you wanted! I even offended my father for your sake!"

"So... so I was the idiot all along!"

Beside him, the Old Demon Venerable let out a miserable laugh, coughing up blood as he spoke.

"Cough, cough... This old man... I saw through it long ago..."

"This woman harbored wicked intentions and was constantly draining your origin essence... That's why I wanted... cough, cough... to use the dual cultivation method to drain her back and make up for your losses..."

"I didn't expect... this is karma..."

The truth was finally out.

They were all villains, yet they were all clowns.

Ziyao slumped to the ground, her eyes vacant.

Now that her fig leaf had been completely torn away, she no longer bothered to pretend.

Her previously pitiful and sorrowful expression vanished in an instant, replaced by a twisted, extreme malice and madness.

She slowly stood up from the ground, wiping away the tears and blood on her face.

She straightened her torn clothes.

Raising her head, she looked straight at Ye Xuan. There was no longer a shred of love in her eyes, only deep resentment and an unwillingness to accept defeat.

"Yes."

"I did it willingly."

"I did treat him as a human cauldron."

"So what?!"

Ziyao spread her arms wide and roared like a maniac.

"Ye Xuan! You were born a favored son of heaven! You have the Great Luo inheritance! You have the extreme speed of the Kunpeng!"

"Cultivating is as easy as drinking water for you, and breaking through is like eating a meal!"

"But what about me?"

"I'm just a piece of trash!! Even if I risked my life cultivating, I could never even catch up to your shadow!"

"I couldn't accept it!"

"I didn't want to hide behind you forever as a burden! I didn't want to just wait for you to save me every time we faced danger!"

"I wanted to become stronger! To get stronger, so what if I sold my body? So what if I used men?"

Pointing at Ye Xuan, Ziyao's eyes revealed a sickly obsession.

"I did all of this... just so I could stand proudly by your side!"

"I didn't want to be the canary you kept in a cage... I wanted to be a Dao companion who could fight side by side with you!"

"I didn't hesitate to dirty myself for the sake of our future... What right do you have to stand on the moral high ground and judge me?"

She spoke these words with such forceful conviction, as if she were the long-suffering hero bearing a great burden.

Ye Xuan listened quietly until she finished.

Looking at the woman before him who had fallen into a demonic obsession.

He suddenly found it ridiculous.

And deeply pathetic.

"To stand by my side?"

Ye Xuan shook his head slightly, a cruel smirk curling the corners of his lips.

"Ziyao."

"Look at me now."

"And look at yourself."

An aura at the peak of the Mahayana Realm erupted from Ye Xuan's body, like a blazing sun shining through eternity.

The terrifying pressure made the heavens and the earth tremble.

"I am now at the absolute peak of this realm. With a raise of my hand, I can pluck the stars, and with a flip of my palm, I can annihilate great sects."

Ye Xuan pointed at Ziyao.

"And you?"

"You sold your dignity, sold your body, and schemed against the man who shared your bed. You spent hundreds of years plotting and calculating."

"And the result..."

"You are merely at the Body Integration Realm!"

"You haven't even reached the Tribulation Transcendence Realm."

"What did your so-called shortcuts and sacrifices buy you?"

"A corrupted foundation, deeply rooted inner demons, and a lifetime without any hope of attaining the Great Dao."

Ye Xuan took a step closer, looking down at her from above, his eyes full of contempt.

"You keep saying you did it to catch up to me."

"But the reality is... you are only getting further and further away from me."

"Not only have you dirtied your body, but you have dirtied your Dao heart."

"As you are now, let alone standing by my side..."

"You aren't even worthy of looking up at my back!"

"Ahhhhh!"

Ziyao broke down.

Completely shattered.

This was the ultimate psychological blow.

If she had truly become stronger, she might still have felt justified.

But after paying every possible price, she finally realized that she was still a piece of trash. In front of Ye Xuan, she was still a joke.

"I don't believe it! I don't believe it!"

"I have the Great Luo inheritance! I have the secret devouring art! I will definitely surpass you!"

Like a madwoman, Ziyao suddenly summoned a pitch-black demonic dagger into her hand. Instead of thrusting it at Ye Xuan, she plunged it viciously into the heavily injured Li Tianxing on the ground!

"Kill him! Devour his demon core! Then I can break through to the Mahayana Realm!"

"Squelch!"

Li Tianxing was already severely injured and at death's door; he had no strength to resist.

The dagger pierced his heart.

A peerless genius of his generation died just like that, at the hands of the woman he loved most, his eyes wide open in unyielding grievance.

Bathed in blood, Ziyao clutched a still-beating black demon core in her hand, a look of ecstatic joy on her face.

"Hahahaha! With this... with this, I can become stronger!"

"Husband! Look! I killed him! I took revenge for us!"

She held up the bloody demon core, offering it to Ye Xuan as if presenting a treasure, her eyes full of fawning desperation and madness.

"Husband... let's start over, okay?"

"I'm clean now... those people are all dead... We can rebuild our sect..."

"I promise to be obedient from now on... I love you..."

Ye Xuan looked at her crazed, demonic state.

The last ripple of emotion in his heart completely settled.

"There's no need."

Ye Xuan turned around and pointed a finger.

"Swish!"

A burst of sword qi pierced right through the glabella of the Old Demon Venerable, who was trying to escape.

A Mahayana Realm Demon Venerable had fallen.

Having done all this, Ye Xuan walked toward the mountain gate without looking back.

"Ziyao."

"I didn't kill you out of consideration for the last bit of affection from our past."

"Look out for yourself."

Looking at Ye Xuan's resolute back.

The demon core in Ziyao's hand fell to the ground with a thud.

"No... you can't leave!"

"Ye Xuan! You are mine! You are mine alone!"

Ziyao chased after him like a madwoman, but Ye Xuan's figure had already transformed into a streak of golden light, vanishing into the horizon in an instant.

This extreme speed was the Kunpeng's Free and Unfettered Roaming.

It was the divine ability she dreamed of learning, but would never be able to master.

"Ahhhhh!"

Ziyao knelt in a pool of blood filled with corpses. Her hands clawed desperately at the ground, her nails torn and dripping with blood.

Suddenly, she remembered something.

She abruptly raised her wrist, frantically shaking the long-tarnished betrothal bracelet.

"Ring! Ring for me!"

"Ding-ling... ding-ling..."

The bell rang. Crisp and melodious.

However, the man who once promised, "When the bell rings, I will protect you from all harm," would never return.

"Why... why did it turn out like this..."

Hugging her knees, Ziyao let out a shrill, despairing wail amidst the Asura-hell-like ruins.

She finally understood.

What she had lost was not just a man.

It was the only path to the light in her entire life.

And this path was one she had severed with her own hands, step by step.

Time, like a dull knife, slowly carved its way through the next five hundred years.

Ever since the destruction of the Heavenly Demon Sect and Ye Xuan's heartless departure, Ziyao had become a different person.

She no longer relied on any man, no longer trading dual cultivation for shortcuts.

She acted like a madwoman with extreme mysophobia. Every day, she soaked in a freezing pool for six hours, vigorously scrubbing her skin with coarse spirit sand until her whole body turned red and even seeped blood.

"I'm not dirty... I'm not dirty anymore..."

"Li Tianxing is dead..."

"As long as I wash myself clean, as long as I become stronger, my husband will look back..."

She was possessed by her obsession.

This obsession transformed into an almost self-mutilating drive for cultivation.

She trespassed into various perilous forbidden grounds where survival was nearly impossible, slaughtering vicious beasts and fighting against the Heavenly Dao for her life.

In five hundred years, she slaughtered her way from the Body Integration Realm all the way to the mid-stage of the Mahayana Realm. This speed was enough to be hailed as a peerless genius in the cultivation world.

Ziyao was very proud.

She felt that Heaven had finally smiled upon her.

Because over these five hundred years, her luck had been outrageously good.

Every time she was heavily injured and on the verge of death, she would coincidentally stumble upon ten-thousand-year spirit herbs;

Every time she was hunted down, she would coincidentally blunder into an ancient teleportation array and escape with her life;

Once, when she was lost in a void storm, she inexplicably found a fragmented immortal scripture.

"This is providence! I am the one chosen by destiny!"

"Ye Xuan, do you see? Even without you, I can still stand at the pinnacle!"

Not long after.

An ancient rift located in the outer void opened.

Legend had it that an ancient immortal artifact was left behind here—the Primordial Golden Dipper.

Ziyao naturally would not pass up this opportunity. She allied with three other powerful rogue cultivators, all also in the Mahayana Realm, and ventured into the rift together.

They had originally agreed to split the treasures equally.

However, when the Primordial Golden Dipper truly emerged, radiating five-colored immortal light, human greed instantly tore their fragile alliance to shreds.

Ziyao was sent flying by a palm strike, crashing heavily into a meteorite and violently spewing blood.

"You guys..."

Clutching her chest, Ziyao looked in disbelief at the three male cultivators who usually called each other brothers.

The leader, a black-robed Mahayana Realm cultivator, toyed with a magical treasure in his hand, a sinister smile appearing on his face:

"Fairy Ziyao, my apologies."

"This is an immortal artifact. If the four of us split it, wouldn't that be a reckless waste of a heavenly treasure?"

"Furthermore..."

The black-robed cultivator's lustful gaze swept over Ziyao's graceful curves:

"I heard that Fairy Ziyao has kept her purity like jade for the past few centuries, no longer allowing any man to get close?"

"Since you are going to die here today, why not let us brothers have some fun before you go?"

"Hahahaha! I've long heard that Fairy Ziyao was the number one stunner of the Heavenly Demon Sect back in the day. Today, we finally have the chance to taste her sweetness!"

The other two male cultivators also surrounded her, their eyes filled with beastly desire.

"Scram!"

Ziyao screamed, her eyes filled with fear and disgust.

If it were five hundred years ago, she might have actively untied her robes and even catered to them just to survive, just for this immortal artifact.

But not now!

She had washed herself for five hundred years! She had finally started to feel a little bit clean!

She absolutely could not get dirty again! If she became dirty again, Ye Xuan would never want her!

"I will kill you all!!"

Ziyao burned her essence blood, wanting to fight with her life on the line.

But after all, she had only recently broken through to the Mahayana Realm and her foundation was unstable. Moreover, fighting one against three, how could she be their match?

"Bang!"

She was kicked flying once more, all her ribs broken, sprawling in the void like a dead dog.

The black-robed cultivator stepped on her face, grinding his foot down hard:

"Why pretend to be a chaste woman? Who doesn't know about your filthy past?"

"Refusing the face we give you, then don't blame us for being merciless!"

"Riiip!"

Ziyao's dharma robes were torn apart.

Despair.

Endless despair.

Could it be... is this fate?

Was she, Ziyao, destined to be a plaything for men? Destined to die in filth?

"No... Ye Xuan... save me..."

In this life-or-death moment, Ziyao tremblingly raised her already blood-mangled arm.

There, she wore the golden betrothal bracelet.

It had been centuries.

Ever since that parting at the Heavenly Demon Sect.

In countless dead of nights, in countless times of injury, she had tried to shake it.

However, it was as if dead, giving no response whatsoever.

"One last time..."

"I beg you... even if just for the sake of our past affection..."

Ziyao closed her eyes and used the last ounce of her strength to shake her wrist.

"Ding-ling..."

The crisp ringing of the bell sounded in the deathly silent void.

The sound was not loud, but it carried a sorrow that pierced the soul.

The three male cultivators froze for a moment before bursting into a fit of roaring laughter:

"Hahahaha! Is this bitch crazy? Who is she trying to scare with a broken bell?"

"Don't tell me you can shake out an immortal to save you?"

Ziyao ignored their mockery.

She merely stared fixedly into the void as tears rolled down her face.

One second.

Two seconds.

Three seconds.

The void remained completely silent.

The light in Ziyao's eyes completely extinguished.

"As expected... he still didn't come..."

"He really... completely doesn't want me anymore..."

The black-robed cultivator pounced forward with a savage grin: "Stop looking! No one is coming to save you! Just be a good girl and enjoy it!"

However.

At the exact moment his hand was about to touch Ziyao's skin.

The entire void suddenly solidified.

It was not sealed by a formation, but forcibly stagnated by a supreme, overarching will.

The originally pitch-black cosmic rift instantly turned a dazzling pure gold.

An indescribable, terrifying aura that surpassed the limits of this realm and made even Mahayana Realm cultivators feel as insignificant as dust, crashed down!

"Who said... no one would save her?"

An indifferent voice echoed, as if descending from the highest heavens.

Immediately after.

Myriad streaks of golden light converged, transforming into a grand avenue reaching the heavens.

A man dressed in white, with crystalline hair and his entire body wreathed in immortal qi, walked over slowly, treading upon the river of stars with his hands clasped behind his back.

With every step he took, golden lotuses bloomed in the void.

With every breath he took, the Great Dao resonated.

"Ye... Ye Xuan?"

Ziyao's eyes widened, her whole body trembling; she simply could not believe her eyes.

He came!

He really came!

Moreover... at this moment, he was even more terrifying, more perfect, and more suffocating than he was five hundred years ago!

The three Mahayana Realm cultivators were scared witless.

"Se... Senior, spare our lives!!"

The black-robed cultivator trembled violently, wanting to kowtow.

Ye Xuan stood high in the void, looking down upon these three ants.

His eyes showed not a single ripple of emotion, as if he were looking at dust by the roadside.

"How noisy."

Ye Xuan gently blew out a breath.

That is right, just a single breath.

Whoosh!

The seemingly gentle airflow, the moment it left his lips, transformed into an astral wind capable of annihilating everything.

"No!"

Three Mahayana realm experts, powerful enough to dominate a region in the cultivation world, did not even have the time to let out a scream. Their physical bodies, divine souls, and dharma treasures were instantly reduced to fine powder, completely erased from this world.

An instant kill?

No, this could not even be considered a killing.

The supreme treasure, the Primordial Golden Chalice, having lost its masters, floated in the air, trembling violently.

With a casual wave of his hand, Ye Xuan beckoned the immortal artifact that had caused countless people to slaughter each other into his grasp.

Without so much as a glance, he tossed it casually in front of Zi Yao, as if throwing away trash.

"Take it."

"The thing you wanted."

Zi Yao stared blankly at the immortal artifact on the ground, then looked up at the god-like man.

"Husband..."

Zi Yao scrambled to her feet. Ignoring her injuries, she threw herself desperately toward Ye Xuan's embrace.

"Sob... Husband! You finally came!"

"I knew it... I knew you still had me in your heart!"

"I thought I was going to die... I thought I would never see you again!"

"These past five hundred years... I missed you so much... I have suffered so much..."

At this moment, she felt that all the suffering she had endured was worth it.

He still came! He came when she was at her most desperate! This was love!

However.

Ye Xuan did not hug her back.

He did not even retract his protective immortal light, isolating Zi Yao an inch away from him. It left her standing there awkwardly.

"Long time no see, Zi Yao."

Ye Xuan's voice was so calm that it sent chills down the spine.

Zi Yao looked up, her face covered in tears, staring with obsessive and frantic eyes at this face that had haunted her dreams:

"Husband, let us never be apart again, okay?"

"Look! I am already in the Mahayana realm now!"

"And... and in these five hundred years, I have not sought out a single man! I have kept myself perfectly clean!"

"I am no longer that useless trash who only knows how to rely on men! I have the qualifications to stand by your side now, right?"

Zi Yao was desperate to prove herself, yearning for his acknowledgment.

Ye Xuan looked down at her subservient yet fanatical appearance.

A trace of pity flashed through his eyes, but it was mostly a profound detachment that had seen through all worldly affairs.

"Mahayana realm?"

Ye Xuan shook his head gently and pointed to the heavens above:

"Zi Yao."

"Look up."

"I am a True Immortal."