Once a Sinner

"Nine Heavens Sacred Land?"

Though Ying'er didn't understand what the name meant, the look on Wu Lingfeng's face already said everything. She instinctively moved a little closer to Ye Xuan and asked quietly, "Are they… very powerful?"

"Far beyond powerful."

Wu Lingfeng's gaze didn't leave that banner, and her voice carried a suppressed heaviness, saying, "The Great Xia Dynasty has dominated Xuanzhou for tens of thousands of years without falling. In terms of legacy, it's already one of the top secular dynasties in this world. But in the eyes of the Nine Heavens Sacred Land, the Great Xia Dynasty is nothing more than a secular regime they can't be bothered with."

She took a breath and lowered her voice even further, saying, "The Nine Heavens Sacred Land's heritage is said to be the last true bloodline surviving from before the collapse of the ancient celestial court. Within their sect, they hoard countless secret treasures, forbidden arts, and scriptures from that court. The depth of their legacy—no one can fathom it."

She paused for a moment, then let out the last half of the sentence, saying, "Even more… rumor has it that deep within the Nine Heavens Sacred Land, a living true immortal is enshrined."

As her words fell, even Ying'er held her breath.

A living true immortal.

In this era where the Tribulation Transcendence stage was already the ceiling for cultivators and the path to immortality had long been severed, the term "true immortal" was not a cultivation rank—it was a myth.

A presence that every power would find themselves contemplating in the dead of night, yet hardly dared to truly confront.

However.

Ye Xuan said nothing.

That itself was already a sign of anomaly.

Given Ye Xuan's temperament, even when faced with the Nine Heavens Sacred Land, he should have thrown out a few arrogant, dismissive remarks. But from the moment he saw those two characters, "Nine Heavens"…

He froze.

He stood rigid, completely motionless.

His ordinarily calm and profound eyes were now staring blankly at that banner, as if something had seized his soul. He could neither look away, nor did he seem to truly register anything.

Then—

An indescribable, excruciating pain exploded without warning from the deepest part of his mind.

It wasn't an external impact or a rampage of spiritual energy, but something far more intrinsic—a collapse from some forgotten corner within himself.

Like a rusted saw, brought close to his ear, sawing through his soul in the coarsest, most cruel manner, stroke by stroke.

"Ugh…"

Ye Xuan let out a muffled groan.

His face drained of color at a visible pace, turning deathly pale within a single breath. Beads of cold sweat, as large as beans, seeped out simultaneously, trickling down his temples and soaking his collar.

He shot both hands up and clutched his head, his knuckles whitening from excessive force. His nails nearly dug into his palms, and warm blood silently seeped from between his fingers.

Who?

Who is calling me?

Within his mind, a voice wavered in and out of the tearing mist, sometimes near, sometimes far. Every time it drew closer, the pain intensified, as if a wound he had never known existed lay hidden in the deepest part of his body.

And those two words were the hand peeling back the scab from that wound.

The world before him began to warp.

The golden war vessel fractured and blurred in his unfocused vision, splitting into two, three, then overlapping into a chaotic halo of gold light.

His body began to sway. His feet felt as though they were treading on empty air. Though he still stood on the bow of the boat, he had the dizzying sensation of being on the verge of plummeting into an endless abyss.

In a trance—

He saw a mountain.

A divine mountain suspended above the nine heavens, surrounded by seas of clouds, with faint outlines of pavilions and palaces at the summit. Gleaming with golden radiance, it was as magnificent as a miracle from another world.

He saw a cliff.

An abyssal black, icy cliff, so deep its bottom was invisible. All around were sheer walls as if sliced by a blade, not a single blade of grass growing. Only the wind howled through it, like some ancient wail.

He saw white chains.

The chains extended from somewhere, their source and endpoint nowhere to be seen. One after another, they pinned a young man's wrists, ankles, and torso tightly to a sheer wall.

That young man was covered in blood.

The blood had long dried into black, soaking his robe, staining the stone wall beneath him, and trickling down the cliff's crevices into the unfathomable abyss.

His eyes were half-open, half-closed. Dried blood clung to his lashes. A streak of blood marked the corner of his lips. There was no anger in his expression, no resentment—only a complete, heart-wrenching despair and exhaustion.

That young man's face…

Ye Xuan took a sharp step back, stumbling against the ship's railing, his body swaying violently.

No… that's not right…

That face…

Ye Xuan shook his head in panic, trying to force the image out of his mind. But it had taken root. He couldn't shake it, couldn't escape it. Instead, as he struggled, it emerged clearer and clearer.

I have memories of ten thousand reincarnations! I remember every life with perfect clarity!

I am Ye Wushuang. I am the Alchemy Venerable. I am the Formation Emperor.

I have sorted through all these memories—they are clear, complete, and without omission!

But…

Where is this familiarity coming from?

This feeling—as if a forcibly excised, deliberately sealed-off memory is battering against the doors deep in his soul—where is it coming from!

Just then.

That sky-covering golden war vessel drifted slowly across directly above them.

On its deck, along the railing, stood a group of people. They wore moon-white robes embroidered with a uniform emblem. Their bearing was noble and aloof, their brows carrying an overbearing pride forged from growing up in a top-tier sacred land.

A few young disciples were leaning idly over the railing, sizing up the pitifully small white flying boat below. Their eyes brimmed with unguarded mockery and condescension.

"Look at that broken boat down there," one richly dressed young man said, tugging at his companion's sleeve, his tone light and amused. "Looks like it's about to fall apart at any moment. They're planning to use that scrap to go to the Burial Heavenly Abyss?"

"Just ants," another replied lazily, without even bothering to look again. "Too stupid to know they're walking to their deaths. Going in there is only good for being stepping stones."

A few chuckles drifted through the clouds, light and indifferent, like a bit of bored pity cast upon dust.

But then—

Among the crowd, a young girl's gaze happened to drift down through the clouds and land on Ye Xuan.

At first, she only cast an absentminded glance.

Then her gaze froze in place, unable to move anymore.

The girl's expression solidified at a visible pace.

From absentmindedness, to bewilderment, to sheer disbelief, and then to an explosive burst of fear.

"Senior Brother!"

Her voice shot up sharply, shrill and out of control, drawing the attention of everyone around her. "Come look!"

Her finger trembled as she pointed downward. "Look at that man in white! His face—his face!"

A youth carrying a longsword on his back frowned as he walked over, annoyed and puzzled. Following her pointing finger, he looked down.

The next moment, his entire body trembled.

In those usually calm eyes, there appeared a genuine, undisguisable shock at this moment.

"Like..."

His voice was hoarse: "Too alike."

"It’s almost exactly like the portrait..."

Several disciples nearby heard the commotion and gathered around, following their gazes downward. Their expressions shifted subtly one after another: shock, confusion, instinctive wariness, and a certain inexplicable, instinctive disgust.

The young man took a deep breath, forcibly suppressing the sudden surge of emotion in his chest. His voice regained its calm, but beneath the calm lay an uncontrollable dread:

"That person... that Outcast of the Nine Heavens, the sinner who violated the taboos, who should not exist in this world..."

He paused, as if confirming a fact he was certain of:

Wasn't he personally ordered by the Saint Lord to have his immortal bones drained, his cultivation nullified, and be thrown into the Burial Immortal Lake to drown?

"Yes!"

The girl covered her mouth tightly, her voice trembling with panic: "I was there too. I saw it with my own eyes—he was covered in blood, falling from the edge of the cliff into the Burial Immortal Lake. With injuries like that, even if he didn’t die, soaking in the Burial Immortal Lake would..."

"Perhaps," the young man said with a cold smile, his eyes lowering, "it’s just a coincidence that he looks the same."

"That person is already bones, his soul scattered, turned into a wandering ghost."

"In this world, that name no longer exists."

He turned his head away, no longer looking below, and said calmly:

"Let’s go. Don’t waste time on an ant."

Rumble!

The golden war ship did not linger, carrying its bone-deep arrogance and pressure, crushing through the clouds and roaring away, quickly vanishing at the horizon’s edge, leaving only a trail of echoing dragon roars that faded in the sea of clouds.

Yet those few words, drifting down with the wind, struck Ye Xuan’s chest like heavy stones, crashing into him word by word.

"Outcast of the Nine Heavens..."

"Drained of immortal bones..."

"Thrown into the Burial Immortal Lake..."

Every word was like a key.

A brutal, unyielding key, forcibly jammed into the heavy lock of the door deep in his mind, and it began to turn—painfully, mercilessly, recklessly...

Boom!

That door shattered.