The plaza outside the Forest of Blades was suffocating. The "Thunder Burial" had passed, but the air still tasted like ozone and burnt hair. Xiao Yan stood in the center of the wreckage, violet smoke clinging to his shredded robes. He didn't look like a hero; he looked like a man who had survived an explosion he should have died in.
Ling Feng, the 10th Gate's "golden boy," stared at him. A single drop of sweat carved a path through the dust on Ling Feng's face. He was a Divine Stage 9—he was supposed to be untouchable. But looking at Xiao Yan's eyes—flickering with a cold, judgmental gold—his grip on his sword faltered.
"I said," Xiao Yan's voice was a dry rasp, "move."
His right arm hung like a piece of lead, the skin already turning a deep, angry plum from the hammer's backfire. Every breath felt like broken glass in his lungs, but he didn't blink.
"You're a freak," Ling Feng spat, his voice cracking as he tried to find his pride. "You leveled the trial grounds. You used a demonic tool. Enforcement! Break his legs and drag him to the pit!"
Ten disciples stepped forward, their swords humming with a sanitized, light-element glow. Yanlin, his obsidian skin cracked and weeping red, forced himself in front of Xiao Yan.
"Touch him and you die!" Yanlin roared, though his knees were shaking under the weight of his shield.
"Step back, Yanlin," Xiao Yan whispered, his left hand reaching for the frost-covered hilt of the Sword of Ice. "You've done enough. This is my debt."
Just as the steel was about to clash, the scent of frozen lotuses cut through the acrid smoke. It was sudden, sharp, and cold.
"Enough."
The word wasn't a scream; it was a command.
Ling Xuelian descended, her Papillon Wings no longer shimmering with pretty colors, but glowing with a harsh, surgical white. She landed between the two groups, her back turned to Xiao Yan, her presence acting like a physical wall.
"Xuelian?" Ling Feng gasped, lowering his tip. "The hell are you doing? This trash just broke a Grade-1 Taboo!"
"I am the Lead Healer of the Eternal Hall," she said, her voice as flat as a frozen lake. "And this student is under my medical observation by order of the High Elders. What you call a 'demonic weapon' was a spirit-vein rupture. Xiao Yan didn't destroy the gate; he contained a Void-leak that would have vaporized your entire dormitory."
"A Void-leak?" Ling Feng blinked, his brain struggling to keep up. "But look at the crater—"
"The crater was the containment field," Xuelian lied. Her face was a mask of perfect, icy calm. She glanced back at Xiao Yan for a heartbeat, her eyes pleading: Shut up.
She turned back to her cousin. "If you arrest him, you're interfering with a Divine Investigation. Do you really want to explain that to the Hall Master? Or should I tell him you let the situation get out of hand?"
Ling Feng's face turned a mottled, ugly red. He knew she was protecting the kid. He knew the story was thin. But Xuelian held the keys to his future. One bad word from her and he'd never see the Inner Gates.
"Fine," he spat, sheathing his blade with a violent snap. "But he's a wreck. Academy law says if you can't walk through the gate under your own power within the hour, you're out." He looked at Xiao Yan's shattered arm with a cruel smirk. "The 31st Gate is at the top of the Staircase of a Thousand Sighs. Let's see if your 'containment' injuries let you climb that."
The Ascent of Sighs
The crowd thinned, leaving only the smell of blood and lotuses behind.
"Why?" Xiao Yan asked, leaning heavily on his sword as the adrenaline began to drain out of him, replaced by a screaming pain in his shoulder.
Xuelian didn't look at him. She raised her staff, and a cool, blue mist settled over his arm. It didn't stop the pain, but it dulled the edges.
"Because I hate seeing something rare get trampled," she whispered, her voice barely a breath. "And because if I let them take you, the girl in the Immortal Hall would have turned this mountain into a graveyard."
Xiao Yan stiffened. "Bingxue..."
"She's watching," Xuelian said, her eyes darkening. "But she can't reach you here. I can knit your bones, but I can't give you the strength to climb. You have forty minutes. Walk, or pack your bags."
"Boss, lean on me," Yanlin offered, reaching out.
"No," Xiao Yan pushed himself upright, his jaw locked. He felt the Frozen Origin core in his chest react to Xuelian's mist. "If I don't walk through that gate alone, I'll never be more than a 'variable' to them."
He looked at the staircase—a vertical spine of white marble stretching into the clouds. It was enchanted with "Sigh" arrays, designed to turn your own spirit energy into a weight that crushed your lungs.
Step one. The gravity tripled.
Step ten. His vision blurred into a gray haze.
[Master, your gates are dry,] Michael reported, his voice sounding distant. [The Mjolnir took everything. Tap into the Azure Dragon's blood, or you will collapse.]
"No dragon," Xiao Yan grunted, his boots leaving red smears on the white stone. "I'll use the ice."
He didn't release the frost. He turned it inward. He froze his own nerves, numbing the agony in his arm. He turned his body into a machine of cold meat and shivering bone.
The onlookers watched in a terrifying silence. They didn't see a cultivator; they saw a corpse that refused to fall. He wasn't breathing. He wasn't sweating. He was just... moving.
Step five hundred. Step nine hundred.
At the summit, Ling Feng stood under the arch, his smile slowly dying as he saw the blood-soaked boy crest the final rise. Xiao Yan stood exactly one inch inside the 31st Gate. He looked Ling Feng dead in the eye, his breath coming out as a puff of white frost.
"Thirty-one," he whispered.
Then his heart skipped a beat, and the world went black.
The Nightmare of the Goddess
In the Immortal Hall, Yan Bingxue watched the mirror go dark. She finally let out the breath she'd been holding, her hands trembling against the silk of her robes.
"He made it," she whispered to the empty room.
"He is a monster, Bingxue."
The voice came from the shadows—not a demon, but a tired old man in gold. The Head Elder.
"He carries the Thunder of Gods and the Ice of Ancients," the Elder said, his voice cold and dry. "He's a forest fire waiting to happen."
Bingxue's eyes turned a lethal, glowing blue. "If you touch him, Elder, I won't just break the formation. I will freeze this mountain into a monument of your failure."
The Elder narrowed his eyes. "We'll see. The 31st Gate is the Gate of the Soul. Let's see if he survives the nightmares waiting for him in the dark."