The moment Bai Shuo stepped into the formation, the world folded.
Space compressed inward, like countless layers of silk being pressed into a single point. Sound vanished and light dimmed.
Even the sensation of having a body blurred, her consciousness stretching thin across something vast and immeasurable.
There was no pain–the kind of pressure that ripped apart souls too weak to endure. Instead, she felt as though she were drifting through something boundless, weightless, neither moving nor still.
Her vision inverted.
Up became down and distance became meaningless. Her thoughts slowed, each one echoing strangely, as if the world itself were listening.
Her paws touched solid ground.
Then–
An ancient pressure descended.
Bai Shuo's fox eyes snapped open and she took in the new scenery with hitched breaths.
The Sacred Ground was not what she expected.
No engraved murals, no ancient trial arenas or warrior totems carved into jade walls. No grand formations openly proclaiming opportunity and peril.
Instead, it looked natural.
Far into the distance, a blazing volcano rose against the horizon, its molten glow pulsing like the heartbeat of a living world.
Towering trees stood beyond sight, their trunks thicker than city walls, their crowns vanishing into drifting veils of golden mist.
Each leaf shimmered faintly with shifting runic patterns, pulsing like breathing veins.
The ground beneath her paws was warm, yet wrong.
It did not feel like earth, nor stone, nor jade — but something halfway between substance and concept. Firm beneath her feet, yet carrying a distant, humming resonance.
Her fox ears twitched.
She caught the faint rushing of water somewhere beyond the forest.
Everything seemed… normal.
Trees. Leaves. Rivers. Volcano. Sky. Wind.
And yet —
A terrifying, ancient might lurked beneath it all.
The air was dense, not with qi, but something higher.
Dao Fragments.
Bai Shuo's pupils contracted.
Her soul had already stood at the threshold of Dao and Law in her previous life — that was why she had dared cross the teleportation formation without hesitation.
Yet even so, she could feel a subtle rejection pressing against her, as though the realm itself were evaluating her existence and finding her… lacking.
"Seems like my just soul is not enough…however," Her gaze swept the empty landscape. "Where is everyone?"
No inheritance halls.
No competitors.
No trial grounds.
Just silence.
Her heart sank.
"Inheritance…" The word slipped from her lips.
Then her breath hitched. Her pupils constricted sharply.
She scanned the scenery again, not with her eyes, but with something deeper and suddenly, something clicked.
Her fox eyes shut at once.
She extended her divine senses downward toward the ground beneath her paws.
Bang.
Her body was flung violently upward.
She crashed beside a lake, rolling several times before skidding to a halt. Blood seeped from the corner of her muzzle, staining her pale fur.
She rose calmly, wiped it away with the back of her paw, and narrowed her eyes.
"Just as I thought." Her gaze sharpened. "Each of these 'natural' landscapes is its own dimension… and each contains a different inheritance."
The Primordial Abyss was nothing like the Human Realm.
Elder Su hadn't explained this because, clearly, it was common knowledge here.
But Bai Shuo was not truly Tushan Shuo so she carried no memories of this world's Sacred Grounds.
Any cultivator below Dao and Law would have wandered blindly here, unable to sense anything amiss. It was only because of her soul, tempered at the brink of higher realms that she had detected the Dao Fragments beneath reality itself.
But her expression darkened.
She had uncovered the inheritances, but…
How was she supposed to enter them?
And more importantly — how was she to know which one suited her?
Probing directly was impossible. The backlash from divine senses alone had already injured her.
Then…
Was it the tokens?
She dismissed the thought instantly. If so, Elder Su would have mentioned it.
Her mind raced as her gaze swept across the Sacred Ground.
Finally, her eyes settled on the distant volcano.
"Fire…"
She wasn't certain which inheritance lay there, perhaps the Phoenix Clan but flames had always resonated unnaturally with her soul. Even if her current body lacked that affinity, she still wanted to see.
With these thoughts in mind, she strode towards the distance .
But fate had other plans.
A spiraling vortex suddenly tore open above the lake behind her.
Before she could react, a massive pulling force seized her body and dragged her backward.
Her eyes caught the fading trace of blood soaking into the water.
Blood.
Her pupils shrank.
"…Damn."
Why hadn't she thought of that?
She was so furious with herself that she nearly coughed up another mouthful of blood. Resigning herself, she allowed the vortex to swallow her whole.
Which inheritances lay within water?
Xuanwu?
Serpent Clan?
Dragon?
Her thoughts were abruptly shattered by searing pain.
It wasn't her soul but her flesh.
Her body screamed in protest, her meridians trembling as though on the verge of collapse.
"This weak body…"
She cursed inwardly and immediately circulated her soul power through her human meridians using an ancient technique from her past life.
The pressure eased slightly.
"…Good." She exhaled.
Slowly, Bai Shuo lifted her head.
And froze.
She was no longer standing. She was floating.
Before her stretched an endless sea of translucent bubbles — each glowing with different colors, each radiating a distinct Dao fluctuation and containing a separate inheritance.
Her pupils trembled. "So many… in just one lake?"
Swoosh.
Before she could stabilize herself, a force tugged at her again — not violently, but irresistibly, weakening the realm's rejection with every heartbeat.
She struggled instinctively but it was useless.
For the first time in a long while, Bai Shuo felt truly small.
The surrounding inheritance bubbles radiated intense rejection and cold indifference, as though repulsed by her presence. And yet, amid that hostility, something else pulled at her relentlessly.
Her gaze locked onto it.
A bubble glowing bloody red.
The pressure intensified sharply. The lake realm's rejection surged violently, as though enraged that she dared approach that inheritance.
Her Foundation Establishment body groaned. Just when she thought it would tear apart, the red bubble swallowed her whole.
—
Her eyes snapped open.
Mist stretched endlessly in all directions, rolling like silent waves across an unseen sea. Islands of pale stone floated aimlessly above the fog, drifting apart, colliding softly and separating again.
There was no sky.
There was no ground.
Only layers of whiteness, depthless and quiet.
Then —
Red.
A single patch of crimson pierced the pale world.
A man stood there.
He wore regal robes of deep imperial red, the fabric neither silk nor brocade, but something between flame and substance, smooth as flowing blood yet carrying a faint inner glow.
Silver-white hair spilled down his back, untamed yet immaculate, framing a face so beautiful it felt inhuman — sharp brows, peach-blossom eyes, and lips curved in faint, unreadable amusement.
His gaze was cold and bottomless.
Suddenly —
Crimson light erupted behind him.
The void tore open as an enormous phantom of a red fox unfurled itself across the pale mist, its eyes blazing like sun merciless and divine.
One tail.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
Six.
Seven.
Eight.
Nine—
Ten.
Boom.
Something exploded inside Bai Shuo's mind.
Her pupils dilated violently.
"…Ten tails?"