433 Golden Swan & Crimson Serpent

[POV: Gu Jie]

Gu Jie watched the Temple of the Four Heroes collapse into ruin with a strange calm.

Stone spires cracked and folded inward as Jue Bu's Immortal Art surged again, further magnified by the miracles etched into his very flesh. Space twisted under his laughter, spell formations unraveling as heaven and earth were casually reversed. To Gu Jie, that laughter was reassurance. Among all their allies, Jue Bu was the one she trusted most to hold the line.

Few had ever come close to stealing her father's body.

She remembered them all.

Wen Yuhan had tried, wielding the Destiny Seeking Eyes to bend fate itself when her father invoked Divine Possession upon her. She had attempted to invert his authority, to turn his greatest technique against him. Instead, she had been deceived, locked within her own consciousness after her father used memories that did not belong to this world. Back then, Gu Jie had not known what the Source was. She only knew that her father had won.

Of course, she wasn't there to witness it, but she heard the story from her father himself.

Yuan Shen had been another. Empowered by the dark veil and sustained by his own brand of immortality, he had forced her father into a brutal contest of Immortal Arts. Even then, her father had prevailed through the unity of the Six Paths and Divine Possession.

But Jue Bu had been different.

He was the only one who had truly succeeded.

Her father had been weakened then, drained by excessive expenditure of life force. Jue Bu had seized that fleeting moment, taking possession of the body of a Supreme. What remained afterward had been a dying shell, one Jue Bu painstakingly reforged until it became whole again.

Now, under the cover of a pitch-black sky, that same existence laughed freely.

"Ka ka ka ka ka ka ka," Jue Bu's voice echoed, wild and triumphant. "You fools are a million times too early to challenge my authority!"

Spell projectiles bent backward in midair. Formations inverted. Cultivators screamed as their own techniques turned against them.

Gu Jie knew he would not fall here.

The real danger stood before her.

Within a golden dome, sealed away from the outside world, Gu Jie faced Yuan Shun.

This barrier was absolute. Even Jue Bu could not interfere.

Yuan Shun wore white robes adorned with golden feathers, her presence radiant and oppressive. Her eyes shimmered with gold and blue. Opposite her, Gu Jie stood clad in dark robes embroidered with red serpents, her own gaze split between gold and crimson.

If Gu Jie had not intercepted her, Yuan Shun would have already broken through Jue Bu's defenses and reached their masters.

Threads of qi snapped as Yuan Shun slashed through them, her blade humming with restrained fury.

"You really annoy me," Yuan Shun spat. "You lowly wench."

Gu Jie did not flinch.

Her mismatched eyes narrowed as more threads wove themselves into existence, intricate and deliberate. Each strand carried intent, destiny, and defiance.

"You talk too much," Gu Jie replied calmly. "And you underestimate me."

The golden dome pulsed.

Gu Jie smiled as she kept her distance from Yuan Shun.

"Also, I'm not a wench," she said lightly. "Is this what an inferiority complex looks like? Or do you simply feel inadequate standing in front of me? That is a rather roundabout way of calling me pretty."

Her fingers moved with elegant precision. Threads of qi shimmered into motion as her corpse puppets advanced in silent obedience.

Behind Gu Jie stood Wen Yuhan.

Golden threads pierced through the former heroine's body, anchoring her like a living conduit. Through her, Gu Jie's Tenth Realm cultivation was forcibly amplified, stretched to its limit, allowing her to contend against Yuan Shun's unstable Eleventh Realm. In front of Gu Jie stood her shields, the corpse puppets of Yuan Shen and Quan Shou, both refined to the Tenth Realm, their movements synchronized as they guarded her like loyal sentinels.

Yuan Shun's lips curved into a cold smile.

"I never expected a reunion like this," she said, her gaze sweeping over the puppets. "My elder brother. My close friend. And my fake master who nearly led me astray. How nostalgic."

Her sword lifted, humming softly.

"I would have preferred to kill them with my own hands," Yuan Shun continued. "Without their souls, it feels lacking. Still, I must admit, I underestimated you. I thought you were weak. Irrelevant. Someone not worth my attention."

Her eyes sharpened.

"Refining jiangshi out of people you once probably revered. Corpse puppets. If I still had feelings for them, I might have hesitated. But I chose my path long ago. I serve my master, and nothing will stop me."

Their energies collided.

Yuan Shun surged forward, her sword carving through layered formations. Smite arrays shattered. Curse variants unraveled. Even the threads Gu Jie had secretly woven during their exchange were severed cleanly. There was something unsettling in Yuan Shun's gaze as she cut through strands of destiny itself, as if fate were nothing more than silk beneath her blade.

Gu Jie's fingers snapped downward.

Quan Shou and Yuan Shen lunged from both sides, executing a flawless pincer strike.

Yuan Shun vanished.

Flash Step carried her past them in a blur of light. Her speed climbed further as Zealot's Stride ignited, followed by Divine Speed. The techniques were painfully familiar.

Gu Jie's expression hardened.

They had learned from the same masters. They walked similar paths. Yet the difference between them was absolute.

Yuan Shun was a disciple bound to her master.

Gu Jie was a daughter.

Everything she had gained did not come solely from Da Wei's teachings. It came from everyone who stood beside him, from sacrifices made willingly, and from bonds forged in blood and loss.

She could not lose.

Heat surged through her veins as Alice's blood answered the call. Power boiled violently within her body. Her eyes burned as tears of blood streamed down her cheeks. Crimson flooded her irises, overlaid by the radiant pattern of a golden compass spinning slowly into being.

Her cultivation trembled, threatening to break through.

Gu Jie gritted her teeth and forced it down through sheer will.

In that heightened clarity, she saw it.

The source of Yuan Shun's pseudo Eleventh Realm.

A foreign heart, embedded within Yuan Shun's chest, pulsing with unnatural authority.

Gu Jie inhaled slowly.

The golden threads extending from her fingertips darkened, blooming into deep crimson as she pulled sharply. Dozens of artifacts erupted from her pocket dimension, blades, chains, talismans, and seals, each one personally forged by her own hands.

They whirled through the air like a storm.

Yuan Shun evaded them effortlessly, her movements fluid and precise.

She did not realize she was retreating along a path Gu Jie had already decided for her.

Gu Jie pulled with a single, sweeping motion.

Crimson threads snapped tight around Yuan Shun.

For an instant, victory seemed certain.

Then space twisted.

Yuan Shun vanished, and pain exploded through Gu Jie's back. A blade burst out from her chest, spraying blood across the air as it drank deeply of her flesh. At the same moment, Wen Yuhan's puppet staggered, the illusion collapsing as Yuan Shun completed the exchange.

Gu Jie coughed, blood staining her lips, and strained to turn her head. "You used Castling with… Wen Yuha?"

Behind her stood Yuan Shun, her sword buried to the hilt, her expression twisted with mockery.

"You are making it too obvious," Yuan Shun said softly. "A shame, really."

Gu Jie smiled despite the pain.

"When a trap is too obvious," she replied calmly, "it is not a trap at all."

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Yuan Shun tried to withdraw her sword.

It did not move.

Gu Jie's muscles tightened with brutal precision, clamping down around the blade like a vice. Beneath her composed exterior was the training of a Paladin, a fighter who treated the body itself as a weapon.

Of course, that was not how she started, but she took pride being her father's daughter.

Yuan Shun's eyes widened.

Gu Jie exhaled sharply.

Her spilled blood rose into the air, hardening into crimson spears that launched forward in a violent bloom. Yuan Shun shattered one with her palm, but the others struck home, piercing her shoulder, abdomen, and thigh.

Before Yuan Shun could recover, Gu Jie activated Castling.

She switched places with Wen Yuhan.

Yuan Shun stumbled back as Wen Yuhan's puppet appeared before her, golden threads blazing as the corpse's hand plunged toward her chest.

"In the end," Gu Jie hissed, retreating, "you still see her as a friend. That is why you can Castling with her."

Wen Yuhan's fingers sank deep, aiming straight for the implanted heart.

"You will not take away the heart my master gave me," Yuan Shun screamed.

She vanished in a Flash Step, narrowly escaping Wen Yuhan's grasp.

Her escape was cut short.

Yuan Shen's puppet intercepted her path, its dead eyes glowing as it swung down with overwhelming force.

Gu Jie Castled again.

Wen Yuhan and Yuan Shen exchanged places in a heartbeat.

Crimson threads flared outward as Gu Jie drew every weapon she had summoned into alignment, their tips converging on Yuan Shun. Wen Yuhan lunged once more, her strike perfectly timed with the encroaching storm.

It was a pincer attack!

Yuan Shun's composure finally cracked. She slashed free one weapon by severing its thread and seized it, using the spear to deflect the incoming barrage as she retreated step by desperate step.

That was her mistake.

The severed threads recoiled.

They snapped back around her limbs, her waist, and her neck, binding her completely in place.

Quan Shou was already there.

Gu Jie Castled for the final time.

Quan Shou and Wen Yuhan exchanged positions.

Wen Yuhan's hand tore into Yuan Shun's chest and ripped free her heart.

It throbbed violently in her grasp, inscribed with countless divine runes, radiating a pressure that distorted the air itself.

Gu Jie stared at it and understood.

It was the heart of a Supreme Being, transplanted into Yuan Shun's body. Only someone like David, with inexhaustible life force and authority over resurrection, could have made such a monstrosity possible.

She did not try to destroy it, since that would be impossible for her.

Instead, Gu Jie sealed it.

The heart was forced back into Wen Yuhan's body, layers of seals folding inward until its furious pulse was completely suppressed, locked away beyond reach.

Yuan Shun collapsed to her knees, her cultivation unraveling.

Gu Jie stood before her, bloodied but unbroken.

"It is over, Yuan Shun," Gu Jie said evenly. "Surrender now, and I will grant you a swift death."

"Ha ha ha ha ha ha!"

An eerie, distorted laughter spilled from Yuan Shun's lips.

Gu Jie's grip tightened as she looked up. Something was wrong.

Yuan Shun slowly raised her head, and Gu Jie felt a chill crawl up her spine at the sight of her transformed eyes. The familiar blue of Yuan Shun's eye now occupied both eyes, but layered over the irises was a precise, radiant pattern of a golden cross. It rotated faintly, like a living sigil.

"I must admit," Yuan Shun said calmly, her voice no longer strained, "I was surprised when your ocular powers evolved in the heat of battle. That little bloom of destiny was… inconvenient. But now, I no longer need to pretend."

She straightened her posture.

Gu Jie watched in disbelief as torn flesh knit itself back together. Bones realigned. Blood evaporated into golden motes. Every wound she had carved into Yuan Shun vanished as if they had never existed.

Pressure flooded the dome.

Yuan Shun's cultivation surged, no longer unstable, no longer false.

Eleventh Realm.

Perfect Immortal.

"How?" Gu Jie asked, her voice tight.

Yuan Shun smiled faintly. "I was always at the Eleventh Realm. I reached it long ago by exploiting the path through the dark veil. Summoning my master into this world cost me greatly. My strength was suppressed, fragmented, and scattered."

She tilted her head, almost regretful. "Truly unfortunate timing. If you had torn my heart out a moment earlier, you might have won."

Wen Yuhan exploded.

The corpse puppet shattered violently, chunks of flesh and bone scattering across the golden dome as the sealed heart burst free, floating in midair and pulsing with terrifying vitality.

"No!"

Gu Jie lunged forward.

She gathered the remains of Wen Yuhan with trembling hands and crimson threads, stuffing what she could into her pocket dimension. Blood soaked her sleeves. Her fingers shook, but she did not stop. She had promised her father that she would take responsibility.

Gu Jie knew it then.

Yuan Shun was no longer an opponent she could contend with head-on.

Golden wings unfolded from Yuan Shun's back, each feather radiant and sharp as a blade. She reached out, grasped the floating heart, and pressed it back into her chest. Blood poured freely, staining her white robes crimson before sealing shut.

The pressure doubled.

Gu Jie dismissed Quan Shou and Yuan Shen's corpse puppets. Maintaining them was pointless now.

"Oh?" Yuan Shun sneered. "Giving up already?"

She plucked a single golden feather and invoked Holy Spirit Conjuration.

Light condensed.

A radiant sword formed in her hand, its edge humming with divine authority.

The situation was hopeless.

And yet, Gu Jie did not retreat.

Crimson threads burst from her arms as she swung them wide, connecting to the scattered weapons she had summoned earlier.

Yuan Shun vanished.

The next instant, her sword descended, aimed directly at Gu Jie's neck.

Gu Jie reacted on instinct.

She yanked every weapon toward herself, stacking them in a crude but dense shield. Steel screamed as the sword struck, deflecting just enough for Gu Jie to survive.

Her eyes burned as she saw it, behind her.

However, it was too late.

Yuan Shun appeared again, driving her blade through Gu Jie's back for the second time.

Gu Jie staggered forward, coughing blood.

"You are too slow," Yuan Shun whispered, already disappearing.

Gu Jie tried to redirect her weapons.

They missed by a wide margin.

Holy energy flooded her wounds, burning instead of healing. Regeneration became agony, slow and imperfect, her vampiric blood fighting against divine suppression.

Yuan Shun moved with god-like speed.

She struck again and again, never committing fully, carving Gu Jie apart with precise cruelty.

"Vampirism?" Yuan Shun spat, circling her. "Relying on tainted blood. How pathetic."

Another strike.

"To think you crippled yourself with such inferior power."

Another.

"Did you truly believe you would grow stronger this way?"

Another.

"A crying shame."

Gu Jie collapsed to one knee. Her weapons lay scattered, their threads severed or weakened. Her vision blurred. Blood soaked the ground beneath her.

Yuan Shun finally stopped.

She stood above Gu Jie, radiant wings spread wide, sword resting casually at her side.

"This proves it," Yuan Shun said with a satisfied smile. "I am superior to you. My Heavenly Domain Eyes surpass your Destiny Seeking Eyes. Or should I even call them that anymore? They have become something else entirely."

Gu Jie lifted her head.

Despite everything, her gaze was steady.

"They are beautiful," Gu Jie said quietly. "Those eyes of yours."

Yuan Shun's smile widened.

"I do not think," Gu Jie continued, "that you deserve them."

Yuan Shun scoffed.

"Enough," she said coldly. "Let us end this. Any last words?"

Gu Jie's injuries were severe.

Her robes were torn in multiple places, fabric hanging loose and soaked with blood. Bruises bloomed darkly across her skin. Lacerations crisscrossed her arms and torso, some still bleeding, others barely holding together under failing regeneration. She was on her knees now, her palms pressed against the ground, fingers trembling. Strength no longer answered her call.

She had hoped it would not come to this.

It was a choice she would never wish upon her brothers and sisters. A choice she had sworn she would never make lightly. Yet reality was merciless, and this was the only path left to her.

"I should be asking you that," Gu Jie said quietly.

Yuan Shun laughed, amused rather than threatened. "Hah. There is a difference between empty bravado and the real thing. And just as it happens, you are not the real thing."

She raised her sword, her posture relaxed, assured of victory. "A swan like me will forever look down upon a serpent like you, one that only knows how to crawl in the dirt. Farewell, my inferior counterpart."

She stopped.

Yuan Shun frowned.

Gu Jie was smiling.

It was not a gentle smile, nor a defiant one. It was wide, strained, and wrong, stretching unnaturally across her face.

"What are you smiling for?" Yuan Shun asked.

Gu Jie blinked, momentarily confused. She raised a trembling hand and touched her own cheek. "Huh? I am smiling?"

Her lips parted further.

"Ha ha ha ha ha…" The laughter spilled out, broken and breathless. "I really am smiling."

Yuan Shun retreated instantly.

A blur of red tore through the air.

Her radiant sword shattered into motes of light as deep claw marks raked across her arm. Blood sprayed. Yuan Shun froze, her pupils contracting as a sudden cold wrapped around her.

Fingers with long, darkened nails brushed her cheek.

They drew blood.

Gu Jie's voice whispered beside her ear, intimate and unhinged. "Why am I smiling?"

Yuan Shun unleashed Divine Smite at point-blank range, golden light roaring outward through her wing.

However, it struck nothing.

Gu Jie reappeared several paces away, crouched low. Her eyes glowed wildly, curved into crescent shapes by her grin. She stared at her own bloodstained fingers, then brought them to her lips, licking them slowly.

"Ah… it tastes so good," she murmured. "That must be why I am smiling. Right?"

The choice Gu Jie had made was absolute.

She had raised her realm into the Eleventh.

Because of the curse of the Hollowed World, the moment her cultivation crossed that threshold, madness flooded her being. It warped her thoughts, twisted her instincts, and shattered restraint. Even though Gu Jie understood, consciously, that she had become insane, she could no longer act against it.

Perhaps this insanity was what she needed now. Not power alone, but the freedom to abandon fear.

Yuan Shun smiled again, eyes alight. "I suppose I can torment you a little longer."

Gu Jie heard the words, but they barely registered.

Two whispers echoed at the back of her mind.

"This is fun. This is fun."

The voice was vast and alien. Eldritch. She felt a faint connection forming with the Supreme Void.

"Kill. Kill. Slaughter. End her."

That voice surged from her blood, hot and feral.

Gu Jie let out a small snort of laughter. She found it ironic. She had imagined the Void would sound more violent, more savage, and that her blood would be calm. Instead, it was the opposite. She found the Void's voice… cute.

"Is there something funny?" Yuan Shun demanded.

Gu Jie lifted her head slowly.

"Yes," she said softly. "There is."

She extended her hand.

In her grasp was Yuan Shun's severed arm, freshly torn away, blood still dripping from the ragged edge.

Yuan Shun stared.

Shock finally cracked her composure.

"How…?" she whispered. "When did I lose it?"

Yuan Shun regenerated her arm in a flash of holy light, flesh knitting itself back together through divine art. The spell had barely completed when Gu Jie was already upon her.

A hand slammed against Yuan Shun's face.

A Great Curse was forced directly into her body.

Before Yuan Shun could even cry out, Gu Jie followed through with War Smite, driving her straight into the ground. Stone shattered. The earth buckled inward as Yuan Shun was embedded into it.

Three golden feathers drifted into the air around Gu Jie.

They trembled.

Each feather transformed into Heavenly Punishment.

Enormous golden swords tore into existence and plunged downward, striking Gu Jie from above.

"Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!"

Her laughter echoed through the ruins of the temple as her body was obliterated, reduced to ash beneath the descending blades.

Yuan Shun did not wait to confirm the kill. She fled upward, wings beating hard, blood trailing behind her as she found she lost another leg.

She did not get far.

Gu Jie reappeared a short distance away, her form reconstituted in an instant. In one hand, she held Yuan Shun's severed leg. In the other, the arm she had torn off earlier.

Yuan Shun spat blood as the Great Curse fully took hold, her internal energies twisting violently.

Gu Jie did not understand what she was doing anymore.

She only knew she was happy.

It was fun.

She hurled the arm.

Divine Might surged into the limb, Corpse Explosion engraved into it. Yuan Shun hastily summoned a barrier. The arm detonated against it in a wet explosion, blood and putrid stench splashing across the shimmering surface.

Gu Jie landed on top of the barrier in the same motion.

Her kick pierced straight through it.

The blood from the exploded limb destabilized the barrier, feeding on its magic, staining it crimson before it collapsed entirely.

"Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! It tastes good! More! More!"

Gu Jie smiled through bared teeth, fangs visible now. A furious blush spread across her face as she swung the leg with War Smite.

Yuan Shun blocked with one of her wings.

The leg exploded on impact.

"Enough!" Yuan Shun screamed.

She retaliated with War Smite of her own, delivering a devastating kick that sent Gu Jie flying. The ground erupted where Gu Jie landed, stone and dust exploding outward.

When the debris settled, Gu Jie was standing.

She looked unbothered.

In her hand was the leg Yuan Shun had just used to kick her.

Her insanity had fully bloomed.

Gu Jie tilted her head slightly, her smile sharp and mocking. "Oh, the lamentations of a serpent like me," she said lightly. "Surely a swan like you would never understand the depths of the pit I crawled out from."

She lifted her gaze, eyes burning with delight.

"How about I pluck your wings and let you see for yourself," she continued, voice dripping with venom, "that in the end you are nothing special. Just a prettier duck."

She laughed softly.

"You damn fuck."