Immortality Starts With Investment

”If I emerge, you two will surely die!”

The woman’s words rang with iron certainty, laced with utter resolve. Yet even so, she refrained from action. For Holy Spirits, emergence meant no turning back, all choices sealed irrevocably.

By now, Flame Heart Saint and Moonlight Saint recognized her stubbornness; submission was impossible. Regret filled their hearts.

”Sigh, we shouldn’t have awakened her consciousness with the Supreme Sage Spirit Awakening Chapter. Better to extract forcibly from the start... Even if you emerge and fight us, we won’t kill you, merely take half.”

They sighed, pity for kin stirring despite the Lotus Emperor’s paramount cause. Thus, they gazed calmly at the Seven-Colored Nirvana Jade—refraining from first strike, awaiting her birth.

Within the jade, the woman’s jade-liquid eyes swirled with complex despair and determination. Holy Spirits suffered thus, helpless to fate.

In the next instant, those emotions crystallized into bone-piercing killing intent. The Seven-Colored Nirvana Jade trembled faintly. A crisp ”crack” echoed. A fine fissure crept slowly across the flawless divine jade.

The small world wailed in grief. Endless seven-colored divine rain poured down. As though mourning her premature emergence. This celestial phenomenon drew complicated expressions from the two self-severed saints—profound sighs.

The small world itself was fashioned by heaven for the jade’s gestation. Evidently, the kin within possessed far higher talent than imagined. From signs, she might even rival the much-hoped Lotus Emperor. But cruel timing—Immortal Path opened too soon. For the Holy Spirit Clan’s future, sacrifice proved necessary. They would compensate later.

...

As the first fissure widened, the aura seeping forth grew ever more horrifying. Yet at that moment, the two self-severed saints sensed something—brows furrowing simultaneously. Someone had entered the waterfall, stepping into this small world.

Moonlight Saint’s lips curved coldly.

Flame Heart Saint’s frame boiled with divine flames, roaring ablaze. ”Someone dares follow! Perfect—coercing kin to emerge has left me irritable. I’ll handle it...”

As fellow deficient Holy Spirits, they understood forced emergence’s despair intimately. Thus, pressuring this jade kin stirred reluctance and guilt. But Lotus Emperor’s premature birth demanded it.

Sensing intruders transformed guilt into fury.

Moonlight Saint nodded. ”Make it quick.”

Only semi-saints entered the fourth realm. Even peak ones held no chance against them.

Flame Heart Saint’s personal strike required scant time.

...

The Flame Heart Saint let out a cold laugh. In an instant, he transformed into a blazing fireball. Like a meteor, he streaked through the void and hurtled toward the entrance of this small world.

Sensing the unexpected disturbance, the slowly cracking Seven-Colored Nirvana Jade seemed to pause as if someone had pressed a freeze button, halting its fracturing. The Holy Spirit within ceased its emergence.

The Moonlight Saint watched and understood his fellow clansman’s intent, but he shook his head. ”I am a Holy Spirit as well. I know you want to scout the situation, hoping the two of us might be struck down… But it’s useless. We willingly severed our own cultivation. At the quasi-saint realm, we are invincible. Even the Heavenly Emperor of old, if he faced us at the same level, would have seen his immortal path shattered.

”So accept your fate. Though the Seven-Colored Nirvana Jade has cracked and is no longer flawless, it can still hold for a while longer. If you stop emerging now and let me extract your origin, this jade might endure another century of gestation before it fully breaks. By then, your talent and cultivation could rise even higher…

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”Besides, even if we two are killed, would the newcomers resist the allure of the Seven-Colored Nirvana Jade? Would they ignore the Nirvana Sacred Liquid? You will emerge eventually. So accept your fate…”

The Moonlight Saint’s words trailed off as he sensed the Flame Heart Saint racing back—far faster than when he had left.

A faint smile curved the Moonlight Saint’s lips. But in the next moment, something felt wrong. He turned and saw the meteor-like Flame Heart Saint crash into a nearby peak beside the divine mountain.

The mountain shattered instantly. The earth quaked, and the void of the entire small world trembled. Had the divine peak bearing the Seven-Colored Nirvana Jade not been forged from extraordinary material and protected by lingering spiritual charm, it too might have collapsed into ruins under the impact.

When the Moonlight Saint finally saw the Flame Heart Saint’s condition, his pupils contracted sharply. The body formed from Flame Heart Glazed Flame Stone had been smashed flat on one side. Even the eternal divine flame at his core flickered weakly, as though it might extinguish at any moment. The edges of the wound clearly revealed a single palm print.

The Moonlight Saint’s mouth fell open. The Flame Heart Saint had been slapped into this state by a single blow?

How was that possible? Had another saint arrived? Who else could possess such power?

Inside the Seven-Colored Nirvana Jade, the watching woman’s indifferent eyes flashed with a trace of shock. Together, they turned toward the entrance of the small world.

In the distance, two figures approached like an immortal couple, arms intimately linked as they drifted forward. Their voices even carried clearly on the wind.

”Who’s the bastard that suddenly attacked me? Throwing a rock like that—scared the hell out of me!”

It was a man’s voice.

Soon, a woman replied, ”Probably one of the Holy Spirits here. Their clan never wastes words in battle. They’re indifferent to everything except victory. I hate enemies who won’t even let you speak. Before a fight, everyone should politely compliment each other first—get in a good mood, then start swinging! These Holy Spirits of the cultivation world really have no manners at all!”

The Moonlight Saint stared fixedly at the pair. Sensing their cultivation, his expression darkened. Both were merely mid-stage Mahayana third-heaven King Realm cultivators. Yet they had effortlessly crippled the Flame Heart Saint with a single strike.

The Moonlight Saint’s gaze was drawn by an invisible force, skipping past the woman to fix on the man. A thick aura of the Holy Spirit Curse clung to him. Across the entire cultivation world, only one person in the King Realm possessed such strength while bearing the Holy Spirit Curse.

”The Heavenly Emperor’s heir?”

The Moonlight Saint’s face grew grave. He had dismissed the rumors before, but now, seeing Ye Chen in person, he felt genuine danger. Though he had once been a saint and had severed his cultivation, he still far surpassed his former quasi-saint self. Yet unease now surged in his heart.

This proved the Heavenly Emperor’s heir was far more terrifying than the outside world claimed. If he joined forces with the Seven-Colored Nirvana Jade, the two saints might truly fall in the fourth realm. By now, the Flame Heart Saint had laboriously reformed his body. The divine flame deep in his chest, the symbol of his origin power, flared fiercely once more, like a phoenix reborn from ashes.

Yet the usually hot-tempered saint now wore an expression filled with deep wariness. He had never imagined that one day he, a Holy Spirit, would taste the humiliation of being slapped away by a mere King Realm junior.

The two saints stared at the Heavenly Emperor’s heir, their earlier arrogance—boasting of clearing the path to immortality and crushing him—utterly gone.

The heir was simply too monstrous, an existence that shattered the conventions of cultivation. Seeing him in person, the mysterious pressure he exuded actually reminded them of facing the Lotus Emperor himself.

This sensation did not stem from a direct comparison of realms. It was an inexplicable, profound spiritual intimidation. Facing him now, neither saint felt certain of victory.

”What are you here for, Heavenly Emperor’s heir?”

Neither attacked. The Moonlight Saint spoke first, his tone stripped of most hostility. They had no wish to clash with Ye Chen at this moment.

Ye Chen raised an eyebrow as he regarded them, faintly surprised.

Wasn’t he burdened with the Holy Spirit Curse? Weren’t Holy Spirits supposed to hunt him madly on sight? Weren’t they ruthless beings who struck without a word? Why did these two seem almost reasonable?

But after one of them had immediately tried to smash him with a rock, what was there to discuss? Their origins were destined to become his.

Ye Chen signaled Lan Nuo beside him to wait a moment. With a thought, the heavens seemed torn apart by an invisible giant hand.

A violet-gold palm descended from the Ninth Heaven, carrying a binding force that could lock down the world itself as it pressed down toward the two saints. Wherever the palm passed, the void froze like a lake in winter, turning sluggish and solid—forming invisible walls that sealed every escape route, unbreakable and inescapable.

The two saints’ faces changed, their eyes burning with humiliation and fury. They had always been the ones to strike without warning. They had run rampant in the fifth realm. Yet now the Heavenly Emperor’s heir proved even more ruthless than they were.

This was truly the world turned upside down!