Immortal Paladin

[POV: Gu Jie]

In the depths of the Underworld’s Third Layer, aboard the Mighty Duck, Gu Jie sat cross-legged upon the crow’s nest, her form bathed in the dim, ethereal glow of lingering yin qi that permeated the vessel like a shroud of eternal night. She cultivated diligently, circulating her blood qi through her meridians with meticulous focus.

Slowly, her figure refined itself under the profound laws of her path with her breasts becoming more shapely and full, her height increasing by a few centimeters as her teenage body adjusted to the surging energies. Yet she remained physically a teenager, her hormones stirred into restless turmoil by the nature of her cultivation. Sucking the blood of others only exacerbated such fluctuations; it was the price of treading this crimson road.

Her feeding had been disrupted time and again by her mother’s interference and other unforeseen obstacles, stunting her progress. Her realm wavered annoyingly between the Ascended Soul stage and below, rising and falling like a tide pulled by capricious heavenly fate. Still, she had not forgotten the heavy sins she committed during the Hollowed World War, nor the solemn vow she had made to resurrect Wen Yuhan and the others from that alternate world forged in a recorded past. Greater matters, however, loomed before her like an impending tribulation.

Whenever she sensed an enormous wave of misfortune or a life-altering catastrophe about to befall her father, Gu Jie acted with unwavering intent to steer him away from the brink. Back in Yellow Dragon City, when he had been merely a master in her eyes, she had warned him of the misfortune she represented. It had been largely her own fault, since she had clung to him with desperate need, but he had taken her in nonetheless.

During their arduous journey from Yellow Dragon City to the Imperial Capital, she had done everything in her power to divert them from the threads of calamity her eyes detected. He listened to her words, yet often ignored the deeper warnings. It had not been entirely disastrous; that path had led them to encounter Hei Mao, the little ghost kid who had since grown into quite the powerhouse under her father’s guidance.

Then came the World Summit, where the Final Emperor bestowed his eyes upon her to complete the Destiny-Seeking Eyes. She had bent destiny with all her might, praying fervently for her father’s safe return. What had he done? He died.

Later, during the chaos of the False Earth, he had barely spared his family and disciples a glance before rushing back into that forsaken realm to wage his war. What the hell? Only later in life had Gu Jie truly realized that her father was quite a tyrant. A family man, yes, but a tyrant nonetheless, charging forward against the heavens themselves with no regards of those following him. It was an unfair assessment, but nonetheless accurate.

Who could even expect to fly the same level as a Supreme Being?

And then there was the entire Civil War... ugh. She did not even know where to begin unraveling that knot of karmic threads.

When the Hollowed World War erupted in full, Gu Jie had decided to cast caution to the winds and confront it all in her father’s unyielding style. When the threads of ‘misfortune’ and ‘critical events’ converged, she charged ahead just as he would, facing the problems head-on without retreat. The result? She and the other six disciples had perished! Miraculously, their souls had been scattered across the major realms of the Greater Universe. Her mother had been helpless, blinded by love and devotion. In the end, everything had fallen upon Gu Jie’s shoulders.

She could not truly blame her father. The man constantly faced forces far beyond his realm, and from what she could perceive, he now prepared to confront something vastly superior. Forget a mere Ruler of Laws, he would charge against a completed and mature Supreme Being if fate demanded it.

“Fuck this shit!” Gu Jie screamed into the void, her voice echoing across the silent expanse of the Underworld’s layers. “Why the hell does he always have to play the damn hero?!” She pulled at her hair in frustration, her curses pouring out like a torrent of unrefined qi. “I swear to the heavens, if he gets himself killed again, I’ll drag his tyrannical ass back from the cycle of reincarnation myself!”

The outburst shattered the quiet. From below, the cabin door burst open with a resounding kick. Horse-Face emerged, his form currently shifted into a sturdy human shape, still shaking off the remnants of deep slumber as he recovered his strength and healed the grievous injuries sustained in prior battles.

“Shut up, you are noisy!” Horse-Face bellowed, glaring upward.

Gu Jie stared down at him from her perch, composing herself with a cool gaze. “How are you doing?”

Horse-Face rubbed his neck, his voice still rough. “Where’s Da Wei? Also, how long was I asleep?”

“Two hundred years,” Gu Jie answered flatly. “It seems the injuries you’ve sustained in your journey was far harsher on you than you thought.”

Horse-Face’s eyes widened slightly. “I need to talk with him. We now know the location of Lady Meng Po.”

Gu Jie’s crimson compass-like eyes, elevated to the level of an Origin Art, flickered as she consulted the flowing rivers of destiny. In nine out of ten possible futures, Horse-Face would succeed in convincing her father to embark on yet another idiotic mission, claiming it was mere reconnaissance while harboring his true desire for a chat with Supreme Death. She could not leave such a critical turning point to chance. Her father might have stepped into the realm of a complete Supreme Being, but he was not yet fully matured. To her sight, the Six Supremes remained a profound blind spot, just as they likely obscured her father’s Ophanim.

Without hesitation, Gu Jie leaped down toward Horse-Face. “Let me bestow upon thee a destiny with these eyes.”

Her red compass-like eyes bloomed with profound light as she summoned her corpse puppet from her pocket dimension. Wen Yuhan surged into motion, compounding the power of her gaze.

“Immortal Art: Destiny Seeking Eyes!”

Gu Jie declared with solemn authority, “Divine Word: Rest.”

Despite Horse-Face’s cultivation being a major realm higher, he succumbed instantly to the technique, aided by the Ascended Soul strength of the corpse puppet. His body slumped forward, falling into deep, enforced slumber.

Gu Jie let out a small sigh, then bent down and began dragging Horse-Face’s unconscious form deeper into the ship’s interior. “Help me with this,” she instructed her corpse puppet Wen Yuhan, who moved silently to assist, the pair hauling the heavy body toward a more secure cabin below deck.

…

..

.

[POV: Da Wei]

I stood in the shadowed halls of the Bone Palace, the air thick with the chill of death qi and the faint echo of distant howls from the Underworld’s depths. Alice and Wang Yang lingered nearby.

“Alice, Wang Yang,” I said, keeping my voice steady, “leave me alone with Pestilence for a moment. I need to talk with her.”

Alice stared at me, her eyes clouded with clear trouble, the kind that came from knowing me too well and not liking what she saw in my face right now.

I sent my words directly into her mind through Qi Speech, calm but firm. “Please, just trust me on this one.”

Pestilence let out a low, throaty chuckle from where she lounged against a pillar of carved bone. “Oh? Alone with little old me? How bold, Da Wei. I always knew you wanted some private time. My body is ready for whatever ‘talk’ you have in mind~!”

Alice shot her a sharp look before turning back to me. “Be careful,” she warned, her voice tight.

After a long moment of hesitation, Alice and Wang Yang finally withdrew, their footsteps fading down the corridor until only the oppressive silence of the Bone Palace remained.

I raised my right hand, palm open, letting the two Binding Vows gleam under the pale light. On my left wrist, a shooting star looped endlessly around like living silver. On the right, a pair of crossed swords locked together in eternal binding.

“These are Binding Vows,” I said, meeting Pestilence’s gaze directly. “Do you know what they do?”

Pestilence’s cheeks flushed with an unnatural, excited crimson as she leaned forward, eyes gleaming with mischief. “Ara ara~ Look at you, showing off your wedding bracelets like that. Two-timing already, and now you want to make it three-timing? Such a lustful demon you are, Da Wei. Of course I know what they are… a contract spell witnessed by the heavens themselves, something the Supreme Fate devised to bind souls and promises.”

I cut her off before she could spiral further. “It’s also something used to ensure deals and agreements are seen through. Let’s do it.”

She bit her lip, pressing a hand dramatically to her chest as if swooning. “Mmm, you’re giving me such a hard-on right now with how aggressive you’re being. Come here and let me—”

“Take this seriously,” I warned, my tone dropping cold. “This will decide whether we can even continue this alliance or not.”

I didn’t want to turn any of the Four Horsemen—or worse, Supreme Death—into outright enemies, even if I could already feel the collision course burning ahead like an oncoming freight train. If there was any path that let me avoid killing them, I’d take it. But I doubted the choice would be that clean. Reaching the realm of a Ruler of Laws right now still felt like trying to bench-press a mountain with my current stats.

Pestilence pouted, tilting her head with mock innocence. “A girl doesn’t like pushy men, you know~?”

I scoffed internally. She wouldn’t even qualify as a proper woman or probably even a man, for that matter. Whatever this thing was, it was playing a dangerous game of spiritual conquest and deceit.

“Take it or leave it,” I said flatly. “But I can’t have you stabbing me in the back. I don’t trust you. Since you carry memories of Supreme Death, you should already know exactly where my wariness comes from. The Supreme Death modeled you after the biblical Conquest, a spiritual usurpation wrapped in masterful deceit designed to lower everyone’s guard. Whatever you did to mess with my head before… it’s gone now. I’m willing to look past your aggression, but only if you agree to a Binding Vow.”

I held no illusions that I could beat a Ruler of Laws at my current level, not even with all the recent training and breakthroughs I’d clawed through. The Ophanim were already energy hogs on their own; throw in someone from a higher realm and the suppression would only get worse. That was probably exactly how Conquest had managed to fool me with this ‘Pestilence’ act in the first place.

Pestilence’s playful expression finally settled into something more serious. She sighed theatrically but nodded. “Fine, fine~ I agree to a Binding Vow.”

I laid out my terms clearly. “You must not harm me or anyone close to me—those who fall under the banner of the Hollowed World, Luminary’s Rest, and the Holy Ascension Empire.”

She countered smoothly. “Then you must also swear not to harm my being or my subordinates.”

We negotiated the punishment quickly and settled on the same harsh consequence for both sides: being stripped of our immortality if either of us broke the vows.

This Binding Vow thing was honestly quite potent, and even I felt compelled to follow them.

A divine chain of golden light materialized around my right wrist, settling just beside War’s existing Binding Vow with a resonant hum of heavenly law. A similar mark appeared on Pestilence’s wrist. The shape of the vow seemed to adapt depending on who initiated it. That was why Aixin and War’s vows had manifested as a shooting star and locked swords on my skin.

The contract sealed with the weight of the heavens themselves, binding us tighter than any verbal promise.

I stood beside Pestilence as we left the Bone Palace behind, stepping out into the ruined courtyard where the pair of once-mighty guardian statues now lay shattered and toppled like fallen titans. Alice stood atop one of the broken stone forms, her posture alert and ready. Hei Mao sat cross-legged on the other, his ghostly figure flickering faintly with quiet power. Chen Wei was methodically sharpening his sword nearby, the scrape of whetstone against steel cutting through the heavy air. Wang Yang looked visibly tense, his judge’s aura coiled tight like a spring.

Surrounding us were the various women who had once been undead, recently resurrected by Hei Mao’s efforts. They wore tattered remnants of clothing that clung loosely to their bodies, exposing patches of pale, flawless skin here and there. Each one was strikingly beautiful in a haunting way, their features refined and delicate, yet the ragged state of their garments added a tragic, almost poetic charm, like broken blossoms scattered after a storm.

Gao Fu stepped forward from the group. She cupped her fist in a formal greeting and lowered herself into a respectful bow. “Your Holy Majesty, the Death Daughters are now at your service—”

“I object, eldest sister!” one of the women cried out sharply.

The others quickly echoed her sentiment, their voices rising in a chorus of defiance. “We cannot agree to this! Not when Conquest is right there standing beside him!”

Pestilence let out a light, amused laugh. “Oh dear, you’ve got it all wrong. I am no longer Conquest. Allow me to introduce myself properly… I am Pestilence now, a changed person.”

The Death Daughters clearly didn’t take her words kindly. Insults and curses flew from their lips without restraint. “You vile whore!” one spat. “How dare you show your face after everything!” Another added bitterly, “Monster! You have no right to speak of change!”

Gao Fu tried to argue with her sisters, attempting to calm them, but they debunked her at every turn, recounting the cruelty and evil they had suffered. They spoke of how their bodies had been sullied in ways too horrific to imagine, sold off like commodities to various practitioners across the Greater Universe, while the rest had been kept in storage, cursed into undeath and endless torment.

They were telling only the truth. I could feel the weight of their pain hanging in the air like thick yin qi.

Pestilence turned her gaze toward me, a challenging glint in her eyes as if daring me to defend them or make a move.

I didn’t fall for it. After hearing their plea, the realization settled heavily in my gut: the Four Horsemen had to go. There was no avoiding it anymore.

I raised my voice so the Death Daughters could hear me clearly. “I will not ask you to fight for me. But I’m willing to show you kindness. The Hollowed World is a huge place with plenty of space for you to start over. You no longer need to be persecuted. You can begin again.”

The group fell quiet, their angry expressions shifting into wary silence.

I wanted these women as an addition to my military forces, since they would have been a powerful asset, but seeing their deep hostility and the careful way they eyed Conquest, I decided it was smarter to set them aside for now. Hopefully, one day I could appeal to them again under better circumstances, and then they might choose to fight for me willingly.

Gao Fu bowed once more, her voice sincere. “Thank you for your generosity, Your Holy Majesty. I offer the secret realm of the Origin Faith as a place to take them in.”

It was a no-brainer. Of course I rejected her offer. Handing them over as they were would only inflate the strength of the Origin Faith at a time when I needed to keep balances in check.

“The Death Daughters are a faction of their own,” I declared firmly, “and have nothing to do with the Origin Faith. While they have the right to asylum, they’d be better off being able to sustain themselves. And what better way than to give them land that they can cultivate yourselves and take root on?”