CHAPTER 24: A VOW II

Because her soul was linked to Tian Lei’s, his crippled state meant she had no access to the external world’s Qi. Yet still, she had pushed forward—driven by guilt, by sorrow, and by a desperate need to protect the one she’d once merely meant to guide.

If I had warned him...If I hadn’t watched silently... she might still be alive.

She hated herself for that.

"I’m sorry, Tian Lei."

Her voice was faint now, like a whisper lost in the wind.

"I’ve done all I can. That last jump nearly... shattered me."

Her form shimmered once—

—and then faded back into his Sea of Consciousness.

Tian Lei, breathing hard, slowly sat up in the soft grass of a foreign land.

He reached inward, toward his soul domain.

There—floating like a wounded moon—Muring Yue curled into herself, her spirit fractured and dim. Soul lines cracked. Her eyes barely opened when he entered.

He didn’t speak.

He simply raised his hand, his gaze solemn.

From within him, infinite soul power surged forth—torrents of soul essence channeled through the powerful golden soul he now possessed. A soul not born of this world, but something far beyond its cycle.

Carefully—almost reverently—he directed that power into Muring Yue’s cocooned form.

A translucent white egg formed around her damaged soul, glowing gently. The restoration had begun... but it was no longer a simple matter of replenishing her. The backlash from forcefully executing the Great Void Art with depleted reserves had ravaged her very foundation.

This time, healing her would be slow. Uncertain. Perhaps impossible.

Tian Lei frowned as he watched her sleep in stasis, suspended within his Sea of Consciousness.

"What are you, an idiot...?"

His voice trembled, eyes stinging.

"What would I do if you left me too?"

He lowered his gaze, fists clenched.

"Once again... I nearly lost someone.

Because I’m weak."

His whisper was almost inaudible.

"You’re like this... because you chose to help me. Because I couldn’t protect anyone... again."

He didn’t yet know the true reason behind her sacrifice.

Didn’t know her guilt.

Didn’t know that she had watched it all in silence.

But none of that mattered now.

He lifted his head to the sky.

His expression, once hollow, was now carved in steel.

"No more."

"No matter who comes at me—no matter what they are—if they threaten my people... they will die."

The Infinite Fortune Core inside him pulsed in agreement, resonating with his resolve.

Golden runes spun within his body as the world around him responded.

A spatial ripple unfolded beneath his feet, and his consciousness dropped into a place only he could access—his Golden Fortune Realm.

The air there shimmered with celestial patterns. Ancient symbols floated freely. It was not a physical place, nor purely spiritual—but a realm of Infinte Fortune Core.

However, what he didn’t noticed as he left, there was another Coccon similar to Murong and inside it also had another female curled up.....

Elsewhere...

In a dense forest just outside the border of this unknown empire—

An old man with flowing robes and a long, unkempt beard stepped out from behind a tree, eyes narrowed.

"Strange..." he muttered, stroking his beard thoughtfully.

He squinted toward the sky.

"That spatial fluctuation just now... it wasn’t just void movement. That was a trace of the Great Void Art."

He knelt, brushing his hand along the scorched remnants left behind by Muring Yue’s final teleportation.

The old man remained rooted in place, gazing solemnly at the dissipating remnants of void essence.

"Such profound mastery..." he muttered, eyes narrowing.

"But who could it be? No one else knows this technique... except myself."

His brows furrowed. A bead of sweat traced down his temple.

"Did someone else... obtain it from the Secret Realm?"

That possibility chilled even his aged heart.

He closed his eyes and sent his spiritual sense sweeping across the terrain. Unlike the last two occurrences he had investigated, this site had only a single spatial exit point—no entry signature. No anchor. No spatial gate left behind.

"No entry point... only a one-way tear in space?"

"Could they have... mastered the Great Void Art to the point of creating their own realm gate?"

He slowly descended to one knee, brushing his fingers along the faint scorched symbols on the forest floor.

A flicker of uncertainty crossed his face.

"Which senior could it be?"

He stood up, robe billowing in the wind, and remained there—silent. Waiting. Watching the place where Tian Lei had disappeared moments before, now unaware that someone is waiting for him now outside.

Back, within the Golden Fortune Realm—

Tian Lei walked in silence, the soles of his feet brushing against the radiant floor of the Library of Eternal Fortune or Simply infinity library, his presence casting no shadow in this sacred space made of soul and memory.

Towering shelves—golden, silver, obsidian—rose into a sky that held no sun, filled with scriptures, tablets, and orbs that glowed with ancient knowledge. Every step echoed like a heartbeat inside a tomb.

"No. Not this one."

"And this... requires too many rare elements. Not feasible."

"This one needs a Saint’s blood... useless."

He is now looking for art to reconstruct his dantian, yes, not repair but reconstruct, The Infinite Fotune Core, just give him this Clue, so now he is browsing through all the techniques he can currently use.

He moved with increasing frustration, brushing his fingers along tome after tome, jade slip after jade slip, his breath short, his patience thinning. Most of these techniques were lost to time—sacred arts that only emperors or primordial beasts could afford to attempt.

But most arts require many kind of treasures, which he don’t have, so even if he found an powerful Art, he can’t use it due to lack of resource so he continued to move on.

Until—his hand paused.

A single book shimmered on a lower shelf.

It was unadorned. Its title was written in a dialect even older than the Ancient Tongue—yet he understood it.

~Primordial Beast Scripture – Celestial Heaven

Rather than repairing the Dantian, this technique completely reconstructs it.

The resulting structure manifests as a core composed of multiple nodes—each node acting as an independent spiritual chamber within the cultivator’s Dantian. These nodes function as both energy conduits and beast soul sanctuaries.

Each node can host a beast soul, regardless of rank or species.

Upon successful integration, the user inherits racial abilities, elemental affinities, and bloodline traits specific to that beast.

For humans—who are born without innate gifts—this technique offers a path to transcendence.

The more powerful the beast soul, the more dominant and transformative its influence.