(Authors note: before I begin, I want to give a shout out to a new Ri fic that I am a big fan of, it's called "the final reborn", I can say that it's the ri fic with the most potential right now, so I hope you guys can check it out.)
Ning Zu stood with his hands tucked into the loose folds of his robe, his expression one of utter boredom. He surveyed the scene before him, the dense woods around them whispering with the chill of a northern wind. The setting sun cast a pale orange hue over everything, giving the scene a bleak glow.
In front of Ning Zu, a Rank 2 Gu Master knelt on the ground, tears streaming down his bruised face, his body quivering with pain and fear. His eyes, wide with desperation, flickered past Ning Zu to the bodies sprawled behind him. The mortals lay scattered across the dirt, unconscious but alive, their breaths misting in the cold air.
The kneeling Gu Master's body was a mess, his robes torn and stained with blood. Most of his body was encased in a layer of frost, the skin beneath turning a sickly shade of blue. He could barely move, his limbs trembling violently as if trying to shake off the biting cold that had seeped into his bones. He wasn't looking at Ning Zu, though; his gaze was locked on his fallen comrade nearby, disbelief etched into every line of his face.
His companion, known among their ranks as the most experienced Rank 2 Gu Master in the cavern, lay in a crumpled heap. Unlike the mortals who had merely passed out, he was broken in a way that seemed almost inhuman. His limbs were twisted beyond recognition, bent at angles that defied nature. Icy spikes pierced his body, pinning him to the ground like some macabre sculpture, his blood freezing into dark, brittle stains around the wounds.
A thought swirled in the kneeling Gu Master's mind, circling like a vulture: 'How?How did we get bested so easily, especially by a single opponent of the same rank?'
He remembered his friend quick as a viper, and yet, in their brief struggle, he hadn't managed to land a single blow. It wasn't a Gu worm that gave Ning Zu such an edge. It was his reflexes, honed to a deadly precision. Against Ning Zu's speed, they might as well have been children flailing in the dark.
The Gu master, desperate, looked at Ning Zu and started to plead: "Please, spare me!" Tears leaking from his eyes as he tried to hit his forehead on the ground, failing to do that because of his frozen body.
Annoyance flared in Ning Zu's cold, unblinking eyes. With a sharp sigh, he delivered a swift punch to the kneeling Gu Master's face.
The impact was brutal, a dull crunch as the man's nose shattered under the force. The Gu Master collapsed into unconsciousness, slumping forward into the dirt, his breath shallow and ragged. Ning Zu straightened, wiping the splattered blood from his knuckles with a casual swipe of his sleeve, his expression unchanging.
His thoughts turned sour as he looked over the scene, a bitter taste filling his mouth. 'These Gu Masters... all of them, cowards.' He almost sneered. In moments like this, he found himself yearning for the northern plains, those wild lands where he had once fought battle-hardened warriors, men who fought with the ferocity of beasts, even when outmatched. They were reckless, yes, but they had pride. They would rather die on their feet than beg for mercy.
He missed the thrill of such fights, the clash of wills and the raw, primal satisfaction of defeating an opponent who never stopped struggling. These southern cultivators, with all their schemes and treachery, seemed so... tame in comparison. 'They break too easily, Paradise Earth truly made them soft' he thought, his eyes narrowing at the unconscious Gu Master at his feet.
Kneeling down, Ning Zu reached into the folds of the Gu Master's robe, rifling through until he found what he was looking for:
A small box, crafted from polished dark wood. It was sturdy and well-made, with intricate carvings running along its edges, but nothing about it stood out as remarkable. A simple brass clasp held it shut, reflecting the dying light in a dull gleam.
Ning Zu flipped open the clasp and lifted the lid. Inside, nestled within a bed of soft cloth, was something that made him pause, it was a Gu worm. It looked like a tiny leech, curled up into a tight coil, its entire body a vibrant shade of blue that shimmered with an inner light. The color was striking, a deep, almost hypnotic blue that reminded Ning Zu of the endless waves of the sea, the kind of blue that seemed to hold secrets in its depths.
The Gu worm was asleep, its body pulsing gently with each tiny breath. Ning Zu's lips curved into a genuine smile. This Gu was exactly what he had been seeking for the past few days.
The Purification Gu, its power was simple and very valuable: it could cleanse the body of any harmful toxins, purging impurities from the body.
'Perfect,' Ning Zu thought, his eyes gleaming with satisfaction. He had plans for this Gu, plans that would allow him to cleanse his original body that had the identity of Xiong Zi Rui.
Despite the high grade of that body's aperture, the body itself still carried the taint of impurities, a flaw he couldn't ignore. The Xiong bloodline wasn't the best, and its roots were tainted, the kind of flaw that would only become more troublesome as he climbed higher in cultivation.
If he hadn't found this Gu, he might have been forced to seek a new main body entirely, something that would go against what he was planning. But now, with this Purification Gu, he could continue as intende. He allowed himself a moment to savor the victory, his fingers brushing gently over the delicate blue creature before closing the box and tucking it into his robes.
Ning Zu then turned his attention to the fallen mortals and the unconscious Gu Masters scattered around him. A smirk played at the edge of his lips as he considered their fates. In their defeat, they had become more than just nuisances, they were opportunities.
The true reward," he mused to himself, "is not the Gu, but these 'materials'." Each of these humans, whether strong or weak, could be put to use in refining new Gu. Their bodies would serve a greater purpose, their suffering transformed into something useful. It was a dark thought, but in the world of Gu Masters, such pragmatism was simply survival.
"Since my refinement attempts where all failed, probably because of heaven's will, I should be able to refine at least two Gu now." Saying this, he looked at the sky.
"Heaven is fair? Right?" He sounded sarcastic, as he didn't believe in the heaven's fairness.
"Only I shall decide what's fair and what's not, oh just wait, Star Constellation."
———
Somewhere else, deep within the shifting boundaries of reality, nestled beyond mortal perception, lay a hidden blessed land.
Within this secluded haven, shrouded in mist and shadows, sat a lone figure whose presence seemed to merge with the darkness around him.
Old Man Yan Shi reclined in a chair carved from obsidian stone, his black robe pooling around him like spilled ink. His face was a map of wrinkles, each line etched by countless years, yet his eyes were far more unsettling, they where simply two black orbs, devoid of whites, like twin abysses that could swallow light itself.
As he sat, the air around him crackled with invisible currents, the energies of his rank 7 cultivation thrumming like a heartbeat through the blessed land.
He was a great grandmaster of the wisdom path, and in that moment, his mind was a battlefield of thoughts, thousands of deductions unfolding at once. Threads of knowledge wove through his mind, intertwining like the strands of a vast, invisible web. He sought answers, clarity amidst the chaos of his own thoughts, probing the mysteries of fate.
Yet, just as a crucial realization began to crystallize in his mind, he felt an interruption:
A foreign presence slipped through the air, like a ripple through still water. Old Man Yan Shi's deductions ground to a halt, his brows furrowing as he recognized the nature of the intrusion.
It was a will fragment of consciousness carried through space, hovering before him.
The old man's voice emerged, rough but commanding, carrying an edge of weariness from long hours spent in contemplation. "Lian Jiu Sheng's will... What brings you here?"
The will shimmered faintly, as if struggling to maintain its form. Its voice echoed softly in the air, its tone formal yet edged with the urgency of its mission. "Apologies, Old Man Yan Shi. I was delayed, Heaven's will has watched my main body closely these past years. But I have a message to deliver."
Old Man Yan Shi's lips tightened, but he nodded, gesturing with a gnarled hand. "I'm busy, as you can see. Speak quickly."
The will wasted no time, its form flickering as it delivered its news. "Ning Zu's last split soul... it has been found. Heavenly Court discovered it, a fight happened, the soul has managed to self destruct, but they managed to preserve his body."
A sigh slipped from Yan Shi's lips, the sound carrying with it a mix of regret and resignation. "So, they found him at last. A pity... That was the last of his clones. The other two have been lost long ago."
The will's form began to waver, its edges dissolving into the air, but its voice gained a note of urgency. "Before his split soul completely disappeared, my main body uncovered something of interest. Ning Zu... has been revived."
The final words rang through the blessed land like a bell, and then the will vanished into nothingness, dropping what looked like a life span Gu that was hidden inside it.
Yan Shi sat frozen for a heartbeat, his face shifting as the weight of the revelation sank in, not even looking at the life span Gu. Slowly, a smile spread across his lips, cracking the stern lines of his face. He rose from his chair, his hands trembling with a mixture of joy and disbelief.
Without hesitation, he began to channel his immense mental power, driving it into a series of deductions. He no longer cared for the drain on his immortal essence, his mind racing faster than it had in decades. "Revived... in the Southern Border, most likely. That's where he fell, and that is where he will rise again," Yan Shi muttered to himself, each word laced with a thrill he had long forgotten.
His hands moved in practiced gestures, summoning the Heavenly Secret Gu, a powerful tool that allowed glimpses beyond what any other wisdom path cultivator could.
He took the life span Gu on the ground, and used it immediately.
He then activated it repeatedly, his eyes burning with a feverish light. Threads of possibility danced before him, spinning into patterns that only he could decipher. Yet the deeper he probed, the more the threads frayed and twisted, slipping from his grasp. Even Heaven's will seemed blind to this secret.
Yan Shi ground his teeth, abandoning the technique. "Heaven's will cannot see his revival. That means... he walks a path even fate cannot trace."
He paused for a moment, considering his options, then resolved on a bold course of action. He extended his hand, summoning the energy of his soul, shaping it with ruthless precision. Pain lanced through him, sharp and searing, but he did not flinch. Slowly, a split soul coalesced in his grasp, a fragment of his own essence, glowing with a faint light.
Breathing heavily, Yan Shi regarded the split soul, his voice a rasp. "You will carry my will and my knowledge. You will go where I cannot, hidden from Heaven's prying eyes."
He began to weave layers of protective techniques around the split soul, one after another: barriers against detection, illusions to mask its presence. His hands moved with the precision of a master craftsman, forming seals and glyphs that shimmered in the air before fading into the split soul's form. Each technique drained him further, but he pressed on, driven by a purpose that burned like a flame in his chest.
Finally, he released the split soul, sending it beyond the borders of his blessed land, out into the world, ready to find a body and begin its mission.
But Old Man Yan Shi did not stop. With the determination of a man who had glimpsed the edge of a grand revelation, he moved to a nearby desk cluttered with ancient scrolls and brittle manuscripts. There, spread across a polished stone surface, was a set of what looked like blueprints scribbled diagrams and half-finished notes that outlined the impossible. It was a plan for creating an artificial extreme physique, one aligned with Dream path, a pursuit so ambitious it bordered on madness.
These scrolls were made by none other than Ning Zu, and were the fruit of most of his dream path research with the help of his human path attainment.
He lowered himself onto a cloud Gu, its soft, silvery mist forming a cushion beneath him, and began to pore over the notes with renewed vigor. His gnarled fingers traced the lines of diagrams, his mind racing once more, piecing together the final fragments of a vision that could reshape their world.
"Just as Ning Zu seeks to reclaim his destiny, so too must I complete what he began," Yan Shi murmured to himself, a twisted smile curling on his lips.
The air around him thickened with the promise of change, the blessed land humming with a newfound tension, as if the world itself sensed the beginning of something monumental. And Old Man Yan Shi, seated amidst his ancient tomes and flickering thoughts, welcomed the storm with open arms.