Nirvana

The phoenix's cry split the night sky, a sound so vast it seemed to shake the heavens themselves. Heat rolled off its wings in waves, devouring the courtyard's frost in a single breath. Snow hissed into vapor. Blood blackened against the stone.

Mingyao staggered back, spine bowing under the sheer weight of its aura. She had only just faced Fei Xian—and now this? With Yue Ying missing, and her body on the verge of collapse, she wasn't sure she could endure another breath, let alone a battle.

Her dantian blazed in agony—no longer empty, but overflowing, as though someone had poured molten iron into her veins. The wildfire she thought gone had returned, fiercer than ever. Each pulse of qi seared her like knives through her meridians.

Still, she raised her hand.

Ice blossomed at her fingertips—fragile, crystalline, trembling under the suffocating heat. Mist curled around her shoulders as she forced the qi outward, shaping it into a shield of frost just as the phoenix's first strike came.

Its wings swept down. A storm of feathers—each one a blazing spear—rained toward her. The shield shattered instantly. Shards of ice hissed to steam, but they slowed the torrent just enough for her to roll aside, lungs burning, hair singed by fire.

The phoenix laughed, a laugh that wasn't a sound but the crackle of its spiritual flames and the crushing weight of its Divine Sense. "You cannot run. You cannot hide."

Her heart hammered. Her body screamed to collapse. But behind her, she could hear the faint groans of her Pavilion's survivors—their shallow breaths, their fear. She couldn't fall.

Mingyao slammed her palms to the stones. Qi surged, tearing her meridians anew—but frost spread in a jagged web across the courtyard. Ice chains erupted upward, spearing toward the phoenix's talons. For a heartbeat, they held—frost hissing against flame.

Then the phoenix's wings beat once. The chains cracked, melted, dissolved into mist.

It dove.

Mingyao forced her body to move. Her feet slid along the slick frost she had laid, carrying her just clear as the phoenix's claws raked gouges into the stone where she had stood. The courtyard trembled.

Heat clawed her skin raw.

Her vision blurred. Blood filled her mouth. The fire inside her core roared, threatening to consume her from within.

She lashed out anyway. Frost condensed midair, forming a spear of jagged ice. With a sharp cry she hurled it straight into the phoenix's chest.

The spear never reached. It vaporized in the heat, scattering like dust.
The phoenix's eyes—twin furnaces—fixed on her. Amusement. Contempt. Cruelty. It wanted her alive, to suffer longer.

It struck again.

This time, Mingyao raised both arms, calling every shred of qi left in her burning core. Ice exploded outward in a defensive bloom—dozens of jagged shards spinning in a storm around her. The phoenix's flame met the frost midair, detonating in a hiss of steam that blanketed the courtyard in mist.

For an instant—just an instant—the world went silent.

And in that silence, something stirred inside her.

Not ice. Not qi. Something deeper. Something older.

Her gaze fell to the sword. Yue Ying's spirit weapon. The glass-like blade her master had once gifted.

The fire in her dantian twisted. The air itself froze.

She stumbled toward it, unleashing another wave of frost to veil her approach. The phoenix burned through it easily, but the heartbeat she bought was enough. Her slender fingers closed around the hilt—yet instead of the faint familiar connection she expected, something vast and hidden unfurled inside her. Power. Memory. Authority. Something she had never accessed even with her own spirit weapon.

Her breath trembled. There was no time to question it.

She lifted the blade and spoke the words engraved into her soul, the First Technique of Supreme Yin:

"Absolute Stillness."

Cold qi pulsed outward.

Flames froze mid-dance. Mist crystallized in the air. Even time itself seemed shackled. The phoenix's talons halted inches from her chest, suspended between seconds.

Her eyes widened. She wasn't sure how she had willed this. She didn't understand it—only that it felt instinctual. Yet she could sense it clearly: the cold authority of yin, of endings, of stillness absolute.

The world fell silent, every sound and motion erased. But the stillness did not last. The fire raging within Mingyao's core dimmed, as though the furnace inside her had been turned down to a bearable heat.

Then the frozen phoenix began to stir, struggling as though breaking free from invisible chains. The air shimmered, and the stasis cracked like glass under pressure. With a final shatter, the stillness burst apart.

The phoenix shrieked, wings shuddering violently as it tore itself free of the impossible stasis.

The world lurched back into motion. Mingyao was flung against the walls of the Chen residence, her body weak, her qi reserves nearly depleted. She didn't know how to continue—until a thought struck her: what if she lured the bird inside the building?

Above, the phoenix hovered, shrieking. The resonance shook her core, reigniting her inner blaze until she thought her body might burst. She collapsed, clutching her chest, when the creature's fire condensed.

It descended—burning, blazing brighter, blinding—until flame became flesh.

Before her stood a figure of fire—a woman blazing with a radiance so fierce it seemed celestial. Light and qi poured from her, making Mingyao's skin glow as though lit from within. Barely clothed, her silhouette shimmered, impossible to look upon directly. With every step she took, the blaze in Mingyao's dantian flared threefold.

Her body felt ready to burst. Her eyes, ears, and hands filled with hallucinatory sensations, heat twisting her vision like desert mirages. One by one, illusions of her loved ones appeared—the former empress, Xiulan, Yue Ying, Mo Yan—before all dissolved into a searing white light that burned her to the core.

Agony. Pure agony then—

Blackness.

She drifted in the void. Her body gone, her thoughts unraveling. Was this the power of a god? Was she dead?

But then—sound.

Low, sonorous chanting, like growls echoing through eternity. The voice calmed her, even as she floated in the dark.

"Form is emptiness. Emptiness is form. Perfect your wisdom as you face your trials. Perfect your mind as you contemplate your truth."

The words reverberated, stirring a memory of the ancient figure she had seen just a day before—cloaked in the guise of a child.

Unconsciously, she began to chant:

"Form is emptiness; emptiness is form. Seeing this, the mind is freed."

The words spilled from her lips again and again. Once. Twice. By the third chant, a foreign energy wrapped around her, filling her with a soft luminosity. The haze of darkness began to clear. By the seventh chant, she returned to her body—standing once more before the girl, whose presence no longer carried that crushing, heavenly weight.

Her dantian was calm.

The girl, seeing Mingyao awaken, finally spoke.

"Congratulations on passing your second tribulation."

Mingyao's heart lurched. That voice struck a chord of familiarity. Her eyes lifted to the phoenix girl's face.

"Xiulan!" she gasped.

But before another word could leave her lips, the woman shimmered—her form dissolving into flame.

The phoenix spread its wings, brilliance trailing behind, and vanished into the night.

Mingyao pushed herself to her feet. Her body ached, yet felt strangely light, as though the fire had burned away the weight of exhaustion itself. The pain lingered, but beneath it thrummed something new. Her cultivation pulsed with clarity—she had stepped into the realm of Master.

So this had indeed been another tribulation. She had always believed they would come in the form of lightning, but now she knew they could manifest in any shape. And with that realization came a deeper unease: how would she ever recognize when the next tribulation descended upon her?

Her eyes swept over the battlefield. Chen Yichen's courtyard lay in ruins: stone scorched black, frost melting into rivulets, cracks spiderwebbing across the earth. Bodies dotted the ground—her Yin Lian Pavilion sisters, pale and trembling. They were alive, but fear lingered in every shallow breath.

Mo Yan, who had been frozen stiff during the phoenix's descent, hurried to Mingyao's side, her face etched with worry. Seeing her standing, the woman exhaled shakily, then turned and began checking the others, voice soft as she comforted them. Mingyao joined her, kneeling beside one disciple after another.

Most bore no fatal wounds—merely overwhelmed by the oppressive weight of power they could never hope to resist. But three lay broken and bloody: the Chen brothers and Xue Shi.

Chen Yichen was the worst. His robes were soaked crimson, a gaping wound yawning across his left side. His brother groaned faintly nearby, unconscious. Xue Shi, though her body was riddled with fractures, still clenched her teeth stubbornly; with her cultivation, she would recover.

Mingyao's fingers tightened into fists. She had survived, but her Pavilion had paid dearly.

Then—

The sound of metal.

A low, steady clank of armored steps echoed through the mist. One by one, shadows emerged, masked men in lacquered black armor, their movements sharp and disciplined. They fanned out until the courtyard was ringed, blades glinting under the moonlight.

Mingyao's breath slowed. She could feel them—half-step Masters, late-stage inner strength experts, each emanating a dangerous stillness. But the one who stepped forward, his mask etched with a silver crest, carried a presence like a mountain. The pressure rolling from him was unmistakable.

A Grandmaster.

Every instinct screamed at her to resist. But she was no fool. One Grandmaster, a dozen elites—her Pavilion already broken. To fight was death.

The masked leader stopped before her, his voice low but resonant, calm yet impossible to defy:

"You have been summoned, Your Highness."

Mingyao's pupils narrowed. Anxiety curled in her chest, but she forced her lips into a wry smile, her voice laced with sly defiance."Are you certain you have the right person?"

The man tilted his head slightly, as if her jest amused him. "Do not mock me, Your Highness. Your summons await. Time is short."

The air around the courtyard seemed to tighten with his words.

Mingyao's gaze flicked toward her Pavilion sisters, pale and shivering, then to the fallen Chen brothers. Her teeth pressed together. If her guess was right about who these men served, then her companions would be spared—for now.

The leader seemed to read her hesitation. He inclined his head faintly."Rest easy. Your people will be tended to. None will come to further harm."

Mo Yan stiffened but dared not speak. Mingyao exhaled through her nose, shoulders loosening slightly, though her eyes never left the Grandmaster's mask.

When he extended a gauntleted hand, she allowed him to help her rise.

From the shadows, attendants brought forth a palanquin lacquered black and trimmed in silver, its curtains drawn tight.

The Grandmaster gestured toward it. His voice softened a fraction, though the command within it remained absolute."Please, take your seat, Your Highness."

Mingyao's jaw clenched. She gave her Pavilion one last lingering glance—her sisters most of unconscious, Mo Yan biting her lip in helpless worry, the wounded Chen brothers gasping for air.

Then, spine straight, she stepped into the palanquin without another word.

The masked guards moved as one. In the blink of an eye, the ruined courtyard fell silent, the night air swallowing their presence as if they had never been there.

Mingyao was gone.