It felt like something was wrapping around me.
Soft, slippery, warm.
Accompanied by that intoxicating scent that seeped deep into my nostrils.
But I couldn’t open my eyes anymore; I could only let it envelop me like this, blocking out the fierce wind, the cold, and everything that could unsettle me.
Just like that, I fell straight into a dream.
Though it was a dream, I was fully conscious.
Around me stretched a pure white space, and at its center— in front of me— stood a massive jet-black stele engraved with intricate patterns.
Huh? Foundation Establishment Spirit Platform?
Not good. It seemed that detecting a death threat had triggered a forced Foundation Establishment.
Just like how a man’s dying organs twitch involuntarily, this was a cultivator’s instinctive response.
When faced with near death, the body forces a breakthrough.
I hadn’t taken any Foundation Establishment Pills beforehand, nor had I taken Clear Heart Pills or Spirit Ascension Pills. I had just drained all my spiritual energy completely.
In such a state, attempting Foundation Establishment— forget about a Nine-Grade Spirit Platform, just not shattering the base and dying on the spot would be a miracle.
“And now, what’s going on here?”
In my memory, Foundation Establishment meant condensing the Spirit Platform, creating a spiritual compressor inside the body… but why was there already a black Spirit Platform right before me?
“Wait a minute, this is…”
The jet-black stele before me exuded a familiar aura.
Even though it had been ages since I last saw it, I quickly recognized it.
“Rip!”
Just as I was stunned, a tear appeared in the milky-white space.
Four tentacles slipped through the gap first, clinging to the window ledge, and then the girl’s small head peeked in, curious.
“Cluru?!”
How did she get in here?
Cluru saw me, tightened her grip with the tentacles, and launched herself forward.
The immense force slammed straight into my soul body, pinning me to the ground.
The soul body was extremely sensitive—far more than the physical body in reality—and the moment Cluru’s tentacles wrapped around me, a fierce stimulation surged through my mind, almost causing me to shut down.
Luckily, Cluru let go.
“This place… is?”
“Should be my Qi Sea world, but… there’s no such black Spirit Platform in my Qi Sea.”
“Oh?” Cluru bit her lip in confusion. “But I entered your dream.”
“You can actively enter other people’s dreams?”
“That’s something I learned after Foundation Establishment…”
Good thing I hadn’t slept recently.
But who dreams about their Qi Sea and Foundation Establishment?
“Do you know what this thing is?” Cluru stretched out a tentacle, curiously trying to touch the stele.
“Don’t touch it!”
“…!”
The instant her tentacle touched the black stele, a fierce and violent aura surged out, making Cluru freeze as if facing a mountain of corpses and rivers of blood.
I hurriedly pulled her back, and the hallucination before her eyes vanished.
“What exactly… is this?” Cluru snapped back to reality, panting nervously as she wrapped her tentacles around me, as if afraid the stele would swallow me.
“A Spirit Platform.”
I scratched my head with a smile. “This was my old Spirit Platform… yeah, the one in the dream.”
“Your… Spirit Platform from your dream?”
Cluru was stunned.
The moment she touched the Spirit Platform, countless wails of dying souls and venomous curses echoed in her mind.
They weren’t calling out to Yun Xianzun.
They were calling to Yun Yama.
“Yeah, cultivation is like that~” I said casually, trying to comfort her. “Just don’t ask me why I’m dreaming about this thing…”
By rights, my Foundation Establishment Spirit Platform should’ve shattered when I reached the Golden Core stage, transforming into a Golden Core.
But that was the Spirit Platform in the material world; it wasn’t impossible for a copy to remain in the dream world.
“Your dream… it’s really scary.”
I looked up and saw Cluru gazing at me with pity.
She probably thought I had been trapped in a nightmare of corpses and blood for seventeen years.
“I don’t know why it’s appearing here.”
Even for me, the dream world was an unknown realm.
In theory, a person existing simultaneously in both dream and reality— two worlds merged— is a complete existence.
But even cultivators can only make themselves stronger in reality.
I’d never heard of someone like Cluru who could control both dream and reality at once.
Let alone cultivate through Foundation Establishment in the dream.
I lowered my head and looked at the glowing pattern flickering on my lower abdomen:
“Maybe it’s because of your influence. Now I exist between illusion and reality and can merge the power I left in the dream world.”
When I returned to Earth, my body was shattered. I thought everything about Yun Xianzun had been lost forever…
But unexpectedly, I had left a copy in the dream world.
Great!
“This is just a slightly special Third-Grade Spirit Platform, but based on it, even in this state, I might be able to complete Foundation Establishment.”
My body had already begun forced Foundation Establishment.
The forced breakthrough came too suddenly, and just when my spiritual power was depleted and my body exhausted.
If I wanted to survive, I had to try my best to finish this Foundation Establishment.
The Third-Grade Spirit Platform I used before gave me a chance. If I used it as a base to refine and strengthen, not only could I improve the platform’s quality, but also greatly increase my chance of success!
“Cluru, can you go out for a moment? Open my leg ring, find the three kinds of pills I gave you last time, and feed them to me.”
“I already gave them to you.”
Oh, right, Cluru was already a Foundation Establishment “senior” with experience. It wasn’t hard for her to tell my condition.
“Then next is strengthening the Spirit Platform and fighting the Heart Demon.”
Strengthening the Spirit Platform required no active control from me. Under the effect of the Nine-Grade Foundation Establishment Pill, my Qi Sea was already automatically seizing the Dao’s intent to reinforce the Spirit Platform itself.
“Why does your Spirit Platform look different from mine? Mine is white, but yours is black.”
Cluru stood shoulder to shoulder with me, watching the Spirit Platform take shape.
White beams of light flew in from the sky, swallowed as they neared the stele, disappearing without a trace.
As more and more white light gathered, the runes on the stele gradually appeared.
Runes represented the ability to compress spiritual energy—the higher the grade, the more runes the better.
Before this breakthrough, the stele only had a few runes in the lower left corner… because last time, I only took the most basic One-Grade Foundation Establishment Pill, and the seized Dao energy was far from enough to fill the Spirit Platform.
Now, with the help of the Nine-Grade Foundation Establishment Pill, I could finally see the Spirit Platform’s perfect form.
“Whoa! Are those words?”
Cluru exclaimed.
Under the flood of white light, the once pitch-black Spirit Platform was now densely covered with runes.
At the very center, the mysterious runes seemed to form four large characters through a sparse and dense arrangement.
Two of the characters, even with my broad knowledge, I didn’t recognize, but the last two I did:
【Boundary Stele】
?? Boundary Stele.
Historically, so few cultivators have achieved perfect Foundation Establishment that there were no samples to refer to. I didn’t even know what the characters on this Spirit Platform meant.
Before I could ponder further, the Heart Demon Tribulation arrived.
Time seemed to rewind at a dizzying speed; the surroundings shifted rapidly as the Heart Demon sought out the moment when my will was weakest.
Speaking of which, I was curious what my Heart Demon was like.
As a cultivator who had long surpassed the Transformation of God stage, I had faced many Heart Demon Tribulations. After so many trials, my old Heart Demons had already been resolved.
By now, my mind should be clear and untroubled— no Heart Demons left to haunt me.
“Come on, what’s taking you so long?”
Cluru and I sat side by side on the ground, ready to watch the show.
The scenes before us kept shifting.
Even the Heart Demon seemed hesitant, unsure which memory to use as a test.
After a long pause, it reluctantly chose one memory to unleash.
“Yun Xian, stay here, wait for me, don’t wander off,” a man told me, then hurried away anxiously.
Oh, this scene.
Haven’t seen this face for a long time. I really missed it.
Missed it enough to want to punch it into rubble.
“Dad, where are you going?” Back then, I was still naive about the dangers of human nature. Seeing the man cross the street in a rush, I warned him, “Be careful, use the crosswalk!”
The man seemed not to hear and left quickly.
Then a shadow covered me— a heavy dump truck veered off the road straight toward the sidewalk, seemingly aiming right at me. No way to dodge; I turned into a patch of ugly pixels.
“Is that it? That’s all?” I sneered at the scene replay. “What kind of Heart Demon are you? I have no idea what you’re trying to say. Do you think that death was some great regret for me? Laughable— I didn’t even have time to thank it for sending me to become an Immortal Sovereign.”
Or did you think I’d be angry or sorrowful about my father’s betrayal? Then sobbing, thinking I was some unloved orphan? Sorry, I have no feelings for those two. In a few days, I’ll personally send them to hell.
You Heart Demon, don’t just fail to break my defenses— you can’t even tickle me. How do you call yourself a Heart Demon?”
The Heart Demon seemed shamed by my scolding.
It hurriedly changed the scene.
This time I was standing amid piles of corpses, covered in blood and gasping for breath, surrounded by severed limbs.
I held a long sword; within ten miles, I was the only one standing.
“Oh, thanks for replaying my heroic pose at the clearing screen. I think you should drag the progress bar back a bit and show some of the earlier exciting moments— those stylish kills I personally delivered…”
Do you really think I feel guilty about killing? Laughable. If they want to kill me, why can’t I kill back?
I don’t care if they have old parents or young kids, or if someone will be heartbroken over their death… Did they ask me when they were chopping me up?
Not everyone deserves to live, little Heart Demon. I have never felt a minute or a second of guilt for killing. In the cultivation world, there are no innocents.
If you think you can corrupt me with bloodshed, you’re way too naive.”
The scenes scrambled anxiously, searching for another memory.
Rolling and rolling, even the Heart Demon seemed agitated.
No matter what kind of Heart Demon it was, it couldn’t defeat a clear-minded person.
Every action in my life was done with a clear conscience. Even my regrets had long since been accepted.
Especially after a few days of reflection, dreams, and psychological treatment, I no longer avoided Cluru and was willing to treat her as a disciple and ally, eliminating my last weak spot.
Hmph, what can your Heart Demon do to me?
As if to answer my challenge,
the scene shifted again.
But this time, it was no longer any memory I knew.
“Oh? Can’t find one, so you’re just making things up? Let’s see what nonsense you can come up with today.”
The sky was clear, like the day Cluru had just carried me out of the basement.
On a lush green field, beneath a pristine white marble archway.
I found myself wearing a wedding dress.
My tail had somehow grown to nine, nine soft, pure white tails behind me, like a big plush cushion.
No one else was around— only one figure.
She was enchanting and dominant, tall and alluring, her tentacles slowly wrapping around me.
—Cluru, in her bewitching older-sister version.
“Thump.”
Before I could react, Cluru pressed my collar and pinned me against a marble pillar.
The eight tentacles behind her hooked my tails, slowly tightening.
My tail fur was pressed into faint marks, adding a binding, captive sensation.
The last tail was held in Cluru’s palm, her five fingers gently playing with it.
My fox brain instantly overloaded.
Cluru leaned close to my ear and softly whispered:
“Happy wedding day.”
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