Aeternal Sky Domain's Planet Imperial Sky, Heaven's Sky Palace.
The location that housed the noblest, strongest bloodline of the Tian Clan, the direct lineage descendants of the Divine Emperor was a manifestation of grace, elegance, beauty, nobility, and strength. It stood high, its towers reaching the highest Sky Layer of the planet, siphoning the purest solar essence from beyond the sky, refining it into thick, enriched astral and mystic essence.
The air it exuded was one of exuberant exceptionalism, a holy land for cultivators. Simply breathing this refined air was equal to an hour of cultivation on the average planet, stimulating the Sea of Consciousness, Spirit of Cultivation, and body's physical cells all at once.
At the moment, within a particular high-rise tower that barely pierced the third Sky Layer of eighteen, were two heart-stopping, envy-birthing female figures; they stood by the pristine window side-by-side.
In the sky they watched, countless dots of light littered the sky from afar. With a good enough ocular spell, one could grasp the events within the Dark Void with astonishing clarity, and the gathering of numerous organizations was a sight that few believed they would see. After all, unlike the plans to pressure Wei Wuyin, they didn't organize in the shadows to catch one off-guard under the guise of 'inspecting' the developing Born True Starfield.
They were haphazardly formed in a rush, sent hurtling through the Dark Void with a mission, and their destinations were all the same: Everlore Domain!
"What's happening outside?" Tang Xingyun stared anxiously at the window, her eyes littered with unimaginable weighty feelings that were hard to describe.
"..." Na Xinyi stared at the window as well, her gorgeous grey eyes piercing through the Dark Void as she simultaneously interacted with Wei Wuyin's uniquely refined Spiritual Transmission Crystal. All 'unsolicited' and 'unsanctioned' spiritual communication have been sealed off within Heaven's Sky Palace as a whole, but the well-built and restrictive formations were unable to halt Wei Wuyin's Void-Piercing Spiritual Transmissions.
After she got a response from an Ascendant under her charge, her heart began to rapidly race. "Information about the whereabouts of another Heaven Relic has been leaked; the Everlore Association is said to have perhaps two in their possession."
"Heaven Relic? Another one besides the one Alchemic Sovereign Wei had taken from the one who assassinated the Bing Clan's Matriarch and Highlord Frostwind?" Tang Xingyun was astonished. Na Xinyi had, despite the preventive formations, keeping them apprised of the developments beyond the tower.
They arrived roughly half a year ago; Tang Xingyun had been summoned alongside Na Xinyi, both for different reasons, but this allowed Tang Xingyun to seek out the Extreme Yin Saintess for a chance to conceal her Primal Yin using a powerful spell. She was shocked that Na Xinyi had such Pure Yin Energy that she had eradicated the remnant traces of Lin Ming's Yang Aura and padded the missing portions with extremely pure and refined Yin Source Energy.
As long as she wasn't given an extremely thorough and unreasonably invasive inspection by an Earthly Saint or Highlord, there was essentially no way for others to determine her current adulterous status. She was content with this move. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to Tang Xingyun, her body's condition, and affairs were discovered long before she could approach Na Xinyi.
Still, the last six months have been constant excuses to push back their meetings, and they were left to cultivate under the 'guard' of the Imperial Clan. As for Na Xinyi's marriage situation, she navigated her plight well by challenging the Tian Clan's most vital weakness—pride, directly challenging the Imperial Clan's reputation while leaving some room for negotiation.
After a fierce discussion, with the Divine Emperor's Incarnation present, Na Xinyi had announced her talent and her willingness to marry into the Tian Clan in accordance with the Imperial Edict. This startled a few who knew her, thinking her belief and desire for personal freedom would cause her to outright and predictably plead to the Divine Emperor to retract his edict out of mercy with a tinge of hopeless desperation.
This, of course, would be rejected.
A Divine Emperor's edict will not be changed due to some mere mortal woman, nor will any amount of pleading or heart-string tugging will do the deed.
By leaving this option open, she instead changed the tournament format into one where she was the prize and the challenge.
"I, Na Xinyi, will willingly accept the arrangements of any marriage of the Imperial Clan as long as any member of the Tian Clan, or a Chosen champion of theirs, with a cultivation base at least one stage higher than mine, can defeat me. To show to the world and myself that they have the personal power, talent, eye for talent, ability to nurture, and resourcefulness worthy enough to marry me, a common girl!"
There was a heated speech that followed which shook the hall and hearts of the Imperial Clan.
Of course, various channels of information began to release news of this challenge that the Extreme Yin Saintess issued to the Imperial Clan at around the same time, extremely timely in its release, and leaving the Imperial Clan in a vice-grip of a dilemma.
To force a marriage by openly saying they were unworthy of Na Xinyi and could only use their might to suppress a little mortal girl, or challenge her head-on and obtain her by right of their cultivated pride and strength.
Eventually, the Imperial Advisor shamelessly used Na Xinyi's words and openly accepted her challenge on behalf of the Divine Emperor, but she omitted the needed age of selected champions or how many challenges could be issued in a day consecutively. There were countless Pinnacle Starlords with ages of a thousand years or older that have cultivated under the Imperial Clan but were unable to trigger their Mystic Ascension due to their lack of resources or talent, relying on time to consolidate their cultivation base as Starlords amongst the pinnacle.
Na Xinyi became the central figure for quite a while, but the news was relatively drowned out by the Heaven Relic's existence, Bing Clan's assault, and the Tang Clan's shocking civil war. It wasn't able to reach the peak. After all, she was a mere mortal woman that was simply a better 'Yin Cauldron' than some others.
Until the matches began.
Undefeated.
Invincible.
Absurdly powerful.
Not even Tian Guyan's trump card could last more than three moves! She swept the Imperial Clan in three days in non-stop battles!
Except for…
Tian Yinwu. No one knew why, but he refused to participate in this marriage challenge. As such, the Imperial Clan was left scrambling for challengers. Since then, the Imperial Edict of the Divine Emperor hadn't been retracted, but there was a lot less momentum in it. Given their situation, the Divine Emperor was unlikely to nullify the challenge nor his edict, so it was highly likely that he'll wait for her cultivation to rise to the Mystic Ascendant Realm's Soul of Mysticism, and then Tian Guyan's Demi-Mortal Lord cultivation would perfectly fit the challenge, once again bringing this topic forth.
Of course, this was deliberately done by Na Xinyi to buy her time. It wasn't easy to get the Divine Emperor to change his will, and only Tian Yinwu's unwillingness to participate, Tian Guyan's greedy eagerness to possess her, and the Imperial Clan's pride held off the chances of forced marriage for now.
Wei Wuyin had of course followed this matter closely, receiving real-time updates from within the Tian Clan, and he felt extremely proud of her intelligence, will, confidence, and ambition, but there was still a lot of work to do for her and dangers to navigate as the edict was still there. However, he knew that she was bound to solve this situation herself.
That's who Na Xinyi wanted to be; not a damsel that needed to be saved, but someone who could stand on her own two feet and solve her issues. Never again will she have to give herself to a man, sacrificing her looks, talent, and cultivation to elevate the strength of another man unless she wanted to.
As of right now, Na Xinyi had decided to stay with Tang Xingyun willingly. She refused to leave without Tang Xingyun after sensing the odd feeling around the Imperial Advisor's gaze and strange words during the challenge that alluded to her knowledge of Tang Xingyun's adulterous secret. She didn't particularly like Tang Xingyun, but they shared a similar plight of being forced into a marriage by the Imperial Clan, so she thought of at least sticking with her until that settles.
She hadn't expected that there would be a civil war happening in the Tang Clan. She hadn't told Tang Xingyun due to feeling as if the implications might lead to her freedom being stripped, and the Imperial Clan hadn't sent anyone to alert her of the events nor her mother's removal. It seemed they were waiting for something.
Na Xinyi kept having an increasingly bad feeling about all this, sensing in the air that Tang Xingyun wouldn't have a good ending if she left her side. Despite not being directly linked to Wei Wuyin, Na Xinyi had 'good' relations with Xue Yifei, as she revealed in the Saint Cyclic Renewal Summit, so she had the barest protection halo of his. Tang Xingyun now benefited from this halo, as well as the halo that represented the Imperial Clan's pride.
Tang Xingyun looked out the window and the numerous dazzling stars that were Voidships and their propulsion formations.
"Are they all going to pressure the Everlore Association?" Tang Xingyun asked.
"Certainly," Na Xinyi calmly stated. Just the news of a Heaven Relic was enough to drive the entire Grand Cyclic Stellar Region crazy. If it wasn't for Wei Wuyin's open declaration of possession and intent of usage, the Golden Life Pavilion might have been pressured from all sides.
She couldn't resist the urge to grin. The entire world refused to take a single wrong step in Wei Wuyin's direction, but they fearlessly charged toward the Everlore Association. Just this alone showed how precarious their position was, and how Wei Wuyin had systematically crippled them, both directly using competition and indirectly using reputation.
To the cultivation world, the Everlore Association was a wilting flower.
When Wei Wuyin eventually becomes an Alchemic Saint in the future, that would be the day of its unprecedented free-fall.
Suddenly, Na Xinyi received another transmission. Her expression changed as she looked in the Everlore Domain's direction.
"What?" Tang Xingyun sensed something wrong.
"How could this be…?" Na Xinyi's heart shook.
Ten minutes before the transmission…
At the border of the Everlore Domain, countless Voidships lingered with their formations erected, bearing a hint of threatening, extremely oppressive momentum. At the forefront of this fleet of thousands of Voidships was none other than Boundless, the largest and most oppressive Voidship amongst the fleet!
"Evergod! Are you not going to greet the peak powers of the Aeternal Sky Starfield?!" The Boundless Martial High King's voice boomed across entire domains!
