A silence heavier than death blanketed the hall.
The Patriarch's words echoed like a divine bell tolling the end of an age. No one dared breathe too loud. Even the swirling ghostly qi dimmed its dance, curling closer to the pillars as if trying to listen more intently.
Ling Aotian's heart thundered in his chest.
"So it's true, the karmic luck bead only appears randomly. It doesn't follow any sequence or pattern."
Ling Aotian mummered to himself. His thoughts straying from the issues at hand. He began thinking about his calculations and predictions of the appearance of the Venerate Luck palace. He was incenced.
According to his deductions, backed by the emergence of the previous Immortal and demonic venerates, the Luck palace was to appear after another 181,000years, since it last appeared 89,000 years ago.That's is in accordance to the even and odd spectrum where he deduced that when the luck palace took a number of odd years to appear, it will take an even number of years to appear again. And vice versa.
He came to this conclusion after noticing the difference between historic records of the last three consecutive demonic and immortal venerates.
One demonic and two immortal venerates respectively.
"Wait !, this is my chance! It doesn't matter if it's random or pre-odened,i need to wipe out my failure in the last struggle for the karmic luck bead."
Exclaimed Ling Aotian aloud,breaking the silence like a pin dropped in an echo cave.
He prompted many gazes at that moment, but just for a fleeting moment before they switched towards the Patriach.
Patriarch Gui Ying's gaze swept over the seated elders, his eyes voids seemingly reflecting countless karmic threads,some blooming, some fading and others fraying.
"This is not a chance for fortune," he said, his voice grave, "but a battlefield of destiny. The Venerate Supreme Luck Palace… is a trial born from the union of Fate, Misfortune, and Choice."
" I can feel it. Two more ninth heaven stage heaven merging monsters have broken their seals."
"What..!! "
"How can that be !! "
Exclaimed some core Elders with faces that questioned their lucidity.
They had been excited earlier due to the Patriach's breakthrough. Thinking it was time for the sect to dominate the Martial Grotto continent.
Even after the appearance of the Luck palace,they were optimistic. Knowing GUI Ying had no peers and would most likely become the tenth Venerate.
But now? They were conflicted. Knowing very well that the two other candidates for the Venerate position were from the demonic path. They knew that those lunatics would definitely team up against GUI Ying before deciding the victor among themselves.
In the Martial Grotto Continent there were originally only four 8th heaven stage heaven merging cultivators, but one died due to reaching the limit of their lifespan. Unfortunately, the one to die was one of the two belonging to the righteous path together with GUI Ying. This led to a twist in the balance of power, and the righteous path was worried.
Fortunately, those demonic path powerhouses restrained eachother and could not work together to kill GUI Ying.
But now, it was different. The karmic luck bead was a game changer. It allowed one to defy the heavens and gain Supreme Grandmaster attainment in a single dao path. Hence becoming Venerate.
For this they would work together. They would put away their differences to get rid of the terrifying GUI Ying. An existence they didn't have much confidence taking on even in a 2vs 1.
In the emerald hall, GUI Ying raised a single finger. The space above his finger cracked silently, and from that crack, a miniature illusion of the Venerate Luck palace emerged, half ethereal, half real. It was shaped like a fractal lotus of infinite halls and impossible angles, spinning upon a wheel of time.
"It's different this time. It does not follow linear space," Gui Ying continued. "Nor does it obey linear causality. You will find past and future bleeding into each other within. You may meet people who do not yet exist… or yourself before your own birth."
These words caused a commotion. Even Elder Mei Chunhua's lips parted slightly, the closest she ever came to showing shock.
Mo Lianyin's zither rang low, a trembling string that caught even Ling Aotian's breath.
Gui Ying looked toward the distant horizon as if seeing beyond worlds.
"Something about this timing seems fishy, and the energy coming out of the palace looks worn out. Looks depleted. Probably the last time it appears !!"
All and sundry descended into silence. They knew the magnitude of those words, and their implications to the Martial Grotto Continent.
"Cough ! Cough ! "
One of the Supreme Elders coughed, breaking the suffocating silence.
"Who do we send?" He asked but the question hung in the air like a blade suspended by a thread.
Gui Ying responded simply, "Those whom Fate has not yet chosen, but whom Misfortune has marked."
Several elders frowned.
Then, with a flick of his sleeve, Gui Ying revealed an ancient jade scroll sealed with thirteen crimson threads.
"This will choose. It bears the mark of the Heaven-Sealing Contract. No elder, no patriarch, no sect power can alter its will."
He cast it forward, and it hovered in the center of the hall, the threads beginning to writhe and loosen.
"Let the sect prepare. Seven days from now, the scroll shall open, and the names shall be revealed."
His gaze turned sharp, piercing through Ling Aotian like a blade. "You especially, Aotian… prepare yourself. The Palace does not like to be found. But it remembers those who tried. You will most likely be summoned."
At that, the qi recoiled, the hall trembled, and one by one, the elders vanished into shadows, their minds alight with calculations, fears, and hopes.
Ling Aotian stood frozen for a moment, then bowed deeply toward the departing Patriarch.
As he turned to leave, a single, echoing voice rang through his soul. One only he could hear.
"The Palace chose you once before, Aotian… and you failed."
He stopped, eyes wide.
"Do not fail again."
***
Atop a mountain peak, inside an illusary lake pavilion. Two figures could be seen playing chess. One was wearing white while the other was clad in a dark shade of emarald green. They were Xia Luo and Ling Aotian respectively.
Xia Luo was a pearless beauty, the kind that the heavens needed a thousand generations to produce. Her figure was plump, in all the right places. If you know what I mean... Her hair, white as snow,was tied in a neat bun that was held together with a ice phenoex hair pin.
A jade beauty.
Everything one would look for in a dual cultivation partner. Whether it was her twin peaks or her slender legs,they were all bewitching. To the point where men would drool over her.
And Ling Aotian was no different.
"Have you thought about it ? "He asked as he moved his pawn sideways.
"Thought about what Aotian ? "
"My proposal dear."
Xia Luo's delicate fingers paused over the chessboard. Her icy gaze, always so aloof and unreadable, flicked toward Ling Aotian with a hint of amusement. "Your pawn cannot move sideways," she said coolly.
Ling Aotian leaned back, the corners of his mouth tugging into a confident smirk. "True. But neither can the heart, yet it still finds detours to where it wants to be."
Xia Luo blinked, stunned for half a breath. "That was awful," she said flatly.
"But it made you pause," he countered, leaning forward. His robe shifted with the movement, revealing the lean strength of his chest beneath. "You haven't laughed in a hundred years. I take it as a small victory."
"You mistake restraint for disinterest."
"Do I?" he asked, his voice low and teasing. "Because each time I call you 'dear,' that jade pin of yours trembles."
Xia Luo raised an eyebrow, hiding the faint blush that brushed her pale cheeks like dawn over snow.
"So now you study my hairpin?"
"I study you, my dear.." he said, his gaze burning with intensity.
"Every gesture, every breath. I've fought spirit beasts in forbidden zones, bargained with soul reapers in the Silent Valley… but nothing bewilders me more than your smile."
Her lips curved slightly and a blush manifested ever so slightly on her cold face.
"Aotian, you're shameless."
"And yet, you haven't told me to stop," he murmured, reaching out and brushing a strand of hair from her cheek. "Become my dual cultivation partner tonight, Xia Luo. Let's defy heaven together. I'll shield your soul in my sea of consciousness. My yang for your yin. My storm for your snow."
Her eyes flashed, but not with annoyance. But with curiosity, hesitation, and something dangerously close to desire.
"You talk as though this is a mere strategy," she whispered. "As though we are merging techniques, and not our lives."
"I've already merged my fate with yours," he said. "When the palace rejected me, it was your voice I heard in the silence. When I bleed in battle, it's your name that steadies my breath. I have pursued you for thousands of years and I have never gave up. Isn't that worth something..? "
She looked away , but only for a moment. When her gaze returned, it was softer.
"And what would you give me, should I agree?"
He smiled, wickedly.
"The stars, if you like them. The moon if you desire it or some heirs if you dare.."
She chuckled. It was light , rare, crystalline, as if a glacier had cracked under spring's warmth.
"…Fine, Aotian. But if you dare fall short of your promises"
"I won't," he said hurriedly, standing and offering her his hand. "Because I already dream of warming the ice around your heart."
She took his hand.
And in that moment, beneath the moonlight reflected in the lake pavilion, the mountain wind whispered around them like a vow.
Xia Luo's fingers were cool in his palm, like moonlight trapped in flesh. Yet they did not pull away.
The lake stilled. The mist thickened, veiling the world beyond the pavilion as though heaven itself wished not to intrude.
Ling Aotian drew her close. "Even frost yields to fire," he whispered, his breath warm against the shell of her ear. "Let me show you the heat hidden within ice."
Her eyes, glacial and ancient, narrowed,not in protest, but in permission.
Their lips met like opposing dao paths colliding, yin and yang twining, melting into one another with a quiet, forbidden hunger. Her defenses, honed over centuries, cracked beneath his touch. A thousand years of cultivation, of control and serenity, shattered under a single stroke of mortal desire.
He trailed kisses down the curve of her neck, where her pulse fluttered like a caged phoenix.
"Is this your fire essence technique?" she murmured, her voice breathless as a falling snowflake.
"No," he whispered, his hands sliding along the silk of her robes. "This is the Ninefold Merging Dragon Art. It can only be practiced with a peerless yin vessel."
She slapped his chest lightly. "So now I'm a vessel?"
He grinned. "A jade furnace too fine for crude flames. Only a dragon refined in karma and calamity dares approach."
Their spiritual energies began to resonate. Her icy qi flared, wrapping around his burning yang aura. Steam rose around them in coils, painting illusions into the air. Illusions of phoenixes dancing and dragons rising.
Robes parted like clouds before dawn.
His heaven merging root brushed against her yin veil gate, and for a moment, time warped. The stars overhead pulsed in tandem, as if the heavens themselves bore witness to their union.
She gasped, not from pain, but from the overwhelming sensation of two cultivation paths harmonizing,essences entwining, souls brushing at the edges and the hard forging of the ore.
Moans were replaced by spiritual chants by use of talismans. Prudently set up to reduce sound.., moan movements like sacred mudras. Each thrust a step deeper into the Dao, each cry a mantra breaking through mortal restraint.
Aotian's body glistened with dew-like sweat, his breaths ragged yet focused. He traced ancient sigils upon her skin with his fingers, unlocking hidden apertures of pleasure and power. Her moans became silken threads of divine sound, echoing off the illusion lake's still surface as he grappled her twin buds with practiced precision.
In that moment,her jade lotus bloomed for the first time in a thousand years. White dew dripping out of the flower unevenly.
Their dual energies spiraled downward in a divine helix, forming a double-headed mandala of power that cracked the protective array around the pavilion.
Outside, the mountain shivered.
Inside, Aotian whispered against her lips:
"When the Palace calls, I will go. But tonight... you are the only trial I wish to conquer."
"Time for the second round..! "
She shivered, more from warmth than cold.
"Then hurry on, cultivator," she whispered back, her eyes lidded like the goddess of moonlight. "The night is long, and this furnace has not yet reached its peak refinement."
And so they continued, their essences crashing, merging, and rising. Dragon and phoenix. Fire and frost. Two divine wills transcending the mortal plane.