The touch of the woman’s fingers on Shen Tian’s forehead produced a desolate spiritual abrasion, colder and deeper than any physical pain.
The crimson fire penetrated through the pores of his sea of consciousness, enveloping his soul with the devastating force of a tide of ancient blood.
The red runes began to entangle themselves in the structure of his mind, chewing his memories and seeking to dissolve his individuality to turn him into a simple empty shell.
At the precise instant when the devouring threatened to eradicate his presence, time within the astral space froze completely. Xue Huang stood motionless, like a statue of flesh and bone. Shen Tian and the System’s interfaces drifted outside the temporal flow.
Before his vision, the three options the System had deployed in Chapter 9 still floated, awaiting his choice:
[Option A: Activate Suppression Point overload for a desperate escape. (Survival probability: 8%)]
[Option B: Allow partial assimilation and negotiate from a position of weakness. (Survival probability: 45%)]
[Option C: Invoke the Heaven Suppression protocol. (Unknown consequences. Survival probability: 30%)]
Shen Tian’s mind selected Option C instantly. On the path of cultivation, hesitation was the antechamber of death.
A pulse of golden light, dense and ancient as the very flow of time, emanated from the deepest core of Shen Tian’s soul. It carried the accumulated karmic weight of one hundred and thirty-five years of suffering, of having watched thousands die and having survived a century of war, and the paradox of having returned to the past.
The Heaven Suppression protocol manifested as a Causality Protection of the Regressor.
The golden light clashed head-on against the crimson runes.
CRACK!
A sound similar to glass breaking resonated throughout the mental space. The blood fire enveloping Shen Tian’s forehead fragmented into thousands of harmless sparks that dissipated into the air.
The red-haired woman retreated a step, her golden eyes bulging with surprise. She looked at her own fingers, on which remnants of crimson energy still smoldered, before fixing her gaze on Shen Tian with a mixture of rage and incredulity.
"Impossible!" she growled.
Refusing to accept the result, the woman raised both hands. The transparent sea at her feet stirred violently, raising three enormous waves of blood fire that transformed into runic spears. With a snap of her fingers, she projected the attacks directly toward Shen Tian’s chest.
Shen Tian held his position.
The spears impacted against the invisible barrier surrounding him. For the second time, the golden radiance of causality absorbed the force of the spears, converting them into inert smoke.
The woman attacked a third and a fourth time, unleashing a rain of devouring runes that sought to suffocate the young man’s soul. Every attempt, however, crashed against the same insurmountable wall.
The protection of his regression was a rule imposed by time itself; the woman’s residual soul, however majestic it might have been in the past, had withered to the point where the causality of a temporal return stood beyond its reach.
After two minutes of failed attempts, the woman stopped her attacks. She breathed with a certain spiritual agitation, observing Shen Tian with deep perplexity as she wondered aloud how it was possible that she could not devour the soul of a simple vermin from the mortal world.
Shen Tian, maintaining his composure behind his barrier of golden light, broke the silence.
"Who are you?" he asked in a calm, firm voice. "And why do you know about my regression?"
The woman let out a short, mocking laugh, though surprise still shadowed her features.
"Why do I know about your regression?" she repeated, crossing her arms as her crimson tunics billowed without wind. "Don’t be ridiculous, brat! Do you think the soul of a fifteen-year-old brat would have this karmic weight and the rot of more than a century of violence and death? You reek of a reborn corpse. Anyone with divine eyes would notice at first glance."
The woman advanced half a step, lifting her chin with innate arrogance.
"Besides... a cultivator of this era should tremble with dread just from smelling the mark of my energy. Surely you know perfectly well who I am."
Shen Tian narrowed his eyes and searched the darkest corners of his memories. During the one hundred and thirty-five years of his previous life, he had read compendiums of ancient sects, records of demonic wars, and biographies of experts from the remote era. The figure of this woman with red hair like liquid fire and golden eyes belonged to a Chapter outside every legend he knew.
"I’m sorry," Shen Tian said after a brief analysis, tilting his head slightly with a cold courtesy, formal and measured. "The Ancestor’s description reaches my ears for the first time. Was she perhaps a powerful Immortal from the distant past?"
The woman stood paralyzed for a second. Then, she let out a long, theatrical sigh of frustration, rolling her golden eyes toward the violet sky.
"Uncultured... The current generations are true spiritual illiterates," she murmured with annoyance, before looking at Shen Tian again with solemnity. "Listen well, vermin. I am Xue Huang, the Blood Empress."
The name resonated in the mental plane with a heavy echo, yet in Shen Tian’s mind it produced no alarm. It confirmed his theory: Xue Huang was a figure belonging to an era so remote that her name had vanished from the annals of human history.
Shen Tian let out a slow exhale. The situation had become clear; he faced an ancient resource trapped by desperation, a creature whose combat power had withered long ago.
"I understand," Shen Tian said, adjusting the posture of his soul. "This humble one formally introduces himself: I am Shen Tian, a regressor. I greet Ancestor Xue."
Xue Huang raised an eyebrow, surprised by the speed with which the young man had regained his calm.
"Ancestor Xue," Shen Tian continued in a pragmatic tone, "I propose a deal. If you grant me your guidance and your ancient knowledge to accelerate my path of cultivation, I promise to free you from the seal of this book and help you recover a suitable physical form when I reach the legendary Divine Transcendence Realm, a domain that even the patriarchs of the major sects have barely dared to whisper about."
The Blood Empress narrowed her eyes. A skeptical smile drew itself on her lips.
"Divine Transcendence? A brat who has barely opened two meridians in the Qi Condensation Realm promises me the summit of the mortal world... How do I know you speak the truth? How do I know you will honor my wisdom once you have grown strong enough to burn the book and rid yourself of a dangerous witness?"
"To demonstrate my good faith," Shen Tian responded, "I will allow our souls to fuse momentarily so that you may examine the sincerity of my intentions."
Shen Tian knew that momentary fusion was a basic trick, but he wanted to see how the Empress reacted. If she agreed at once, it would be a sign of desperation. If she proposed something more binding, it meant she still retained bargaining power.
Xue Huang remained silent for a second and, suddenly, threw her head back, letting out a sonorous and melodious laugh that made the crystalline water at her feet vibrate.
"Hahaha! What stupid naivety!" the woman exclaimed, looking at him with disdainful amusement. "A momentary fusion? That children’s trick offers only empty promises in the immortal world. If we are going to close a deal, we will do it like true experts: through a Mutual Causality Soul Pact."
At the instant she pronounced those words, the System’s voice resonated directly in Shen Tian’s vision, deploying a holographic screen of a brilliant blue:
[Ancestral-level soul binding request detected.]
[Do you wish to accept the Mutual Causality Soul Pact with the entity ’Xue Huang’?]
[Pact Terms:]
Shen Tian’s Clause: If the user reaches the peak of cultivation and intentionally refuses to restore Xue Huang’s physical body, their physical vessel will be irrevocably transferred to the entity.
Xue Huang’s Clause: If the entity attempts to harm, devour, or maliciously manipulate the user’s consciousness or meridians, its residual soul will instantly dissolve into nothingness with no possibility of reincarnation.
Emergency Clause: In the event of the host’s imminent death, the bound entity may take control of the body with the host’s explicit consent. The risk of physical collapse is high. The entity must return control once the threat has passed, or the pact will be deemed broken.
[Accept Pact? [YES] / [NO]]
Xue Huang narrowed her eyes. Her golden gaze shifted for an instant toward the empty space beside Shen Tian’s head, where the System’s blue screen floated. A spark of predatory curiosity shone in her pupils.
"Interesting," the Empress murmured, her smile shifting from skepticism into genuine intrigue. "A mechanism of rules bound to your soul. Such a thing reaches my eyes for the first time. Where did you get it, brat? And what else can it do besides displaying contracts?"
Shen Tian’s heart stopped. Xue Huang’s eyes tracked the blue screen floating beside him, locked onto its glow. She could see it. The Blood Empress could see the System. A glacial cold ran through his soul.
His most secret advantage, his only weapon against the world, had just been discovered by an entity that surpassed him in power and knowledge. What was to stop her from using it against him? What was to stop her from revealing its existence to others?
Shen Tian forced his face to remain neutral, but his mind was already calculating the consequences. The System had not reacted to Xue Huang’s gaze. It had not marked her as a threat. Perhaps the System considered her harmless. Perhaps it simply ranked her beneath its concern.
"It is... a tool," Shen Tian responded, measuring every word. "One that has allowed me to survive. Nothing more."
Xue Huang let out a short laugh.
"Nothing more? Brat, I have seen divine treasures, and that mechanism’s signature surpasses even theirs in peculiarity. It belongs to some other world, some other era entirely. —Her golden eyes shone with contained avidity—. But relax. My interest lies in partnership, and theft I leave to lesser souls. Soul pacts are accepted or rejected, and that ends the matter. And this one... —she pointed at the screen with a finger— seems to me a fair contract. Press the button, Shen Tian. Let us see if your mysterious tool seals our agreement."
Shen Tian breathed deeply. Xue Huang had seen the System, and yet the pact structure shielded it from any theft. That was a relief. But now she knew it existed. And that was a long-term danger.
"There you have it, brat," the Empress said. "If you break your word upon reaching the summit, I will keep your body. But if I try to play you dirty, I will disappear forever. A fair contract, as I said. Do you have the guts to press the button?"