Chapter 57

Chapter 57: Heaven and Earth as a Furnace

Zhao Chun descended into the Heaven Pit.

The ground beneath her feet was faintly hot, and when her shoes struck it, the sound rang out like metal.

She turned in a slow circle. The pit walls were carved with intricate patterns—no, not just patterns. They were a continuous series of reliefs, scenes recorded in stone.

A misty Cloud Sea. Immortals rising on the wind. Stars gathered like a guard of honor around mountains, rivers, and lakes. Above it all, an immortal gate opened. Ten thousand people played music; immortals feasted, laughing. Then, through the Heaven Gate, they departed—while all races bowed their heads.

The carving was impossibly fine, the scale grand enough to steal breath. Joy seemed to spill from the images themselves.

A mural of sending an Immortal off to Upper Realm.

Why would something like this be hidden here—in a world so dead and barren?

Zhao Chun couldn’t make sense of it. Then she heard music, soft and decadent, and for a heartbeat she thought her mind was playing tricks on her—

But the music wasn’t alone.

Voices rose with it, loud and excited, overlapping in a jubilant roar.

“The auspicious hour has arrived!”

“We’re going to Ultimate Bliss World!”

“No more mortal troubles—what joy!”

“What joy!”

“Cultivate a boundless body of merit and forge three thousand great worlds!”

Towering silhouettes appeared—countless, magnificent—laughing as they raised their arms and shouted.

Zhao Chun stood among them, hearing and seeing a celebration so bright it felt unreal.

And then, woven through the joy, she felt it.

Resentment. Hatred. A thread of it, tight and choking, turning the revelry into something grotesque.

The light above dimmed.

Zhao Chun looked up just as the barren earth overhead began to grow—closing, sealing, as if the pit itself were swallowing the sky. She reached for the Mist Skiff—

Too late.

The earth swallowed the last strip of light. Darkness sealed shut.

Heat surged from every direction. In the carved hollows of the wall murals, faint colored light began to glow. The reliefs shivered, then came alive: the Cloud Sea rolled. Stars shifted. Immortals moved, sleeves fluttering, cups drifting down winding streams.

A vast voice broke through the air, heavy and fractured, as if speaking through cracks in the world.

“Once… piled… up… now return… to… the space… between… heaven…”

The words came broken, incomplete. Zhao Chun caught only fragments.

Sweat poured down her spine. Her dantian churned. Her spiritual roots stirred violently, as if metal and fire were wrestling beneath her skin.

She yanked a Moistwood Fruit from her storage bag and bit through the skin. Cool juice slid down her throat, easing the burning—barely. The relief was fleeting. The wood qi was too thin to suppress the violent metal and fire qi gathering in her core.

She ate another. Then another.

At first it helped. Then even a hundred-year Moistwood Fruit bought her only half an incense-stick’s time. Pain crept along her meridians like a slow blade. Her dantian felt swollen, saturated. If she swallowed more, she might rupture herself outright.

Desperation clawed at her.

Fire-Forging Furnace Art.

She’d memorized the heart-mantra long ago, intending to learn artifact refinement properly, then return to the sect and cultivate it in an earthfire furnace. But she didn’t have the luxury of plans anymore.

Zhao Chun sat cross-legged at the bottom of the Heaven Pit, where the heat was fiercest, and forced her mind into focus.

The fire spiritual root within her reveled—arrogant and wild, as if it had finally found its kingdom. The metal spiritual root followed, eager, feeding the blaze.

Zhao Chun paid the price.

Outside, unbearable heat crushed in. Inside, savage intent shook her Dao heart.

Fire-Forging Furnace Art began with the flesh.

She guided fire-aspect energy through her body.

The first wave of pain was pure burning, like flame licking across her skin, stripping her raw. When she clenched her teeth through it, needlelike agony followed—sharp, stabbing, driving inward as if it wanted to pierce straight into bone.

If she hadn’t felt her flesh tighten afterward—hardening, becoming tougher—she would have thought the art was killing her.

Drawing fire qi out of her dantian eased the turmoil there. The metal and fire qi finally sank back, quieter, coiling in uneasy truce. Zhao Chun didn’t dare relax. She could feel how dangerous they still were.

She had never learned true forging methods. She couldn’t comprehend the deeper principles of fire-refinement. All she could do was stumble forward—using her own body as a test—inch by inch, driven by instinct and endurance.

The heat within the Heaven Pit rose until it hit a threshold, then steadied. Sometimes it dipped—only to climb again, slow and relentless.

A thought surfaced through the pain: this pit, shaped like a furnace, might not be as unbreakable as it looked.

As if answering her, the heat suddenly roared. A bolt of agony twisted up from her dantian. She nearly lost her focus, then forced herself back into the art, dragging fresh fire qi through skin and sinew.

Without proper control, the refinement ravaged her. Wounds split across her body. She swallowed healing pills, then forced down wood-aspect medicines to neutralize the berserk fire within. Her meridians and acupoints screamed under the strain. Blood surged hot. Her thoughts blurred at the edges.

This world had no spiritual energy—yet the Heaven Pit’s heat became a source of fire qi all the same, feeding her fire root until it writhed like a beast on a chain.

The fire qi surged through flesh, but she couldn’t temper it perfectly. Where it overflowed, her skin cracked and blood seeped out in thin streams.

She couldn’t stop drawing it.

If she let the fire build again, her dantian might shatter.

So she endured.

Time lost meaning. Pain became the only measure left.

Then—boom.

A colossal impact shook the Heaven Pit.

The heat wavered. The violent flood of fire qi thinned. Without that relentless supply, her fire root drooped, suddenly weaker.

The metal and fire qi in her dantian finally sank into stillness.

Zhao Chun, drenched in blood and ash, stayed conscious by sheer stubbornness.

Her eyelids felt glued shut. She forced them open.

The murals had gone dark again. Fine cracks threaded across them like fractures in ice.

Boom.

Another impact. Less violent—but the cracks spread wider.

Boom. Boom.

The strikes came in a rhythm now, as if someone outside had found what worked. The cracks tore across the carvings—through Cloud Sea, through mountains and rivers, through the gathered immortals—until the images were spiderwebbed with ruin.

Someone was attacking the Heaven Pit from the outside.

Zhao Chun’s heart lurched. In the darkness above, faint light seeped through the rocky cover, thin as a thread.

The attacker struck, then paused, then struck again—likely unable to replenish spiritual energy in this dead world, forced to recover by other means.

The thread of light widened. Cracks spread. With each thunderous blow, chunks of rock broke free and fell.

Zhao Chun rolled aside. The movement tore at her wounds, but she clenched her teeth and curled into herself as debris crashed down.

Then a heavy ruler dropped like a spear, punching straight into the pit floor.

A tall woman descended as lightly as a feather, landing on the grip.

Through dust and ash, her gaze swept over Zhao Chun. Surprise flickered across her face—then vanished. Without a word, she jumped down, yanked the heavy ruler free, and slammed it into the pit floor again.

Qi Yun Rong.

Even a late Foundation Establishment cultivator had been dragged into that strange world.

Zhao Chun had nothing left. That single roll had drained her. She could only lie there and watch as Qi Yun Rong struck again and again, her lips moving as if she were cursing under her breath.

“Help…” Zhao Chun rasped. The sound barely made it past her throat.

Qi Yun Rong glanced back, expression cold as stone. She hefted the heavy ruler onto her shoulder and snorted. “I can barely save myself. And you want me to save you?”

“I… I’m a disciple of Ling Zhen Sect,” Zhao Chun forced out. “Senior… if you can—”

“Ling Zhen Sect?” Qi Yun Rong’s eyes sharpened. She paused mid-swing. After a beat, she struck again, her voice carrying a reluctant edge of respect. “Elder Qiu’s sect?”

Zhao Chun managed the smallest nod.

Qi Yun Rong’s tone turned brisk, almost impatient. “Lucky for you. You’re Elder Qiu’s fellow disciple. If we get out of here, I’ll pull you along. Whether you can hold on after that—whether you can survive—depends on you.”

Even she didn’t sound certain they could leave.

Zhao Chun’s eyelids grew heavier. The pounding faded into distance, swallowed by exhaustion.

Much later, she felt wind—cool and real—brush over skin caked with blood and ash.