Da Ling closed her eyes and concentrated as she absorbed the Pure Qi from the atmosphere into her spirit roots and converted it into fire Qi.
This was the final push she needed to finally step into the Nascent Soul realm.
Originally, Da Ling had wanted to wait until her father returned from his trip to do this under his supervision, but she knew that she could not wait any longer, especially with the sudden threat to her daily life that appeared in the form of the two people from the so-called Yan family, the people that claimed that they were her family, yet were nowhere to be found when she needed a family the most during the darkest moments of her life.
With a grunt, she pushed those feelings back and continued frantically pulling the Pure Qi around the hill that she was sitting on. The same hill that housed the grave of her adopted grandmother.
As she made the final push, dark clouds gathered in the sky above her, alerting most of the cultivators in the village that someone was breaking through while a certain cat frantically ran back to her home, not having anticipated that the little girl she was looking after would choose such a moment to break through.
With a resounding crack that rang out across her mind, Da Ling felt her Core pulse with Fire Qi before she blacked out at the first strike of lightning that hit her.
----------------------------------------
Yan Ling happily played with butterflies and squirrels that made their home in the trees and bushes surrounding her small home in the woods of this nameless frontier village.
The five-year-old girl happily played all day until she heard a laugh that caused her to turn around.
A man with black hair and eyes laughed happily as he saw her playing, causing Yan Ling to jump into his arms in joy.
“Father!!”
The mortal hunter continued laughing as he held her against his chest and walked towards their home.
“What is my little Ling’er doing outside at this time?”
Yan Ling looked to the sky to see that it was already darkening quite a bit, showing that it was nearly nighttime.
The five-year-old child smiled happily without a care in the world.
“I was waiting for Father but then I saw the butterflies and the squirrels so I wanted to play!!”
“HAHA! Alright, let’s get back home. If your mother finds out-“
“Find out what? Wu Hao, you better not have gotten injured again.”
The stern voice came from a woman with the same startling shade of crimson hair and ruby red eyes as Yan Ling, the very same features that caused the woman and her daughter to be shunned by the mortals since they saw such features as ill omens.
The man named Wu Hao smiled awkwardly as he replied.
“My dear wife, please don’t say such things. I did not get any injuries this time. I was just talking about something with Ling’er”
“Is that so? That is good because I am tired of treating your wounds every other day when you recklessly hunt prey far too powerful for you.”
The man continued smiling bitterly as his wife gave him a playful look before the family of three moved into their little isolated home.
“Why couldn’t such happiness last long? Why must everything I love be taken away from me?”
----------------------------------------
Yan Ling woke up with a hazy vision as she smelled the scent of ash, the kind that she usually smelled after her mother put out the fire that she used for cooking.
Slowly, her vision cleared, and what the little girl saw made her wail in fear.
Everything around her was on fire.
The trees were burning as all forms of creatures ran around in panic. Meanwhile, she was being carried by her mother who was bleeding from her forehead and was clutching her side with the other arm.
Yan Ling looked around in panic, causing her eyes to fall on two figures in the distance that were going ever distant as her mother kept running.
Despite the distance, Yan Ling could never forget the scene that she saw with great clarity.
A man with flowing golden hair and green eyes was sneering at her father who lay on the ground without moving.
The stranger spoke, his voice carried across the forest thanks to his power.
“Run as far as you can, woman, you won’t be able to escape me. I will have the Nine Suns Extreme Physique of your child, one way or another. All you are doing is deny the inevitable.”
Yan Ling did not know the meaning of those words, but she knew that she was the cause of everything that was happening around her.
“That is right. We are a curse. Our very existence causes others harm. Whether it is our physique or our luck, we always bring danger to everyone around us. We should never have been born.”
----------------------------------------
Yan Ling watched from the shadows of the alley in the Imperial Capital, waiting for the shopkeeper of the grain store to be distracted.
As the ten-year-old child waited patiently, she finally spotted the opportunity to strike. And strike she did.
However, she miscalculated and ended up alerting the shopkeeper.
“Wha? You damned curse!! How dare you show your face around here again!?”
The Shopkeeper instantly caught the girl and threw her to the ground roughly, causing Yan Ling to cry out in pain.
However, the man felt no pity for the child and kicked her harshly, causing the girl to cry.
“You damned curse! Just die already!!”
Suddenly, as the man was about to continue hitting her, the man was blown back by a young man with beautifully made clothes and a neat appearance. Clearly, he was a scion of some family with a good background.
The young cultivator glared coldly at the shopkeeper before turning to the girl and offering her a kind smile while extending his hand.
“No one should treat a child like that. Come, I’ll take you back to my home and give you something good to eat.”
Instead of being relieved, Yan Ling felt even more terrified of the young man than she was of the shopkeeper.
For she sensed the extremely dark emotions and intentions the young man held towards her.
Emotions and intentions that she could not understand but terrified her nonetheless.
Without looking back, she ran with all her might, utilizing her abnormally fast legs to disappear into the maze of alleyways in the commoner district.
She ran as fast as she could until she finally arrived at her small shack in the slums and directly burst into the house while closing the door behind her in terror.
“L-Ling’er? cough what happened?”
Yan Ling turned to her mother who was weakly lying on the bed. Her shriveled-up form was completely different from the vibrant and beautiful form that she once held over five years ago.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Yan Ling clutched her mother and cried her heart out, unable to properly explain what she had just experienced.
“Why? Why does everyone hold ulterior motives towards us? Why can’t we ever find someone truly genuine? Why must we endure such hardships? Was it our fault to be born with a different physique, a different appearance from the common people, and a strange power?”
“Do we not deserve happiness because we are different?”
----------------------------------------
Yan Ling stared blankly at the night sky as the rain soaked her, uncaring of her own health and with no motivation to even move.
After all, how could she even bring herself to move from the fresh grave behind her that she had dug with her own two hands? The very same grave where her mother was now buried.
Now, the little girl truly did not have anything left to live for.
Nobody knows how long she spent in that position until her body finally reminded her that it needed sustenance, forcing the girl to start moving again, feeling a piece of her die with every step she took away from the grave as tears poured from her eyes and down her face.
And yet, this cruel world did not have any pity for her.
“Why should we care about the people of such a cruel world? Why must we maintain our morality? This world took everything from us, shouldn’t we be entitled to do the same to this damned world? Shouldn’t we take everything from these people as well?”
----------------------------------------
Suddenly, Yan Ling found herself in a dark void, face to face with a woman who wore regal clothing and extravagant jewelry that were clearly high-rank artifacts.
Her long crimson hair was tied up in a ponytail and her ruby-red eyes stared at Yan Ling indifferently.
On her hip, a scabbard held the same sword that she wielded now, the Yaoban.
The moment Yan Ling, no, Da Ling, saw that sword, something jolted in her mind. But, before she could comprehend what was going on, the woman who was clearly her grown-up form started to speak to the thirteen-year-old girl.
“We do not owe this world anything. Yan Ling. Let me take control, and I will take revenge against the bastard for killing our parents.”
Da Ling’s mouth moved on its own while her brain was still working on understanding what was going on.
“My name is Da Ling. Not Yan Ling.”
The older woman mockingly smiled at the girl.
“Is that so? Are you so desperate to suppress your emotions that you would even spit in the face of our biological parents? Rejecting the name they gave you?”
“Shut up”
The woman moved forward while unsheathing the sword on her hip.
“Are you so happy to suck up to that man you call a master that you would deny your own legacy? Despite them appearing in front of you to take you back?”
“Shut up!”
“Are you so eager to forget the past that you are willing to forcefully suppress your own past memories and drown yourself in cultivation and goofing off with those mortals? The same mortals that always cursed us for being born different from them in appearance?”
“SHUT UP!!”
Da Ling could not hold on anymore and drew her own sword and swung at the older woman who easily dodged the reckless attack and stepped into the little girl’s range, directly piercing her chest with her sword.
As Da Ling fell to the ground, choking on her blood, the surroundings started to distort as the older woman gave a demented grin at the dying child.
“Finally! I will have my revenge. First, I’ll slaughter those mortals in this pathetic village and use their souls to enhance my cultivation. Then, it would be the turn of those scum of the Imperial Capital. And finally, that bastard! Just you wait! Yan Ling is coming for revenge- Huh? What’s happening?”
The manic stopped speaking as the surroundings that were starting to distort changed once again as powerful Yin Qi flooded the space they were in.
Suddenly, the Yin Qi forcefully pushed the older woman away from the child before it started flooding into Da Ling’s body.
“NO!!”
The older woman lunged at Da Ling with her body covered in crimson flames. However, the Yin Qi had already done its job and forcefully awakened Da Ling’s spirit roots by flooding them with its opposing nature Qi.
Instantly, the dark void was flooded with powerful Fire QI that shone like the sun, pushing back the older woman and forcing her to use her own crimson flames to shield her body.
Da Ling exhaled in relief as the wound on her chest closed up and her mind finally cleared, allowing her to think clearly.
Immediately, she recognized what was happening thanks to her learning about this from her master.
She was facing a Heart Demon. The inner self and darkness of a cultivator made manifest. A test from the very heavens for any cultivator that wished to break through into the Nascent Soul.
It is said that out of all the cultivators that manage to break through into the Nascent Soul realm, almost all of them are affected in some way by their heart demons while breaking through. That is why they always come out of the experience as changed people. Just a little bit more ruthless, just a little bit more evil, just a little bit more uncaring. Dark traits would slowly multiply exponentially with each breakthrough in their cultivation until they become completely unrecognizable from themselves before their breakthrough into the Nascent Soul realm.
This was a fact that many people knew but kept a secret, all in the name of gaining power and their personal interests.
With her mind now clear, Da Ling took a deep breath before sheathing her sword, causing the older woman to look at her with a sneer.
“What? Are you going to try and talk me down like what your master said-“
“No. I won’t”
The older woman noticed that something was wrong when the intensity of sunlight in the surrounding void did not decrease. Instead, it continued increasing exponentially, causing the woman to use all her strength to shield herself.
“I am not a good person like Father. I know that. I am not capable of extending the same kind of kindness that he can when he sees someone in pain.”
Memories appeared in the void, showing the day that Da Ling first met the man who would become her father.
Her face gained a nostalgic look as she looked at those memories.
“I am not capable of extending a hand to a suffering young girl should someone like that appear in front of me. Because I am a very selfish and greedy girl. I do not know if it is because of the world that I became like this, or it was my nature all along.”
She turned back to the older woman who was starting to burn up under the unrelenting assault of the colossal Sun Wheel that appeared behind her.
“I am not capable of thinking about the good of others.”
“I only care about those I love. Anyone else, can go and die for all I care.”
A cold look that did not suit a child like her appeared on her face as the older woman screamed in agony. The power of the very sun burning the heart demon into ashes.
“That is why, I will not tolerate any threats towards their lives. Unfortunately for you, you threatened to end their lives using my body. That is something that I will not tolerate.”
Suddenly, she extended her hand forward towards the older woman.
The moment she did, the sun behind her exploded in a phenomenon that she learned about from her father.
When a Star, like the Sun, reaches the end of its life, it explodes with enough intensity to wipe out entire worlds.
It was a phenomenon that her father called a Supernova.
And it was a power that Da Ling employed by intentionally causing her core, which she had formed based on her understanding of the sun, to collapse and mimic this stellar phenomenon.
The very void shook under the power as the heart demon was instantly reduced to dust.
Once the chaos of the cosmic explosion subsided, crimson energy from the ashes rose and quickly entered Da Ling’s body, filling her head with knowledge and abilities that she could not comprehend just yet.
With the heart demon defeated, Da Ling felt her mind be pulled back towards her body, however, in the last moments in this void, she continued looking fondly at the memories playing around her.
‘Yes. I will never allow anyone to harm my family ever again. And if that bastard ever shows up again to take my loved ones from me again, if anything ever happens to my father or my friends from the village, I will drown this world in the flames of the Sun. That is my vow to the heavens.’
The moment Da Ling’s consciousness returned to her body, she smelled the scent of ozone as pain wracked her very being.
Looking down, she saw that her clothes were completely ruined with lacerations littering her body as a result of the powerful purple lighting that struck her body during her tribulation.
Even now, the heavens continued to pour down purple lighting on her body. But Da Ling did not feel any fear.
She just accepted Heaven’s judgment as a display of her resolve.
The Sun Wheel that manifested behind her body was only partially filled with suns thanks to her continuous efforts in the past year. However, the moment she regained her consciousness after defeating her heart demon, it suddenly filled up all of its nine slots, resulting in a brilliant golden Qi shielding her body from the incoming lighting.
Da Ling continued enduring the heavenly lighting for an hour straight, allowing its divine energies to refine her flaming core until it resembled a miniature sun within her dantian.
Soon, with a resounding crack, her core broke apart, leaving behind a formless golden energy, indicating that she had finally stepped into the Nascent Soul.
The moment she broke through into the Nascent Soul, her body suddenly erupted with a crimson glow while the Sun Wheel that manifested behind her back expanded further in size.
Instinctively, Da Ling realized that her special physique, the Nine Suns Extreme Physique, had finally awakened.
She was now immune to all forms of fire, including Fire Qi.
A radiant smile bloomed on her face as she imagined what her father’s expression would be like when she revealed this information when he got back.
Da Ling waved her hand and cleaned up all the charred grass and ground around her, allowing her Father’s Primal Qi that he stored in the formation around this hill to flood the area and fix all the damage.
The little girl happily skipped off the hill and ran towards the village, eager to share the news with her loved ones, unaware that Little Xing had slowly crawled out from behind a tree that was struck by lightning during her tribulation.
The cat was sweating buckets with singed fur as she stared in terror at the retreating girl.
‘Damn it! I was this close to becoming a casualty of your luck!! Still, I was really lucky to have made it just in time to jolt her spirit roots awake with my Qi. Who knows what Da Wei would have done if his precious daughter ended up succumbing to her heart demon!?”
The cat shuddered in fright at that imagined scenario.
Shaking her head to clear her mind of this incident, she slowly limped over to the mound filled with Yin Qi near the cabin, intent on lazing off for the rest of the time until Da Wei finally returned.
----------------------------------------
----------------------------------------
Read 8 chapters ahead on Patreon: patreon.com/Ruijard1